Voice Over Artist | Lindsay Abbott

This is designed to give you some easy to follow steps to think about in ascertaining the type of voice you need to fit your target market if you are considering adding a voice over to your video. This is irrespective of whether you are intending to use a professional voice over artist, or your own company representative…

1 . Keep your audio message simple

The trick with your corporate video is to keep your audio message simple; 3 main points should do it. People are more likely to remember them. Nothing new there, but always worth mentioning, as the easiest thing to do is to try and cram everything we possibly want to achieve in the one session – if this has happened to you, don’t worry, it’s completely normal! Think of it just as you would a presentation that you’ve written to lecture/present and then realise you’ve only got 10 minutes and not the 20 minutes you were expecting – we’ve all been there!

2. Make your text sound right

When writing your script, remember that this will be voiced, not read. How will it sound? Read it through aloud first. Try to avoid too many plosives ‘p’ ‘b’ sounds in one clump as this can be clumsy for the voiceover or whoever is speaking it, and jarring to the listener. Whilst most voice overs are trained and experienced to overcome these, they can still sound clumsy if there are too many in a row!  If you are doing the voice over yourselves, then just give this some thought.

Keep the sentences reasonably short. Basically, use good grammar. This makes the piece flow more readily. If you’re uncomfortable about this, either your video producer or voice over artist can help you edit it.

3. Match the text to the video in the right order!

You’ll be surprised the number of pieces I’ve been given to voice at the outset that don’t match the visual and have to go back to the drawing board!  Sometimes this is because the person putting the video together is not writing the script and never the Twain shall meet – so do ensure communication between the two to enable both visual and audio content matches.

Checking this beforehand can save you time and money, particularly if using the services of a voice over artist; they are likely to charge for a re-take if it relates to a script change. Aside from this, I personally offer re-takes/tweaks to my own completed voice over work completely free of charge to make sure you are totally happy, within reason of course!

Text-to-visual ratio

Make sure that there is enough time to voice the text in relation to the video. This also depends on the pace/speed at which you would like the voice over read.

4. How to select the voice for your project

In my article How to improve voice production in your company’s internet video we acknowledged that the sound and tone of the voice is greater than the actual content of the words used - 38% sound compared to 7% words. The greatest impact of course is the visual aspect of your video!  Even so, at 38% we cannot underestimate the power of using the right voice. If you can get the right sound as well as the visual, this gives you a whopping great 93% impact, even without factoring in the content of the words you use!

One of my clients, Jay Blake of Ichthus Video , in his blog post  Project Planning – Who is going to be watching that video? looked at establishing your target audience when creating your corporate or website video.

Once you’ve decided on your target audience, try to find a voice who has the type of vocal qualities you think will convey your message that will appeal to them.  It can work really well if they have not only the vocal skills to carry it through, but have the right type of voice for the piece.

Think about this..who or what are you trying to appeal to?:

• Demographic?
• Age group?
• Males/females?
• Personality types?
• Corporate or domestic?
• Family-orientated?
• Independent, singles?
• To engender trust?
• To enhance credibility?

Then there’s vocal style to consider. Are you aiming for:

• Warm?
• Relaxed/chilled out?
• Smooth, silky?
• Hip/trendy/funky/cool?
• Quirky?
• Conversational/real/down to earth?
• Corporate-professional?
• Authoritative/gravitas/credibility?
• Classy?
• Caring?
• Motherly/mumsy?
• Sexy?
• Full of testosterone alpha male?
• Class-bound?
• Positive, upbeat?
• Humorous?
• Nerdy?

It can of course be a combination of any of these!

Pace

Is there an urgency to the message – is it time-limited -a sale or promotion for instance? – do you want to up the energy to get people’s attention, or the complete opposite – is it a service or product that is designed to induce relaxation/de-stress which might perhaps warrant a smooth, relaxing, chilled out tone to it?  If it has an extreme of pace then remember to check this fits with your video!

