Justine Puy

Actor/Singer/Voice Actor

Kyle Tidd, Voice Actor

A sound investment. Two thumbs up!

Rosie Traynor

Actor/Voiceover Artist

When you’re just starting out or building your voice over career and repertoire, it can be a bit of a mystery exactly how or why you may have been selected to submit your voice for an ad or campaign or…(reason to celebrate)…won the job!

The truth is, choosing the right voice for a commercial or a campaign isn’t just a game of ‘eeny meeny miney mo’, or a ‘random act of selection’.  There’s a science behind it and it’s all about one little word…‘branding’.

You will have heard the word before, I’m sure.  If you’ve been a regular watcher of The Gruen Transfer, which is compulsory viewing for anyone in voice over, you’ll have heard it a million times, so let’s talk about it and how it relates to you…the voice actor.

Branding is the process of creating a unique name and image for a product and then rolling out advertising that’s targeted to its consumer market.   Branding is, of course, considered successful when that product out-performs the competition and establishes strong customer loyalty.  Advertising agencies spend a lot of time talking with their clients about it.

So, what is the process they go through to find just the right voice; the one that ticks all their branding boxes?

Well to begin with, an enormous amount of research will have been undertaken by the client with their advertising agency to discover just who their market is.  Market research and focus groups are considered an important tool for finding out what the market does…and what the market wants.  Through this process they’ll be very specific when it comes to finally ‘nailing down’ their customer.  They may create a set of adjectives or descriptive phrases, or words that conjure certain feelings.  Sometimes they can be as specific as designing all the traits of their ‘one perfect customer’.

They may have a description like this…say for a campaign for a certain car, ’35 something female, corporate job, serial online dater, dreaming of falling in love and settling down.  She’s busy and efficient.  She goes to a gym, shops exclusively online and drinks champagne.  Her friends find it refreshing that she’s straight-talking, knows what she wants and cuts-to-the-chase’…that kind of thing.

When the ad agency has an image that’s as specific as this, they’ll write ads for that specific person, so when it comes to casting the right voice for their ads, whether it’s a voice over for a television ad or for a radio campaign, they’re listening for a voice that embodies the character and personality of that ‘one perfect customer’.

When it comes to listening to demos for their potential voice, they’ll send an outline of what they’re looking for, a ‘brief’, to the recording studio they plan to record at, for suggestions…and to theatrical agents and/or voice over agents who represent voice actors.

Sometimes the brief might even include specific requests, ‘get an experienced voice actor’.  Sometimes they might even ask that the demos of certain names be submitted, voice actors whose work they’re familiar with.  Sometimes the request might be ‘find me a new voice, a stand-out different voice’…or any other specific they may think they’d like to hear.

Sometimes part of the criteria for selection as ‘the voice’, of a certain brand, is that the person will be available to be ‘the voice’ long term.  Not only will they want to create strong brand recognition with their chosen voice, they want the voice to be available to them, when they’re needed.  So, often part of the brief will be, ‘must be available to record radio and/or television campaigns for 12 months’ for instance.

You know, it’s a truism in advertising that certain voices resonate with audiences more than others…that some voices become like a trusted and familiar family friend.  It’s been this truism that has given many voice artists their long and successful careers.

Let’s talk about the voice demo in this process.  Firstly, one of the reasons I always suggest to voice artists, who are training with me and creating a demo, that they make their sample reads at least 10-15 seconds long, is that voice grabs that are any shorter don’t make enough impact.  10-15 seconds will make sure that the listener gets the nuances of your performance and that you are competent at that style, before you move on to the next one, so no 5 second grabs okay!!!

Another reason for 10-15 seconds is that sometimes a studio might like to just take a grab of a voice style they believe fits the brief, from each of a half a dozen demos…and send that through to the agency for considerations.  If your samples are too short, likelihood is they won’t be included, so they’re a wasted opportunity, in my opinion.

Once all samples or demos have been submitted, often a short-list will be created and those voices will be invited to do a ‘submission’ at a studio, more often than not with a, pretty-close-to-final, draft of the script.  They’ll be wanting not only to hear whose performance works with the script best, they’ll also be listening for this.

