Finding Your Niche’ In Voiceovers
“I’m NEW to Voice Overs, What Do I DO!?”
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Brad Dassey Voice Overs
The BEST Voice For Promos and Commercials
http://www.facebook.com/braddassey
June 28, 2012
Hey, it’s Brad Dassey again from Best Promo Voice Overs.com and I’m here to help you recognize your, Brand or Niche’. Everyone has some kind of Niche’ in voiceover and you certainly can’t be the BEST at EVERYTHING! So finding your niche’ is a good way to help organize your voice over career.
First off, I like to start my day off with a good ol’ cup of Folgers coffee. I believe the hotness of the coffee stimulates and warms up my throat. I find it to clear out a lot of what I call, “morning junk” from the night before. I feel that the caffeine also helps me stay more alert and ready for my day. It jolts my nervous system and keeps me motivated. I also do my regular vocal warm ups as well, but we’ll cover that another time. And there are so many controversies about coffee, so, just do whatever you feel works BEST for you!
Alright, enough about the controversies on coffee, lets get down to business. So you’re probably saying, “I’m new to voice overs, where do I start?” Well, first off, congratulations for wanting to even get INTO the voiceover business! You’re on your way to a great career! Not only a GREAT career, an EXCITING one at that! Although it takes a lot of TIME, PRACTICE, PATIENCE and SKILL. I believe its so great because it sure beats a regular 9 to 5 job any day!
FINDING YOUR NICHE’ IN VOICE OVERS:
First off, we should probably recognize the MANY different types of voice over projects out there and if you want to get into voice over, you might as well have great voice over demos to WOW your potential clients and listeners. Your voice over demos showcase your work and they have GOT to be good. Buying a cheap Wal-Mart computer microphone isn’t going to cut it.
For those of you that have been following my voice over podcast for some time now, you know that I like to break things down and make things SIMPLE. So, I’m going to break it down for you. I sound like a broken record, I know. I like simple, it keeps things, well, SIMPLE!
I COULD try and list all of the different audio/video voice projects, but that would take all day. I know you haven’t gotten all day and either do I. So for now, I’m going to just give you a handful of different types of voice jobs out there today. I like the number Five, so we’ll just go with Five for now.
Five different types of voice over projects out in the business today:
Short and Long Form Narration: Other than radio commercials and promos, anything over a minute to Three minutes is considered short form narration. Long form narration consists of anything Three minutes and over. Your typical TV documentaries would be considered long form narration. Also another long form narrative would be your audio books. Audio books are a big hit these days because nobody wants to sit and READ a book when they can LISTEN to it on their work out, in their car or maybe even just lying in bed.
There are plenty of jobs out there that involve narration. Your CD Roms, Audio Books, maybe some Android or iPhone apps, free or for sale are just some of the many jobs available. The possibilities are ENDLESS!
Radio Commercials, TV Commercials & Promos: Radio promos can be anywhere in length from :10 to :15 seconds, or :30 seconds, :45 seconds and also :60 seconds. Typical radio and TV commercials last about :30 to :60 seconds in duration. Sometimes even a quick plug in between programming would be a quick promo.
Voice-Mail greetings, IVR, On Hold Messaging and Promotion: “Hi! Thank you for calling so and so company. For English, please press 1. For Spanish, please press 2. You press two and the lady on the other side finally says, “Nobody’s ever pressed 2 before! I don’t know how to speak Spanish!” Just kidding. Sometimes companies will hire outsiders to cover the Spanish parts if you do not know how to speak Spanish or any other type of language.
Your typical on hold messaging and promotional messages will have music in the background underneath your voice explaining about the business and appreciating the customer for waiting on hold. “Thank you for calling so and so company. We realize your time is valuable! Assistance is just a moment away.” Or, “So and so company has been providing such and such product for umpteen years. We take great pride in our work to deliver the best possible quality for you. Please continue to hold.”
Movie Trailers: This is pretty self explanatory, but as you can remember the famous, Don LaFontaine voice, “In a world of un-imaginary blah blah blah and some other blah, this and that happens.” RIP Don, your voice will live on FOREVER man! Sometimes a voice is needed to promote an upcoming product that will hit shelves in stores in an upcoming date, so this way, if a movie promo guy sells a product on a DVD for an upcoming release, people can expect and be ready for it and by which certain date.
