Social Selling For Voiceover

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

Diversifying your income streams is crucial as a freelancer, and if you've been watching this channel for any amount of time, then you should be aware of the following ones:

1. Working through agents

2. Work through pay-to-play auditions

3. Work through direct marketing

4. Work through SEO

But when it comes to social media, our thinking can become a little muddled. People will tell us that creating content to establish and reaffirm our reputation is incredibly important but being clear about how the process actually works can be very Vega best when it comes to social media. Now I've been experimenting quite a lot over the past six months on a variety of different social media platforms to work out exactly what I should be posting but, even more importantly, why, and what I found most useful to define is that social media works in two clear ways: 

1. In the first place, it's part of your outbound marketing strategy to use social platforms to contact potential leads or clients to make them aware of you and essentially augmenting your direct marketing.

2. The second way is through social selling or inbound marketing, which is all about getting people both inside and outside of your social circle to know, like, and trust you to reaffirm your status as a preeminent professional in your field.

So in this video, I wanted to explain and demystify slightly what my approach is to this latter aspect. Now, of course, I have to confess that in a hopefully quite short video, this is a very superficial impression of what social selling actually is all about. You need to optimize your profiles on social media. So it operates a bit like a website so that you're as clear as possible about what your value, proposition, and services are. And you still need to incorporate essential things like calls to action and have a system of logging that is engaging with your content. So you know how warm a lead could potentially be!

Problems of Direct Marketing

So when we look at direct marketing, there are two very clear problems:

1. Lead Generation

You have to spend time actually identifying the people that it is that you want to reach out to contact.

1. Nature of That Contact

If you're reaching out to someone for the first time with no previous dialogue at all, then it's a cold contact, and therefore it's going to be more likely to bounce off someone than a warm lead.

How to Overcome These Problems?

Now, these factors shouldn't be an excuse not to do direct marketing. It is something that takes time, but it's also the surest way of being able to build relationships with clients that are yours and not platforms. But especially if you're a voice actor who's very familiar with the commercial copy, you'll understand that people don't like being sold to. They like to know, like, and trust the people that they're engaging with, and the selling itself is actually very subtle. And social selling is a way of doing that in marketing terms.

So the concept behind social selling is ostensibly quite simple on paper. The first thing you do is that you create content on your platform of choice so that people get to know, like, and trust you by you entertaining them or educating them, or a combination of the two. And then, through the quality of your content, people get to engage with you. They choose to connect with you, and they begin to know, like, and trust you. And as your network grows organically so the size of your audience will increase on a platform like LinkedIn. For example, when you connect with someone, the people that they are connected with which you did not have a greater chance of actually being able to see your content. Those second and third-degree connections as the platform label them, and you can even do this in a quite specific conscious way.

So, for example, if there's a company that you really want to work with, there's the direct marketing way of approaching that, which is identifying who the decision-maker is and then reaching out to them directly. But an alternative way of doing this would be to connect with multiple people who are not decision-makers and who don't deal with voiceover. For example, people that you can connect with, and then through the process of connecting with these people and then creating content that they engage with then, the people who in that same company do make decisions about voiceover will start to see the content as well.

So they'll begin to hopefully know, like, and trust you. Over a longer period of time, this then essentially becomes a social numbers game. The more people that are in your network, the more people that are engaging with your content, and the more that there's a chance that you will come across the right person at the right by time who may be thinking that they actually might need your service. And the crucial thing is that, unlike direct marketing, you might not even know that these people exist in the first place. The crucial aspect of social selling that I really needed to get my head around is that you really need to think about the social as well as the media.

So the media to start with the end is obviously the content that we create in order to get as many people as possible to engage in your media. Then you have to actively be social on these platforms. In other words, you need to engage. You need to offer a value and rather than just saying,

"Oh, yeah, that's great!" 

And throwing a few likes around, you need to start actually having conversations and bringing value to those interactions instead. And this is not something that's going to result in overnight success and immediate job offers, but it's something that, if done well, can really expand organically a network of people who potentially might be able to use you in the future. 

Some Valuable Recommendations

I recommend looking at the likes of people like Leah Turner or Nick Rayburn, or Ashley Leeds, who all have been able to master ways of creating good engaging content that continues conversations and gets your brand and your skills, your knowledge, your values, all out there. Whether you're saying the right thing or not doesn't really matter so much; instead, what your emphasis is on is proving your worth, showing your tastes, your likes, your dislikes, and your passions, and basically being able to catalyze people's decision-making process about you so that they can identify you as a creative who is worth engaging.

I'm just trying to shed some light on this process if you're spending a lot of time on social media at the moment now, but you don't really know what it is that you should be doing in order to get some results from it. It is a much less direct sales approach to direct marketing and, therefore, can be a much more enjoyable experience. And I'll confess myself I am still very much in the early stages of my journey on social selling, but one of the things that I really enjoy about it is that content creation is a creative act. It's not just thumping out the same emails and giving someone a compliment, and it also doesn't work in isolation. If a particular piece of content that I create gets a lot of traction, then it's something that I can also incorporate into my direct marketing workflow.

So as a follow-up email, for example, rather than just boring people with my availability or what microphone I use, which is all still kind of valid but kind of what people are already doing in the space. Anyway, if your job is essentially to stand out to add value, and to be memorable in some way, then actively participating in content creation is a great way of doing that. Being only five to six months into this process myself, I am seeing results, but I'll admit it completely slowly, but they are happening. For example, a game Dev posted a casting call which I was totally unaware of, but because people within my work knew me and liked and trusted me. They were in a position where they felt that they could recommend me because they thought that I fit the brief, and this resulted without any audition in a day's work on a title with the developer that I very much admired from playing his games when I was a boy, and this was only very possible through this inbound marketing method. It didn't involve me just reaching out at the right time and hoping that I'd be chosen.

Last Words

In a future video, I'm going to try and look at some of the different forms of content that you can make as a freelancer and as a voice-over artist in order to be able to entertain and engage potential audience members. And that's going to both looks at things that I'm doing myself and what I'm seeing that's effectively working that other people in the same space are doing. Thank you so much for watching. If you found this video of any use, then please like, subscribe, and spread the word about this channel. And I look forward to seeing you next time!

The Five Best Voiceover Tips for Beginners

The 5 Best Voiceover Tips for Beginners

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover

Since first embarking on my voice-over journey, I've learned quite a few profound lessons about what not to do that you shouldn't waste time. Arguing with people on Facebook groups about which microphone they like that the voice-over rail might not necessarily be the most reputable platform out there and that German dubbing porn might not necessarily be that good for your reputation in general, but apart from these profound takeaways, what other tips might I give myself?

The decision can be debilitating when starting any new career. There can be so much new information out there. It's difficult to know where to begin or what to prioritize, and I know that I definitely wasted a lot of time going along dead ends or making very obvious mistakes that really wasted a lot of time, money, and energy as a result. And I grant that failure is definitely an essential part of the process.

Let’s dig in!

Five Key Lessons for Beginners

As I've already covered in this video here, there are five key lessons that I would definitely go back in time and tell myself if I could when starting out and so in the absence of having a time machine. I'm going to tell you them instead!

Tip #1:

My first tip is a pretty essential performance-related one, and that is always to make sure that you're talking to one specific person regardless of what type of voice-over project you're actually working on. If you make your voice-over delivery specific and rooted in one person's reaction. Then it's going to make it more personal and go alongside that as well. I would say practicing doing voice over with a smile and seeing how that warm quality basically goes from the outside in can be essential in being able to establish a real connection with the listener as with any form of acting, really being specific in who your audience member is and what they want and what kind of um reaction that you want to get from them is incredibly crucial and something that I wish I prioritized more rather than sounding good at the beginning of my career.

Tip #2:

My second tip is also performance-related, and that would always be worked out what the subtext is. So, a car commercial is never really about the car that you're selling. It's about the lifestyle you'll want to portray that gives access to the person who wants to buy it. Go on an adventure of a lifetime on the road to discovery. The same would go if you're working for an explainer video. You're not just imparting information, but it's because you want to make a difference to the person who's listening in terms of their lives, what do they need to know, and why and again, understanding the importance of the subtext; running underneath why? What you're saying is important in the first place is really crucial in terms of giving the best voice-over that you can.

Tip #3:

My third tip would be to work from a place of relaxation, and this really comes down to the fact that when we're starting out especially, we want to get things right, and when we want to get things right in a career, that prizes speech. Generally, we want to speak very clearly, and in a career that focuses on the spoken word, that usually results in us speaking very clearly and sometimes over-enunciating, and I certainly found that coming from stage work where I did a lot of articulation exercises, so there were a lot of plosives going on and everything like that meant.

As a result, I sounded quite ready when I started out because I was pronouncing every single word, which is not what we do in real life and in speech, of course. The other thing coming from a trained actor that's been drummed into me for years is that your best performance comes from a state of relaxation. You have to be prepared. Still, then you need to let everything go and that I think is really the crucial aspect. Do your warm-ups work on technical aspects that you personally need to address but then when it actually comes to stepping up to the performance. You need to try and come from a process of relaxation. So, again focusing on the message, the connection, and the audience is not on your physical your technical execution.

