Voiceover News October 2011

Here is what our team of voiceovers were up to in the very busy month of October:

Congratulations to Steph who has been confirmed as the new ITV1 continuity announcer

We produced an audio mailer for doctors about the drug Remicade to treat arthritis featuring the voice talent of Penny Charlotte and Graeme

A voiceover by Ricky was featured on the new Channel 4 comedy drama series "Fresh Meat".  Ricky also recorded voiceovers for a video for Ecare Solutions two videos for Shell

Michel, Max and Ruben S all recorded for Actemra in French, Italian and Spanish. Our studio was hired by a production company to record a voiceover for Time Out magazine.

Alexandra has recorded a video for telephone conferencing software Loop Up, Luis voiced for Surestream Petroleum, Christoph voiced in German for Actemra and Michelle recorded on-hold voice-overs for Pest UK

And finally we welcomed Northern Irish Voiceover Artist David G.

Voiceover News September 2011

Here is what our team of voiceovers have been up to in September, which has been our busiest month ever. Our extended production office can now accommodate up to five people and will soon include "voice to picture" facilites:

You will be able to hear Ricky as a Newsreader on the new Channel 4 teen comedy drama series "Fresh Meat" showing Wednesdays at 10pm (his episode is on Wednesday 19th October). Ricky was the live Voice of God at the Baking Industry Awards in London alongside Richard Madeley and at the Forecourt Trader of the Year Awards in London alongside Mark Durden-Smith. Ricky also recorded a voice-over for a conference video for Honeywell.

For the rest of the boys: James K recorded voiceovers for another eight videos on golfingbreaks.com, Michel voiced for Surestream Petroleum, Joseph recorded and produced on-hold voice-overs for Island Trader, Nathan voiced a video for Greenwich College, Steffan recorded a web video for SAB Miller and Luis lent his dulcet Spanish tones to Reflex Instore Radio

For the girls: Helen S recorded a voiceover for Red Funnel's Red Jet 5 safety video, Josey voiced for an animation for Sony DABC Ebridge Arc, Sarah G recorded a voice-over for Simponi and Alexandra voiced for IbidItrade.com. And finally Steph, Natalie and Steve auditioned for ITV Continuity work

And we welcome German Voiceover Artist Christoph, American Voiceover Artist Dave C, Romanian Voiceover Artist Marius and Polish Voiceover Artist Aneta.

Where will I have heard your Voiceovers?

One of the questions which I am asked most often - apart from "Why can't you read the Radio 2 news from your vocie booth?" (and how do you maintain your youthful good looks!) is where will I have heard your voiceovers?

Normally I just say that you probably won't have heard me. As I haven't recorded voiceovers for any national TV advertising campaigns, it is unlikely I will have been heard by most people. However I am the voice of on-hold for e2save and the various insurance groups owned by Hastings Direct.

There is also my regular on-hold voice work which you can hear if you phone up companies like Mercedez Benz, Kwikfit,Vodafone, Parceline or the Carphone Warehouse. While you are on-hold you will hear me reading news, weather sport etc while you wait for a real live person to speak to you.

Recently I recorded my first ADR session in a Soho studio - again as a Newsreader (not being typecast by anyone am I?) and you will be able to hear me on Channel 4's new teen comedy drama "Fresh Meat" which is showing at 10pm on Wednesdays. I am featured in Episode 5 which is due to be shown on Wednesday 19th October.

So at last - after ten years in the business - I will be able to say that yes you may have heard me doing a voiceover on TV.    

How not to get a Voiceover recorded

Here at BigFish Media Towers we received this - no doubt well-meant - enquiry about voiceovers this week:

Hi my name is **** I need a voice over for a similar to Rooney (Scouser)impression. If you can do a good impression then perhaps we can meet up or send me file over internet I am from Rossendale (Lancashire). I have a budget of around £60, 50% deposit up front and the rest on completion it shouldn't take longer than 20-30 Minutes in total very short 1 or 2 line sentences, less than 35 lines. I will need a receipt with your signature by you. Please contact me on ******** or email me to ring you on your number and leave your contact details. If you decide yes then I just want a one or two line tester over the phone thanks. Please contact me either way.

So my first thought: Scouser voiceover - sure. We have lots of talented voices who could do a good Liverpudlian accent. No problem.

perhaps we can meet up.  Sorry? Why? How far can you drive on £60 of petrol? It's not even a tank-full these days and certainly wouldn't get one of our voices to Lancashire.

Budget of £60. Ah. We really have a problem. I need a new PC but I only have a budget of £100. Will the computer shop say ok go on then?

Half now, half later. No. If we agreed to this it would be 100 per cent up front from an individual (as opposed to a Ltd Company) on an untraceable gmail/hotmail account.

it shouldn't take longer than 20-30 Minutes in total. How would he know? Is he the expert? That's just what I do when I phone a plumber isnt it? I know how long it will take them to fix my shower. And I tell them what I want to pay them.