Radio Imaging: Last but not least, your typical radio stations you listen to have, “You’re listening to such and such radio station!” In a deep, grumbly voice, or maybe upbeat voice, or warm and calm voice. All stations are different, but in between songs and at the top of the hour is called the Radio Station Identification or Legal ID. All stations are required by the FCC to notify everyone as to which station they are listening to, their call letters, their City license as to which the city they are licensed with to broadcast from and so forth. The first city name listed in their, “Top Of The Hour” Call Letters, usually states what city they are licensed out of. “You’re listening to WXYZ!” Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh. Now, back to more of your favorite hits, right here on WXYZ!”
There are SO many projects you could do! I mean, you could voice a new app for a game, a documentary, a TV show, movie trailer, on hold message, voice greeting, audio book, podcast, announcement at an event, the possibilities are ENDLESS with voice overs! This is one of the reasons getting into the voice over business is so AMAZING! You’re never doing the same project again and again. Also, you can take YOUR creative mind and put it to work for YOUR clients, not only HELPING them, but creating a NAME for yourself!
Take care.
One DEADLY Mistake While Recording Voice Overs
Tips and Tricks While Recording Voice Overs
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Brad Dassey Voice Overs
The BEST Voice For Promos and Commercials
http://www.facebook.com/braddassey
June 7, 2012
Hey, it’s Brad Dassey again from Best Promo Voice Overs.com and I’m here to let you in on three little tricks that can help IMPROVE your VO skills and one of them is a DEADLY mistake you MUST avoid while in the voice over industry!
First of all, just RELAX. Take a deep breath, hold it, count to 10 and let it out…. There, I feel better, how bout you? Ok, lets get started!
So, I have a few tips and tricks to give you this week, when recording voice overs. Now, take these to heart, because one of them COULD cost you your voice over career! I mean, just consider yourself LUCKY to even have the voice over jobs you receive, because you KNOW just how MANY people are out in the voice industry! TONS! The job could have very well been awarded to someone else, you know. So if you aren’t already thankful for each and every job you get, BE THANKFUL. Every little bit helps to advance you to the next stage in voiceover!
Ok, lets get right to it, the first tip I have for you is CRITICAL to your voice career and new voice over jobs from here on out! I am guilty of this myself! If you don’t handle your recordings in a very mature and professional manner, chances are, you could end up sending the WRONG files to your clients and then you have let the cat out of the bag and it’s not going to be a very FRIENDLY cat, at that! Now I’m sounding like Dr. Seuss.
Tip 1: NEVER, I mean NEVER mumble things in the background while recording your voice over scripts!!! I don’t care if you are practicing, or taking a straight ONE-SHOT. The worst thing you need is blurting out how you feel about the client, the product, the service or even how HORRIBLE the script is written! Even worse, dropping the ol’ F bomb in the background! Even if you might think to yourself or mumble under your breath, “I can’t believe how HORRIBLE this script is! I mean, my KID could write a better voice over script for gosh sake! Man, these people REALLY need to go back to grammar school.” Don’t do it! Chances are, if you SAVE that RAW, unedited file, you might end up sending it to the client!
Tip 2: If you have a hard time reading small print in the voice over scripts the client sends you, just copy and paste it into Microsoft Word and ENLARGE it. This way it’s so much easier to read. I know it wastes a bit more paper, but I usually save my old scripts and print on the back-side of every paper. This way it saves me money and it’s being eco-friendly! And always, ALWAYS recycle old scripts after you are finished. I usually save my scripts for a good 30 to 60 days, JUST in case the client calls back to make a change or has me RE-voice a certain part or parts. It’s good to have the copy on hand so you can just get it right out and get right to it without having to go into your e-mail, RE-printing it out, wasting valuable TIME and MONEY and INK! We all know how EXPENSIVE ink is these days. Take it from me, I used to be in the ink refill business. It’s quite COSTLY.
Tip 3: Now, it’s so EASY for clients and newbie script writers to have TONS and TONS of run on sentences and grammatical errors in their scripts. This is why I ABSOLUTELY read new scripts over a few times, fixing any grammatical errors, any run on sentences they may have, or if something simply doesn’t sound right, I would just alter the script a little bit, making it EASIER for ME to read and also HELPING the client strengthen their script. First, I would get their permission of course, then, I would send the revisions BACK to them making sure they are OK with the corrections.