5. Consider post-production at the outset

Voice-to-visual mapping

Who will be adding the voice over to the video?  This can either be your video production company or, if you are doing this in-house, it is invariably your IT specialist.  Alternatively for example, as a voice over artist with my own studio, I have been known to save either party a bit of time by matching the voice over to the client’s video if required and the video is available, although not all voice over artists offer this service.

Music?

Do you want music added in the background? If so, what style? Your video producer should be able to advise you and give you some options. This can improve the flow of the piece. Royalty free music can be acquired through either your video production company, or your voice over artist, no problem.

Sound mix

Your video producer should check with you as to the kind of quality of sound you are looking to achieve on your video. The visual of course makes the greatest impact; however, audio comes a reasonable second behind it  and so this is important too. For example, are you looking for a bright, clean sound, or something warmer, richer? These effects can generally be achieved, just ask them! Don’t under-estimate the importance of getting the sound mix right – it adds professional polish to the rest of your video, and particularly for auditory learning folk, as they in particular will notice this.

Summary

1. Keep your message simple
2. Make your text sound right
3. Match the text to the video and in the right order!
4. Selecting the right voice for your target market
5. Consider post-production details to add that final professional polish

Lindsay was recently the voice over artist for this entry in the MOFILM Tribeca Film Contest 2010 under TV Commercials / Advertising, Lamasil brand sponsored category. Called Happy Feet, it was produced by Oliver Denman and, although we’ve just heard that it missed out on being the winning entry, it was a great project to become involved in. Watch out for Oliver Denman in the future. The awards ceremony was held in New York with guest star Susan Sarandon. Here’s the commercial, love the soldiers Oliver!:

As well as being brilliant to work with, she has her own studio too!

Oliver Denman

You can read more about the Tribeca Film Festival here in the New York Times :

How to become a voice over artist – Part 3: marketing your voice over business – what you need to do

Introducing ‘Aggie’, your friendly on-hold voice over service!

Meet Aggie, who represents one of my comedy on-hold message offerings for those quirky souls out there who want something a bit different!

Bespoke on-hold messages like these can be recorded especially for you. This showreel is for basic demonstration purposes, but I normally work in conjunction with Media Music Now, who will make me sound extra special, and add appropriate royalty-free music for you. Just ask!

Just released the following NEW voice over showreels, hot off the press!:

Commercials

Characters, celebrity impressions, accents, age ranges

Corporate

Plus…a new House Reel – highlights from most of the areas of work that I do – worth a listen if you just want a quick overview of my range or versatility.

To listen to other available demos, just use the download facility on the right-hand side of this page, or click on the Demos tab above.

Many thanks to Lee at Media Music Now for the music mix.

My voice over colleague Anthony Richardson and I travelled up to the Hinckley Island Hotel for the annual voice over and radio industry event VOX 2010. The Barcelo Hinckley Island Hotel is an impressive place, beautifully designed, which we appeared to be sharing with a murder mystery weekend and a backgammon convention! As soon as we got there, we checked in, registered with sponsors Voiceovers.co.uk and excitedly collected our goodie bags.

After we’d located our accommodation, which was also fab, we headed for the VOX demos desk, where we added our own demos/cards etcetera, whilst greeting voice over colleagues. Voice over work is one of those professions where many of us kind of know each other and may even have worked with them, but not necessarily met in the flesh, so this was a great opportunity! Saw several voice over Twitter colleagues, such as Mike Cooper, Natalie Cooper, Jon Lovell, Posy Brewer, Julie-Ann Dean, Marian Kemmer and others that I’d never met before, which was great.

Before we headed to the bar, we checked out dinner arrangements for the evening, with the table names named after X Factor finalists. Ant and I found ourselves on Rhydian and Shayne Ward respectively, although I secretly wanted to be on Chico’s as I always had a soft spot for him! Was going to be sharing a table with my Twitter buddy Natalie, but also the great Patrick Lunt. The room was already spectacularly laid out, so this was going to be something to look forward to later…but first, we headed for the bar, where an increasing number of voice over and radio industry peeps were arriving in droves waving their £20 notes in the air hot from their latest radio adverts to the befuddled barmen who probably wondered what on earth had hit them – it was only 1:30pm and some were already on their 2nd or 3rd glass of wine by the time we got there! Catching up with colleagues and meeting new ones over a wee drink of a Saturday afternoon and swapping voice over stories is a very pleasant experience! We don’t get let out of our booths very often! Anyone heard the number ‘This is our once a year day’ from The Pajama Game? If you do, then you’ll know what I mean..!

