Gee, I'm sure someone has ranted on this before, but it just struck me again this morning as I viewed an audition that was sent my way via an online voice over site. The "voice seeker" specified, "If you have to place an audio watermark, please make it a small beep or noise, we can't show our client VO with another music bed underneath or wrong words. Thanks for your time! Good luck! "

Ok, we get tons of auditions like these, but obviously, the client intends to pitch his/her idea using at least one of the auditions he/she receives. We can protect ourselves by using a watermark to their specs to keep it from airing (hopefully), but sounds like it will still be used as a client "demo".

We used to get paid for client "demos". There are AFTRA and SAG rates in place for client demos and even non-union agents will charge a demo rate (I hope). I still do work for major agencies who pay demo rates for animatics, etc. But out here in cyberspace without an agent to follow up or in the case of non-union projects (which most of these are) without a union to enforce the rates, voice over talent are giving away free client demos on a daily basis. Sure, you can pass on the audition. Sure you can just give them a portion of the spot (which I often do instead of watermarking), but does that just cut you out of the running for the "real" spot right from the start? Probably.

It all boils down to our knowledge of and willingness to accept these types of auditions. I'm sure it's happened ever since talent agents created sound booths in their offices for auditions. What was delivered to the ad agency may not have been the most pristine audio, but it could service for a client demo - and I'm sure many have. The only way you know for sure is when the ad agency books studio time and your time specifically to record a demo. Otherwise, you, as a professional voice over talent, have to try to take care of yourself when sending out air quality audio auditions!

Having recently been inspired by Joe Cipriano's wonderful new studio , I'm on the road to a complete audio studio update, myself! This past winter, I was toying with the idea of getting a Whisper Room, but realized it would just be too cramped in my present studio. Joe's space reminded me so much of a space we have that was scheduled for a transformation anyway, that it became clear that it needed to become my new studio. The room has large picture windows and the plan is for a free standing custom built audio booth with at least one large window that will allow me to see outside so I can acutally see the sunshine while recording instead of spending hours in a black hole. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to be spending so much time recording voice overs, but having visual access to the outdoors during the process will be so good for my mental health!

There's a lot of work ahead of us on this project, but it is exciting and will hopefully be completed well before summer is over. I'll keep you posted!

Labels: audio studio, voice overs

As voice talent with our own home studios we engineer our own sessions; however, many of us do not consider ourselves to be true audio engineers. We have learned enough and purchased the right equipment to produce a high quality sounding recording, and some of us can even mix in a little music, but personally, I would not really call myself an engineer. I know my audio engineer friends would heartily agree with me.

There are, of course, voice talent out there who have as many years engineering as they do voicing. By that, I mean they have many years of both! What I'm about to share is not for them, but for those of us who have many more years voicing than engineering for ourselves. This seems so simple, but I hadn't really thought of it before. One thing that often bothers us in playback is that a breath may seem too loud or there is some other extraneous noise between words. Although some audio software (Pro Tools, I believe), does allow you to "soften" all the breaths in one fell swoop, others of us using different software have to manually deal with each offending instance.

There are a number of ways we try to do this. The breath can simply be cut, the area can be "silenced", the breath can be normalized to a much lower level, or you can record ambient sound and cut and paste it in place of the breath, noise, or gap between the words. Cutting works if there is enough space to allow for a normal pause between words, but if there is not enough space, the result will be a choppy, disjointed reading that will affect your normal timing. To highlight the offending area and replace it with silence can work, especially if music will be mixed with the voice eventually. However, if music is not going to be added, there might be a noticeable difference between the noise floor of your read and the space between the words. This will sound too abrupt - like a drop out - and draw attention to the fact that editing has been done. It could also possibly highlight the general noise floor of your recording - which, hopefully, isn't the case since you've learned to keep that noise floor low.

Lately, I've found what works best for me in the situation where I don't want to leave the breath at all or there is some other noise is to highlight that area and simply hit record. The space is automatically filled with the ambient noise floor of the entire recording. I'm sure some of you are having a "well duh" reaction, but I can honestly say this just occurred to me recently. It's so much simpler than cutting and pasting ambient sound into that space.

