Voice Over Artist | Lindsay Abbott

Posts Tagged ‘Radio Ads’

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!…

An insight into the world of the working voice over artist!

Ever wondered what we voice over artist peeps actually do? What does it involve? I’ve often been asked this by a whole range of people, including professionals in the corporate and creative worlds, but also friends and other people I meet on a daily basis. I think people think that we just wait for the phone to ring, someone picks us up in a taxi and off we speed to the studio to speak a few words and then whoosh! We’re whisked away again, and get paid a fortune….yeah right…:>) Well, I thought I would give you an insight into one of my weeks recently…

I voiced a complete array of projects:

The Commercial voice over

Provided the voice over for a commercial which needed to be voiced, edited and returned to the client within hours.

Audio book character voice over

I already had an Audio Book project booked in to record that week, a really interesting and fun project, and I always enjoy doing Audio Books . This involved devising 2 female character voices for a fully dialogued audio book, one young girl, and a middle aged Queen with a post-nasal drip – lovely, I get all the glamorous jobs!

Educational voice over

I then had some short phrases/passages to record for a long term ongoing educational media project.

Online web video voice over

I voiced an online web infomercial , on a client’s product range, involving mapping/editing my voice to their Web Video – not as easy as it sounds! In between projects when I had a moment, I voiced short web videos on a large scale, promoting client properties – exhausting!

Radio Advert voice over

There was one radio advert in my inbox, asking me to be the voice over for a short advert. Now, with radio ads, you need to be on the ball, and be able to turn these around fast.

Corporate / technical voice over

What often happens is that you get last minute requests (Fridays seem to be popular), such as voicing a Corporate DVD / Web Video – a very technical read, full of awkward jargon, names and places, and requiring accurate pronunciation skills, and a reasonable level of intelligence to understand it and assimilate the information as quickly as poss! Technical reads invariably take slightly longer because of this. Sometimes they film the video and then decide they need a voice over – but yesterday – in steps moi!

That lovely, glamorous voice over studio booking!

Wah hey, here we go, that lovely studio booking I mentioned at the start of this post,when you imagine we get booked just like that, whisked off in a taxi, have everyone tell us how wonderful we are, give us coffee and buns, then say just a few words into the microphone and get paid a fortune? Having got the booking we get ourselves to the studio and even get a coffee and biscuits but then it’s a full day of focus and concentration. We do get lunch and plenty of breaks, which is always welcome – and necessary to keep the energy and concentration going!

Voice over enquiries and quotes

In between all of this there is answering enquiries, providing quotes, one being for a TV commercial on Channel 4 (TV Commercials are great jobs to bag!), plus the ongoing self-promotion that we have to do as a one person business: that’s marketing, including your website/blog , and networking activities – both online and face-to-face, getting out there face-to-face meeting people.

Admin admin admin!

Every time you do a job of course, you need to invoice the client and chase payments. For this, you need to have good admin and organisational skills to keep on top of it.

Managing/working the voice over recording facilities!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I also have my own recording and editing facilities, and there are always new things to learn on the editingfront. Having some teccie/sound production skills is a bonus here!

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There, I hope this has given you an insight into a voice over artist’s world. There can be a lot of variety and many interesting voice over projects to become involved with, and it can be a great life.

And one last thing, don’t think that things always run as smoothly as that particular week; sometimes it can be like the Marie-Celeste – is there anybody there??! When the only ringing sound you’ll hear in your ears is definitely not the phone – it’s that old actors adage ‘my agent thinks I’m dead’!