Voiceover News for April 2013

This month we are very proud of our audio production of a radio commercial for Asda which was voiced by Sally.

We also carried out the translation of video scripts for Optasense from English to Russian, Chinese Mandarin and Arabic.

Among our international voiceover artists Lisa recorded a  commercial which aired on Mood FM in Jordan.  Michel voiced a commercial in French for ActivTrades airing on CNBC and Bloomberg TV; Max did the Italian version.

David B recorded voiceovers in French for two videos for Plastics Europe, Martin voiced the German version, Jacek did the Polish, the Italian was done by Giovanni
and Jose voiced the Spanish versions.

We made two voice reels this month: one for actress Susanna Gordon, the other for Russian actress Vera Horton. Simon from Bath also came to us for Voice Training with Cameron in Bristol.

Ricky recorded voiceovers for Panasonic and the European Powder Metallurgy Association.

Craig and Natalie voiced for the UK Government pension scheme and Scarlett recorded more voiceovers for Lakeland.

Do I need ISDN to do Voiceovers?

Water. Food. Electricity.

We take them all for granted. And so it is with telephony when you are running a voiceover business.

How can anyone run a business these days without phones and broadband? It's twice as hard if you are an internet business and the internet doesn't work!

That's what we faced recently. The internet went down - and BT's fibre optic 30MB internet at that. After much jiggery-pokery and re-booting, we realised it one of the phone lines was off too.    

Yes - the fibre optic broadband still relies on the old copper wire to take the internet from your nearest junction box into your premises.

And so the business hangs by a thread...

Add to that the fact that the ISDN line had already gone off a week or so before. And so it went off again on the same day. So no internet, no ISDN and only one phone line.

I spent most of that Friday trying to get my a new wifi dongle to work so we could get the internet back. It was less than satisfactory and that's being kind.

Anyway it turns out, according to BT man, that the workmen - digging holes in a nearby road - were "less than careful" and had disrupted all the telephony lines.

So how do we prevent this sort of voiceover nightmare in the future?

Voiceover News March 2013

It was quite busy, busy-wise here at BigFish Media Towers in March:

We made an On Hold audio production for 24-7 Cars which was voiced by Samantha . We made a voice reel for radio presenter Eddie Castle and Cate from Southampton came to us for some Voice Training with Fenella.

Among our younger voice talent, James recorded a voiceover for a Dorset museum exhibition about Warhorse and Dylan voiced for 6 episodes of a new CBBC TV programme called Sarah and Duck.

For the grown-up boys, Ricky was the live Voice of God at the Pf Awards for the pharmaceutical industry in London alongside comedian Ed Byrne as well as recording a voiceover for the European Food Safety Authority. Steffan recorded a voiceover for Petroserv, Taylor voiced for the AA and Graham D lent his vocals to Kalixa.

For our international voices, Michel recorded a French voiceover for Erwinaze and Paul voiced for Sangart.

And finally to the women: Penny D recorded a voiceover for Office Principles, Aanya voiced for Schneider Electric and Sally voiced on hold prompts for Auto Direct and a Pyrex video shown in selected Tesco stores. Corrie recorded a voiceover for the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, Scarlett voiced a dozen product web videos for Lakeland, Jill recorded a voiceover for the Ministry of Defence and Helen S recorded for Ontex Healthcare.

Phew! Time for another break ...

How do I make a voiceover showreel?

How do I make a voiceover demo? What should I put on my voiceover showreel? We get asked this all the time.

In short, any voiceover styles that you can do. If you can do languages and accents then put those on. But only if they are completely convincing.

Here is what NOT to do:


No singing. We don't do singers. 

No travel bulletins. No newsreading. No radio presenting. This is all broadcast work. Make a separate showreel for these and send them to the right people. 

A Voiceover Agency is not the right place for these - radio and TV stations are.

How long should my voiceover demo be? 90 seconds about right. This is the length we make when we make showreels. When auditioning new voices, we know within 10 seconds if it's a yes or no. Make the first clip your best!

                                                      BigFish Media Audio Producer Nathan



Does the showreel sound good? Is it well produced? Is there music which is well matched to the subject matter and the voices? Or is it just a dry read with lots of background noise?