How did he or she say the product name, the ‘hero’ phrase, the keywords?  If you don’t know how to find these words in a script or just how important they are in securing voice work, then you need to know.

Also, does this voice tick all those character personality boxes?

…and just like in any audition or interview for a job…at the end of the day…

Do we want to work with this person…especially if it is a long term gig.

And that’s where the ‘High Paid Voice Work’ in the title of this blog comes in.  Regular work with a great client can be incredibly lucrative.  We all love them when they come our way and the best way to make sure you’re in the running is to sharpen your skills and make sure your demo is serving you.

Advertising agencies, studio producers and casting people are always looking for new voices, or that voice with a special, sometimes indefinable, ‘something’…the something that will make their performance and the client’s commercial stand out from the rest and create ‘branding’ that’s memorable and satisfying.

Can you see yourself fitting the bill?

If you’ve done some coaching, made a demo or are working as a voice artist and want to do some training around understanding how to satisfy ‘branding’ needs…come and do some private work with me in my home studio in Port Melbourne.

Perhaps you think your demo may be not as sharp as you’d like.  I’m good at demo sharpening.

Or if you’ve really decided you want to start playing with your own character and personality in the studio with great scripts, then sign up for one of my ‘One Day Studio Intensives’ and really discover what’s possible!

You can leave me a message here, if you’d like to talk about any of these options.

Whether you’re already working in voice over or are ready to start, it helps to discover everything you can about those who’ll potentially employ you.

Knowing what they want and how to deliver it, is often hard to gauge, but in my recent travels I’ve asked some of Melbourne’s top mainstream studios, Bang Bang, Flagstaff, Final Sound, Gas and Big Ears Audio what they’re looking for in voice talent and demos.

Yup…it’s all about the voice demo.

When I asked the question, “What are the fatal mistakes voice actors make with their demo?”, these were some of the responses.

“Don’t think you need to sound like other ads or other people.  Being yourself is the best tool you have to stand out.  Give some genuinely natural reads in there, or complete adlibs, something that shows a more unstructured approach.  Please don’t yell…”

“Don’t give us too much of one style.  A good demo should include all types of VO – character, retail and brand work, if you’re good at it. It’s especially hard to sell through ‘character-heavy’ demos, since straight reads are so popular at the moment”

Some other big ‘no-no’s’ include; using accents and characters or anything you can’t do properly…supplying a demo with four reads the same…a demo of all accents and no straight stuff…demos that are too long or too complex with a whole lot of little snippets…very hard to cast from…demo’s that have a lot of ‘other’ voices in them.

I also asked how they felt about the inclusion of an introduction on a demo, what they like to hear and why?

“We tend to listen to the intro’s so that we get a vibe for the voice. Sometimes the demo itself won’t give you an indication of the natural speaking style of the talent. Just keep the intro brief – name, city, agent’s name, number and any relevant industry experience like acting, singing etc. Our clients like to feel they’re getting experienced people sent to them for consideration.”

“They’re really good, as long as they are not rehearsed.  A natural unstructured bit of chat may be what we use to show our client how the person sounds.  Anything with an ulterior motive or that is another “sell” won’t add anything to the demo.”

“Intro’s are essential. For us it can be the most important part of the demo.  It lets everyone hear the person’s natural speaking voice.  Sometimes when we know we’re dealing with a client who lacks imagination, we only send the introduction, especially if we know the artist.  Otherwise they listen to the demo and, if the read they want for their script isn’t represented in the demo, they’ll just assume the artist can’t do it and shop elsewhere.”

When I asked how often they look for ‘new’ voice actors, they all answered in a similar way.

“We’re always on the lookout for new talent, as the needs of our clients are constantly changing and its part of our job to keep up to date with these needs.”

“This is a constant area of growth, because the generally derivative nature of advertising means that a fresh voice or approach will make more of an impact.  There really is a place for many styles and experience levels”.

“Sometimes you can’t beat experience.  Sometimes you need someone who just sounds ‘different’. We’re always looking for a new voice and we often submit suggestions that contain a new name to our clients when we can, as long as we can feel that they’ll be up to the job”.

