Read The Art of Voice Acting: the art and business of performing for voice over Online
Authors: James Alburger
One interesting thing about technology is that it is constantly changing. What was in favor yesterday may be out of favor tomorrow. Reel-to-reel and cassette demos are history! The audio CD, which was the standard for
voiceover demos for many years, has now given way to demos that exist as electronic data files in a variety of digital audio formats including Flash audio files. Digital audio files of voiceover demos have several major advantages over the audio CD: there is no expense for packaging; the demo can be posted on a website, which makes it immediately available for listening and/or downloading worldwide; files can easily be copied and cataloged on a computer in folders that identify a performer’s style, performance genre, or in whatever way works best for a producer or agent. They can be emailed, renamed, edited, uploaded, and assembled onto a compilation audio CD. For auditioning purposes, it’s very fast and efficient to simply open a folder on a computer and click on successive demo files until the right voice is found. Isn’t technology wonderful? It’s anybody’s guess what the future may hold for voiceover demo distribution formats.
Even with the advances in technology, there are still some producers and agents who prefer holding a CD in their hands. Although it may not be as efficient as working with electronic files, there is something to be said for reading the label of a demo CD and studying the performer’s visual marketing image while listening to their demo.
For the purpose of marketing voiceover talent in today’s highly technological world, it is an absolute must that your voiceover demo exist as an electronic file stored in an easily accessible location on your computer. From this electronic file, and with the proper computer software, you can create “one-off” audio CDs that can be packaged and mailed to clients and prospects if or when needed. Even in this age of electronic files, it’s still not a bad idea to have at least a few CDs on hand for those times when they are requested.
Before producing your voiceover demo, it is important that you study current demos of professionals in the area of voiceover you are interested in. As with any business, you need to know what your competition is. One of the best places to study demos is
www.voicebank.net
. Here, you will find voiceover demos from nearly every major talent agent in the U.S. Click on “Demos and Clients,” choose a category, select an agent, then start clicking on demos. You’ll be amazed at what you will learn as you begin listening to some of the top voiceover professionals in the country.
Through your study of the craft and business of voiceover, you will be discovering the delivery style, characters, and performance techniques that work best for you. You will also be making choices as to the types of voiceover work that you are best suited for. Very few voice talent are able to effectively perform in more than a few categories. Animation and character voice actors will rarely work in narration, but many will do commercials. Audio book narrators may not find telephony voice work to be at all satisfying, but they may do industrial narration or documentary
voice work. Find the areas of voiceover work you enjoy the best and are most suited for, and focus on mastering your craft in those areas.
There are no hard-and-fast rules for producing a voiceover demo. Your objective is to effectively reach the talent buyers who hire voice talent in the area of your demo. Not too long ago, it was acceptable to produce a single demo that featured multiple voiceover genres, such as commercial, narration, and character all wrapped up in a two-minute demo.
Today, producers want to hear a specific demo for a specific type of work—and they want to hear it quickly. Your demo should feature examples of what you can do that meets, or exceeds, the expectations of those who are looking for voice talent in that area. In other words, your commercial demo should consist of only your commercial delivery style, and your character demo should feature your character voices. There may be some crossover, such as a character voice in a commercial, but you should avoid the temptation to combine multiple demo types into one demo.
Ideally, your demo should be compiled from actual projects you have worked on. However, if you are just starting out, this is not possible. You will need to create your own copy and design a demo that will catch the listener’s attention and hold it. Even working professionals will sometimes write original copy to create a demo that really puts their voice in the spotlight. This can be a challenging task, but it can pay off big.
There are several schools of thought as to the type of voiceover demo to produce when just getting started. One is to produce a commercial demo first, because this type of demo can present performing styles that apply to almost every other voiceover niche. Another is to produce a narration demo first, primarily because this niche represents the largest percentage of voiceover work. Yet another approach is to produce a demo based on a determination of the specific niche area that the voice actor wants to work in. All three are viable approaches, but the first two will be far more likely to result in bookings for an entry-level voice actor. Whether a commercial or narration demo is produced first will largely be a decision based on the performer’s skills and consultation with their coach.