Tip #4:

My fourth tip is a pretty inevitable one which is don't record your demos too soon. I know I certainly did, and I would say probably the first three commercial demos that I recorded in the early-mid-2000s were absolute and utter trash, while most voice actors are a bit more streetwise in doing their due diligence with demo producers. Now it's still something to be mindful of. You really need to focus on your coaching and your mastery of a particular genre first before you go and actually pay the money for a demo because otherwise, you'll be like me, someone who has to constantly re-record their demos because they're not good enough and you can't really salvage much from them.

You need to have a clear understanding of the genre in question. You need to know where your voice fits within that genre, and you need to know the extremes what is your range within that genre, not so that you display range for range's sake but so that you can set very clear parameters about what reads are going to serve you best as marketing too.

Tip #5:

My final tip would be you can do it yourself. When I started out on my voice acting career, I came very much from an actor's perspective that there were certain gatekeepers, i.e., agents and casting directors, that I needed to get on board with in order to properly make progress and to a certain extent that is true but as well as cultivating those very important relationships. There are many other ways that you can actually source voice-over work, and you don't even need to have a demo in order to be able to do that.

Now with things like Fiverr and freelancing websites, there's a way of being able to cultivate and monetize voice-over work from an early stage and actually build yourself up, or alternatively, you can go through the whole pay-to-play route and also, of course, most crucially you can use direct marketing to really create one-to-one relationships with clients that nobody else owns in terms of the relationships. So, they're yours, and it's a relationship that you can build progressively.

Final Thoughts

As a result, obviously, there's a laundry list of different things that I wish I could tell my former self when starting, but these were the five that I think would have probably made the biggest and quickest difference in getting my voice-over career up and running. I hope you've enjoyed this video and found it useful. If so, please do like, subscribe, please do comment below if there was something specific that you found particularly useful when starting out or that you wish. You had a time machine to tell yourself when you were starting out in the first place. Thank you for watching so much as ever, and I look forward to seeing you next time!

What To Do When You're Not Booking Voiceover Jobs?

by Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

So you're auditioning as much as you can. You're marketing; you're connecting with the right people. But you're just not booking the jobs. Apart from panicking, what else can you do? Let's talk about that! 

So much time can be spent fighting for the opportunity to audition for new projects, building relationships, increasing the quantity and quality of the opportunities that we have, and so once we have that opportunity to actually audition for a project after being shortlisted. It can be quite destabilizing if we don't book once, then twice, and then and again, and again, and again, and this is when imposter syndrome can really kick in. You start to question your skills, your ability whether or not all the stuff that you're putting out there to everyone is actually true of yourself. 

You start to doubt yourself, and that, in turn, will start to affect your motivation in actually reaching out in the first place and creating more opportunities. So acknowledging that this cycle is not a good thing for your business and also something that we could all be susceptible to, certainly, in my scenario, I've gone through periods of this. I wanted to go through a checklist of things that we can actionably do to be mindful of when we get stuck in this rut of not being able to book to make sure that we're focusing on the right things. 

Let’s move ahead without further ado!

Tip #1:

My first tip is to let go of needing the job. Obviously, you need to work. Otherwise, you can't call it a business. But you need to be mindful of this process—especially when starting out, making that big jump full-time as a freelancer can be incredibly daunting. Especially if you have no structure or backup when possible, balancing the beginnings of your freelance life with either some form of savings that you've accrued or some type of part-time work means that not so much weight is kind of resting purely on your success ratio in your freelance stuff and this will serve as a buffer during the inevitable fallow periods that plague the beginning of a freelance career.

Tip #2:

Number two is to limit destructive self-talk; as a freelancer, you are your own employee, and you need to treat yourself as such. Suppose you tour strips off another employee every time that they fail to convert or they fail to book a job. Then you'd think that that person was an absolute idiot and certainly not a good boss. You need to apply that same criterion to yourself. Constantly chastising yourself for not being good enough isn't going to help. That doesn't mean that you can't reassess the situation or be self-critical but always make sure that the criticism that you do give yourself is constructive. 

Tip #3:

Number three is don't perpetuate a negative narrative. If you're constantly telling, not just yourself. But also your peers or your existing clients or prospects that you're not booking, then that becomes part of your identity. You're hardwiring a negative narrative that will only disempower. You all this will do are motivating you and also make you less attractive to collaborate with existing leads and clients. 

Tip #4:

My fourth tip is to hold an action audit keep a diary of daily actions that you were taking to further your career. Is there anything missing? Are there areas that you are neglecting, and if so, why? The sooner that you can get into the habit of adopting an objective perspective on your business, the sooner you can start taking reasoned action. So if you're failing to proceed with essential tasks in your business, you need to identify that and address that as soon as possible.

Tip #5:

Tip 5 is holding a motivation audit. If you find that there are tasks that you know that you should be doing, but you are failing to do them, then you need to ask yourself. Why? What is making you not do the thing, and what can you adjust to solve these problems? If it's simply down to a lack of time, then you need to prioritize, adjust your time scale, or you need to outsource some things. Maybe if you're constantly feeling overwhelmed, then focus on just the one important thing that you can do that day. 

Tip #6:

Tip six is to lean on trusted peers now. This is not your mum, and hello, mum, but people who are going through a similar journey with you. So that you can talk to them frankly about problems, you have to reassure yourself that you're not alone in this. As long as these peers are people you respect, then it's great to be able to hear what other people's solutions might be, whether or not they have any constructive criticism or thoughts or hints or hacks about things that have worked for them and if you don't have any trusted peers yet. Then I think this is a good time to probably get some people who are in a similar stage in their journey. But who is doing good work who is trying to do things in the right way? People whose opinions you can trust and get a proper objective point of view from. 

Tip #7:

Tip 7 is to control the controllable. If you have more time because you're not booking this work, then use that time to update your websites, to make sure that showreels are updated, make sure that your profiles are on casting websites are all up to date that your cv, if you have a voice-over cv or equivalent is also updated how are your social and marketing channels looking are the things that you can update there or refresh there are you still consistently marking to new leads and prospects to make sure that more opportunities are coming in.

Tip #8:

Tip 8 is to adjust the end goal. If your target is not something directly under your control, then make sure that you're focusing on the things that you can aim for relationship building rather than the number of jobs that you converted in a particular month. Yes! An audition ratio over a period of time is a useful metric to measure your level of success and proficiency. But sometimes, you just have a duff run of auditions, and that's nothing to do with you. That's just part of the game. 

Tip #9:

Tip nine is coaching and skill-building. Take this opportunity to check in with the coach to make sure that you're comfortable with your reads and approaches and that you're sensitive to any new trends that might have entered the market. Feel relatively secure in your existing skill base, then look about extending it into other genres to have more opportunities coming in. 

Tip #10:

Finally, number 10, check the market. Double-check that you're targeting the right genre of voice over for your voice, not just the one that you would like to work intake stock of where current trends are where you sit in the market as a comparison and maybe double down on your strengths if there's one particular genre that you always do consistently well in then maybe this is the time to do the opposite of the. Last point and actually narrow down and focus on what your core strength is first and foremost so that you can worry less about putting money on the table and more about just getting a consistent level of work a bit of a chain going.

Wrap Up

So hopefully, I've provided with you a few different tactics to implement if you start to doubt yourself if you start to feel demotivated about the fact that things aren't working for you this month. It's the nature of the business, to a certain degree as a freelancer, that your booking ratio is going to go up and down up and down to a certain degree, so although it's always important to keep an eye on the metrics to see how much better that you are getting. 

But resist the temptation to read too much into it and always be mindful of what action you're taking as ever. Thanks so much for watching. Please do like, subscribe, and spread the word about this channel. I look forward to seeing you next time!

Micro-Blogging Benefits (for Voiceovers and everyone else!)

Do you know one of the best ways to drive organic traffic to your website?

Writing regular long or short form content, i.e. blogs and microblogs.

This helps your SEO efforts and the more content you have for your visitors to find and read, the more trustworthy Google deems your business to be.
The more traffic you get, the higher up your site will rank on the search engine results page (SERP) over time.

So, this is really worth putting some effort into.

But, if you haven’t exercised those writing muscles for a while, where do you even start?

Here’s a standard writing process that is easy to follow and build upon:

- Pre-write
Think of an idea
Discuss your idea with someone if you need to
Research your topic and plan out your blog with a few key words

- Draft
Write the skeleton of your story
Look up unfamiliar terms and words you might need to explain better

- Revise
Reread your blog to ensure everything is in the right order
Add details as needed
Change word choice for easier reading and comprehension

- Edit
Check for capital letters
Check for punctuation
Use the spell-checker
Break up larger paragraphs with white space or images

- Publish
Create a final copy of your blog post
Rewrite anything that doesn’t feel easy to read
Print it out instead of reading it off your screen – some mistakes will be more obvious this way
Add any other illustration or images
Check that links are working if you’re referencing any
And finally, click on that publish button


Do you follow a structured process when you write content for your website?

