Order of Events
So you’ve decided to make commercial voice over demo! Where ever you are in your voice over career, there’s nothing more exciting than a new demo to get a voice actor going! So when I, as the coach and demo producer, get the call from a voice talent, it’s my job to assess where they are in terms of demo readiness. If another establish talent who is working as long as I have calls, they can go straight to demo. If a newbie calls it is obvious they will need coaching. But there is a vast grey area in between a working professional voice actor and someone completely new, so how do I assess what my clients need? Ultimately, no one goes to demo unless they are ready to book work at the time the demo is complete.
When A Some One New To Voice Over Needs a Demo
When someone brand new to voiceover calls or emails, after our initial consultation, I like to send them an audition script to read to get a baseline idea of where they are starting. From that, I can best assess approximately how many sessions it will take to get them demo ready. Some people are fast learners and they only need a handful of lessons. Others take substantially more time. Here are some factors that influence how quickly you can get to your demo:
- How much time do you have to practice?
- How much time do you have to listen to other samples and repeat them?
- Have you acted before?
- Have you taken improv classes?
- Do you sing?
- Are you a good listener?
- How determined are you to reach your goals?
- How good are you at following directions?
- How often can you meet?
As the answers to these questions very so much from voice student to voice student, the results vary. In general, when a voice actor reaches out and wants to do a demo, they are pretty determined to make it happen and that determination and passion leads to success.
When Some One With Moderate Experience Needs a Demo
In the past month, I have had two clients with acting and entertainment experience who were new to voice over reach out for demos. Again, both were given baseline reads to asses. Both were amazing. You’d think they’d been in voice over for years. Even without coaching, as one had stage and vocal training and the other had on-camera tv experience, their instincts of what to do with the script lead to a natural, authentic, solid read that would be bookable if they submitted.
When someone like that reaches out, I am comfortable moving forward with the demo, as my demo packages include the necessary coaching to prepare the demo. Whether a client chooses the full video package or an audio only package, their script selection and work on those scripts is included in our process. My goal is for them to have an amazing, jaw dropping commercial demo that shows their range as a voice over actor, so we choose spots that demonstrate this range.
When an Experienced Voice Actor Needs a Demo
When a working voice talent needs a demo, again, we can move forward with script selection and a process that showcases their range and strengthens their business’ brand. I work hard not only to bring scripts that enable voice actors to target aspirational clients and showcase their capabilities, but also to have the demos be a reflection of what the talents value, care about and matter. The demo prep process is collaborative and the voice talent’s personality and opinion matters greatly.
Again, the demo packages all include the necessary demo prep, so whether you have been in voice over six months or six years, come demo recording day, my job is to make the demo client shine. I work really hard in the time leading up to the demo to flesh out the nuances of the scripts and talk about the different possibilities so that when the day comes to record the demo client is ready.
My Philosophy About the Demos
I believe a demo is an opportunity. A good, solid demo gives you a chance to market yourself to potential clients and them what you can do for them. Particularly when you are new to voiceover, a video demo gives you and instant body of work to market that you would not have. If you have been in voice over and a reaching out to video production companies, it is just logical that people connect best in the medium that they work in: video. So, why not give them the content the way they like seeing it? If you are doing an audio only demo, that demo has to be amazing. Every spot has to show a range and the demo cannot be too long. They have to be attention getting and leave the listener wanting more. I also believe demos should last for many years and should not be dated, so finding content that the client will not age out of and that will not date the demo is of the utmost importance.
from the US and Canada. Our focus was on marketing, and even as a panel member, it really got my wheels turning. I could not help but think of the specificity of my recent outreach, especially in eLearning. I have worked so hard to build my business as an eLearning narrator, and I think in order to really reach prospects, you need to think about who you are working with. From the very beginning of the process through the completion of the booked work, understanding your audience is essential to success as a working female narrator in eLearning.
Social media content, across platforms, needs to have the target audience in mind as well. This can be a bit trickier, as it is harder to control who sees your posts. You can, however, try to catch the eye of a specific group of clients or prospects by being clever about your target audience. If, for example, you are posing on Instagram and you want to reach out to instructional designers, both the content you use and the tags that you include in your post matters. Another way to grab your audience is to tag influencers and professionals in that field. Quote them. Have a conversation about them. If you want to work in eLearning, you need to be part of the dialogue.
When you book an eLearning job, understanding the audience or the enduser is so important. For example, I was recently cast in a training for a local hospital: RWJ St. Barnabas, right here in NJ. It was a caller training. When I first read through the script, in my practice read, I sounded warm, gracious, and welcoming. I then re-read my roll: “Bad Caller.” I was the example of what not to do. Everything I just rehearsed had to be thrown out the window and the opposite read was needed. I was talking to the same people, but I was the example of what not to do, and I had to be the best “Bad Caller” they ever heard. Your job as an eLearning narrator is to make it obvious. They should not have had to figure out what was wrong with my phone skills, so I had to make every effort to clearly connect with the listener. Keeping the audience in mind should inform and transform every eLearning performance.
