Being Award Announcer at the WTA Grand Slam of Voice Over One of the things I love about being a voice over announcer are the places and jobs it takes me vicariously or in person. This October, one of the biggest events in the female tennis world was held in Singapore. The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Finals Gala Evening. And though I wasn’t there myself, I was there in voice… performing the award announcements and spinning the stories behind each player. This high profile gig was ube...
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Why Voice Over is the Key to a Successful PSA Your craft, profession or career, presents opportunities to be of service. To give back. For a voice over artist, performing the VO on public service announcements (better known as PSAs) hits that sweet spot for me. I’m currently sitting in a friend’s living room in LA, here this week nominated for an Award for my narration on a PSA, I’m also struck by the plights they serve. Top of mind now are the horrible wildfires devastating ...
How Copywriters and VoiceOver People Triumph over Disruption Sipping nectar of the bean and browsing my groups this morning, I was inspired by copywriter chieftain Steve Roller and how many similar cliffs of insanity people in the copywriting and voiceover narration fields have to scale to triumph lately. All because of the (anti) buzzword of the decade “disruption.” That concept we all rallied around. Even got excited about. At first. Kind of like the frog, happy in a pot of wate...
7 Hot Tips on How to Get Better as a Voice Actor Listening to Drake with my daughter Lisa as we drive on the 401 through north Toronto ticking off To Do and Don’t Forget Lists before I dive full on into family vacation mode…I’m struck by this thought: I get at least one call or email a day from people who seek advice on how to become better voice actors. And there’s quite a lot of advice I pass out that is similar. So, before I chill out on the beach, dominate in family games of dominoes...
Laura sounds like she’s 17, but has teenage twins and a paid mortgage. James is a millennial that sounds like he could be a retiree. One of the reasons I love voice acting is how it shatters the barriers of age. You can be an actress over 40 and still have a profitable career or a 19-year-old male neophyte with a great set of lungs an awesome performance capabilities and make a living. In many ways the microphone is much more merciful than the camera. In other ways it’s more revealing. Our...
Happily, most of my voiceover acting life has been supported by a steady stream of commercial work. In discussions with a student, I realized there were reasons for that beyond being able to deliver a great read. Yes, you have to know what the market wants, give your director what s/he wants and “bring it” (whatever it may be) on time and on target. But more than that it also takes a deft ability to read the room. The commercial sound studio is never the place to display any toxic or taboo b...
In the voiceover world, your demo is your calling card. More important than your business card, or website, it’s a reflection of work you have done or are capable of doing. A demo becomes your audition to audition. It needs to be good. A poorly written, badly directed, over or under produced demo can kill opportunities and sabotage your efforts. I have multiple demos on my website. Commercial, eLearning, explainer, audiobook, trailer, accents and characters just to name a few, but if I...
After sorting out how to find the right voice with top notch audio quality and a quick turnaround time, the big question for producers hiring voiceover professional is rates. How much does it cost to hire a voice actor to narrate your material? The simple answer: Union First let’s sneak a peek at the Union vs non-Union rates. If it’s a Union (Sag-AFTRA-ACTRA) gig, the minimum or “scale” rates are set and negotiated between representatives on behalf of the actors and the pro...
Got VR? You will. Virtual, Augmented or Mixed Reality, 360…it’s known by several names and may morph into more before it takes over the world. Statista’s conservative prediction is that the market will grow from $3B now to $40B by 2020. Others in the industry think it’ll be much higher. Orders of magnitude higher. SO, have you been part of a virtual reality narration gig yet? Last year I did a voice over acting job for one. This year VR narrations under my belt number about 12. Th...
Hey, voice actors. Is your website limp, lifeless or barely there? Does it suffer from lengthy load times, apparent invisibility to Google or other seo struggles that could steer precious potential clients away from your online storefront? Well then, I’d like to direct your attention to a team I have come to consider partners in my success: Joe Davis, Karin Barth and Brian Fulsang of voice actor websites. When I came across Joe in May of this year, I was in a quasi-desperate state. I had i...