Atomic Habits for Voiceover

Atomic Habits for Voice Over

By Chris Tester - British Male Voiceover Artist

The different elements that make up a voice-over career aren't mystical. You need to obtain a certain level of proficiency on the performance side, the marketing side, and the technical side, like almost any freelancer. But while the initial part of our careers is typically fueled by adrenaline. After a few months, the novelty of the new we can't rely on that alone to execute our daily tasks. 

James Clear, in his book atomic habits, affirms that, 

“Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations." 

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement getting just one percent better every day counts for a lot in the long run. And this is definitely a philosophy that I subscribe to. It's essential to set your goals, as I've covered in these videos already previously. But it's going to be daily consistent actions or habits that will carry you to that destination. Clear goes on to lay out a plan of how you can actually form and construct good habits. So I wanted to look at his four key points and then see how we could apply them to voice-over.

Are you curious to know atomic habits for a voice-over? Let's dig in!

Four Rules to Start Cultivating a Good Habit

The four rules to start cultivating a good habit are: 

1. Make it obvious

2. Make it attractive

3. Make it easy

4. Make it satisfying

So let's take a look at these in turn and see how we could apply them to voice-over? 

1. Make it Obvious

For the first one to make it obvious, you really need to be aware that to be vague about your intention is the enemy. Saying I need to do some marketing or I need to work on my performance skills is deliberately vague. They're amorphous, and they're certainly not smart goals, which I've covered previously in another video here. So we need to be specific so for marketing. I want to send five emails to new leads per day. 

Now we could just set a specific time to execute this task, and again in a separate video, I've touched on how I use time blocking to be able to manage my day-to-day calendar. But another way of doing this is by using habit stacking, where you attach your new habit to a pre-existing one. 

So, for example, if you always start your workday by making coffee and as much as I prize my hydration, I do that more often than not. Then you can say after I make my coffee, I will send my five emails, and then you could start chaining various habits together. So after I finish my recordings for the day, I will learn one new keyboard shortcut on my door, or after I’ve checked my Instagram, I will make sure to comment on three other people’s content. Notice also the benefit of linking these habits by location. 

So if you’re doing one habit on your phone already, then make your other habit also on your phone. If it’s a computer-related task, then link it to a computer-related task and so on. If you’re stuck thinking about what useful habits you want to cultivate in the first place, then think about where you spend your time and where. Therefore, a new habit might suggest itself from that exact location. 

1. Make it Attractive

The second rule is to make your new habit attractive. It is where a technique called temptation bundling comes in. Essentially, as an incentive for doing your new habit, you attach it to another habit that you really want to do. As a personal example, I like playing beat saber for half an hour in the morning because it’s a good cardio workout. 

But to do that, I always have to go and work out with my free weights beforehand. But more specifically, during my workday, I’ve paired doing my work emails with playing FIFA on the Playstation. If I don’t do my emails, I won’t be able to further or bury United’s quest for European domination and that stakes for you. 

1. Make it Easy

The third rule is to make your new habit as easy as possible, what James clear calls a gateway habit, rather than setting a really ambitious goal for you to send a certain number of emails or learn a certain number of keyboard shortcuts. Instead, when you’re first implementing a new habit, only do it for one minute a day. So if we apply that approach to email marketing in one minute, you might have enough time to Google a specific company and maybe identify who it is that you reach out to and maybe log their details and that’s it and when establishing that habit that’s all that you need to do. 

And yes, that is ridiculously simple, but that’s why you also have no excuse not to do it. Of course, we want to extend the amount of time you spend on that habit, but the first most crucial thing is to be consistent. 

1. Make it Satisfying

And the final rule to tie it all together is to make it satisfying now clear affirms that the human brain is evolved to prioritize immediate gratification over delayed satisfaction. So what is immediately rewarded is more likely to be repeated. And as we’ve already seen, temptation bundling is a way of attaching gratification to execution. But another way of getting that immediately successful hit is habit tracking. 

If you’ve ever consistently filled in a journal or if you’ve ever continued to log in your exercise process, or if you’ve ever used one of those language apps that congratulates you on chaining together consecutive days of exercise or practice. Then you’ll have sense the reward that gives you knowing that you’re not breaking the chain. 

Of course, life will interrupt at some point, and all chains will be broken but when that eventuality occurs clear affirms the importance of never missing twice. You get back on the metaphorical horse the very next day, and you reaffirm the identity that you’re trying to cultivate even if the time you actually spend doing the habit is a fraction of your normal time. 

I found this personally myself when doing my weight training. It’s been the bad workouts where I’ve only done it for half my normal period of time, and my form has been bad, and I’ve really felt kind of icky about it, but I’ve still done it. And therefore, I felt that I’m someone who does work out five days a week regardless of how good that quality of workout actually is rather than entering into a spiral of, oh, I’ve missed a workout. Therefore, I’m not my best self so. Consequently, I might as well give up entirely. 

So in voiceover, even if circumstances mean that you have very limited time to get back on the wagon, just getting back to doing even one minute of a vocal warm-up and one minute of marketing still reaffirms your identity as a voice actor who does marketing and warms up vocally every day. 

Now it’s this final point that I personally found most revelatory for my career switching from a voice actor who wants x, y, and z to one who is x y and z. I take huge pride in the identity that my habits have given me, so I’m more motivated to maintain them. Of course, this is a much abbreviated version of what’s covered in James clear’s book, and I do recommend that you read it yourself. 

Conclusion

Hopefully, I’ve demonstrated how you could start applying this to a voice actor’s career, and you’ve got a few new techniques that you can start playing around with. If you found this helpful video, please do like subscribe and share. And I look forward to seeing you next time!

Your Voiceover USP

Beyond Voiceover:

What Is Your Voiceover Unique Selling Point?

Running a business is about solving clients’ pain points. And voice over is no different whenever you get the first inquiry as a voice-over artist; the questions usually are going to involve; 

• How soon can you get me the voice?

• How much is it going to cost?

• And how good is the final quality going to be?

• Implicitly asking for social proof of what your previous clients are?

• And what your recording setup is like as well?

Major Question

But aside from these fundamental areas, what else can we do in a client-centric way to stand out from another voice-over actor? 

Let’s dig in!

Satisfactory Solution

Well, I would start by saying that more audio and voice-over content is being used by a whole variety of different companies and organizations. The traditional production pipeline of voice over going from voice talent to sound engineer to the client is being disrupted. A lot of startups are creating their content rather than outsourcing it. And a lot of existing companies are bringing in their content creation and creating their own marketing departments. And these developments give us, as service providers, an opportunity to cater to a whole host of new pain points as a result. 

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that you take your focus entirely off voice-over and therefore dilute your primary offering as a result, but having an appreciation that your narration doesn’t exist purely in a vacuum and that you can actually offer lots of complimentary services as well. That’s what’s going to make you really stand out from the crowd. I’d suggest that rather than purely focusing on those pretty prominent offerings, voice-overs should offer, i.e., outstanding recording quality and knowing how to act, and being able to deliver fast. Instead, we should really think about those things that run parallel or are entirely outside of our voice-over offering, which might also be helpful for the client’s needs. 

Offering- That can Prove Beneficial for You

I’d start by brainstorming all the different types of tasks you’ve had to execute, whether voice-over or any other job you previously might have. Then you could see if any of those additional tasks that ostensibly have nothing to do with voice-over might actually relate to your client offering somehow. 

So just to list through a couple of very obvious offerings; firstly, we obviously can record with our broadcast-quality audio, etc. Secondly, we might be able to connect with people via zoom or source connect or whatever so that people can give us live direction. So that’s another valuable thing. 

Maybe if you can include video direction when you’re talking about remote setups that might be a nice additional thing because some directors like to see what you’re doing with your body. 

But then we can move on to something like usually editing, especially when you’re starting. You just want to keep things simple. Make sure that you edit out any mistakes, but for example, I have a different set of racks that I’ve developed co-developed with other tutors audio experts who know more than me, which I can then apply to my audio. So if they want a particular promo read or a particular type of narration, read then!

I can treat the audio in a way so that it’s more ready to go. And obviously, the vast majority of sound engineers out there want it as raw as possible. And that needs to be your number one priority, but having the option to offer more ready-to-go content, especially when you’re dealing with clients who might not be able to afford an engineer, can be a fantastic direct offering.

• Are you comfortable enough to be able to quickly separate lots of different files and batch them into different folders?

Because again, especially in the e-learning sphere, that’s a really invaluable offering to be able to have rather than having to rely on the instructional designer to cut up the audio. 

• Do you have any copywriting expertise that you can apply to a project?

As voice actors, we need to appreciate what different types of copy are doing and how they’re going about doing that. So we need an appreciation of the form of structure. Your copy feedback could therefore range from just solving the odd grammatical error to actually suggesting whole alternate sections or actually even potentially offering complete rewrites on specific areas as well. 

