Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Improving Your Voiceover Odds

By Jeremiah Prewett


Out of all the difficult methods of generating cash nowadays - let's face it, commercial voiceover work isn't one of them. You rock up in the studio, have a cappuccino, do the gig and bam, half an hour later, you're cooked.

And for that "mammoth" effort you get a few hundred to a few thousand bucks, based on the job.

There are a number of things for you to do to improve your chances of success in this game. Here is really a list of general things that the successful voiceover artist knows. To give yourself the very best opportunity of good results, attempt to follow as numerous of these points as possible. Really - scrap that. Try to follow ALL of these points.

1. Is your demo good enough?

You can promote yourself as much as you like - but at the end of the day, it comes down to your demo. You are competing with some extremely talented people available. An "ok" demo isn't great enough. See page 10 for how you can cut a great demo.

2. Call back immediately.

In the event you get a message that someone is trying to book you for a gig, don't wait a minute. Ad agencies are generally up against extremely tight deadlines, and if you take too long getting back to them, they'll merely book somebody who is answering their phone.

3. It takes time.

It can take a while to break into this company. If you're new, you are not just going to obtain booked on day 1. It'll only be following you have carried out a few gigs (successfully) that people will start booking you once more and once more. So do not go beating your self up if the phone's not hopping.

4. Get some training.

If you are inexperienced, try to go on a training course. It's a small investment in comparison towards the amount of cash you can make doing voiceovers.

5. Choose someone's brain.

If you are inexperienced, go for coffee having a more experienced VO and pick their brain. Ask them every thing about what to anticipate whenever you do a gig - from the minute you walk in towards the minute you leave. Sometimes just knowing what to expect will calm the nerves when you are performing your 1st gig. You can also take a couple of scripts along to this coffee and ask them to crit you doing a read. See page ten for more info on obtaining material together.

6. Listen to the radio.

Invest half an hour a day listening to existing radio advertisements, and giving them a bash your self (out loud, and preferably to a guinea pig). This really is imperative and also the absolute least you are able to do to obtain a bit of practice.

7. Get a Dictaphone.

Purchase your self a Dictaphone and recite and record scripts for practice. (Some mobile phones also have voice recorders.) Sometimes it's incredible how excellent some thing sounds inside your own head, but only once you hear it out loud are you able to really determine which bits require enhancing.

This is fantastic exercise - schedule ten minutes each day to practice. http://www.piehole.co.uk and http://www.piehole.ie are two leading voice more than websites. They are independent directories of voiceovers in UK and Ireland and are created by copywriters, for copywriters.




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