A quick gathering up of our newly re-vamped demo CDs, off we headed at our allotted times to the speed networking event; a quick fire whistle stop meet n greet of major radio producers, all in good spirits (!). Rotating in a clockwise fashion, I was to follow Marian Kemmer – oh how we all laughed as the whistle kept going with seemingly increasing frequency! It was an exhausting whirlwind and, even though we got a short break in the middle during the rotation, a dehydrated colleague hastily opened a bottle of sparkling water, which gave me an unexpected shower and I barely had time to utter the words ‘spray that again would you?’ before the whistle went again for me to meet my next producer, somewhat moist – marvellous!

Back to the bar…oh dear, what a terrible life we voice overs lead…we passed Peter Dickson checking the evening’s table plan on the way and looking bemused to have landed the Jedward table, and then quick change into the frock for the VOX 2010 awards taking place in the marble hallway just prior to dinner. These awards go to those involved in producing the best radio commercials during the past year, from writers, production houses to even us voice over artists. I don’t think I won anything, but it was difficult to tell, as we couldn’t really hear above everyone chattering away excitedly.

Superb dinner was had on Shayne Ward’s table (I hear someone had second helpings of everything from a no-show on their table, not mentioning any names…). Chatted amidst dodging buzzy flying balloons from far flung corners of the room, then we sat back to watch the VOX Factor karaoke event, hosted by Peter Dickson, another ‘ruddy’ voice over off that X Factor thingy… Some gallant participants, Pete Cousins was robbed of the bottle of bubbly star prize.

We strutted our stuff on the disco floor or mingled with colleagues until late before turning in…Oh my word, the bar was open until breakfast for us peeps…not sure if anyone lasted the full course! All good, clean fun..literally..what a relief fizzy water doesn’t stain… Until this time next year, folks!…

What types of people make good voice over artists?

Vocal Technique

This is an audio version of my Becoming a Voice Over - It’s Easy – ‘innit?! blog post. It is in 3 parts, this is Part 1, focusing on vocal technique:

Lindsay Abbott’s Voice Over Audio Boos!

I’ve just launched my own Audio Boos section on this website, which you can download and listen to as audio files. The first set of Audio Boos are an audio version (in 3 parts) of my recent blog post Becoming a Voice Over Artist: It’s Easy – ‘innit?! .

Tips for aspiring voice over artists

Judging by the number of enquiries I get from would-be voice over artists, it must sound very appealing from the outside! Doesn’t it just involve speaking into a microphone after all, oh we can all do that can’t we? “That sounds like a jolly good wheeze, how do I become one, I’ve often been told I have a good voice?!” I’ve lost count the number of people who have approached me with that line, so I thought it would be worth while writing this blog post to provide some helpful tips…

Voice over technique

There is quite a lot of vocal technique involved in becoming a voice over artist in the first place, which most people are unaware of. Having a lay person tell you that ‘you have a good voice’ is not enough – get an expert to listen to a demo and work from any feedback you get.

Record yourself and listen to it back – what does it really sound like amplified? Once recorded and amplified there is no hiding place for imperfections! When we speak live in real time, people don’t notice these, but it can be a very different matter once recorded! Equally, some people can sound dramatically different on recorded media than they do in real life, which can be a bonus or a disaster!