Maybe there isn’t a clear enough sense of conflict before the script reaches its resolution. Maybe there’s a missed opportunity for applying the rule of three when listing benefits. Or maybe there’s just an unwarranted change of tense halfway through a script because it’s gone through so many different layers of approval. That it’s kind of been hacked together, in which case it’s your job, or at least you’re offering to be able to provide a solution to that video syncing. And editing is another pretty obvious offering that not every voice actor has being able to test your voice over a recording with a video.

So that you are absolutely sure that it does sync when requested by a client can really save them time at their end. But in some projects being able to go that one step further and actually edit the video so that they work together can really be helpful in a recent project that I worked for. 

There was a video tutorial and some software, and the actual cursor that was going around on the screen was doing things much slower than it took me actually to narrate those actions. I was able to offer the client to edit the video myself to speed up certain sections or cut some dead time at various bits in the video as well where nothing was happening on the screen and then combined that with the voice-over that I’d naturally created so that I was able to give them a fully finished end product that didn’t have any dead time and sounded natural as well.

Consider if there are any opportunities to switch your hat from being a performer to being a director in a lot of the corporate content that I work with. There are often talking heads, and there are people who have minimal experience of actually being on camera themselves or narrating things themselves. But it’s thought of as adding extra value for them to say certain bits themselves authentically or appear on screen themselves. 

So what I have sometimes been able to offer, in addition to my narration, is a bit of one-on-one training with people before they go in front of the camera themselves. They can do very physically or things to do vocally to bear in mind to make the whole filming process much easier for them depending on when you started. 

If you had an entire existing career before you moved into voice acting, then it’s really your responsibility to make sure that your clients are aware of it. If you worked in law, if you worked in the medical area, if you worked in hospitality, then for clients who also operate in those spheres, you’re going to be able to communicate with even greater authority because you really genuinely understand all of the minutiae of what you’re talking about. 

And also, maybe you’re a vocal specialist in some way. Maybe you’re an exceptional opera singer, or perhaps you’re a heavy metal vocalist. Again, making people aware of this pretty unique or unusual skill set is not one that people would naturally assume when they’re booking a corporate narration. They might be able to open their ideas about the type of content they may be able to create, making it a bit more collaborative. 

It’s inarguable that the more you have a fuller understanding of the whole process and what other people are doing, that are only going to inform your decisions that much more in terms of your vocal delivery. And at the base level, it’s going to make you a better voice-over artist even if you decide not to be bold enough to make other explicit offerings. Yes, it’s all about just hitting record, doing your thing, and then moving to the next job for some voice-over artists, but in the increasingly competitive area finding these opportunities to really cultivate. 

Conclusion:

A USP, I think, is vitally important, so you can keep that momentum going as well. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video as ever. If so, please do like subscribe and share the word! And do feel free to add a comment below if there’s anything else that you can think of as a voice-over offering as well. Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

The Rise of AI Voiceover

The Rise of AI Voiceover -

by British Male Voice Actor Chris Tester

The rise of the AI voice has been the go-to anxiety topic for the voiceover industry for the last couple of years. The one before this was arguably the acceptance of home studios. They were more readily available and affordable technology, better remote connections, and more online casting portals allowing people to go directly to their clients. 

That meant that there was a greater acceptance of that as a valid way of doing voiceover work. So before we get into the whole AI thing, it's really important that we set out what exactly we're talking about and specifically that there's a distinction between the two main types of AI voice that are out there!

There's text to speech, and there's also speech to speech. Text to speech is what we most readily accept. AI voices to be so that you're inputting text, and as a result, a synthetic voice is turning that into spoken speech. But there's also speech to speech where there is actually a live performance giving the vocal inflections. But then a digital mask of another voice is being placed over the top of it, and we also need to remember that as most developing technologies AI voice stands on a moral spectrum.

There are better examples of it and worse examples on the one side. Some of this technology is literally giving voice to the voiceless, as demonstrated by the vocal id's work in the area. And then, on the opposite side, you have the model that we as voice actors might be more familiar with, which is something like a product like speechello, which advertises itself overtly as a solution to those costly and unnecessary voice actors.

So I'd say the key questions about AI voices are:

1. How good are they?

2. Will they replace voice actors?

3. What voiceover genres will it affect?

4. And how can voice actor’s best prepare for it?

Every few months, there seems to be another development in the mainstream media that provokes another spasm of anxiety for voiceover actors. Eighteen months ago, it was probably the release of a trailer of an AI voice that could cry called faith by the developer synaptic. 

Most recently, there was a controversy sparked by the troy baker, the voice actor. Now the baker is essentially as close to voice actor royalty as you can get; he starred in a whole variety of different franchises. Some of the biggest franchises in video games have been a running joke within the industry that he's in pretty much every game he tweeted about partnering with an AI voice company to allow everyone the chance to own and invest in the IPS that they create. 

Now part of the controversy was that it was a combination of AI voice and NFTS, which is another subject. And to itself that I don't really want to focus on in this video but what I do want to focus on in this video is that it shows that many voice actors out there already are exploring the different options of monetizing an AI version of their voice. When discussing his thinking and the subsequent backlash on the podcast play, watch listen baker explain a bit more thoroughly about his rationale: you never fire like the middle management. 

You fire the most expensive that's where the change happens; producers, by and large, are looking for how we can get away from hiring someone like a troy baker. Who's really expensive versus that guy doesn't cost that much. He's a negligible amount, or she's not going to be as expensive. So what I'm saying is they're trying to if they're trying to bring anybody's costs down; it's not that person. It's me! 

My job is not better than anything. My job is to solve the problem. Now I'd recommend that podcast, and I would also say that Alana Pierce - the video game writer and Mike Bithell - the video game developer made very good counterpoints in terms of obviously the very explicit risk that AI voices might have, especially for a new voice over talents coming into the industry who aren't as established as a baker. 

But what possibly interested me most about the baker's explanations towards his thinking was that it wasn't just about being as good as he could possibly be as an actor. Still, it was also about his focus on addressing the pain points of the clients that are out there, which rings true to a lot of the marketing that I do where on the marketing that recommends where it's not all about you. And what you can do but it's addressing you're the markets and your potential client's pain points first and foremost. 

But I was meeting about this literally last week with a studio that was like. We don't want to use the robot voice, but it's not a good use of our time to have people in-house. Record all the dialogue what our options are. So I definitely, I get that, and I also. I also understand that smaller voice actors are concerned with it too. I imagine that for similar for the composing community like I would guess people are split on it. Some people like it and some people don't. So given all of this, what should voice actors do? Should we just give up? Should we pretend it? Isn't it existing or happening at all just living entirely in denial, or maybe we should just sell out as soon as possible. 

We still can't be sure what exact voiceover genres will be most affected, but we can take an educated guess on IVR phone messaging. Some e-learning will probably be the most obvious candidates because if an AI program can change the language of an entire course rapidly, that can have some added value. There's also an argument for some commercial content to be specifically catered towards AI programs. Maybe you receive an advert that addresses you by name, addresses the location where you are, and also address what it is that you're playing or watching that commercial experience which some marketers are going to want to engage with is only really going to be feasible using an AI voice rather than having a human talent recording. Potentially millions of different variations in games AI voices are used as a placeholder and in the development process. And there are actual AI voices programs that are being built into and trialed in platforms such as unity which is specifically to aid the game development process because it makes more financial sense sometimes as a placeholder than it would be to hire live talent for in-progress work. Also, the wide availability of decent AI voices generally speaking would obviously invite greater use of voices in indie games. 

Whereas before, they would simply be priced out entirely, and we can see how some of the online casting sites are already catering to this where you have voice 123 and voices.com trialing AI voices and freelancing websites such as Fiverr looking at teaming up with AI providers such as lovo so that people can first of all order samples of existing human voiceovers. But then that leading probably almost essentially to them also having an AI voice offering as well there is also the wider question of diversity that needs to certainly be born in the mind which is that if a whole area is suddenly flooded by AI voice versions of reputable video game voice actors that people are going to be using instead of early voice actors, then it means that there's going to be a narrower pool of actual talent there.

As a result, some of the newer and more diverse talent coming into voice acting might be stifled in their development, but still and I'm sorry this is a cop-out. It is still too soon to know for sure exactly how this will impact. All we know is that there is a greater tolerance now that we're using Alexa, Siri, and TTS in the social media that we imbibe every day. There is a greater tolerance. It will be part of our lives in some form to come; that's as much as we know, and we can't ignore it. So what can us as voice actors do? Well, I suggest five things! 