As I said, I'm sure many of you are way beyond this information, but I thought there might be a few other "non-engineers" out there who could benefit from my little "discovery". It's made a world of difference to me.

Labels: audio editing, audio recording, home studio, voice over edting

Are TV ads no longer on retailers' lists? According to Ad Age that's true for some. Well, this is news to me, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Of course, anything that decreases opportunities for voice over talent and on camera talent is not good news. However, maybe more opportunities will appear for commercials that are run exclusively in movie theaters? As a consumer, I'm not sure I enjoy paying good money to go to the movies and then being bombarded by retail ads. (I know, it's a double edged sword, isn't it?)

This is an interesting slant. I have noticed ads in movie theaters for a long time now, but usually they're budget ads for local businesses. Now, national companies are advertising there, too. Hopefully, this will just be an additional area where voice talent and actors will find opportunities to work.

In the voice over business, it's often feast or famine. You can be incredibly busy with everyone wanting their projects voiced at the same time and/or studio booking requests for same day, same time, different studios - even different cities! Then, during a lull....nada.

Is there a way to deal with this wild swing? As far as the double bookings or projects that all come in on top of each other, well, you've just got to do the best you can with scheduling. Promise everything, but make sure you can deliver everything - on time. That often means working long days in the studio, including weekends to make sure each client is taken care of with the same professionalism and quality of work. I've just come out of a stretch like this over the past several weeks. I worked both Saturday and Sunday two weekends in a row and every week day from early morning until late night to deliver multiple e-learning courses for multiple clients while still doing ISDN and phone patch sessions for new and established clients. But, as you may well know, in this business, you've got to take the work when it's offered because you never know when that lull will come. Given the economic news we've been getting over the past few weeks, that need has been driven home even harder.

How can you prepare for, avoid, or take advantage of the quieter times? Well, sometimes, it's nice just to take a deep breath and relax a little or catch up on your bookkeeping. Sometimes, it's a good time to schedule all those personal "maintenance" things like medical and dental checkups, hair appointments, even a pedicure! You can catch up on all that marketing that's been waiting for your attention. Mail out those CDs, postcards, or email the clients you haven't heard from in awhile. You can also make sure that you're listed with a variety of voice talent web sites and agents across the country. Invariably, I find when some are quiet, others are crazy busy! In short, use your time wisely every day whether you're booked solid or not, and don't put all of your eggs in one basket! (Wrong holiday, huh?) Well, you know what I mean. No moping, wringing hands, or complaining that your agent or voice talent web site isn't keeping you busy. In today's market, we have to find all the possible avenues of connecting with voice over jobs that we can. And when we think we've maxed out, dig for some more!

Labels: Business, Economy, voice over, Voice Work

Well, here I am again after another long absence. Hurricane Ike played a big part in this absence, though. Recently, Hurricane Ike ravaged Galveston and the Bolivar peninsula and on up into Houston and beyond. The little town of Bridge City, Tx, where my parents lived for almost 40 years, that had suffered a great deal of wind damage from Hurricane Rita in 2005 was flooded as never in it's history with the storm surge from Ike which reached up to the ceilings in many homes. There are many people who lost everything. The devastation is immense.

In Houston, many are still without power after 14 days. The beautiful pine and oak trees that fill Houston making it lush and green can also come crashing down damaging power lines and creating a huge job for power companies in removing the debris and repairing or replacing the lines and transformers.

Fortunately, we had a generator to run my studio and although I had no internet service, I was still able to work on a limited basis. My ISDN lines were not affected, so with generator power, I was able to participate in ISDN and phone patch sessions. I managed to find a friend whose power and internet service had been restored to carry my flash drive loaded with audio files to for uploading. I'd also download job and audition scripts to take back to my studio for recording, so some work did continue with determination and creativity.

I really appreciate the fact that our power was restored ahead of the projected schedule, and I feel for the folks who are still without. But my heart aches for those who have overwhelming damage to their homes and worse yet, for those who have lost loved ones.

Labels: Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Rita, ISDN, Phone Patch, voice over

Labels: Don LaFontaine, voice over, voice over business