By Daphne Jackson
Bitterroot College student Rob Williams said his interest in voiceovers started when he was five years old.
“Every Tuesday they had five movies for a dollar at the local VHS store, so we’d walk down together, go get video tapes, and watch movies all night,” he said. “Popcorn and movies every Tuesday for, like, ten years. And during that time, it was the 80’s, so of course, you have all the action movies that came out with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and you’d always have the one guy who had the movie trailer voice, who said, you know: ‘In a place, one man did, something, to take on everybody,’ and I was so excited to hear that, that I would start doing impressions and doing different voices with my mom and my brother and sister, just to pass the time, and I got a kick out of it.”
Now, Williams is about to graduate from Bitterroot College with an associate degree in fine arts, and is in pursuit of work as a voice actor. Williams, who is 39, said he made his decision to start school in 2011, with the encouragement of his son.
“We had the recession here in Hamilton, and there was no work, so I said, ‘okay, what can I do? What is there to do?’ and they had just gotten the college in the year before,” he said. “Financially, I did not have the means to travel back and forth to Missoula, nor did I think I was ever smart enough to go to college. I ran into the ladies down at the college there during a job fair or something, and they suggested, ‘hey, why don’t you come in, we’ll do your general stuff, and you can get into school,’… so I was like, ‘well, what is there to do?’ and I thought back on it, and said, ‘well, the movie trailer stuff is something that I really want to do.’”
Five years later, Williams said he plans to go to Hollywood in July and start sending out his portfolio and headshots in search of an agent.
“I’ve been to Los Angeles, I’ve been to Seattle, and London, but it’s a whole different thing down there,” Williams said. “I think the family and I are going to go to Disneyland, and Universal Studios, whatever they have down there, and if it doesn’t work out, if I don’t secure an agent, I’m going to come up here again and work toward my BA in radio/television. Just one day at a time. I thought about just selling everything and moving down there, but then I thought, ‘no, I’d better not,’ I’ve heard too many horror stories.”
Williams said he has gotten some experience doing voiceovers for local cell phone ads, and working on the local weekly television program “Montana Full Circle,” but there is a limited number of opportunities for voice acting in a smaller town. He said his ultimate goal in the business is to do movie trailer voiceovers.
“If I could bring the same amount of joy I felt as a child to someone else, and get them interested in this or that movie, whatever it’s going to be, I think my goal would be accomplished.” Williams said. “I would hope that I could lend some credence to the excitement, the energy of going to that (movie), or listening to that audio book or watching that cartoon, like, ‘hey, that’s a great voice.’ I think that’s where the excitement is of doing voiceover. I’ve only tasted a little bit of it, and it just makes me want to go do more.”
He said he had a positive experience at the college; his professors have been helpful, and some have gone out of their way to help him understand concepts in their classes.
Williams said he thought this type of one-on-one attention is possible partly because of the smaller size of the college, which is typically only about 200 college-level students, according to Advising & Enrollment Services Coordinator Kathleen O’Leary.
O’Leary said her most recent list of degree applicants for this year was about 30 people, so there will probably be between 25 and 30 students participating in the graduation ceremony. She said this number has increased every year since the first graduating class of eight students in 2012.
“We’re growing,” she said. “We started wearing regalia in 2014. Before, students could just come casually dressed, and it was just a casual celebration, and now it’s become a full-blown commencement ceremony honoring our degree candidates from Bitterroot College. And that just includes the students who have finished a degree program, that doesn’t include the students who have finished all they can here and are moving on, which is quite a few more students, or who are transferring somewhere else.”
O’Leary said students are not required to purchase caps and gowns, and instead check them out from the college, which eliminates any added graduation expense for the students. She said everyone is welcome to attend the ceremony.
“I just think that the graduation is a really great way for the community to celebrate the accomplishments of the students here,” she said. “It’s kind of more of an intimate setting, with families and friends in the community, so it really allows us to just gather and celebrate what they’ve done. It’s just something that we look forward to every year; it kind of brings the year to an end, and just allows us to focus on what we do.”
Williams said he is originally from Billings, but graduated from Hamilton High School in 1995. He said one of his high school classmates is now a teacher at the college. “I’ve had two classes with him, and I still remember him in high school as this little skateboarder kid,” Williams said. “Now he’s where he’s at, and that gives me motivation, to know that I can, to reach for something. Everything’s obtainable through college. Without an education, you aren’t going anywhere. You have to work hard for it. Everything’s been delightful here, and I can’t give it enough praise. I’m happy that it’s come down to the valley.”
Williams said he thinks attending college is an important investment in the future, particularly for young people. He said attending college has been strange in regard to the generational gap between himself and the younger students attending straight out of high school.
“Today’s youth is different from my youth, and so I look at it, and I’m like, ‘wow, they’re a lot smarter,’ but on the other hand, I don’t see them really having a focus to go somewhere,” he said. “College gives you that focus, that’s what I like about it. If everybody understood what it took to get their dreams met… Do it, get out there and do something about it. You’re not going to go anywhere if you don’t try. The worst that can happen is you fail, but you can get up again and try again. Like I said, I’ve taken a few of the classes over, it’s not a big deal. Moneywise, it might cost you money, but in the end I’m the one that’s going to end up being happy because of it.”
The graduation ceremony will be Friday, May 13 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on the lawn of the Daly Mansion. O’Leary said the program will feature speeches from student Deanna Wise, alumna Megan Root and Montana Board of Regents member Robert Nystuen, who will give the commencement speech. She said the third annual Bitterroot College Champion Award, which goes to someone who has helped the college significantly, will also be presented during the graduation ceremony.