Voiceover demos are generally produced on a bell curve with the performer’s
money voice
at the beginning and end. In-between are a variety of performance attitudes and styles that reflect the performer’s range and abilities. Having the same voice at the beginning and end can provide a reference point for the listener and give him or her an opportunity to categorize the performer’s vocal age and personality type.
There are two basic structures for demos. The first is a
compilation demo
with examples of a variety of performing styles. The second is a
concept demo
that combines the demo clips into a logical sequence or story where each clip leads into the next. In both formats, as the demo progresses, there will be changes in attitude, pacing, energy, and character. Concept demos are relatively rare as they are challenging to write, must be thought out very carefully, and fall into one of two categories: extremely good and unbelievably stupid!
Even though radio and TV commercials are only about 10 percent of the business, a well-produced
commercial demo
can demonstrate a performer’s abilities for nearly every other type of voice work. Every segment should reveal some aspect of the real you through your delivery and the characters you create. There is little demand for accents, dialects, and wacky characters in radio and TV commercials. Unless you are marketing your natural accent, those voices should be saved for other demos.
Your demo may contain as many as 12 to 15 segments, each of which demonstrates a different emotion, attitude, level of energy, personality trait, or delivery style at a variety of tempos. The copy chosen must be typical of what is commonly heard on radio and TV commercials. This type of demo should begin with several very short “clips” of about :03 to :05, followed by somewhat longer elements, each fully produced to sound like a real-world commercial. The trend over the past few years, especially with agents, is for a commercial demo no longer than one minute. However, you might want a slightly longer version of no more than 1:15 to 1:30 for your website or direct marketing.
Corporate and
industrial demos
tend to contain copy that is somewhat longer than the copy in a commercial or character demo. The longer length of copy allows the producer time to more accurately assess your reading and delivery skills for this type of storytelling. It also gives them an opportunity to hear how you handle complex words, concepts, and sentences. As with the other types of demos, your money voice and strongest material should lead the demo, followed by a variety of styles, range, and versatility. Industrial demos offer a good opportunity to use various microphone techniques, a range of delivery speeds, and storytelling techniques to good advantage.
Where the average length of an individual segment for a commercial demo might be 6 to 10 seconds, a segment on an industrial demo might run 15 to 20 seconds, or even slightly longer. You’ll need more time to complete the descriptive text for a procedure or technical discussion.
A typical full-length industrial demo will run about 1:45 to 2:00 and will include five to seven segments. As with a commercial demo, your agent will ask for a one-minute edited version for their marketing purposes.
Character and animation demos are designed to feature your talents primarily for animation and video game work. They also demonstrate your ability to create marketable voices for believable, “real” characters.
Character voice work for animation is probably the single toughest area of voiceover to break into, so both your performing abilities and your character/animation demo must be of extremely high quality.
At its essence, a character or animation demo features voices that are recognized as “real” people, but which are actually voices you create that are different from your real voice. For animation, the characters are often exaggerated or quirky in some way, while video-game characters are usually “real people.” Each clip features a different attitude, vocal characterization, or personality. Not all voice talent have the ability to create voices that sound completely different from their normal voice. If you don’t have this ability, a character voice demo may not be for you.
Producing animation demos is a specialty area of production. Each segment of an animation demo must sound like it came from an actual show and similar voices should be separated from each other. Most studios have extensive music and sound effects libraries, but not all studios have the proper music and sound effects needed for an animation demo. Call around to find a studio that can do this sort of work and ask to listen to several animation demos they have produced. There are several studios in Los Angeles that specialize in animation demos.
A typical animation or character voice demo will be about the same length as a commercial demo, around 1:00 maximum, and may include 10 to 15 individual, fully produced elements. Again, if you have an agent, be sure to ask what length they prefer.
