In 2009, Amanda Sellers started her dream job as a voiceover artist.
“From my background of singing, acting, performing, it all kind of came together and that’s how voiceover started,” Sellers explained.
“It was a really slow start. I was waitressing on the side. My husband was working on the oil rigs and we just kind of went back and forth trying to get the business off the ground,” Sellers said.
Sellers said it’s been a gradual process, but she’s been able to do what she loves full-time for the past six years.
Both she and her husband, Mike Schurko, work out of their basement studio. Together, their work includes commercials, video games, company training videos and cartoons.
Sellers has landed a national Axe commercial, and has done work for major companies such as Pepsi, Toyota, Apple and Nike.
Schurko has also done voiceovers for company training and benefits videos for other big names like Facebook, Twitter, Burger King and Tim Hortons.
“That’s how we started doing our business, just doing online work, and it’s blown up,” Sellers said. “We got in at the right place at the right time.”
Their five-year-old son is in on the business as well. He got his first job when he was two and has recently been to Vancouver to work on an upcoming Netflix series.
“When I walk into the studio with him, I have more nerves … and he’s just completely fearless,” Shurko said. “He’s totally present and he just performs.”
While national commercials are a highlight, the pair said e-learning and narration are a big part of their business.
“It’s the tenacity and the dedication to the craft and wanting it more than anything in the world, that will actually make it happen,” Sellers said.
“We’re just scratching the surface. We’ve achieved a lot of success without marketing ourselves too much, so we’re finally taking that choice to market ourselves and that could expand things exponentially,” Shurko said.
“You wake up unemployed every day. You check your inbox: ‘OK, good — that company gave me a big e-learning thing. OK, I booked that spot,’” Sellers said.
“It’s basically never knowing what’s around the corner.”
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