Remember, EXCELLENT service is about going ABOVE and BEYOND the call of duty to HELP your clients! This way, not only will they REMEMBER that, but they will most likely RECOMMEND you for your AWESOME service as well! I’m not saying completely write the entire script over, costing you precious time. If you had to completely write a new script, I would totally charge extra for time well spent on writing a killer voice over script.
Lastly while I am talking about script writing, if you ever run into a word that is HARD to pronounce as the way they have it spelt on the script, just break it down and spell it out, or simply spell it the way it SOUNDS rather than it reads. This way when you come across it when reading your voice over scripts, you won’t have any trouble pronouncing it while voicing it. It should just FLOW right out like a river with no problems!
Well, I hope I’ve taught you a valuable lesson while recording voice overs. DON’T mumble in the background, AVOID saying anything that COULD cost you your voice over job! I mean, voice over jobs are hard to come by these days. Take your work AND your client SERIOUSLY and get in the habit of NOT saying anything in the background. This way you won’t have to worry in the long run if you may or may not have said anything in the recording.
Take care.
Making Mistakes In Voiceover
Mistakes Voiceover Actors Made When Starting Out
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Brad Dassey Voice Overs
The BEST Voice For Promos and Commercials
http://www.facebook.com/braddassey
May 29, 2012
Hey it’s Brad Dassey from Best Promo Voice Overs.com Welcome back after a nice LONG Memorial Day Weekend! I hope you had a GREAT weekend and first and foremost, I just want to THANK all of our veterans and soldiers out there.
After having an extra day off, it’s time to get back into the swing of things. Yes, I know, you can groan with me. Awwwwwwwwww. This week’s topic is, “Making MISTAKES when first starting out in voiceovers.” A big THANK you to everyone who replied and for their shared insight. I didn’t have the chance to offer EVERYONE’S advice, so I apologize for that. Please don’t send me hate mail asking why your response wasn’t included. Maybe next time.
So, making mistakes is something we ALL do, right? We have to make mistakes in order to get somewhere in life, our jobs, our relationships, good blog writing, good show producing, etc.
If you are just starting out in the voiceover industry, you are probably going to make mistakes, and LOTS of them. Making mistakes in voiceover isn’t something to be ashamed of, but let me tell you, a couple years from now, if now, you are saving all of your audio recordings, demos, auditions, etc. you will look back and say, “Wow? I sounded like THAT!?” To be honest, it will probably sound like nails on a chalkboard to you, a few years down the line when you finally develop your craft in voice over.
To be quite blunt, if you are just starting out in voiceovers, you aren’t going to know EVERYTHING, you aren’t going to sound that GREAT and to be quite honest, people aren’t going to want to hire you for their next audio project unless you are remotely even worth listening to. I mean, be honest with yourself, take a real good listen to your work and ask yourself, “Is this a selling voice?” “Are my voice overs good enough to be LIKED and are they LISTENABLE?” Your voice and your work will practically SELL ITSELF, if so.
Face it, you’re not going to be a PROFESSIONAL voice actor over night. It’s going to take time, patience and LOTS of PRACTICE. Just keep telling yourself this, “A LITTLE success is better than NO success.”
I surveyed quite a few people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter about mistakes they’ve made when first getting into voice over acting. This is what they had to share:
Bobby Thong • Waiting on one casting company to send me auditions, wasting almost two years of valuable time I could have spent networking other opportunities.
Linda Borg-Roberson • Blindly spending over $3000 for VO classes from an un-reputable company before doing the research and shopping around!
Bill Sleeper • Early on, I won a very big e-learning project and quoted my budget based on each module of curriculum being the same finished length. Found out right away, that was a costly mistake. Each module was different and should’ve been charged pro-rated. Ugh. It’s all in the details!
Jon Bailey Crumpton • Reading too fast for things other than 15/30 second movie trailers.
Tanya Rich • Not being as good on breath control as I have since become (25 years VO!)
