“Oh anybody can do that”. That’s what I hear all the time when you mention to someone that you do Voice Overs for a living. I have to admit it’s a very cool way to make a living though.
The majority of people outside the industry really don’t know about the challenges we’re faced with everyday, like having to have almost multiple personalities and a different voice for each one. The hours or days spent waiting for the next audition. Most people might like those hours of just sitting on your ass, but hey, you’re not getting paid. I’m telling you this from the perspective of the thousands of voices out there that haven’t been snapped up by the big studios or ad agencies. But from the stand point of the regular VO (Voice-Over) people that scrape by working for 50 or 100 bucks per voice over. The majority of these folks have spent the money and have got state of the art recording facilities in a special room in their homes. They have also been blessed with extraordinary talent and decades of voice over experience. On the other hand there are the ones that get into voice overs cause their friends say…”wow you’ve got a great voice..you should be on the radio”. They record their stuff through a “Barbie Microphone” and sent it clients. This always leaves the client shaking his head after he wasted precious time listening to complete crap. It’s these so called VO folks that need a Voice Over Class or at least a week end shift at a Radio Station.
The client puts out a cattle call for voice auditions. This can be achieved through internet voice clearing houses like Voices.com, Voice 123, VOPlanet and a few others. Believe me hundreds if not thousands send in their shot at the audition. Sometimes the clients give you a guide line of the type of voice that their looking for. Let me tell you this can be alittle confusing sometimes or at other times, no information at all. Here are a few examples that I’ve had to deal with.
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Male 30 – 45
No distinct regional accent. Not crazy/ridiculous/goofy. Nothing announcery, nothing breathy (especially deep and breathy), nothing trying to be cool guy, and not a voice you hear all the time.
As for the read, I don’t think it should be friendly. More straightforward. Or slightly wry. Or a little tough.
We are looking for someone who has a voice that does all the talking, not someone who has to effect anything to get his point across. A voice with presence, remarkable sound quality, something distinctive that you do not hear everyday. Someone’s got to HAVE something extra to get this job, not DO something extra.
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Adult sounding. More experience, more grit. Something different that you do not hear everyday. Something that doesn’t sound like a typical ‘Announcer’. We are looking for a young adult male with an energetic voice. For example-Geoffrey Rush or Johnny Depp.
Good example here…Geoffrey Rush as “young and energetic” ???..lol
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He should sound like a real person, not an announcer. He is a doer who is confident. He should be conversational and has a bit of a swagger and attitude.
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Doctor: 50′s. Character. Confident, intelligent. Friendly, but serious.
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You can see what I mean now about having to have more than one personality…lol. Hope this gave you a bit of an insight of what the person you hear on that commercial goes through. The Voice Over business is alot like Hollywood Acting….there are alot of waiters in this business too.
Thanks for the read and COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME
Bryan Cox another Voice Over guy !
Posted by j.s. gilbert on March 1, 2008 at 5:50 pm
As I have mentioned elsewhere, often in great detail, all over the web:
Over 99% of the people who try to make a living at voiceover won’t. It is that simple. The system, up until recently has had numerous layers of “screening”, but nowadays, somebody, in fact anybody can pay a few hundred bucks to belong to a casting service and get their crack at auditioning for the same projects (in many cases) that seasoned Union profesionals have. Why anybody however would waste their time auditioning for 100 or 200 jobs to make $50 or $100 from booking say 1 of those 200 audtions, is beyond my ability to fathom.
I am a large man, over 6′ 2″ and some might say “husky”. Despite my childhood dream of being a jockey, I am well aware that it is something I can not do. Luckily forthe horses and the grand sport of horse racing, there are numerous individuals who would tell me this. It is possible that if I paid enough money somewhere to someone, they might put me up on a Clydesdale and for even more money, even set up a race for me to enter with other Clydesdales.
Despite the trappings, this would not make me a jockey. Just because you have been told you have a nce voice or have been involved with a related industry doesn’t mean you should be in voiceover. Yes, there are hundreds if not thousands of people out there that will take your money and even make you a demo CD, just as I could probably get some seamstres to make me a pair of racing silks in 2XL.
Unfortunately, there are thousands upon thousands of people who spend lots of time and money trying to become actors or even succeed in othercreative pursuits who fail for whatever reason and forever are mute on their experiences. The one odd individual who “makes it” and the ocassional feel good article in your local paper about some person whose first audition led to them being in a cartoon are the things that fuel the imaginary land of voiceover having its streets paved with milk and honey.
I don’t say this to try to discourage anyone. I just happen to be someone who has seen the dream of voiceover end in divorce, substance abuse, financial ruin, etc. I cam into v.o. at a different time, before ISDN and before the internet. I recently found an old directory I had compiled of names and numbers of some of my old compadres. Of about 1,000 people or so who came into the industry when I did, fewer than 10 have managed to keep from having day jobs.
