Giving Your Video Voice

I know, I know. Your video budget is tight and you want to stretch it as much as possible. But if you want your results to be beyond average, please consider a professional voice talent to record your narration or character lines.

Sometimes you can get really lucky with an amateur. But that luck usually comes at a price, often in the form of a much longer recording time because your well meaning friend, uncle or grocery store clerk needs a lot of directing – and a lot of re-takes.

There are a lot of great voice actors/narrators all over the country. You can listen to demos all day long on their individual or agent websites. You can also ask other video producers for recommendations, or call agents and/or casting companies and they can help you find a good fit.

One piece of advice is to get preliminary estimates from a couple professional voice talent (or their agent) before you’ve even completed your project bid. Let them know whether the job is union or non-union since that will affect the rates. If you can give them a general idea of length of script along with intended audience, means of delivery to the audience (flash drive vs. web vs. broadcast), expected shelf life and a few other particulars, they will often be able to give you a ballpark cost estimate. Just be sure to clarify whether their estimate includes studio time, changes and time to clean up the files. Then you may want to add a small amount, just in case the script ends up longer than anticipated. If you don’t need the extra money you budgeted, you can always use for another production category, or better yet, reduce your final bill to the client. Trust me, this makes for a very happy client.

If you already have a script, email it to the professional voice over talent you are interested in for your project (or their agent). Some are willing to give a free audition, but you’ll need to check that on a case-by-case basis.

You can either let them know what your budget is and ask if they can work within it,

or ask them to give you an estimate based on how much time they think it would take for them to complete the job. Again, be sure to ask if the estimate includes changes and studio time.

When I’m producing a project, once I’ve selected the appropriate talent for a specific project, negotiated a fee, emailed the script and scheduled a recording time, I like to be patched in to the recording session when possible, especially if I haven’t worked directly with the talent before. It gives me a chance to get to know their style and answer any questions (like pronunciations or emphasis) that come up as we go along. We’ll often spend a few minutes at the beginning of the session discussing tone, pacing and style, and then get rolling.

I hope these tips help you next time you need to plan for and hire a voice actor or narrator for one of your projects.