Meet Jason Belisha of Jason Belisha: Photographer, The Voiceover Beard and TORO

At the time I had already had a voiceover agent, I was skilled with a camera and had always been a dependable drummer in Metal and Math Rock bands. I thought I could pull it all together. I fought and struggled through a series of obstacles for years, working incessantly in my own unique way to push, outsmart, and will myself to where I am now – and I still consider this only the beginning.

Now I am the official voice of several brands, I’ve been repeatedly featured on Audible.com, I’m networking with businesses and agencies as a commercial photographer having done projects that pay more than I used to make in three months combined, and I’m thrilled to announce that my band, TORO, has signed a record contract with our dream label (Nuclear Blast Records) and will be recording our debut full-length album in LA!

Has it been a smooth road?
For a creative freelancer, getting started is always the hardest part. It’s the same as in any career – how do I get work with no experience? How do I get to experience with no work? You can’t fake your quality but you can fudge your experience to get clients to trust you. I learned everything I know about voiceover and photography from YouTube, written articles, and from very special mentors whom I’ve sought out and bought many lunches and coffees. My first voiceover coach took me in for a down payment of a chocolate bar. Those mentors proved to be just as important as the technical training. They helped me mentally overcome the anxieties that arose from my lack of a network, shortage of cash and three home burglaries that left me with nothing.

My photography career finally took a turn upward when I got creative about my marketing. At the time, I had a portfolio built of images of my friends, designed to look like paid commercial shoots. I was reading the legendary 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and used a line straight out of the Negotiation Tactics section to get myself a press pass to a digital marketing conference. There, I made my first handful of industry friends and agency connections who offered some higher-end gigs. I’m still benefiting from my initiative that day.

To stimulate my Voiceover career, I’ve built a following on Instagram as “The Voiceover Beard,” where I do short skits as a “talking beard” character, parodying the industry. Art directors at ad agencies and folks who work at production companies find me and get a good laugh. That’s where most of my work comes from now. I even went to an international Voiceover conference and was recognized by most of the attendees and panelists!

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Jason Belisha: Photographer / The Voiceover Beard / TORO story. Tell us more about the business.
As a photographer, I specialize in creating advertising and marketing assets for businesses and brands. It’s the kind of photography that’s used in digital ads and billboards – super bold and composed. I really enjoy strobe lighting and Photoshop manipulation. I’ve been working with bands too. I take my Photoshop work to extremes with the wacky photos I make for them. I hope to do more of that when I connect with record labels. I try to keep it B2B, but I still do headshots and other personal gigs. I’m currently working on a personal series in which I “face-swap” human and canine facial features. That’s just for fun, and it’s gotten me a good bit of attention too.

In voiceover, I’m still doing narration for some popular YouTube channels, but I really want to just focus on the commercial work I get from my agent – the 30-second spot and tagline. I appreciate the character and musicality in it. I find beauty in vocal precision and textural variation. What sets me apart is that I have the speaking sensibilities of a millennial but the “golden baritone” pitch of someone almost twice my age, so the result is both relatable and authoritative.

TORO is a modern metal band with a subtle Latin flare. Our members are majority South American which is an interesting angle. We just announced our signing and will go to LA to make the record in a few months. I’m also in an instrumental math rock duo called Tiny Scissors. It’s aggressive in its tone, and snappy with precision. Loud, fast, weird, and pretty nerdy.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I’m a little bit concerned with some of the newer technological applications in the creative world. To make my point, there’s already a software that is supposedly the most realistic text-to-speech generator available. You can even program your own voice into it. But I don’t think we’ll ever get to a point where it will be easier to program an artificial voice to achieve the tonal subtleties of a well-directed human voiceover artist, than to just hire a human.

I recently had a client approach me for product photography. They sent me a reference image and I stared at it for like an hour, thinking to myself, “that can’t be a photograph – it’s too perfect.” We’re still not exactly sure but I strongly believe that it was computer-generated. We’ve all seen movies that leave us in awe of the special effects looking so real. Computer-generated images have their benefits like flexibility and independence from environmental variables, but it’s still cost-prohibitive for many clients. I may have to shift my focus if I’m going to stay relevant for the next decade. GCI would be cool to learn anyway.

As far as the music industry, I’m actually pleased with the direction it’s going. Streaming services ensure that listeners have access to all of the music, making distribution easy but direct monetization from album sales difficult. However, artists are expected to monetize on their digital audiences on social media through online merch sales and brand partnerships, which actually opens a ton of new opportunities to make a living. I plan to build my audience by vlogging and sharing my experiences on tour, at shows and photo shoots, and the rest of the exciting things coming up in my life. Follow me on Instagram @jason.belisha to keep up with my antics!