I also asked the question about demo length.

“It depends on the capabilities of the artist.  If they only do a couple of things well (like a lot of straight VO artists) it doesn’t need to be too long, long enough to give us a range and, if they’re getting plenty of work, a few extras to tell us they’re experienced.  Two or three minutes is usually plenty.”

“Two minutes is heaps unless it’s really special.”

“Around 90 seconds is enough to hear what someone can do, but I think it is generally accepted that 2-3 minutes is sufficient.

And finally, I asked about the length of samples on the demo.  I think this is a really important component in scoring you the job or the submission.

“Our clients won’t listen to the whole ad, they’ll just grab bits at random throughout the demo so pieces that showcase the voice are best, don’t include a radio spot that has heaps of SFX and music but not much voice.”

“Up to 30 is fine.  Smaller grabs can be OK to show variety, but if everything is 3 seconds long, it is too small to cast from.  Maintaining a performance is the most important thing.”

“It needs to be long enough for us to get what the artist can do, and that depends from performance to performance.  If the inclusion of something in a demo is all about demonstrating a style of voice, perhaps not long.  If it’s about an actor’s performance, then it’ll probably need a little longer.  Whatever, the artist needs to remember that the snippet, of itself, doesn’t need to make sense.  It merely needs to tell us what that artist sounds like.”

“I like at least 15 seconds”.

So there are some great insights into what some of the studios want to hear and what they’re looking for.  I would say they are a pretty good example of all studios today.

Crafting a really great voiceover demo is crucial to your success.  However, there’s very little written about where to begin, how to create one from the ground up or how to get it right.

You do need to know your own abilities, what you’re good at and what you’d be cast for, but you also need to know how to craft the demo, and make script choices, so that all the tracks on the demo are going to be useful in the casting process.

If you need some help, advice or guidance with this, just give me a call.  We can re-create or update a demo, , or if you come and do one of my Saturday ‘One Day Studio Intensives’, we record four tracks on the day that could go a long way to building one.  Here’s the link, if you want to plunge in.  http://voiceovercoach.com.au/coaching/one-day-studio-intensives

The ‘One Dayer’ sessions are a must for any serious voice over student. The pennies keep on dropping and advice is always only a phone call away.

Abbe is a great mentor and has helped my dream come true.

Cameron Bate

Voice Talent/Musician http://www.cameronbate.com.au

Six Things You’ll Need to Know

1.     Make a Study of the Industry

One thing I do know about some creative artists is that, at times, they can be their own worst enemy.  To be a success in any industry, you must do your research and find out how it works and where you’d fit in. I know some really gifted performers and voiceover artists who’ve let themselves down by not making a study of their local or national industry before they launch or re-launch themselves.

Here are some things to do that will help you get a sense of the voiceover landscape..

• Listen to radio stations to hear what kind of work they produce.  Do you fit it there?
• Call studios and ask what kind of work they do.  Could you get work there?  If you think you could, then ask about what they like to hear on a demo…and how they’d like to receive it.
• Listen to television stations with a new ear.  Are you listening to local, national or internationally produced advertising?  Voiceover for television is very different to radio.  Can you hear yourself mastering those styles?
• Find out what the rates are.  If you’re in Australia or New Zealand you have an arts union, the MEAA, who negotiates rates and fee structures on your behalf.  In the US, there is AFTRA, Equity and SAG, in Canada, ACTRA, and Equity in the UK.
• Join your union, if you haven’t already, and get involved. Not only will you need their industry savvy and workplace protection, the more you know about the workings of the industry you work in, the more empowered you’ll be.

However, even if you’re not part of the union, you still need to be charging to rates that have been set by them and are accepted by the industry.  If you’re not, it’s considered as ‘undercutting’ and is frowned upon ‘big time’ by agents and voiceover actors.

You can ask any studio to send you a copy of the rates or even refer to some of the voiceover agent websites, which have a ‘rates’ section you can copy. Of course, if you’re a Union member, the rates will be on their website.