The format for an audio book demo is far different from all other voiceover demos. An audio book producer wants to hear how you tell a story over an extended period of time.
There are a few important differences between this type of demo and other voiceover demos. Audio book demos are the only type of demo that should include a slate of your name. The slate should be spoken by someone else who simply says your name followed by the word “reader.” After this brief introduction, you begin by giving the title of the book and start reading the story. Your choice of material should include a variety of emotions, attitudes, and characters. You’ll need to find something unique for each character in the book you are reading for each segment. This can be a challenge for characters of the opposite sex. Usually a shift in energy or attitude will reveal a character far more effectively than a change of pitch. Change-ups of tempo, rhythm, and the use of other techniques can also help to differentiate the characters as you tell the story.
Practice for your audio book demo by recording yourself reading out loud, finding the drama, emotion, and attitudes for each scene and character of the story. You must develop the skill to be consistent with your delivery style for a very long period of time. Your audio book demo should reveal that consistency.
A typical audio book demo will run from 5 to 12 minutes and may consist of as few as 3 to 5 fairly long segments. Ideally, you should be able to perform each segment of your audio book demo as a continuous reading with a minimum of stops and starts. If you find you need to stop frequently, have difficulty reading the text, or need to go back for pick-ups, you may not be ready for audio book work.
Unlike other types of voiceover work, those voice actors who work in the area of station imaging need special knowledge of the broadcasting industry. If you don’t have a radio background or thoroughly understand the purpose of imaging and how this aspect of the voiceover business works, imaging may not be for you. An imaging demo features a single, specific, often “edgy” delivery style throughout the demo. Most imaging voice talent have a separate demo that features a different, specific attitude for each radio format. Also, unlike other types of voiceover work, imaging often presents a detached delivery—more typical of an announcer, rather than the conversational delivery style for commercials, character, and narration.
An imaging demo should be no longer than one minute in length. Although any studio capable of producing a commercial demo should be able to handle an imaging demo, you would be wise to find a producer who knows and produces imaging work. As with animation demos, imaging requires special music and effects that may not be available at all studios.
A promo and trailer demo focuses on television programs and films. This is the only demo in which two genres are commonly combined, but many voice talent will market these separately. A
promo
demo can include examples of both TV promos and movie trailers. Television promos are essentially commercials that promote a specific television program instead of a retail product. The program being promoted could be a local show, a movie, news program, news feature segment, or other station programming. A
trailer
promotes a movie. To properly produce promo and trailer elements for your demo, you’ll need to find suitable
sound bites
, or excerpts from television shows or movies that you will wrap around your voice work. As with a commercial demo, the length will be about one minute to no more than 1:30.
Most movie trailer work is done in Los Angeles, and there are a handful of voice talent who are consistently hired for this type of work. That doesn’t mean you can’t break in to trailer VO work, but you’ll need to find the companies that produce trailers, you’ll need an agent to represent you for trailer work, and you’ll need a killer trailer demo. Television promo work is usually booked directly by a television station’s Promotions Department and can be an entree to trailer work.
Sometimes referred to as a
message-on-hold demo
(MOH) or
IVR
(
Interactive Voice Response
), this type of demo is pretty basic. It usually consists of one or two examples of outgoing messages, one or two on-hold messages for different types of businesses, and perhaps even an example or two of a concatenation project or interactive voice responses. Examples should include appropriate background music. The idea of an MOH demo is to demonstrate what you sound like delivering information over the phone.
One might think that because a telephone connection has a reduced frequency response (about 8 kHz), an MOH demo should be equalized so it sounds as though it is being heard over the phone. Although this is certainly an option, I would not recommend it primarily because the reduced frequency response of your demo will not accurately reveal the subtlety of your performance. Even though the nuance and detail of your delivery may be lost during an actual phone message, you want your demo to show you at your absolute best. I’d recommend producing your MOH demo at the highest possible quality. As with most other demos, this one will also be in the one to one-and-a-half minute range.