The first thing I'd recommend is that we focus on being voice actors, and this may seem obvious. But it still bears repeating the one thing that ai voices struggle with is spontaneous, realistic emotion, and even if you do teach an AI voice to cry with specific inputs, then if you give them those same specific inputs, they will cry in the same way, there's not going to be that level of spontaneity. Whereas an actor who lives in the moment has a seemingly limitless way of channeling those kinds of things, you also need to value yourself artistically as a collaborator. As well as just a gun for hire, as a voice actor, you can understand the rules of copy and how to interpret text and give feedback on that. Similarly, with character relationships, characters' background, and the decision-making process. The decision-making process behind that is all added value that you can readily market and sell to potential collaborators, which AI voices simply won't have. 

My second point would be to be as educated as possible about the subject. So I would say podcasts like the VO social podcast about AI voices are great Anne Ganguzza’s VO boss podcasts. She's created a series of interviews with different AI voice providers about their approaches to their ethical standpoints. All of that kind of thing, I would say Hugh Edwards - a gravy for the brain has worked a lot with TTS stuff and spoken to several number developers. And I'd say podcasts like play watch listen where you're seeing game developers, game writers, composers, and voice actors, all discussing this kind of thing. So that it's not isolated but as part of our whole conversation in itself are, invaluable. 

The third thing to do is be open to potential opportunities where AI voice could augment your workflow. Yes, you could have an AI avatar that you market yourself or have someone mark a market for you for a lower stream of paid work. But there's also the potential to use AI voice, maybe just to do pickups in your workflow so that an algorithm can auto-replace those 12 errors for you instead of you having to go back in and do those pickups again. It's just being open to all of the different offerings out there. So that you can then see what might serve you best do you want an AI avatar. Do you want it to be on a separate platform? Do you want someone to market for you again by familiarising yourself with what other people are offering? You can start making some informed decisions.

The fourth point going hand in hand with that is to value your voice usage rights, and I'll always be banging on about knowing what usage is as a voice actor. Anyway, it's essentially making sure that you steer clear of anything which asks for a potential complete buyout. A lot of voice actors will have seen a text-to-speech was programmed. Where you'll have to record anything from half an hour to three hours to ten hours of seemingly nonsensical sentences from which they'll create a text-to-speech program. And then they'll offer com a complete buyout fee of anywhere from between two and a half to three thousand up to ten to twenty thousand pounds or dollars. And all of this kind of stuff is really iffy because they're essentially offering a buyout on that. And therefore, you don't have any say on where that voice may end up, and obviously, we've got a recent example of Bev standing a voice actor whose voice was used on TikTok without her permission. Those usage rights are really going to be crucial because if you sign them away too early and very, very, very cheaply, that's going to be the slippery slope. 

And finally, the fifth thing is to return to a theme of mine, which is the crucial aspect of forging direct relationships with your clients rather than being beholden to freelancing sites or pay-to-plays or anything like this your value proposition. As a voice actor, there will be more and more this human connection and all of the additional benefits that you can add and if other things can get in the way of that. Then that will diminish your ability to maintain a career in this area. The sooner that you're independent and very clear about what value you're adding to every single project you lend yourself with, the more you're going to make yourself independent and more self-sustaining as a business to conclude. 

I'd encourage us to look back at what I was discussing with the advent of home studios beforehand. Those talents that thrived were those who weren't afraid of new technology and were appreciative that their customer's workflows were changing. And therefore, their skill sets needed to change to cater to those new needs; they embraced new technology and saw how that could be able to enhance their client offering. We need to be aware of something that we need to bear in mind in a customer-centric way as much as possible. 

I don't believe that AI voices are going to spell the end of voice actors in their careers, especially when we live in a world where emotional connection and authenticity is a key factors in everything that we do, whether that's particularly artistic projects or voice acting, whether it's e-learning whether or not it's commercial or narration. All of these things, the emotional connection will always be key, but still, we have to be aware of what is developing around us. I hope you found this video of some interest, and if you have, please do like subscribe and spread the word; I look forward to seeing you next time!

With thanks - your favourite British Male Voiceover - Naturally RP

How to set the BEST Voiceover Goals for 2022

By British Male Voiceover Artist Chris Tester

Essentially, what I want to do is bring together two of my previous videos, one of which was about goal setting and the other one which was about taking stock of your voiceover achievements for 2021, and then use myself as an example of how I'm going about setting my goals for this coming year. The trickiest aspect of this can be that you don't really know where to start!

Everybody has their own kind of competing goals. There are loads of posts on it at the moment on social media; various voiceover provider services are all about these things. And you can't really see the wood from the trees. So I recommend that you have to start with what your goal is. You also need to think about how you would go about achieving that goal.

But the thing that I believe is I really kind of missed out from last year in properly interrogating was the why, as well. I think this is of crucial importance to really determine whether or not a goal actually works for you personally, or whether or not you've just taken it from someone else's goal list and assumed it into your own business rather than really properly interrogating it. So it's about the what, it's about the how, but it's also crucially about the why, and this is what's going to be able to make you narrow down your options into something that is actually feeling possible to you in this coming year, as opposed to something that is overwhelming.

Let's talk in-depth without further ado!

#1. Brainstorming 

So to get onto the resolution aspect of this, the first thing that I really recommend is that you brainstorm everything. But you brainstorm everything with three major sectors in mind:

1. Technical Side

The first one is going to be the technical side. The technical side may be equipment, it may be an investment in your space, but it's to do with your recording environment, the process of recording from a technical side. So equipment, all of that kind of thing.

1. Performance Side

The second area to really focus on is the performance side. So that could be working with particular coaches in particular genres. But then that also goes towards the actual demo production you might be involved in if you actually want to showcase your work in that respect

1. Marketing/Employment side

There's the technical side, and there's the performance side, and then there's also the marketing/employment side.

• So this is to do with what are your inbound marketing streams?

• What are your outbound marketing streams?

• Inherently, that's social media and any direct marketing that you do. And then, on top of that, it's also what agents are you represented by?

• How often are you auditioning?

• Are you auditioning through production rosters?

• Are you using pay-to-plays?

• And if so, how regularly you are auditioning, all of that kind of thing.

So we've got those three rough areas from which to start with.

#2. Stock Consideration

The next stage is to make sure that you have taken stock of this year, 2021, to see what targets you've set and whether or not you managed to do so. And then also to interrogate why. So when I look back, I'm not going to try and repeat everything that's already in that pre-existing video. But when I look back, obviously, there are many things that I'm very proud to have been able to achieve.

So, for example, I didn't hit my income target, but I came very close to hitting in terms of working more in games or audiobooks. That was very successful. I managed to get this home studio built, which has made me have to worry a lot less about the technical side of things. And I've also managed to formalise my coaching offering. I've managed to work with a marketing company specifically on defining what my marketing strategies are. And I've also managed to create another skillshare course, which is very, very good and very well-regarded and completely free if you sign up for a trial, just saying.

But there was also something that I completely dropped, completely failed on. And again, this comes back to not having really interrogated the why enough. So, for example, I had this whole idea that I would create a kind of marketing pack for myself so that I could, I don't know, get more varieties of interviews or appear on podcasts or anything else like that. 

Because there wasn't a really clear why behind that, other than I'd heard a few other people do it, that never really kind of came together in any way, shape or form, or more specifically also with working on US general American accents, it's something that I'd set up as wanting to revisit because I'd done a lot of it as a trained actor before previously. 

Many people say it's a very, very good idea, but it never became a priority for me because I just didn't encounter that many castings where it was really an issue. And increasingly, as well, with people looking for really authentic accents, I kind of used it as a bit of an excuse because my why wasn't strong enough in the first place to not even begin touching that. So I'm not saying that's not something that I'm going to focus on in the new year, but I need to develop a strong enough why to justify that being on my goals list. 

So oriented around those three different areas, you brainstorm everything you think of, anything that pops into your mind that you possibly think of as a goal. Don't try and qualify it in any way, shape or form; just put it down there and attach it to one of those three spheres. And then from that, you need to focus on the why which will be a natural process of elimination before you get into the nitty-gritty of the how.

There's no point in wasting lots of time on the how if the why isn't strong enough. It's like any kind of acting objective exercise; if your want isn't strong enough, then the scene won't be successful because you won't really feel you'll need it. So there won't be that tension of drama. It's exactly identical in terms of your motivation. If these are going to be goals that you're going to be pursuing for an entire 12 months, if the why isn't strong enough, you won't do it. 

#3. Documentary Work

So if I look at some of the goals that I'm contemplating in 2022, one example is documentary work. So that's what it is. I want to work more in documentaries and long-form duration and that type of thing. Then why is because I've always had a real interest in that from David Attenborough and his nature narrations, having a particularly huge effect on me, and then more kind of historical narration as well. I've been really interested in it. 

And so, therefore, once I've got those two as established, that's a very positive thing, then I can go into the, how could I possibly do that? And that would be by working with a coach that I think is well-respected. So maybe doing some research on that and working with them to get a demo. And then when you have that demo, well, what can you do? Yes, you can put it on pay-to-play sites. Yes, you can give it to your agents. Still, it would then be working in terms of my marketing as well so that I could identify specific leads that I could reach out to directly and then incorporate into my overall kind of direct marketing strategy as a result.