You also need to start thinking about networking. And if you don’t like the word ‘networking’, then perhaps ‘community’ or ‘family’ suits you better, because this is what you want, to become a part of the voiceover industry.

2.    Managing Your Own Voiceover Career

Successful voiceover artists work all the time, some a few times a month or a week, some every day, some several times a day.  Part of their success is that they’ve cultivated solid working relationships with those who do the casting; that is studio personnel and engineers.

Sometimes voiceover artists will have an agent, some work freelance without representation.  It’s not essential to have an agent to work as a voiceover artist, but whether you have an agent or not, it’s important to realise just how important it is to manage your own voiceover career.

Your agent may call you and book you for the job.  They may have even suggested you for it, but they didn’t get it for you…your demo did, so make sure it’s always up-to-date and reflects to kind of work being made now, that you would be cast for.

Your agent may invoice on your behalf but you need to make sure they have all of the job details correct. When you’ve finished the session in the studio, ask what it was for, as in which medium, TV or radio and what the release is, as in which states or territories and for how long.

And if you are working freelance and taking care of your own invoicing, it’s even more important that you have all the information you need.  At the time of taking the booking, usually from the studio, but sometimes from the client direct, always ask, “Who am I invoicing and what is it for?”  The rates sheets will help you understand that.

One thing I’ve learnt in my career is to never leave anything up to anyone else without first checking that the details are right.

Create a Voiceover folder on your computer and start building some lists and information.

While you’re there, name a folder My Voice Demo’s to keep your demos in and any single tracks you may record that you might one day use on a demo.  Once the job has gone to air, you can ask for an mp3 to be sent to you, then it’s just a matter of saving it to your Voice Demo’s file until you’re ready to use it…or not.

3.     Marketing

For some, even the word ‘marketing’ is scary.  But don’t worry.  You don’t need a degree to think up, learn and use some really canny marketing tricks to make sure your talents are known by the right people

I know this for a fact.  Many voiceover artists have the talent to get, and do the work…but no matter how talented you are as a voiceover artist, unless you’re really across all the ways to make sure the industry knows you’re there, you’ll be missing opportunities right, left and centre.

Whether you have an agent or not, you need to be actively creating a presence with studios and radio stations, because the thing is, there is work out there and if you’re not actively marketing yourself then the work will go to someone who’s making sure they’re doing all they can to attract and get the work.

Even if you’ve been doing voiceovers and want more work, having or creating a reason to call or make contact with a studio is a good marketing ploy.

Radio stations are more difficult to get a response from because they are sooooo busy in their production areas.  If you have directed your demo to a sound engineer/producer and you haven’t had a response, you could call the station and ask to speak to a copywriter or someone in production about advertising.

I know that’s a bit naughty because that’s not really why you’re calling but it will get you through.  And, conversely, if you first sent your demo to the production department, ask for the email address of the engineer and send one there.

It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to speak to an engineer.  I’m telling you, they are flat out.  However, if you’ve been told or have determined that you are just the right voice for that radio station and you can find another voiceover artist to recommend they listen to your demo, then all the better.

If you have an agent, they’ll probably want to make contacts on your behalf.  This is great and hopefully they have a good relationship with that studio or radio station and will do a fabulous job of ‘talking-up’ your talents. But don’t just leave everything up to them.  Ask them to send you a list of studio or radio station contacts.

Even if you don’t have a list, create one from researching online or from a phone book or industry handbook, and then call just to make sure.  Once again, a good reason to call! Then, send your demo out!.

4.    Making Sure Your Demo is Working

Sent a demo out and received no response?

When a voiceover artist tells me that they’re not getting any work and I ask them what they’ve done with their marketing, they say they sent their demo out but no one has called.

Sometimes, they’ll start to doubt themselves and their abilities.  They will see ‘no response’ as failing or proof that they’re not good enough.  They’ll begin to give up.  But I always say that not getting a response is a reason not to give up.

Whether you’re new to the industry or not, it’s okay to call or email a studio within a couple of weeks of sending your demo and ask for a response.  Tell them you’re looking for an honest appraisal.   This way, you’ll either be prompting them to listen again to your demo or to even listen to it for the first time.  Studios can become extremely busy and sometimes emailed demos are not listened to because of this.