The voice recording sounds like they are reading rather than "being" the part. There should be a flow to the read - this can be harder than you think.

Don't just use acting scripts and poetry. They may sound lovely but you will need to use a mixture of scripts: corporate reads/E-Learning/On-Hold - maybe even a TV documentary or some radio commercials.

Are you reading material which is too old or too young for your voice age? We dont want to hear 20 something women talking about pensions or 50 something men talking about video games - you wouldn't be asked to do that by a client.  

Make sure your demo shows a variety of tones, pitches, pace and style.By all means produce the showreel, but don't over-produce it so we cant tell what your real voice sounds like. And if the voiceover showreel is produced we shouldnt be hearing any bad microphone technique, “pops” or plosives, mouth noises” or any nervous reading.

And this is how we make great voiceover reels You will need a great showreel to be taken seriously by any reputable Voiceover Directory and Audio or Video Producer  - let alone a Voiceover Agent.  

Voiceover News for February 2013

For the first time in my life I went ski-ing. In February I took a week off from our voiceover agency to visit Morzine in the French Alps.

I came back more exhausted than when I went away! No broken bones - just a bruised ego. A highlight was a wonderful restaurant  on the Swiss/French border.  

Zoe, Andrew, James and John held the fort manfully (and womanfully) in my absence.


When I got back I recorded a voiceover for an instructional video for KFC's Kreamball. Steffan voiced again for SAB Miller,  James K recorded for Fan Hub and Graeme recorded a commercial for Jem Carpets airing on STV.

For the female voices, Corrie recorded a voiceover for the Operational Research Society, Scarlett voiced for Sonovate and Gwen lent her lovely tones to the South Wales Fire and Resuce Service - in both English and Welsh.

Amongst our International Voices, Oliver recorded a German voiceover for Exponential, Matt C voiced for Sonovate, Bobbin recorded a commercial airing on Mood FM Jordan and Saskia recorded a Dutch voiceover for Exponential.

And finally Michel recorded a French voiceover for Bowers and Wilkins' Zeppelin Air set up; Ruben S did the same in Spanish and Christph took care of the German voiceover.

Where should I advertise my Voiceover service?

Did you know that Inbound Marketing is becoming more important to a voiceover and audio production business these days than Outbound Marketing?

I certainly didn’t. Until I read an article this week I had no idea what Inbound or Outbound Marketing were.

To save you the time of reading what was an unnecessarily long e-book full of pie charts and diagrams I can summarise it for you.

Here is a list of marketing techniques in order of importance:

Blogging
Facebook
Twitter
Linked In
PPC
Email Campaigns
Direct Marketing
Trade Shows

The bottom three (Outbound Marketing) are becoming less and less important to gaining sales leads and the top three (Inbound Marketing) are becoming more and more important for generating hot voiceover and audio production leads.

The Inbound Marketing - along with PPC (Google Adwords) is where we have been putting our effort for years and will continue to do so - as the cost to our voiceover business for each lead generated is a lot less than the Outbound Marketing. 

It's great to know that we have been doing the right things all along - without knowing it.
 
So where will you put your time, effort and money in future?

Voiceover News for January 2013

It was a characterful month here at BigFish Media towers!

Our Voiceover Artist of the Month is Mahmoud E who voiced several characters in SEGA's video game "Total War: Rome 2" .  Great gig!

It was certainly a month full of character voiceovers as Colin C and Matt C recorded character voiceovers for an Otrivin advert. And both John and Charlotte recorded character voiceovers  for a Cyber Security online training video.

Among our other international voiceover artists Valentino recorded an Italian voiceover for Bowers and Wilkins' Zeppelin Air set up -  Vladmir did the same in Russian

For the UK Female Voiceover Artists Jules recorded another voiceover for SCA and Scarlett voiced a dozen product videos for Lakeland.

For the UK Male Voiceover Artists Ricky recorded a voiceover for a web video for Schneider Electric and for an induction video for Centrica's South Humber Bank Power Station. Dave F lent his vocal tones to SCC TITAN, Graeme recorded for AESCAP,  Mike was booked again by Optasense, Malcolm voiced for the National Grid and  James K recorded even more voiceovers for promos for Football DVDs.