#4. Consolidation of Income

Another what that I'm really contemplating is that I want to consolidate my income. Before I get into how I want to do that, I really need to think about the why. And obviously, it's because more money is always great, right? Maybe? But the why is actually because I want to take some time off from voiceover without massive feelings of guilt. So that's quite a strong activator for me in terms of a life goal, as opposed to a business goal, to take more time off without going; oh my God, my business will plummet as a result. And then that justifies very much more strongly the, how I want to go about that.

So that's making sure that I am actioning all of the marketing work that I explored with Knowlton Marketing when I hired them as a consultant for my business. In terms of inbound work and outbound work, it's about making sure that the workflow of my content creation is as streamlined as possible so that I can be consistent and do batch contenting. It's led to some outsourcing. It's why I've got a virtual assistant for my outreach to help with that. Now, throughout this process, I'm not saying that the why has always to be ridiculously strong. It's good to have some speculative ones in there that you can subsequently kind of quantify. 

#5. Whole Dubbing and ADR World 

So, for example, with me, one of the goals that I'm contemplating is looking into the whole dubbing and ADR world because it's something that I haven't experienced. I don't know whether I'd love it or hate it because I've never even done a workshop on it or tried it out myself. So I know that I want to go about doing that. What's the why? Because it seems to be such a booming industry at this moment. So do I know whether or not I'd like it? Do I know whether or not it's a genre that would work for me? I'm not going to know that until I explore it in some kind of way. 

And so, therefore, we go down to the how, and that's by seeing what workshops are available, seeing if there are any resources that I'm already paying for, from my memberships to the VoiceOver Network or Gravy For The Brain, or other organisations are available and whether or not they have some resources that I can use, whether or not the friends or people that I know who already work in those spheres, that I can potentially talk to to see what the whole process is like. 

Once you've gone through this entire process, you should have a bunch of ideas that you've brainstormed out, and then they will have automatically kind of funnelled down quite considerably as soon as you've analysed the why. 

#6. Different Colours

I recommend even using a kind of different colours. So maybe all of the ones you've brainstormed are in blue, but when they actually qualify to the next stage, you may put the why in red. And then if they're ones that you actually want to spend considerable time on thinking about the how, then you put them in another colour, like purple for example. And that means that they are definitely going to be priorities for you. And obviously, if they chime with you and you're more excited about them, then that's obviously a very good sign. 

In a Nutshell

One of the practical benefits of having those three areas kind of like mapped out is to make sure that there's some form of balance so that you're not focusing purely, always on the performance side and not at all on the marketing side, because yes, it's great that you focus on your skills, especially when you're starting out. 

But if you want actually to make it function as a business, you need to spend at least as much time on the marketing side, on getting auditions, on getting those relationships, and on the technical side. I know that the technical side, thanks to having invested in the studio and making it such a priority in 2021, is less of an issue for me.

So it's going to be focusing more on the performance side and much more on the kind of marketing side, marketing to new areas. But again, it's about kind of forming a natural process, not by trying to get it right, right from the get-go, but by literally copying everybody else's ideas first and foremost, having them all out in front of you, and then seeing what speaks to you.

Last Words

I hope this video has been of some use to you. And I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, regardless of what the COVID restrictions may or may not be by the time that we get there. Thank you so much for your support for the channel, as ever. Please do like, subscribe. Please do tell other people that you think might enjoy this content about this content, as it would mean a great deal. 

And thank you, as ever, for your time and support and lovely comments. I will be taking a break for a week just to kind of revise where I want to take this channel next. And I hope that I'll be able to bring you all along with me. Thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you next year!

How to Direct Voice Actors in Video Games

Video games are continuing to boom as an industry. And as a result of that greater popularity, the expectation for voice acting is only getting higher and higher. Gone are the days of getting your friends to do it for free and hoping that would work out. 

Voiceover: I'm fully aware of what I'm doing. Can you see? Man committed a sin, disturbing the lifecycle of nature. The original sin that man is responsible to, to protect the life cycle. 

This is the second of three videos about the best ways of working with actors for video games. The first cover the casting process, and if you haven't watched it already, you can check it out here. In this video, we're going to look at how you can make your actual recording session with a voice actor as creatively stimulating and productive as possible. This is intended to apply to all forms of voice acting and video games. But for something as specialized as performance capture or motion capture, those are subjects that I would really like to approach in another video in the future. There is also an important distinction I would like to make between a voice actor and a voice over. And there is a distinction. 

Of course, both require acting skills. But with voiceover, there's a particular style to it, there is a pattern, a formula that's actually at work. With voice actors where the emphasis is on the second word, then there's more process of using our imaginations, engaging emotionally with a character and actually putting ourselves in another person's shoes. Now performer can be both a voiceover and a voice actor simultaneously. You just need to be aware of the distinction, to be aware of the different skill sets that are associated with each. It's quite a confusing topic because different people brand themselves in different ways at different times. So for my commercial and corporate work, I will brand myself as a voice over but when I'm talking about games, I'll emphasize the acting part. Actually hiring a voice director to work with the actors on your behalf is probably the best solution. And it also allows you the opportunity to learn through observation, but you may not be in a position to hire them. And either way, some of the points that’ll raised in this video may be useful for your future learning. So to start, let's talk preparation. 

If you can discuss the character with the actor before the actual session. Talk about their characteristics, their background, their relationships, and the world of the game. If you have time, be open to a dialogue and make the actual creation of the character as collaborative as possible. Provide the scripts which are often called sides as quickly as possible. Most voice actors can actually be very good side readers but the more time we have with the script, the better the end product will be. If the game has a lot of conversations between different actors, then try and organize a table read of some sort, even if it is only through zoom. It means that everyone will get a whole sense of what the world is like, what the interactions are like and that's something that can feed through even into individual sessions. And then if you have a discussion at the end, where people can ask questions, it means that you only have to answer them once rather than repeating yourself time after time. 

Looking to the script itself, if there are any unusual pronunciations, then make sure that you have a guide so that everybody is on the same page. And try to resist the temptation to actor proof your script by throwing in objectives all the time telling them how they should say something, the odd direction of angry or whispered can be very good in terms of providing context to why someone is saying something in a particular way. But if it's every line or every other line, then it just limits the potential options open to the actor, which stifles their creativity and will probably be deleted anyway. Essentially as performers, we can only perform to the size of the space that you actually grant us. And finally, whenever possible, budget for more session time than you think you'll need. When a session begins, make the process clear for everyone. Make it clear how many scenes that you're covering, what different emotional states are required in each and where they come from in the game. 

Obviously, that could just be you and the actor, that could be a director but there could also be a producer or writer or any other number of people on the line. Regardless of how many there are ensure that only one person is actually giving direction to the actor, so that they're not lost in a cacophony of voices. Spend the first five to 10 minutes of the session, just checking in with the other actor, seeing where they are, how their days been, and what they're going to be like to direct. Obviously, in all cases, time is money. And if you've got 5000, as opposed to 500 words to do in a three hour session, then you want to be getting on with things. But still having that chat at the start is useful for gauging the tone for the whole session. Ask the actor if they have any questions about the character about the background about the sides, whatever. But obviously, if you've been able to build in some pre session time, this will be less of an issue. 

One crucial aspect to bear in mind is the order in which you approach material. If there's a particularly emotional scene or a lot of shouting involved, then it's usually better to place that towards the end of the session, but each actor may work differently. For some they may warm up with shouting first and foremost, different actors voices work in different ways. So check in with them before coming to a mutual decision. And one final thing before starting make sure that a break schedule has been agreed. Make sure that you enforce it, not the actor. Actors will tend to want to keep going and sometimes that's absolutely great because they're in the moment, they're feeling something, but they're still not necessarily the best objective judge of their vocal health, especially if they're inexperienced. Small breaks are important, both to replenish the mind and the body. When you finally get to the recording, you need to tell your actor at every scene, the where, the what and the why. 

The where, where does the scene take place? Is it a battlefield? Is it a council chamber? Is it a bedroom? How big is the space? Are there other people there? And how far away am I from the person that I'm talking to? The what is the essential physical action. Am I running away? Am I in the middle of the battle? Or am I working in an office. And the why is what is the objective behind the characters actions? Of course, all of this information combines with the Greater Life of the character, and also the world of the game. And again, if you've done all of that prep work in advance, then it means you can be a lot more succinct when you're actually recording. But it's crucial to focus on these essentials rather than getting distracted by any extraneous information. It's also very useful to think in terms of the characters emotional state, and generally they break down into being either mad, sad or glad. 

Obviously, there's a whole spectrum of choices lying across those three distinctions, but it's still useful to have one in mind as a starting point at each scene. It could also be useful to think of a character's driving forces coming from either their head, their heart or their groin. Just saying the same line with the same logical objective but those three different things in mind will give you different results. When at all possible, be flexible with the actual words themselves be open to the idea of aligning words or changing them if they don't feel quite natural. For theatre actors, especially the can sometimes be a reverence for the word on the page. So sometimes you need to actively give permission to mess things up and make things more believable. Hesitations, gasps, half said words and repetitions are all little things that can give texture to language in a whole new way. Think of encouraging these improvisations even before the actual words begin. 