When you get some feedback, use it to refine you demo or even target it differently.  Some studios only do a particular type of work, such as long-form corporate work, so they could do with a demo that is made just for them and which contains samples of the kind of work they do.

5.    Following Up

Voice over actors who succeed are those who determine early on that what they are engaged in is a business, a business that, like any other, needs a plan that needs to be followed up.  Once you’ve sent your demo out, you need to find some ways to remind them that you’re still there.

Hopefully you’ve had some success with your demos and you’re booking work.  Now you need to start to keep track of the jobs you do.  If you record a commercial that goes to air, you can ask the studio to send it to you on an mp3 file.  Once you have it stored, you can then send it, in an email, to studios you think may like to have it.  Many voiceover artists resist this idea and I really don’t know why.  Remember studios are always looking for new voices and offering clients new choices.   It makes them look good to do this.  So, help them out!

6.    Following Through

Whether you’re just beginning or are currently working in voiceover, you need to know this.  Regular work is never guaranteed, no matter how great your demo or how cleverly you’re doing your marketing.  But this is another reason not to give up.

One thing you’ll never know about is just how often you’re submitted for a job.  You just need to make sure your demo is regularly updated and that you make sure studios know that you’re available for work by finding ways to make contact, because at any moment that fantastic regular job could be coming your way.

I want you to let this thought sink in. It’s paramount to remember that voiceover is your business and it will never be as important to anyone else as it is to you.  You wouldn’t have even embarked on this career it you didn’t love it and when it comes to anything in life, if it’s worth having, it’s worth working hard for.

Whether you’re new to voiceover and are building a career, or you’re someone who does occasional work, getting enough studio experience to feel really comfortable in that environment is not always easy, so I want to give you a few ideas of what you might be faced with…and some things to keep in mind when you are.

The first thing I need to tell you, if you don’t already know this, is that you’re never expected to have all, or indeed know all, the answers, when you first get into the studio with a script.

To begin with, you’ve just seen the script for the first time.  The producer will be well familiar with it.  The engineer will most probably have had it for a period of time, but you’re coming to it without any knowledge, so here are a few different scenarios you might be presented with and how to deal with them.

Once you’re given the script, hopefully the producer will give you a solid brief of what they’re looking for.  He or she may talk to you about style and target market.  They may have even cast you because of a specific read they heard on your demo and will often mention this, so you have an idea about what they’ve heard in your voice or your style of delivery that won you the job.

However, the script that you’re now taking into the studio with you and are about to read, has quite probably never been read out loud before.  Until now, it’s just been words on the page.  Now you are about to bring it to life…lift the words off the page and transform it into spoken word.  This is where the skill of the voiceover professional comes into play…helped by the skill of a (hopefully) talented producer, who is clear about what result they want and knows how to direct your performance, and a canny engineer who is used to working with voice talent every day and who is expert at guiding a session to a satisfying end result.

However, there are times when you’ll just be given the script and told nothing in particular, so here are a few things you may need to ask.

“What style of read are you looking for?”

Hopefully the answer will give you the clues that will help you.  That’s not always the case.  Sometimes they don’t know specifically what end result they want, but you’ve been chosen or recommended…or they’ve booked you because you are known for being able to offer different styles or reads.  If they’re not sure of what they want, I always say, “Well, I’ll just jump in and start working”.  Your job is to bring the script to life, to mine the text for meaning, alternative ways of delivering the text, trying out a style and adjusting it until it’s felt you are in the right area.  There’s never just one way to perform a script…but there’ll almost always be a way that feels right.

Sometimes, you come across things in the script that throw you.  Occasionally you’ll come across a word that is pronounced differently; especially in this global landscape where some of us no longer even know the difference between US and English standard.  This is a words and language business and there are many people who are quite pedantic about the notion of what is ‘correct’.  I’m always very flexible with this and often the Producer will have his or her preferred idea of a specific pronunciation.  So, it’s okay to ask…

How would you like me to pronounce this word?