Learn how to project the voice and develop good listening skills as to what comes out the other end once its amplified. You’ll need to learn how to develop your microphone technique to deal with plosives, popping and the like. How to avoid ‘wet’ noises from too much moisture in the mouth etcetera – these sounds magnify once amplified and are incredibly difficult to edit out as they’re embedded in the sound. Do you have even vocal dynamics when you speak? – do you push certain sounds forward too much, which can be jarring to the listener? Do you have control of your sibilants? Any imperfections become magnified, so you need to learn to rid yourself of as many as possible in order to become a good voice over artist. Even though I’ve been providing voice overs for some time now, I still learn something new everyday, so there are always things to aim for.

Interpreting the client’s brief is important, as is taking direction. You need to be able to read off the page quickly and be able to reproduce it so that it not only sounds like you understand what you are saying/talking about, but that the vocal production is something that people would find engaging to listen to – adding vocal colour, vocal timbre, vocal intonation, phrasing – these are all really important, and there’s an art to be able to do this, which can only be developed with practise and over time.

Concentration, focus, and taking direction…

Voice over work involves a lot of focus and concentration, often being asked to come up with a whole range of different vocal types/qualities/accents on your feet. Plus, if you’re recording at a client’s studio, creatives in the adjacent producer’s booth commenting on everything you say, some of it great, some of it blunt and to the point – ‘that voice was crap – can you do it again, but differently?’ not being unheard of. You’ve got to be able to take direction and adapt well on your feet, not take offence – and just get on with it. All this within a sound-proof room which, after a whole day, with little fresh air, will zap all of your energy, but a job done well can be very satisfying!

How did I become a voice over artist in the first place?

People often ask me how come I was able to get into voice overs? Well, my journey began with a natural affinity with the voice – I then trained as a classical singer, and morphed from that into musical theatre, and latterly jazz and swing . I studied Drama & Theatre Arts at university , did my final dissertation on voice production in the theatre and the actor in performance throughout the past few decades. From there, I trained as an actor , and from that point I started doing voice overs, and there are many actors who are also voice over artists for this reason; they’ve already had some training and experience on how to use their voices. Being an actor , however, does not necessarily make a good voice over artist; all of the above and below tips still apply.

Bring something to the voice over party, including credibility…

Now, you don’t all have to go on my journey in order to become a voice over artist, but what you do need is something to bring to the party, as well as giving you some credibility. Likewise, there are several other successful voice over artists out there whose background is in sound or audio production. Again, they have something to bring to the party which helps them understand how it works and how to produce the right sound. Equally, there are broadcasters /journalists/presenters who learn their trade, and have already developed vocal presentation skills to add voice over artist to their portfolio.

The other tip I can give you is to find out your strengths and play to them. Are you particularly good at character voices and/or storytelling? Or are you better at straight reads, rubric, or announcements? Are you better at a hard sell or a soft sell piece? What are your particular vocal qualities? Warm, authoritative, young, mature, funky, quirky etcetera?

Having grasped your technique and discovered more about the sound of your own voice once amplified, then you need a good demo . There are lots of studios who specialise in this.

OK, I’ve got my demo – is that it now? World, come and get me!

Voice over work involves not only learning your craft, juggling several clients at once, admin, but perhaps most importantly of all, marketing your voice over business.

Marketing my voice over business?

Once I’ve set myself up, doesn’t the phone just start ringing then? Isn’t it a question of just doing the voice overs?? Don’t I just get an agent to do all this for me I hear you cry? Well, you could, but getting onto the books of a top voice over agency takes time – the good ones are oversubscribed and places are usually taken by very well established voice over artists, and/or celebrity voices, such as the brilliant Stephen Fry. It’s great to be on their books, but don’t rely on them, otherwise you’ll literally be sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring!

You have to get good at self-promotion, go out there and market yourself, particularly online in this day and age. Make use of social media, such as Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn , and any other relevant listings sites you know of.

You’re essentially running your own voice over business

You’ll need some business skills to start and run your own business. There’s plenty of free advice out there – Business Link is one of them.

Rewards

Voice over work can be feast or famine, just like any business and it can be a great life doing what you love and getting paid for it. Like any business, if you work hard enough at it, you will succeed…however, if you just hang around waiting for the phone to ring to book you for your next voice over job, you might be waiting along time!