Adele Cutting, a voice director suggests using them as springboards into an actual line itself, which you can cut afterwards. Different actors work in different ways. And if you try and enforce some one size fits all process for everyone, then it's probably going to end up limiting the results that you actually get. But try to describe the stakes in a given scene as vividly as possible using the right transitive verb. The more vivid a transitive verb is, the more stimulating it is to play as an actor. There is the difference between telling an actor to ask for forgiveness and telling them to beg or plead for forgiveness. You want to use language that is going to ignite an actor's imagination, not stifle it. So familiarizing yourself with a book like Actions, The Actors Thesaurus, would be a really great stuff to that process. Boiling down a scene to what it's essentially about is always important, but can be particularly important when we're thinking in terms of genre.

To give a personal example, I was recently working on a scene with a video game director, in which one of my companions was killed. My initial response was to take the subsequent scene very literally, like it was therefore going to be a fight to the death. But after I'd gone in horribly wrong a couple of times, the director actually pointed out that in the context of the game, which was set in a post-apocalyptic world, with lots of zombies being killed all the time, the actual essential of the scene was actually about confronting a bullet, not about a fight to the death. It was a subtle changing of the stakes, as opposed to a lessening of them, which completely changed my playing of the scene as a result. 

I think the final thing I want to say is that you should be thinking in terms of how you want the character to make you feel, as opposed to how you want them to actually sound. If you start a session with a very preconceived idea of how things should go, then it's going to be very stifling, and collaborative and also very uninspired. Sometimes lines have to be spoken in a particular way for a particular reason. And if necessary, alone reading can be justifiable if an actor really isn't getting it. But it really should be a very selective approach. You want to be part of an exciting, collaborative, creative experience. And by approaching it with the right preparation, and the right attitude all the way through, it can really be achievable. 

Next time I'll be looking at your relationship with the actor after the recording process, which is typically the part most overlooked. If you enjoyed this video, please do like subscribe and turn on notifications and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Using Physicality in Voiceover

Whether performing or directing, it is essential to know how physicality informs delivery in voiceover - and how you can make dramatic changes through small adjustments.

By British Male Voiceover Artist Chris Tester

How to Negotiate Voiceover Rates

By British Male Voiceover Artist Chris Tester

Not all voiceover budgets are created equal, and neither are all voiceover actors. There are plenty of opportunities with Blue Yeti mics and pillow for[not clear, 00:17] who will be willing to record your product for absolutely nothing. But is that what you really want? Assuming that it isn't, where do you really start with professional rates? If you know that your budget is low, then how do you negotiate with a VO? And are there any other essential elements that you should discuss as winners price? 

Tip one, knowledge is power. Your first point of call should be the Gravy For The Brain rate card. It represents industry, standard fair market rates and breaks them down into different sections and regions, so you will have all the information you need to know what constitutes par for the industry. Obviously, certain details may still need to be confirmed by your project, but they'll still be able to give you a ballpark figure. For the majority of voiceovers, a quote will break down into two sections. There's the session fee and then there's the usage fee. The session fee is essentially the voiceover artists fee for pressing record and stepping into the booth, whether their recording is actually used or not. The usage fee might not actually apply to every project but it basically covers where and how long it's going to be used for. The biggest factor in price is going to be the size of the actual audience, the more eyes that you have on your content than the more you're probably going to be paying a voiceover artist. 

The same thirty second animation will have completely different usage cost if it's being used internally for staff training, if it's just being posted on a company website that hardly gets any visitors. If it's being used on social media with thousands of followers, or if it's being used on YouTube, but as a pre roll ad, in which case it could potentially be reaching millions or tens  of millions of people. This is one of the many reasons why a lot of voiceovers don't actually publish their rate cards on their website because there are so many multiple different facets that you need to judge. It's difficult to give an exact quote. To name check Gravy For The Brain again, I recommend you check out the voiceover licensing and usage video they did, which explains it very clearly in just a couple of minutes. Tip two appreciate that in perpetuity usage is problematic, increasingly with quite a few projects, clients are starting to ask for usage in perpetuity rather than for a limited time. Essentially, so that they can use the recording for as long as they want. 

Now this can be less problematic in one sector as opposed to another, it can still be a very difficult request actually answer. Essentially granting usage rights in perpetuity leaves voiceover artists open to conflicts of interest. For example, I recorded a radio campaign for a pharmacy that was going to last for three months. When the client decided to extend that campaign for another three months, they paid me in additional usage payment as a result, which was great, because I'd actually booked another job with one of their rivals. Obviously I couldn’t voice both at the same time as it would have been a conflict of interest. So I was recompensed as a result with the usage fee but if the original usage had been in perpetuity, then I would have simply lost out. This type of situation is much less prevalent in the corporate sector where buyouts are typically more often requested but it still can be an issue. 

So have some sensitivity before requesting it. Is a company really going to be using the same voice for two three or four years? Or are they actually likely to use it for just a year, in which case they should pay the usage for that. Tip three, be very clear about the perimeters of negotiation. A voiceovers rates are a voice overs rate and it's completely their discretion whether they accept or pass on a project as a result. But if you're super clear about the variables that you can offer in a deal, then you can make the process of any negotiation much more straightforward. Ask yourself, can you offer a variable time on delivery? Most projects tend to be recorded within 24 to 48 hours. Would you be in a position to offer some form of retainer? The cliche of a client who justifies a very low rate by the promise of future work that never materializes is a cliche for a reason. But if there is a consistent stream of work that you can offer, then maybe there is a group discount that can be agreed. 

For e-Learning and long form projects, can you do the editing in house? Typically for any voiceover project, for every one minute that we're recording, we spend about two to three minutes actually editing. If you take that out of the equation, then the fees might be much lower as a result. In areas such as e-learning especially where the quote is often per word as opposed to per minute, then you might actually get a completely different rate if this is factored in. For video games with no budget, why not offer a percentage of the final profits of the game if it turns one. This would need to be made incredibly clear in any contract, but it's much better than just asking for free work. Tip four be very clear about the process of revisions and rerecord. And just to clarify what those two things are. A revision is a re-recording that is necessitated because the script has been changed after an original recording. So no fault to the voiceover. 

Whereas a retake is when there's something in the delivery that wasn't quite right or we’ve mispronounced a word. Communication and information is key. So make sure that you always start with something like the Gravy For The Brain rate card in order to build your budget. And of course if you're looking for a quote for your voiceover project, anything that my voice my Fit, then please just drop me an email at chris@naturallyrp.co.uk. 

Thanks as ever for checking out this video. Please do subscribe if you enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing you next week.

What Gender Should Your Voiceover Be

By British Male Voice Actor Chris Tester

Voiceover used to be male dominated, but if trends continue as they have been in the last few years, it's predicted that female voice over jobs will actually overtake male voice over jobs by around 2025. The received wisdom has always been to go with someone who sounds like the audience. Voice over typically uses the rule of PLU. We most readily listen to people like us. And then we have quite stereotypical notions of what a male or female voice may offer. A deep male voice has power, aggression and authority and that's the reason why Mark Strong, the man who normally tells you to turn your phone off in the cinema in the UK, is also the man who fronts the UK COVID announcements. 

Voice over: This is a message from the government's Chief Medical Officer about Coronavirus. 

By contrast, female voices are typically considered more reassuring and soothing. A poll conducted by Harris international found that 46% of people found female voices more soothing than male voices. Soothing voices make people more comfortable. And when people feel more comfortable, then they're more likely to trust the person that they're listening to. That's one of the very good reasons why many Satnavs, computer systems and travel directions are delivered by female voices. Now this is partly scientific study by the Journal of advertising found that products that were aimed at neutral audiences or once towards men, the gender of the voice didn't really matter. But the same certainly wasn't true for female oriented products. Psychologist Phil Maclear at the University of Glasgow found that male voices with a lower pitch were usually perceived as least trustworthy, while higher pitched female voices were perceived as most trustworthy. Female voices and not just perceived as more melodic, but also clearer to by where they're processed in the brain. A study conducted at the University of Sheffield found that female voices were processed in the auditory part of the brain where music is processed, while male voices were processed at the back of the brain in what's called the mind's eye. So how does this all relate to the voiceover that you should choose? Well, Nancy Wilson, one of the foremost voiceover coaches in the world in commercial copy, talks about how copy is generally structured in terms of align, escalate and solve. 

The voiceover aligns themselves with the listeners problem, then they escalate it so the listener is compelled to act and then you offer the solution with the product. Taking the listener on an emotional journey throughout from crisis to resolution. The female voice seen as softer and chattier most readily fits the aligned part of that equation. Women now drive between 70 and 80% of consumer spending, and the greater perceived emotional intent in their voices helps with that alignment. Demographics are also changing. We're seeing women make inroads, pardon the pun, in a traditionally male sphere like cars with Mercedes. 