When there is a preference and it’s different from the way I would normally pronounce it, I always re-write the word with a phonetic spelling to remind me.

I’ll give you some examples of some of those words phonetically, so it’s clearer to see the difference.  Words like data.  Is it dayta or darta?  Innovative.  Is it innovaytive or inavative?  Is it going to be plarnt or plant?  There are many more examples, but it’s always okay to ascertain which way they prefer it said.  Here’s a tip.  If you have a word that you keep tripping over or are having difficulty pronouncing, just go a little slower through that word.

Often, when I’m working with students, they’ll ask, “What if the grammar is wrong or the line or phrase sounds clunky and unnatural.  Can I change it”?  It does happen that for several reasons, words on the page appear to be okay when you read them, but when they are converted to spoken word, they suddenly sound formal, unnatural or just plane ugly.  Rather than suggest it be changed, if you do come across something that’s rhythmically challenged, try to solve the problem.  If it still feels weird and no one appears to have noticed, ask the question…

Does this sound right to you?

You also need to know who the script is targeted to.  Often scripts that target to a broad audience are written in announcer style, which is the style that’s full of information.  Those kinds of scripts are more often written for products we all need…paint for instance, electric blankets, …etc.  Often though, scripts are targeted to a specific group of people or demographic. This is when you need to ascertain ‘who’ you’re talking to.  You could ask this question.

How old is my target market?  Who am I talking to?  (For example 1 person, a dozen people or a auditorium full of people)

Sometimes, there’s a music or sound effects (SFX) bed planned for the ad.  There could even be a jingle written specifically for it.  However, sometimes you’re just handed the script and the read will be performed ‘cold’, which means it is voice only.  I have, on odd occasions, heard an ad I thought was just a ‘cold’ read, on air with a track I hadn’t realised was going to be used…and the read hassn’t, in my opinion ‘matched’ the track.  If I had have heard the track, I would have made some different choices, as to rhythm and style.  Music needs to work with the words and it can really help if you ask the question…

Is there a music track or jingle?

When you’re in the studio, creating a great final product is a process of collaboration.  I call it the creative triangle…between the voice actor, the producer and the engineer.  As I said at the outset, you’re never expected to have all the answers but you are expected to be a major part of the creative process.

So, when you are in the studio, relax and really enjoy that process.  Become really good at offering alternative styles or reads, change the rhythms, pace and energy.  By the way, you can change the pace of a script in many different ways and still have it time to what’s required.  It’s a technique thing!

If you want to understand more about the technique of voiceover, grow your studio expertise, and learn how to create great reads, then come and work with me privately or sign up for the first ‘One Day Studio Intensives’ in Melbourne February 4th or Sydney February 18thfor 2012.

Here are the links.

‘Private Coaching’  http://voiceovercoach.com.au/coaching/private-coaching

or ‘One Day Studio Intensives’ http://voiceovercoach.com.au/coaching/one-day-studio-intensives

…Narration and Character Work!!!

Before I talk about the specifics of these two very different kinds of voiceover work, I just want to give you a perspective.

One of the things I love most about being a voiceover artist is the variety of work that I get.  It wasn’t always that way.  For a start, when I first began working as a voice actor there was only television and radio.  Now, the type of jobs you can get are amazingly diverse, from a simple on-hold message for a local medical clinic that may pay $100 to a radio spot for a tyre company that may pay $280 to a major TV campaign for Nivea that may pay $1,000’s.

Over the years, as the need grew for voiceover artists to be used on different types of work, I broadened my skills and knowledge of style, to make sure I was ‘in the hat’ when it came to being considered for all those ‘other’ forms of jobs, such as corporate reads – which were once very heavily male dominated – documentary and instructional or informational reads, narration and animation.

As many of you who’ve worked with me know, it’s never necessary to be a voiceover artist who does everything.  Being ‘great’ at one thing can be enough to get you a job, as long as you are great at it and that’s what’s represented on your demo…and you can get into a studio and confidently replicate that style or read.