Michael J. Schoen • Must agree with Robert S. I tried to move forward before I had the necessary skills in place. It’s hard to have the perspective when you don’t have the perspective!
Dave Wallace • Not getting off my butt and doing my marketing. For a while, I subconsciously thought that as long as I had a demo and joined a P2P site here and there that clients would find me. That does happen on occasion, but enough for a career? Nuh-uh. I–and all other voice actors–have to go out and find clients.
David Brower • Trying to be all things to all types of clients. Once Susan Berkley taught me about finding my “niche” my career took off and has served me and my family well, as my full time job, for over 4 years now.
Tom Daniels • Overly compressed audio.
Edo Peters • I started doing voice acting and other voice stuff I was almost six years old and that was over 40 years ago. I had access to great coaches and equipment all the time. At 11 I joined Dutch national radio and by the time I was thirteen I already owned quite an impressive audio setup. I already did most of my recordings from home. Maybe the biggest mistake was only thinking of the best tools, cables, consoles, recorders, microphones in the industry and totally forgetting about room acoustics at the same time. When my recording studio was overhauled by an acoustics specialist it opened up a whole new world for me.
So… don’t make the mistake of buying a great microphone and interface when all you basically need to do is treat your room and prevent (early) reflections from interfering with your clean sound.
Also… (to starting VOs) NEVER NEVER NEVER offer introductory discounts to a client! No matter how hard you need the job. The next job will NOT pay you a decent fee for the same client, for you’ve already set the ceiling lower than low the first time. If your performance is good enough, nobody tries to move you to Lowballer’s Paradise. Furthermore… the tightest budget clients often turn out to give you the biggest headaches… first they ask you to lower your rate (often promising you more jobs… yeah right) then they change stuff continuously without compensating you for the pickups… believe me, you don’t want to go there.
NEVER EVER offer discounts, UNLESS it is a long term client that has given you regular jobs.
Bill Pryce • My biggest mistake was moving from on-air radio and production into VO and thinking those radio skills would be useful in voice-over. They were not. Radio is radio. Voice-over is acting.
Billy James • Obsessing over the tools can be a costly distraction. The simplest audio chain that lets you get the job done is what you’re after. A good mic for VO doesn’t have to be a $3500 German sports model. And you don’t need a high-end multitrack studio software suite to record a single dry mono voice track, which is what you’ll almost always be delivering.
Soaking up info is great, and newcomers do a lot of that. But especially in the beginning, the most productive time is spent in front of a mic, developing good technique and figuring out what your wheelhouse sound is. Focus on that. The best book ever written about swimming is not as good as time spent in the pool. There’s no shortage of info available (or people willing to sell it to you). But in the final analysis, it’s all about how you sound standing at that mic. Do as much of that as you can, and get honest feedback from opinions you can trust. A good grasp of your sound, self-renewing enthusiasm, and the ability to adjust a read on-the-fly are vital skills.
Chuck Davis • When I first got in I was still in radio as well. The mistake was my assuming that a radio background would be valuable as a VO. I found out quite quickly how wrong that was and then found out just how hard it can be to loose bad habits learned in broadcasting.
Mary McCready • I didn’t take the plunge soon enough! I held back from setting up a home studio for several years because it seemed costly and complicated. I was so wrong. My advice to those starting out is don’t hold back, jump in with both feet and go for it!
MY biggest mistake was getting ANGRY at potential clients after what seemed like, “Wasting your time.” I soon found later on, some of them came BACK to want me to voice their project, some simply stated, “With an angry attitude like that, I’m NEVER coming back.” ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS treat your potential customers with kindness and respect. If they say no, let them walk but leave them with a good taste in their mouth while doing so.
CONCLUSION
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. soon from now, you’ll be HEARING all of your mistakes and it’ll come in time. You will make mistakes and it will be a mistake well LEARNED!
I recommend recording anything and everything you can, wait about an hour and RE-listen to it again and find out what you can do different, find out what you are doing wrong, just simply find out why it might not sound too great and shape and change your technique. DON’T ask friends to critique it, they will just tell you it sounds, “great” anyway.
Put your recordings on your ipod, your mp3 player, burn them on CD and listen to them in the car, on your next workout, walk, etc. LISTEN to them and compare them to other voice over demos and see what you can do differently.
