- Did your voiceover talent have coaching?
- Do they pursue on-going professional development?
- What is their studio setup/equipment?
- What it their policy on revisions/pickups?
- What is their turnaround time?
Put simply, the answers to these questions will tell you a lot about a potential voice over actor! If you take the time to answer these questions before hiring a voice over talent for your next project, you will avoid a good deal of stress and uncertainty!
Why does it matter whether or not a voice over talent ever worked with a coach? Just as teachers have on-going professional development workshops, doctors go to medical conferences, lawyers must take CLCs, voiceover actors must continually work on their craft. This is in part because the needs and expectations of our industry are constantly changing and in part because we can always improve on our skills. Professional feedback and working with others is the only way to bring out the best in our performances. Voiceover talents who are willing to invest in their training are worth your investment. Voiceover actors who have not committed to their own practice are likely not worth your time either.
Does this voiceover talent pursue ongoing professional development? In a fast-paced, evolving industry that has so many new niches, it is so important for a voiceover coach to take advantage of professional development opportunities. In addition to coaching, there are on-line webinars, accountability partners, voiceover conferences, professional groups, podcasts… the list goes on and on. There are also professional organizations like the eLearning Guild and the Children’s Media Association that voiceover talents often belong to in order to enrich their learning and their networking opportunities. All of this matters very much!
The studio set up of your voiceover talent matters A LOT! While there is not one right microphone or or one go to interface, there are some guidelines that are important. It does matter that your talent have a microphone with an interface and not a USB mic. This all pre-supposes that the voiceover artist has their own studio in the first place which is, of course, essential. Rule out and talent who does not have their own studio. The easiest criteria is to look for WoVo approval of the studio. WoVo is the professional association for voice actors. If the voiceover actor or voice over actress has gone to the trouble of getting WoVo certified, then audio engineers have vetted that talent and their booth is ok to use for your project.
All talents have a policy on pickups and revisions. There is not an industry wide policy, so if it is not made clear in your initial email or phone exchange, simply ask them what their policy is. It is very important that the voice over actress or actor be accessible if you have a last minute script change or if you need a pickup and you need to find out in advance what is included in your initial price and what is not. I cover all performance errors. The cost for revisions varies depending on how much was paid for the job upfront and the size of the revision. It is also always only considered a revision BEFORE the work has aired. Once the work has aired it is a new job. Still, all of this needs to be fleshed out at the start of the job so that you know whether or not you are within budget. The GVAA rate guide is a great way to understand industry standard rates, and from there the talents’ policy should make more sense.
Lastly, you should find out what the voiceover talent’s turn around time is. Some voice over actors accommodate RUSH jobs. That means you will have your finished audio delivered within four hours. Typically, unless you are doing a large eLearning module, a 24 hour turn-around is standard. Still, you should never assume anything. When sending out a job, it is best to tell the talent what you need and ask the talent specifically if they can accommodate that.
The best recipe for success is open communications! While there are no guarantees, voiceover actors are typically friendly, outgoing folks, so the more specific you are from the start, the better your project will be!
While some of us for sure have more comfort in front of the mic than others right from the get go, and some people for sure have natural abilities that come out in one genre of voiceover or another, coaching- or professional lessons in the technique of voiceover, are essential to becoming a professional working voiceover talent.
Perhaps one of the only forms of mental and emotional torture worse than taking my teenage daughter bathing suit shopping is when I enter, quite unknowingly, a technology twilight zone of sorts. Imagine that one minute I am blissfully on the end of an ISDN session and everything is working perfectly, and the next my wave form has shrunk to a quarter of its size, the audio sounds tinny, and the worst part is I did not, in my mind, change a single setting. So, forget going down the rabbit hole of “how did this happen” and let me share some real world strategies to get through this because it will inevitably happen to you so you might as well be prepared.
It’s one of those new buzz words like snap chat and LOL, you hear the term “millennial” everywhere – but just who are we talking about? According to the Pew Center for Research, millennials are defined as people born between 1981-1996, so they are presently between the ages of 22-37.Typically, when advertisers think of this core age group, they think of young, fresh, hip- everything that is au courant. So, what better way to describe my vocal sense than millennial and conversational?
So, what happens when there is some very tricky vocabulary in the copy (that’s voiceover jargon for script.) Sometimes we get lucky and there is a pronunciation guide. Sometimes we are even luckier and someone has thought to attach a recording, especially if there is a regional dialect that effects how the word is pronounced. Other times we are left to figure it out. We can use the dictionary or the internet. Youtube videos can be amazingly helpful.
As a voiceover talent, it is my job to make every word come alive and bring the script to life the way its creator intended. So I have been exposed to some pretty sensational writing, and I can tell you that as of recent sometimes the only word to describe a client who is all kinds of wrong is not even found in the English language. The word we need, instead, is the Hebrew word hutzpah.
There are a few problems with this situation. In order to send Sam walking, I had to have the confidence in myself and my work that I am worth what I know my work to be worth. I am not afraid to maintain my rates. Sadly, in recent weeks, I have gotten responses from these undesirable clients that they have multiple voiceover actors willing to submit at their rates. As long as folks new to the industry are willing to accept these low rates, they undermine the pay for the rest of us. If you are in this category, you might want to check out 
