David Sigmon began slowly and methodically slinking his way unnoticed into the voice-over industry in the Spring of 2007, shortly after his Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Navy. He served as a Navy SEAL and SDV operator, Intelligence Specialist in the MTAC at NCIS HQ, Submarine Diver-PLanesman-Helmsman-Mess Cook, and, just a simple ol' Sailor swabbing the deck, standing watch, piloting a beach landing craft, painting the bulkheads, and polishing the brass.
He has approached his voice-over training in the same step-by-step manner as he went through SEAL training. Reading, listening to professionally produced demos, observing veteran voice actors, studying and evaluating the voices broadcast on the radio, television, and movie screen, asking questions, attending different workshops with different coaches, attending acting and improv classes, and practicing, practicing, practicing. Practicing until it becomes second nature.
David has the voice of the man who has been there, done that, and narrowly avoided death, dismemberment, capture, and prosecution. So far that is. But he's still young, and there is much left to attempt.
As a civilian, prior to and in between his two periods of military service, David was engaged in various industries and positions. He delivered newspapers, cut neighbors lawns, grubbed potatos, picked beans, corn, and strawberrys, bagged groceries, cut meat and cleaned up in a grocery store butcher shop, mucked out horse stalls at a race track, sold toys/sporting goods/tools at Sears, cold-called as a stock broker/annuity sales/financial consultant with Shearson Lehman Hutton, delivered kids to school as a bus driver during high school, struggled as an Acura car salesman, made some good money as a manufacturers sales rep of Jantzen mens sportswear in Charlotte, Baltimore, Hartford, Miami, and the Caribbean, tried being an independent sales rep of tourist goods in South Florida for a while, walked across the sky as a high-rise iron worker, sweated buckets as a mason and carpenters helper, walked up and back alongside a 12 foot table as a bedspread cutter in a North Carolina cotton mill, failed miserably trying his hand at being a commercial sales rep for Florida Heating & Air Conditioning, enjoyed dealing with big-dog executives and attorneys while a custom clothier/haberdasher, came home grubby when a laborer in a small town tire and wheel store, learned what being a cowboy really meant while a ranch hand in Couer d' Alene, Idaho and a horse farm caretaker in Potomac, Maryland, met some ladies and lost some blood as a bartender/doorman/bouncer in Charleston, Coronado, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach.
That long list of vocations give David keen insight into the language, attitudes, and environments of the characters called upon during auditions, as do his many recreational exploits.
For fun and excitement David occasionally walked along the razors edge, and survived to convey some tall tales. For example, skydiving in the middle of the night, rock climbing shear faces in Joshua Tree Park, taking up rugby at age 38, sneaking into dark harbors leaving no trail of bubbles floating to the surface, placing magnetic ticking packages on the underside of ships in the dark of night, rendezvousing with a submarine in the middle of the Caribbean while underwater, jumping off the ramp of a helo as it skims quickly above the water, swimming undetected in and out of the torpedo tube of a foreign submarine, snowshoeing in Alaska in January, flying through the air while hanging 60 feet below a combat helo, bear hunting solo in the mountains, grudge-match racing at a small town drag strip, competing on horseback at top speed and riding steers in junior rodeos as a kid, being drug behind a horse across the face of a mountain, being bitten by the snake he was trying to catch bare-handed, riding his Harley Davidsons in city traffic, skiing 75 degree moguls on his second night on the slopes, target shooting with his rifles, pistols, and bows, walking his dogs in nearby Piedmont Park during the day and after midnight in his very colorful, sketchy, raucous multi-cultural mid-town Atlanta neighborhood. The most challenging adventure was trying to raise two hard-headed sons to be as civilized as his two hard-headed dogs. All four of them make him proud.
There is one teeny tiny little adventure he hopes to try before it's too late. Bull riding. Yeah. The perfect bucket list item. What's one more surgery? Or three? Or four? Most everything has already been broken once; some twice.
David's never-ending trips and detours to Panama, U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Aruba, Azores, Barbados, Bermuda, Spain, France, Italy, Mexico, Malta, Monaco, Morocco, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Georgia, Bahrain, Yemen have supplied him with many characters to imitate while on the mic. Even Djibouti, with it's French Foreign Legion battalion in residence, brings a smile to his face. Exploring the far corners of the world will forever lure him back to the not-yet-sampled trails. Still ahead, South Africa, Argentina, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. To start with, that is.
David often feels like a gypsy, as he attended 10 schools in 12 years, and moved repeatedly while in the Navy and as a civilian. Born in the Western NC mountains, grandson of the long-serving county sheriff, his short and long-term homes have been New York (Balston Spa), South Carolina (Charleston), Maryland (Potomac, Cockeysville, Anacostia), Connecticut (Rocky Hill, Groton), Illinois (Chicago), Florida (Coral Springs), California (Coronado), Bahrain (Manama), Idaho (Couer d' Alene), Arizona (Scottsdale, Tempe, Phoenix), North Carolina (Morganton, Sylva, Forest City, Glen Alpine, Winston-Salem, Concord, Kannapolis), Virginia (Arlington, Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach), and currently Georgia (Atlanta).
Next stop? Wyoming? New Mexico? Bermuda? Maybe ... Dubrovnik, Croatia!
David's mottos for maintaining sanity.
"Always shoot for the stars, for even if you should fall short, you will have experienced the thrill of flight."
"Keep your eyes on the ball. Know which ball to keep your eyes on."
"When heading out deep into the trees, two is one, one is none."
"When purchasing a tool, always buy three. One to use, one to lose, one to loan."
"The glass will always be half-full. As long as I have a bottle under the table for topping it off."