Fellow voice actors, share your tips and advice below!
Using Headphones While Recording Voice Overs
Voice Over Tips & Tricks 5-22-2012
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Brad Dassey Voice Overs
The BEST Voice For Promos and Commercials
http://www.facebook.com/braddassey
May 22, 2012
Ok, so I ORIGINALLY wanted to keep the blog writing to once a week, but I woke up this morning and was too eager to write another blog. I’m excited to help others succeed in voice over and thought, what they hay, I’ll write an extra blog for this week. You don’t mind do you? I mean, please don’t send me hate mail for being too annoying with the blog writing. I think once a week is good so I don’t bombard people half to death with tons of emails and blogs.
I’ve had frequent questions from time to time with other newbie’s asking, “Is it best to use headphones while recording?” I think there is no REAL answer to this question, so I’ll easily break it down for you and then have you decide for yourself.
Using Headphones While Recording Voiceovers
Is it best to use headphones while recording a voiceover? To be honest, if you asked several people if it’s best to use headphones for recording, you’ll probably get many different answers.
Breaking it down: there are different types of projects to be recorded in the voiceover industry. There are tons of famous voice actors out there and they all have a gift, a talent, a special ability and, “forte’” if you will. As far as voiceovers go, we have, narrations, movie trailers, telephone promotions, radio commercials, tv commercials, youtube video narration, voice-mail greetings, on hold messaging and promotion and the list goes on and on. I could bore you half to death and I don’t want to sound like an annoying college teacher giving a lecture.
Now, recording voiceovers is very much like voice acting. If you watch a lot of reality TV shows like, “Home Improvement,” “Friends,” “Golden Girls,” and even singer/songwriter shows like, “American Idol” for instance, ask yourself, “do they use headphones while they act and perform in front of the camera?” The answer is, “No.” They don’t. They simply act and let their voices be heard. They have to, “Project” their voices, so they can travel a great distance through the air and into the microphone.
I surveyed a few people and asked them if they use headphones for recording and what their advice was on the topic. Quite surprisingly, this is what they said:
Paolo Balestri – Italian Voice Over Actor from Italy writes: “Yes, I need to understand all noise or dirty sound. Without headphones, I feel naked. AKG forever! Only at the end I listen to anything on the monitor.”
Rick Lance – Voice Over Talent from Tennessee shares: “Yes, I wear them. I need to listen for stray noises… mouth clicks, thunder, stomach rumble, etc. I’d rather deal with that in recording than in post. Sony MDR 7506s are all I’ll ever need.”
Christian Peschken – German Voiceover Artist from Wisconsin says: “I use always headphones while recording for 2 main reasons. I use Koss UR-29 headphones. First I can observe my pronunciation better, and second I feel sort of closer to “my voice”. When I was working in the Lip-synchronization business, back in Germany, we never used headphones. Frankly that always made me feel ‘naked’. (Christian Peschken , PeschkenMedia. Language adaptations and Voice Overs. website at www.peschkenmedia.com)
Dan Lenard – Home Voice Over Studio Expert from, Buffalo, New York replies: “Its total personal preference.. I think that headphones for VO are totally unnecessary. What are you listening to? Yourself? The room? I can hear the room just fine from where I am. You have to have confidence in your positioning and your levels. That comes with experience.
There’s no comparison between headphones for music and VO. In music you have to hear the tracks to sync. In VO you need to listen to whats going on in your brain, not your mouth.
Headphones are a tradition from being in a pro studio so you could hear the director. In radio it was so you could hear the song cues with the studio monitors turned off. In a home studio, the only thing to listen for is the sound of your own voice and its a misrepresentation of it at that. I say free yourself from monitoring yourself and trust in your set-up. Mouth clicks and clothing rustle are going to be edited out anyway, so stopping your flow and missing a good take I think takes priority. Hear yourself in the true ambiance of your room. Thats what your mic hears. It also prevents latency issues that can confuse the heck out of you. Just my opinion. I haven’t used them for 10 years. I know others like them. But then again, have they ventured outside of this comfort zone and tried it without? How did they sound to others? But, you have to do what’s comfortable to you.
Many professional studios have realized the need for a more natural sound, which the use of headphones can alter, so they’ve gone to squawk boxes.”
