Tips For Getting The Best Voice Over Possible

[patsvoice]

Hi!

For those of you who buy voice overs, I just wanted to suggest a few tips that may help you to get the Best Voice Over possible.

Many of you will already know these things, but I feel it is important to mention for new buyers.

• Communication is Key -

With Explainer Videos it is important for the Voice Artist to know how long you want your script to be? 60 seconds, 120 seconds? That way when we see how many words there are in the script, we have an idea of how fast or slow you want us to speak.

• For a more laid back Voice Over 130 -150 words per minute is good.
• For a regular or typical speaking speed 160-180 will work.
• Anything close to 200 words is going to be very fast

Obviously every job is unique and some jobs require super fast speech with no breaks. But I’m speaking more for the average whiteboard video.

• Which Color? -

Think about the Voice as an instrument. Through this instrument Voice Artists Convey different Emotions and Tones. Blue is “Caring or Sad”, Red is “Angry or Rushed”, Yellow is “Animated or Over the Top”.

It is Very helpful for a Voice Artist to know what color or emotion you want? Even if you just use a few words like.

-Corporate Professional
-Believable
-Friendly
-Serious
-Excited

-Double Check your Script-

If you are buying a Voice Over from someone who is not Native to your clients Region or Culture. It will help to make things faster for you and your Voice Artist if you spell out the pronunciations of Names and Places. Its True Many Voice actors already require that, but regardless. It is a good habit to get into as it will help you get what you want, and quicker.

Theses are simply a few suggestions to new buyers looking for voice over, to help illustrate how you can get the best voice over and in the quickest way. The more information the Voice Actor has the better the end product will be, for you and your company.

Have an amazing day
-Pat

[leahemme]

I don’t know how many vo buyers frequent the forums, but certainly good things for people to keep in mind. I don’t know how many times i’ve split hairs about asking people to be specific in what they want, they say something along the lines of ‘just do it how it feels right for you’ … so I do the job, and then sure enough they don’t like it and give me a detailed breakdown of what they are looking for. in that case, I charge them because it’s new instructions that weren’t previously provided.

anywho, best of luck, hope you get some easy-to-work with buyers as they are certainly out there!

[Guest fastvoiceover]

Great tips. I’d like to add that if there is a video out there with a similar tone, pacing, or feel, sharing it can go a long way toward getting the final voiceover right.

The most important part of the relationship is to get your vision out of your head and communicated to the person recording the VO.

[orcatek]

Most of these same points apply to video too.