Voice over: The new A-class range with Mercedes me. 

And Alfa Romeo
Voice over: NaVi is no longer blind, Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio. 

With 80% of car purchases now being directly influenced by women. Similarly, in entertainment, we're seeing the rise of female protagonists to mirror the fact that more women are getting involved in games as players and as developers as well. But the taste in male voices is also expanding and diversifying too. Often a male voice will simply suit a certain product best. And sometimes you need a Mark Strong to tell you to turn off your phone and wash your hands. But we're starting to explore a more three dimensional concept of masculinity beyond the alpha male. One which possibly even started with the marketing towards stay at home dads. As copy texts in many genres have moved from telling the audience to aligning with them, there are greater opportunities to explore emotional availability, vulnerability, and nurturing tones rather than just being strong and stoic. We're seeing advertisers take a voice which may be considered alpha, like, for example, Tom Hardy, and then disrupting that by making the delivery more ponderous and introspective than you would normally expect. 

Voice over: Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing. We're all capable of it. All of us. 

You can't even say that makeup is still the preserve of female voices when there's a whole new industry marketing makeup to young men. So as media consumption continues to develop and change and diversify, it's more and more difficult to make any kind of blanket statements about the importance of the gender. The content we consume is becoming more targeted, more personalized, and less binary. 

Voice over: This is about more than just keeping a card safe. It's about keeping us safe. True name by MasterCard. 

There are more and more brands looking to use non binary voices because it associates them with a more considerate and thoughtful approach to living and workplace culture. So in conclusion, surprise, there's no simple answer. Think about your product in terms of the wider industry and the target audience. Make the emotion that you want the listener to feel be of central importance. Always be aware of gender stereotypes so you can then play to them or convert them. And remember that tone, pace and inflection are going to have the most influence over your voiceovers effectiveness, which is why you should hire a professional. Why not try demoing a variety of talent not just going with what you think it should be, and then seeing what the results are like. I hope this video has been of interest to you. 

And thanks so much for joining me. Please do like subscribe and turn on notifications and I look forward to seeing you next time.

How To Cast Voice Actors For Games

By British Male Voiceover Artist Chris Tester

Whether your game is part of a huge Triple A billion franchise, or it's just you as a single developer, getting the right voice actors to be part of your game is particularly crucial. Especially with gamers expecting more believable, authentic performances as standard. In this video, I'm going to talk about how to cast voice actors. The when, the where, the how, and the what. This will be the first of three videos on the subject, with a second looking at how you actually work with the voice actor during a directed session itself. And the third looking at your relationship with the voice actor after the game is released. How they can help with marketing and promotion, and expand your broader network. So let's get started with the where. Where you cast your voice actors will depend on what you're looking for, your budget, and how many roles you need to fill. Recommendations and referrals from other game developers, voice actors or voice directors is a great way to start. It's a way of being introduced to a whole variety of talent that you might not be familiar with, but which has been vetted, been proven in some way. Of course, a pretty standard route is to contact agents, either voice agents and acting agents and ask them about the talent on their books. 

If you have a particular talent in mind, then just google their name and an agency and it'll probably pop up. Or alternatively, just google any major city name and voice agent or acting agent and lots of options will come up to. You could collaborate with specialist audio production companies who have their own talent database. You can look on social media, and especially Twitter, where a lot of voice actors are particularly active. And either put a casting call out there directly yourself, or alternatively, reach out to a company or an individual that specializes in casting indie games. You can google search voice actors and find out more about them from their website, which might be quite a long winded way if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. But if you like an actor's previous work, then you may be able to reach out directly. Or of course, you could put a casting call out on a pay to play site or voiceover casting site, inviting lots of voice actors that you may not be familiar with at all to audition for your roles and seeing what the results are. Now there is no best or worst source of where you can actually get hold of the actors that you want to audition in the first place. 

But I would say be wary of making your casting call too broad or open. Some of these avenues will result in you receiving hundreds of applications which you'll have to trawl through in order to find what you want, which can be exhausting. So the more selective you are at the front end, the more seamless the whole process will be afterwards. When do you cast your voice actors? Again, it depends on a project by project basis. But typically, if it's a more character based game than the earlier, the better. If you cast early, then it allows your writers to become more familiar with the voice that they're actually writing for, which will result in a greater degree of authenticity. It means you can have less time sensitive meetings with your actors to discuss the role and you can be a sounding board for each other's ideas. These sorts of creative discussions in the early stages could mean that your time actually in the booth recording with the voice actor is much lower as a result. But if the role is more functional than that's not necessary. 

[Voiceover: Now, you will suffer our wrath.]

In which case casting closer to the actual recording time may be more suitable, because it ensures an actor's availability. How do you cast your voice actors? The wisest thing to do to start off with is to delegate if you can afford to. Voice directors will often already be familiar with talent, how to direct talent, and it will allow you to pick up experience along the way through observation. Each actor may need a slightly different approach depending on the material. A professional director can save you time and get creative results that you never might have expected.

Voice over[Troy Baker on Director Neil Druckmann]: We start shooting the scene action and I go straight into it. And it feels weird and it feels false. And we do it three or four times and Neil walks up to me in between takes and I'll never forget this and he says I'm picking up on some resistance. And I said yeah, you're damn right, you're picking up on some resistance because we've got it. It's in the can it was take one. And he said let me tell you what I have. I have a man broken, I said guy his fucking daughter just died. He goes, No, I have a man broken what I don't have is what's happening, this is happening. I can fix it. It's not working. She's going she's gone, I’m broken. And that is when I realized that Neil Druckmann was the greatest director I've ever worked with.

It can be argued that not all voice directors are created equal. But the majority may provide a level of expertise that can prove invaluable. But if it is only you and you can't afford a voice director, then I do suggest that you check out a couple of acting books. 

Something like Stanislavski’s, An Actor Prepares and David Mamet's True And False. A crucial part of the casting process is creating an actual character breakdown with imagery of the character, their age, their physicality, their accent, their voice description and biography, ideally. When casting you'll be asking actors to read lines for the character that you might want to actually cast them as. These lines are typically called sides, audition sides. And when you write them, it's important to provide as much context as possible. An actor will say a line completely differently depending on who they're speaking to, why they're speaking to them, and where they're speaking to them as well. Try to resist the temptation to copy and paste some of your actual script for the audition sides. You want to hear as many different facets of the character as possible as quickly as possible. So if that's possible in existing lines from the actual game itself, that's great. But if not, then write a scene or an exchange that actually serves that purpose, so that every single different part of the audition is actually helping you to make a choice. 

Depending on how in depth you want the process to be, I would recommend having a first and then a second round of auditions. In the first round, have them a sample based auditions, where you provide direction the actor records them, and then you review them. And then you could have a second round, which would be a live directed session. So either you or the voice director would be working with the actor through a set script, and you could see what your relationship is like and how free and open they are to actual direction. If you have reference points to the type of game that you want to make, then share them. If you tell a voice actor that the game is in the style of The Last of Us or in the style of Zelda or in the style of Doom, then we immediately get an impression of what that world is like and how those characters would interact. Even if we don't, if we're not gamers, then we can go on to YouTube, see some of that game footage and get an impression very quickly as well. Above all else, look for people who are voice actors as opposed to voiceovers. If that makes sense. Many voiceovers may have a beautiful voice and it does also require acting, but it's a different kind of skill set. Appreciate that Screen Actors might give very detailed realistic performances, but they also might struggle in being able to communicate verbally what they would normally Express physically, facially.

Voice over: It has been amusing watching your sea-wracked corpses stumble and doddder as you tracked the prey

Some stage actors may be particularly good at bigger characterizations or multi character parts, but some of them could be a little bit too big or performative. And again, depending on experience, some might have quite a lot of mic technique, and others may have none. All of these things will have a greater or lesser importance depending on the type of game that you want to make. So for example, if you put a filmic Actor in a performance capture context, where they're also going to have their face mapped as well, then all of those issues might not be an issue at all. And similarly, if your voice actor is working with an audio engineer during the session, then then being on or off mic is going to be less of a practical concern rather than if they're recording from a home studio and are responsible themselves for gauging their distance from a mic. 

If your project is going to involve home studio talent, then ensure that all of their auditions take place using the setup that they'd actually use. Have the recordings vetted by an audio engineer. Because even if something sounds possible, there may be issues with it. Also bear in mind that you're looking for acoustic continuity, you want to ensure that all these voices sound as if they've come from the same place with a minimum of fuss. And also cast as authentically as possible. It's 2020 and there's enough talent out there. It's not an excuse to say that you can't find it. And finally, for what, how much would you actually pay your voice actors. Actors fees typically break down into two things; a per hour fee, called the basic studio fee, which covers their actual recording time. And a buyout that actually licenses their voice for your game, which is normally the basic studio fee again, or a multiple of it. Obviously, as the demands of a project expands, so will the fee.