Edo Peters – Stunning voice-over talent from the Netherlands chimes in: “If it involves microphones and voices… almost always, maybe except for 5- or 7-voice harmony groups for station ID’s. I like to do some VO jobs without… when voice acting for instance, or I put the volumes real low… If I am tracking instruments I hardly ever wear headphones.”
Howard Ellison – Spunky character voice talent from England adds: “Good topic. My answer, on voice alone, is yes and no. If it’s dramatic, loud and let-go, I find cans inhibiting. For something informative, or quiet (where there’s more chance of mouth noises becoming prominent) it’s on with the fancy hat. In the British winter, it does keep the ears warm.
For getting a mix right, a speaker is still best even though much of the audience will be ear-budded.”
Teg Gray – warm friendly voice actor from Wisconsin says: “It depends on what I’m doing. If I’m doing an audiobook that has characters in it, I don’t use them as they become distracting. They are also a hindrance if I become physically animated in my read. If I’m doing short form or commercial reads I generally use them. I always use them when editing for detecting breaths and mouth noises.”
Monty Lewis Sauerwein – warm movie trailer voice from Spain writes: “For me- not usually. I find that if one has a good set of monitors say like the Rokit 5´s which I have I don´t really need them. The idea behind the cans is that you shut out external noise in order to hear the audio in isolation. If I use cans (headphones) while recording- my mind kind of shifts and I tend to over act or push the voice more than I would naturally. For me, it is more psychological.
There are of course times when headphones are needed, say in an environment outside the studio- but that’s why I build a sound studio and booth so that I have control over my environment.
Now, I am certain others will have a different take on this.
Patrick Howard Fraley – voice-over instructor and coach from Hollywood, California mentions: “Everyone has an opinion, so here’s my “rant” on headphones:
1. Recording and listening to yourself perform at the same time is like acting in front of a mirror.
2. Performers either hate their own voice or love it. If it’s the latter, you end up sounding like a parakeet pecking a mirror until it’s beak falls off. “Pretty Baby! Pretty Baby!”
3. If the volume being fed into your headphones is too low, you will compensate by being louder and vice versa.
4. If you are doubling as your own engineer, allow yourself the luxury of being a performer, then engineer. You don’t need to split your focus between performing and listening for a popped “p” at the same time.
There are two positive things headphones do for a performer. One is to boost a bit of confidence. You hear your amplified voice coming back and it kind of makes you feel like you “belong” in front of a mic. You can accomplish this “boost” by hearing your voice more like others do. Cup your hands around your ears – create “elephant ears” with your hands. You will be surprised at how hearing your voice more than feeling the vibrations will make a difference. The other benefit is when you need to sound as if you are in love with your voice. Some performances of “trailer” and “promo” jobs require this sound and approach.
Beau Weaver – professional voice talent speaker for film and television from Los Angeles, California states: “Using headphones is great if you want to continue sounding like a radio guy rather than a voice actor. Listening to yourself perform creates a feedback loop that takes you out of the moment, and puts you in the position of judging and producing your performance while you are doing it. This is why radio guys sound like radio guys. Unless it is required to hear a remote director or another talent…..taking the headphones off is the most important thing a voice talent can do…..unless he wants to continue sounding like a radio guy.”
Using Headphones While Recording Voiceovers Conclusion
It was really nice to speak to and connect with other fellow voice over actors from around the world to get their take on using headphones. I guess the answer lies within YOU whether you feel it’s best to use them or not.
As far as MY take on voice actors wearing headphones, I would have to agree with a few others, that it really depends on what you’re recording. I mainly do not use the headphones because I believe it’s all about the confidence, that I will read, record and deliver an excellent audio piece for my clients. I know where I stand when recording audio and video projects and I tend to let my voice BELT OUT when reading announcer voice projects. Taking into consideration to what Patrick Fraley mentioned earlier, “If the volume being fed into your headphones is too low, you will compensate by being louder and vice versa. If your headphones are set to LOUD, you may speak quieter, getting a more lower decibel record level.
If you weren’t one of the previous voice actors who gave advice, please comment below on what YOU think.
