How to Hire a Voice Over Talent
by D.C. Douglas
Published on this site: November 30th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
It's not just commercials on television and radio that need
actors to read information off-camera. There are a myriad
of ways to use voice to educate, inform, guide, entertain,
and, of course, sell. Places where you can use voice over
talent include PowerPoint presentations, training videos,
eLearning courses,flash introductions, voice mail greetings, on-hold advertisements
and website audio messages.
So, look at your media and if you would like to add some zip
to your presentations then find a competent voice over talent.
Here are vital steps that you should take to get the right
voice for your job.
- Search for a Voice Over Specialist Online
You are looking for that perfect voice. Where can you find
it? If you are a big company or an advertising agency then
you will probably turn to a big talent agency to offer voice
over talent for your project. Alternatively, large agencies
and companies use www.voicebank.net . This site feeds a
description of your need to all the big agencies.
However, if you are a small company you will not be able
to afford the union fees that are added on to the cost of
hiring actors and voice talent via an agency. Your best
alternative is to search online for a free-lance voice over
specialist.
Voice 123.com and InteractiveVoices.com are the two main
casting portals for voice over. The good news about these
sites is that there are thousands of voices in one place.
The bad news is that there are thousands of voices in one
place!
The problem is of course to find the voice that is best
for you.
The voice over portals have a filtering tool so you can
find people who have ISDN or home MP3 studios, who can do
kids voices or senior citizen voices, etc. However, because
these sites are so large, anybody who has ever wanted to
do voice over, regardless if they have talent, can sign
up and clog your inbox with their bad auditions.
You can widen your choices by searching on Google or Yahoo
for "voice over talent." This search will bring
up top quality voice over actors’ sites. Usually the
very successful voice over artists don't use the voice over
portals mentioned above, but just rely on word-of-mouth
and the traffic that comes to their well-ranked web sites.
I've been doing voice over for 20 years here in Los Angeles,
and I rely on the search engines to bring me serious clients.
So, browse the sites and email those whom you'd like to
audition for your job.
- After you have found many voices, you need to choose
the best one.
When business folks step into the hybrid world of art and
business, they need a way to discern what they are looking
for.
Just because a voice sounds smooth or really deep, doesn't
mean it will be right for your project. Who is your market?
What do they sound like? That's a good starting point. Find
a voice that sounds like your market.
Once you do that, the next question is, do they sound like
they know what they are saying when they read your copy?
Are they convincing? Are they natural? Did they follow your
directions? If you said in your audition request "need
you to be casual" and their recording has them bold
and loud, then you might want to avoid them.
- Determine if the quality of their home recording is
up to professional standards. A good voice recorded badly
helps no one.
Once you've clarified these things, the right choice will
be apparent.
Finally, the last step is to negotiate a price.
Sure, some voice over talent will work for $50. If you find
a good voice over talent who will work for that, then their
audition was luck, not talent. Any voice over talent worth
their salt usually works for fees that hover just under
the union minimums. Your savings comes from not having to
pay residuals, agency commissions and contributing to the
pension and healthcare. You can find union minimums at www.sag.org.
And last, but not least, be nice to the talent. They work
alone in dark booths all day!
D.C. Douglas is a professional actor and voice
over talent based in Los Angeles, California. Visit his website
at http://www.myvoiceoverguy.com
for more information.
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