Next point, the most amount of work that’s out there, is for radio.  Radio stations churn out ads every day.  Almost all radio stations have in-house production and sales departments, who are wooing clients to advertise with them.  The higher the station ranks in the ratings, the more advertisers will want to come on board.  The material is written in-house and voiced by voiceover artists and actors the radio station likes working with, usually because they understand the nature of making (sometimes) pretty dull copy come to life.  They understand how to give the read vibrancy and meaning.  This work is the staple income for a voiceover artist.

Then there’s television and those who’ve worked with me in the studio know that voiceover styles for television can be quite diverse.  Copy for TV is often much more stylized and non-naturalistic, and TV advertising (apart from retail) relies just as much on visuals and sound design to get the message across, than the disembodied voiceover.

So radio and TV advertising is where the bulk of the work is.  However, do you know what the two areas that potential voiceover artist say they want to get into when they first begin to pursue it?  Yup, narration and character work!!!

If this is you, then the next couple of paragraphs may disappoint you, but read on.  All is not lost.  If you love to read, tell stories and have an uncanny ability to shape shift your voice, then you may just have the skills to become a voiceover artist working in the mainstream.

First, let’s talk about narration; book narration for one.  It’s true that there’s a market for audio books.  I have read for them.  I have voiceover artist friends who’ve read for them.  We all love doing it.  But there are two things going on here.  First thing is, the pay to read an audio book is very low.  In fact, Vision Australia, who once paid actors per hour to read novels and stories for the sight impaired, now doesn’t pay at all and calls for volunteers to be narrators for their market.  Tragic for the many actors for whom this was a valuable source of income.

The very few companies who are producing audio books for commercial consumption use a small handful of people to do their work.  I know someone who does this, an expert narrator, a female with a beautiful voice, awarded, aclaimed and known for this kind of work.  However, last year, she read two novels.  In all, she earned about $4,000, and she’s a top class narrator.

This is work that just doesn’t pay.  Not only is it difficult to do.  You need to have the energy and voice consistency to read for long periods and engage the listener, and of  course, you need to be available for this work, you need to have read and studied the novel before you get into the studio and, if there are other character voices involved, have worked out who they are and what they sound like.  You need to be consistent with that as well.  So, it’s disappointingly not a burgeoning industry in Australia.  The ABC still records plays and short stories, but I did a session last year, where I was asked to read 3 short stories.  I was there for 3 hours and was paid $250.  Yes, I loved it.  Yes, it’s on air.  Can I survive on that?  Nooooo way!

However, here’s the upside.  If you are an excellent reader, a person who can read for long periods and stay engaged with the themes, characters and emotion of a story, then you have great ‘commercial voiceover skills’  To do voiceover, you need to be a cracker site reader.  You need to understand how to connect to the listen.  You need to understand the magic of the pause.  You need to know how to put accent on words and phrases to give them a certain meaning.  You need to understand pace.  I hear so many people have a go at narration and include it on their demo, but the read it just tooooo fast.  For all reads, but especially for narration, you need to meaning to really ‘land’ with the listener, before you move on to the next line or part of the story.

If you are a good site read, then you could be looking to the corporate world for work that is narration.  The corporate area is much more lucrative, because companies make material for their employees, clients or customers all the time, to pass on information about a plethora of things, new systems, instructional vids, new products, projects and any amount of narrated material that contains a message they need passed on.

The other area I know you would all love to work in is the world of ‘character voices’, whether it’s for animation series, cartoons or television ads and most of you have a bag of character voices that you do.  Some of you just do funny voices. Some, can mimic someone’s actual voice or another cartoon voice.  But this is where I’m going to have to disappoint you.  If you listen to radio and television and count the amount of times you hear cartoon or character voices, it’s going to be pretty low.

However, don’t despair here either.  The fact is the skill, ability or desire to inhabit a character and give it a funny voice is a voiceover skill.  It’s the skill of creating a persona, that is, someone who is not you.

So, if you recognize that you have great skills as a narrator, can jump in to anyone’s skin and create a believable character, then you need to make a study of the commercial area of voiceover, that is Television and radio and discover where your talents would fit in.

This, of course, is all about practice, practice, practice.  Just make sure those who you practice with, are quality voiceover coaches and can teach you all you’ll need to know to make the best of your talents and your opportunities.