Voice Over Tips & Tricks 5-21-2012
Voice Over Tips & Tricks 5-21-2012
Brad Dassey Voice Overs
The BEST Voice For Promos and Commercials
http://www.facebook.com/braddassey
May 21, 2012
What type of voice over equipment do you need for your voice over studio?
So, you’re probably asking, “what type of equipment do I need for my voice over studio?” The answer is simple. Voice over equipment that is affordable, but quality. You want to have HIGH QUALITY voice overs when doing the voiceovers because for instance, if someone hires you to record their next audio/video project, it has to be the best of the best. If it’s a crappy Wal-mart computer microphone, chances are, they won’t be back to hire you again. If you want a personal recommendation on voice over equipment, contact me through my website, http://www.bestpromovoiceovers.com and I will be sure to give you an AWESOME recommendation for under $700 dollars.
“I’m just starting out in voice over, what do I need to do first?”
So, you’re just starting out in the voice over industry and don’t know where to start. First of all, RELAX, you’re NOT going to start getting gigs over night. And NO, if you join a talent agency, the voice work is NOT going to just start FLOWING in. It takes real SKILL and TALENT to do voice overs and to acquire that skill, it takes time, patience and PRACTICE! And LOTS of it!
3 Things You Will Learn When Just Starting Out In The Voiceover Industry:
The few things I’ve learned in my recent years of doing voiceover is that you have to be PROFESSIONAL. Even if you do an audition for someone and they turn you down, STILL, treat them with kindness because you never know if they will come back a week, a month, a year later and re-consider. If you treat them badly for what seems to be, “wasting your time,” chances are, they’ll NEVER be back again.
Another thing I’ve learned in voice over, is that you want to HELP the customers with their scripts. Offer suggestions to BETTER the script, to STRENGTHEN the script. You want to show your customers you mean BUSINESS, right? Chances are, if you go above and beyond the call of duty to write an AMAZING script for your new client, chances are, they’ll be back, plus, tell all of their friends how awesome you are.
Lastly, one of the most valuable things I’ve learned in voice over is that you have to just be YOURSELF. If you try to sound like the next guy, or a famous movie actor when you know you’re NOT, chances are, you’ll sound like a fool and the sound won’t come out right. You can’t be practicing your Don LaFontaine movie trailer voice when you really don’t HAVE one to begin with. And NO, getting a, “Don Lafontaine movie trailer voice changer isn’t going to work, either. You want to be a STRAIGHT shooter, right? Of course. Just act NATURAL, be YOURSELF.
So, that’s all I have for giving you voice over tips and tricks for now. There’s no REAL secret to voiceovers, just act natural, be yourself and learn anything and everything you can. There is a LOT of free information out there to learn from, so do the research, practice, practice, practice! I’m not going to bore you with a 10 page essay on how to do voice overs, so every week or so, I’ll be offering tips and advice on how to advance you to the next stage.
How to practice voiceovers:
As far as leaving you with one last piece of voice over advice, practice reading EVERYTHING. When you walk through the grocery store, read the signs posted, read them in a unique way to yourself. Maybe even out loud, but make sure you don’t sound crazy to the guy standing next to you.
Write up a fake script or find voice over practice scripts online for free. Read them, get familiar with them. As I mentioned, it takes real SKILL to be a professional voice over actor and you’re going to need LOTS and LOTS of PRACTICE. You might as well start NOW.
Once you record your voiceover and THINK you have it down, wait about an hour or so and come back and RE-LISTEN to it again… Chances are, it probably still sounds HORRIBLE.
Another thing you can do is LISTEN to all the TV Ads on television, or the RADIO ads on the radio. See how THEY sound and try and match the same tones and inflections in your voice, as theirs.
Don’t worry, you’re just starting out in voice over and you’re not going to become a famous voice actor over night…
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Brad Dassey Voice Over Blog Welcome
Hey, thanks for checking out my blog! Consider this blog a useful guide to learn more about voice overs, tips and tricks, overall cool stuff in life! You’re going to want to bookmark this site so you can check back from week to week as I write about different topics and ideas. I’ll admit, some blogs will be very useful information, some blogs may just be boring old thoughts or ideas that I think might be cool. Either way, thanks for stoppin’ by! Maybe I’ll be seein’ more of you, soon.
American Male Voice Over Talent | Brad Dassey 