I just want a one or two line tester over the phone thanks And he wants an audition too! Isn't that what voice reels on the website are for?

Sometimes I despair. Anyway we are moving on to more sensible voiceover clients now...

What issues can a Voiceover Artist face with ISDN?

On Monday this week our ISDN line - used a lot for recording voiceover artists - failed. As that day was just another of our 12 hour working days, I let it be. The day after I got cosy under one of the office desks and checked all the wires; we had just laid carpet and I thought a cable might have come loose. Anyway, all seemed fine, so I reported it to BT.

BT did all their checks on the line and confirmed that there was a fault on the line and they would investigate and have the line working by the end of Wednesday.

Well on Wednesday afternoon I had to go into London to to a Voice of God session for the Baking Industry Awards with Richard Madeley (how showbiz!) He told some good jokes (and some bad ones) with an especially funny one about his time working for the TV station Watch, where no one did.

Anyway I digress.

On my way to this gig I missed BT's call as I was on the tube. When I surfaced I got a message saying that BT would call me back at 4.30pm. Unfortunately this was due to be in the middle of rehearsals so I tried to call them back but couldn't find a number that would work from my mobile. Frustrating!

So half-way through the voiceover rehearsals, my phone went and I had to apologise to a room full of people that I really, really REALLY had to take this call. We booked an appointment for Thursday morning as woman-on-phone said the fault was very close to the ISDN socket and could be inside.(What a joy as I got home at 1am).

Bleary-eyed I opened the door in my pyjamas (old joke!) and cheery BT man greeted me with a "oh well if I had known I would have come later". Arrgh. But when you are dealing with these people on the phone, you only get the option of morning or afternoon. Maybe it was his idea of a joke.

After  BT man fiddled about a bit under the desk, he declared the fault was not inside and was - in fact - some distance away; probably at or near the exchange.

While I am very grateful to BT for fixing the fault very quickly, they are extremely frustrating to deal with. And it was the last thing I needed during a whole week of 12 or 14 hour working days trying to run my voiceover business.

Next week will be easier. But then I have said that before.
         

Voiceover News for August 2011

In August we managed to escape for ten days to Greece to try to relax and get nicely bronzed. Unfortunately the blackberry was working overtime as the voiceover enquiries kept coming!

Following the upgrading of the voice booth, the BigFish Media office extension was also completed. Now we just need to re-furbish it and train up our Assistant to run the office when I am away.

We recorded voiceover by child voice talents Ella and Max for an animation for the Cartoon Forum in Poland later this month.

Natalie recorded another voice-over for the IbidItrade website, James K recorded voiceovers for another five videos on golfingbreaks.com, Steffan voiced a video for Donnington Park and Malcolm recorded a voice-over for Tork.

Barbara recorded a Spanish voice-over for Reflex Instore Radio, Sue recorded a voice-overs for the Sealed Air Corporation, Drew voiced for Alton Towers and Ricky recorded voiceovers for Digital Hive, IBM's Smart Cloud video and an occupational health video for the Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust.

We made a voicereel for BBC Radio Solent's Richard Latto.

And we welcome Japanese Voiceover Artist Masashi, Polish Voiceover Artist Aneta and young Voiceover Artist Katharine

When is a cheap voiceover too cheap?

A few days ago I received this enquiry about voiceover work:

"I am ****, working as an e-learning Project Leader in a company named ********** in India. We have got some content to be recorded for on-line purpose in neutral English accent. The recorded audio file must be a fully edited audio in MP3 format. This e-learning content would be a minimum of 100 to 125 pages of a word file with a font size of 12 point. This is a project for poor children education and so our overall estimation for voiceover talent is 25,000 to 27,000 thousand in Indian rupees. If you’re interested to take up this project, kindly revert me back. Reply me, as soon as possible."

I know that E-Learning doesn't often pay as well as advertising or even corporate voiceovers but 27 000 rupees sounded like a lot of money - but it's only about £350. Anyway I thought I would be interested in this job so I asked the client to send the script or word count so that I could work out if it would be worth while. I received this reply:

"Thanks for responding. Hereby, I have attached a sample content file for your reference. Please do a demo recording for the same and send it back to us ASAP. Kindly send your payment mode so that after hearing to your demo audio, our Executive Director will contact you through phone. Kindly provide me your file transfer mode."

Hmm. I had a look at the document containing the voiceover script that they had attached to their email. There were 585 words on one page. 125 pages. That makes a whopping 73,000 words.

I reckon I can record about 4,000 words in an hour. So that's 18 hours in the studio to just record the voiceover. So how long would that take to edit? Say 9 hours. Even longer if it's badly written.

How much paper would I use to print the script? How long would it take to upload the file (albeit only MP3) to the FTP server? Conservative estimate 30 hours in all. So that's about 4 days.

£350. 4 days. So that's £85 per day. We pay our least experienced voices more than that per hour!

Sadly I had to decline this particular job and move onto better paying voiceovers.