I also recently spoke with a fairly respected talent agent who says that over 75% of their represented talent either have side jobs or have working spouses that allow them to pursue acting. These are talent considered good enough to have agency representation.
Sure it’s show biz, but in the end, you’d make more money per hur invested than if you worked at a fast food restaurant.
Good Luck. There are exceptions to the rule. A few do make it. Now, if you really want to make big bucks, skip the whole voice acting thing altogether and just become a voice acting teacher.
Posted by bigbry on March 1, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Thanks JS…always a pleasure having you comment buddy!!
Bry
Posted by SomeAudioGuy on March 1, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I’ll totally back up JS’s numbers.From my agency days, I would say about 70% of the actors there were pulling in enough money to keep them interested in VO as a side gig, and about 30% were actually making a living off their voices alone.
I’ve seen some great spec/directions. Bad archetypes, and conflicting descriptions. That Doctor spec isn’t horrible, though.
My favorite so far was for a major clothing outlet that gave us a solid page of 10pt font with no paragraph breaks, for a FOUR WORD audition. It was the worst example of group think I’d ever seen.
I boiled their thesis down to “friendly, savvy, and outgoing”, four words for four words…
Posted by Stephanie Ciccarelli on March 1, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hey Bry,
I have a slightly different perspective to share that goes with your opening statement.
Today, I encountered a blog post somewhere that basically espoused adding voice overs to online videos, which all in all is a good thing. One would think that article would have then led into the virtues of hiring a professional to do the voice overs, however, it was a Do It Yourself article to my surprise.
I left a comment which I hope will be approved that basically says not everyone out there should be recording voice overs for their corporate projects and that they should hire a pro voice actor instead.
The reason why the writer suggested that people record their own voice overs was to of course save money and avoid having to pay a small fortune to someone else to record the voice over for them.
The writer also spoke of making a good first impression and how very important it was, essentially telling the audience that so long as they spoke clearly and had Audacity software to record their voice with that it would all turn out as if it were pro in the end.
Somebody cue the Barbie Microphones — now.
Untrained individual + DIY voice over = Something left to be desired
For the money perceived to be saved, a person doing their own voice over could end of sabotaging their presentation and brand image which would cost them hundreds if not thousands of dollars in lost business potential.
Now, wouldn’t that make an interesting first impression? I’m sure businesses would rather have a reasonable budget set aside for voice overs than lose future business, agreed?
Thanks again for a great article Bryan.
Best,
Stephanie
Posted by Rowell on March 2, 2008 at 1:23 am
i don’t produce demos often, but when i do, it’s gratifying (and painful at the same time) to witness the change in attitude from “hey, anybody can do this” to “man, this really is work, isn’t it?” after eight or nine takes. then i talk about the audition/to/gig ratio and the somber reality sets in big time. a lot of those folks end up converting their demo deal to a session fee and leave it at that.
it’s hard enough to make it all work…even with loads of talent. a friend of mine spent several years as an actor in nyc. got on a soap and everything. yet, he made it a practice always to have a waiter’s gig at the same time. he told me the standard conversation at parties would go something like: “…and what do you do for a living?” “oh, i’m an actor.” “really? what restaraunt?”
Posted by Scott Larson on March 3, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I read this with great amusement, because I deal with “boy you’ve got a great voice, you should be in radio/voiceover/tv/movies/narration/onhold messaging,ebooks yada yada yada” everyday as a commercial production director for a large market radio group.
We get the “clients” who’ve been told by Account Executives (hence known as “Order Taker”) that “Boy, you have a great voice, you should do your own advertisment”. The client bows to the graciousness of the obligitory compliment and agrees to spend 50K on an Annual IF they can record their own commercial.
They come to me in my state of the art studios, and after setting mic levels, posture, attitude (mine when I find out the client just wrote the spot 5 minutes ago on a cocktail napkin and is having difficulty understanding what he just wrote) we begin…. After, oh lets just say 30 takes, the client is wondering why I keep telling them to smile, asking “why can’t I use the first take, why do I keep messing this up”. And after it’s all said and done, the spot mixed, and delivered to the client.
30 Days later the client is upset because he/she hasn’t recieved any business from his advertising and is wondering… Why?.. And so it goes. This business is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do. I’ve been in radio/broadcasting 19 years, and the last 5 as a freelance VO artist. But, I don’t have the “Voice” the agencies/or clients are looking for. I’ll keep trying, and oh, the Special today is Filet of Soul, with a creme sauce to die for.
Scott
Posted by Gary Allen on March 5, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Ain’t that what they’re paying us to do? I just read the last paragraph in Scott Larson’s comment and got a good laugh–local advertisers that think they’ve got “the thing” that’s gonna hook people. Perhaps so, but there are people like us who have spent YEARS trying to figure that out already. Why reinvent the wheel? Like one of my parodies about Kentucky Fried Chicken said: “When you do it yourself, it’s not the same. Colonel Sanders (our expert in this case) is the name of the game.”