Many voiceover artists are not professionally trained actors and many have never performed at all.  Voice over acting relies more on a set of natural abilities that are well informed, than intensive performance training.

However, being a voiceover artist does require you to act, you may need to act like the ice cream in the ice cream ad you’re reading is the ‘best thing you’ve ever tasted’.  You may need to act like the bargains at the sale you’re reading an ad for are ‘sensational’.  You may need to act warm or bitchy, be authoritative or manipulative, whatever it is the script is asking for…and in order to really ‘pull off’ the read, you need to understand what ‘attitude’ you need to have or what ‘stance’ you need to take in order to make the script work.

Let’s talk about ‘attitude’ first.  Attitude also means approach; and the way you approach a script depends entirely on the message the script is trying to deliver and who is delivering it.  As soon as you understand the message in the script, you can decide who the messenger is.

Now let’s talk about ‘stance’.  Stance also means things like manner, feelings, thoughts, opinion, mind-set and way of behaving.  Once you are clear about the message and who, you can make decisions about ‘stance’ which also encompasses how.   This is when emotions come into play.  Often in voice over the emotional choice can be rather theatrical, especially in character or character driven reads.  After all, this is not real life, just a very short-form ‘slice of life’ that just happens to be advertising.

All this may seem rather complicated but it’s just a matter of making these decisions.

What:                    What is the message?

Who:                     Who is delivering it (or who am I?) and to whom?

How:                     How will I deliver the message? (what attitude or stance)

Let me give you an example of how to use the process.  For instance, say you are handed a script for a shopping centre for a Father’s Day ‘gift-with-purchase’ offer.   You may make a decision that your ‘attitude’ is going to be ‘that this is the best deal ever’.  Of course this is a very common attitude in retail. I use it all the time.

Now that you know what your attitude is, you need to make a decision about ‘who’ is delivering the message.  Say for instance, you make a decision that you are a best friend, delivering the message to your own best friend.  Visualising strongly who you are and who you’re talking to can really mean the difference between your read being beleiveable or not.

Now that you’ve made that decision, the next one, ‘stance’ should come pretty easily.  If you’re delivering only to your best friend, your stance could be secretive, as if you don’t want anyone else to hear or it, could be warm and casual, because that’s the way you are with each other.

Of course, the listening radio audience knows nothing of your decisions.  All your listening audience hears is the message of the best Father’s Day deal ever, being delivered clearly, in an engaging way and meant directly for them.

This is the ‘act’ of voiceover; to engage the listener in such a way that they feel a connection to the messenger and the message.

Listen out for commercials where you really feel that the voice artist is connecting just to you and others where the person is just reading the words.  The difference is astonishing.  One message will definitely get through.  The other may not.  Let me explain the difference in another way.

Voice number 1

They have charm, charisma and a way with words and language.  In life, they’re the kind of people who almost always have a little band of people around them, hanging on every word they say.

Listen for way they accentuate certain words.  It’s a good idea to get into the habit of recording commercial breaks, so that you can analyse scripts and work out what the voiceover artist is doing.

It’s true that commercials are often wall-to-wall words, but listen out for pauses…pausing for effect can be one of the most powerful ways to draw attention to a word or phrase.

Voice number 2

Nice voice but tends to go on and on, ad nauseam with an absence of colour or real meaning in their words.  They just sound like they’re ‘reading’ the words. They just get tuned out.

Don’t be voice number 2.

Often voiceover artists I work with – and even those of my students – who are comfortable and confident with themselves and are prepared to be playful in the studio and experiment with ‘attitude’ and ‘stance’, are those who have the most success.

And if you want more on techniques for voiceover, take a look at my downloadable audio technique programs or sign up for a One Day Studio Intensive.

Don’t forget, listening study is free voiceover technique study, so make sure you tune the ‘voiceover artist’ in you to the commercial breaks whenever you listen to radio of TV.  Listen to demos of other voiceover artists and try and work out what you could be doing or where you fit in…and really enjoy the ‘act’ of voiceover and creating great voice over reads every time.