Voice over is a competitive industry, and being a professional female voice over who books mostly commercials and eLearning is something I am very proud of, but it takes daily effort- all day. Every day. I often work weekends. I often work odd hours. And every time I do, I am proud because it means that my small business is succeeding. In order to stay on top of my VO game, it seems like December is the perfect time to reflect on what is working and what could work better. After all, if I’m going to devote to much of my life to pursuing this passion, I want to do as well as I possibly can in voiceover.
Auditions
My recent commercial booking for JP Morgan makes for a great case study in voice over bookings. As a professional voice actor, every booking makes us happy, but when the producer emailed me about these radio spots, his explanation was interesting. I was cast directly without auditioning. He did not mention my voice. Nor did he mention my demos. In this instance, it was a matter of scheduling and availability. As I work full-time, they needed someone who could accommodate a live session at a specific time, which turned out to be 11 a.m. on a Friday morning, and he needed to confirm that I was available. The timing, in this scenario, was the most important question I was asked. The producer got back to me and confirmed that I had indeed booked two spots and it was a go. I was delighted.
I prepare for every single session, whether I am self-directing or in a live session. Part of my prep is administrative. I take some time to log the job in my CRM and create the invoice. I then print a large print version of the script using my preferred font. Then, prior to marking up the script, I spend a bit of time researching the brand and their other ads. Interestingly, JP Morgan and Chase are linked. As a client, when I log in for my JP morgan account I also log into my chase account. Well, at the moment, the below Chase spot is the most sought after read in a long time. Clients often request this as the benchmark for tone, style, and pacing, so I had this in mind going into my session for sure.
I think the start of a live session is really important. There happened to be a lot of people on this call. In addition to the producer, there were several people from the Spotify team and several people from the JP Morgan Team, including the scrip writer. In my mind looking back here were at least eight people on the session. It is my job to make them happy and to make them comfortable. I try to use the time at the start of the session to let them know that my feelings are not a factor, and that the only thing that would upset me would be for them to know have exactly what they need at the end of the call. I try to have friendly banter, but I want them to know and to be comfortable that I will give them whatever they need, and that it is not about me, it is about them. I think there are a few precious moments to establish this rapport and set the tone.
With so many on the call, there can be a lot of side chats during a directed session to make sure everybody has the takes that they want. This team was fantastic. They gave very clear direction and it was easy to take their feedback and run with it. They also all remembered to mute themselves while I was recording, which makes everything seamless. In this session, I read the first script all the way through three times. They gave me feedback. I again did three takes, and then we did some variations of the lines. Then, after the line reads, we did the whole script again. It really came together nicely. It was also super exciting to use Zoom’s audio share feature to play back the audio for the clients during the session so that they could mark the takes that they liked and we could also check the timing of the spots. Then we moved on to the next script, and worked through it the same way. The second one went a little faster as I understood what they were looking for from the first spot. All in all, the group was great to work with. For me, because JP Morgan is my bank and I use the app, it was easy to see the product and be enthusiastic about it because I actually enjoy the very features I was describing.
I am often asked whether I prefer live sessions or self directing. The answer is really that it depends. I love self directing because it gives me a chance to be creative and a freedom to interpret the texts in front of me. I can explore my imagination and see where it goes. The downside, of course, is that there is always a chance of missing the mark and not giving the client what they need. With live sessions, I love the creative collaboration. I love working with other people. When I have the opportunity to work with the people who created the product or the people who wrote the script, I get a higher level of understanding and can often bring more nuance to the read. So, the answer is still: I depends.
A professional talent has an abundance of testimonials. Period. They should have them proudly displayed on their website, on LinkedIn, on whatever Pay to Plays they are on, and likely they share them on social media. Testimonials are not difficult to get. Happy clients who have just received pristine audio are typically delighted to provide them. My very first voice coach, Anne Ganguzza, told me how important it was to get testimonials! She asked for one from me about our work and gave me my very fist one. A voice actor without testimonials is likely not a professional voiceover actor.
What I explained to Liz, and what is interesting, is that during the Pandemic I continue to book what I have always booked, there is just less of it. So what am I still booking? Commercials, eLearning, and telephony/IVR. For me, the amount of jobs I typically have in a day or even half a day on some weeks I am having total in a week. I am thankful for every single booking, but the volume of booked work for me during the pandemic has gone down. Typically, I do a lot of radio commercials. The commercials I have booked this month have been radio commercials. They have been from steady clients who continue to send work. Some are for clients here and some have been for clients abroad, as far as New Zealand.