WILLIAMSBURG-After spending a decade teaching theatre and English, Vanessa Jones became particularly well-versed in conveying informational material in a vibrant, clear, and effective manner. A former teacher with Bruton High School and its School of Arts, Jones was one of the millions of people who made a career that was nudged by the covid-19 pandemic.
Jones spent the last four years of her traditional teaching career employed as a drama instructor for high schoolers enrolled at Bruton High School as well as students who were enrolled with York County School Division’s Middle School Arts Magnet Program.
“I made the transition to doing voice-over work after the first year of covid,” said Jones. “I had been doing a lot of virtual teaching because we weren’t meeting in person for a while. During that time, I was discovering all kinds of interesting resources for my students.”
Jones didn’t know it at the time, but the research she was conducting for her students’ projects was aligning her with a new career path.
“I had my drama students create their own videos with voice overs while making animated commercials,” said Jones. “I discovered Powtoon and the students created their own ‘pretend’ products that were geared toward solving a problem. The videos had to have three characters.”
Jones was thrilled with her students’ final products.
“I said, ‘you know, these are really good,’ ‘this is a feasible thing that you could do in the future,’” said Jones. “We then did a whole module on becoming YouTubers. They ran with that and came up with their own ‘pretend’ YouTube channels. The students came up with images and were just teaching all kinds of things from how to do Minecraft to how to sew a pillow.”
Anthony Pica, a former colleague of hers from the School of Arts, had begun doing voice over-work and eventually left teaching to pursue it full time. Jones focused on learning the ins and outs of the craft through a coaching academy Pica offered.
“I spent a year working with him and his academy,” said Jones. “I eventually created profiles on online casting sites, began putting samples up, and started getting work.”
To date, Jones has performed voice-over work for close to 400 companies and specializes in commercials, e-learning, audiobooks, explainer videos, corporate narration, animation, and more. Vanessa excels at narrating educational content and content for kids because of her experience in the education field. She works with a variety of national and international companies.
“I’ve done a lot of radio ads for banks, First National Bank of Kentucky, Civista Bank, and Bank of the West, for example,” said Jones. “I’ve also done several corporate narrations for Ball SB, which is an international horticultural business that creates hybrid flowers and amazing flower arrangements, and some food commercials for Wonder Melon Juices and Squeezable Tanini.”
Corporate narration tells the story of a company and tends to be utilized for internal company purposes, such as employee onboarding, communicating company procedures, and shareholder presentations. The story revolves around who the company is, where it’s been, and where it’s headed.
Jones also records voicemail messages for businesses who want to highlight their company in a positive nature with a personal touch.
“This is often a person’s first impression of a business,” said Jones. “It needs to come across with a tone that makes the caller want to wait on hold. It’s so important to have a voice callers want to listen to and that the caller feels is friendly and welcoming.”
In addition to working full time as a voice-over actress, Jones instructs others on learning the craft. She teaches acting and self-directing skills needed to create animated character voice overs, commercials, podcasts, YouTube videos, and more. Jones has found her niche along the way.
“I discovered that because I’m a teacher and teach in a very specific way, it really speaks to other teachers,” said Jones. “The majority of my coaching is done with teachers who either want to learn voice acting as a side job for the summer or fit in when they have extra time. There’s a number of reasons why teachers would like a second stream of income, so it really works for them to have some voice-acting experience.”
For more information about her services and voice-over classes, visit the Vanessa Jones Voices website.