Voice Over Demo Productiona high quality voice over demo is a must have for every voiceover talent

MYTH 1: My voice over demo does not need to be professionally produced, I only need a few short samples and even dry voice only clips will work for me.

THE TRUTH: The simple truth is, there is MUCH more to creating an effective, professional voice over demo, than just throwing together a few current voice clips, or samples from recent vo jobs, or worse yet, using dry voice only clips. This is the quickest way to announce, "Hey I'm New and not Professional". See, most new voice over talent, even some veterans do NOT realize there is actually a "method to the madness" creating a demo. This includes the pace, quality of clips used, length of clips, position of clips, content selected and overall, the final sound quality of the produced demos.

MYTH 2: My voice over demo should NOT be more than 90-seconds max!

THE TRUTH: This way of thinking all started back in the late 90's and early 2000's, due to the fact that most adv agencies, radio reps, station producers and the average business owner did NOT have true high-speed broadband connections. During those days, most of us had to pay a fortune to have T1 connections, or even high-speed broadband. So most people had simple dial-up modems. Therefore, when the voice over industry expanded outside of local markets, we voice talent used to limit the SIZE of our demos to less than 2 mb, which at 22k in wav was about 90-seconds or less in time. This was to assure the demo would be delivered to the prospect, and not be rejected by email services which all limited the size of an email to about 3mb. Thanks to MPEG compression technology, created by the motion picture studios in Hollywood to share files, etc, this changed the format options for audio around 2001 and our voice over demos could be longer and higher quality thanks to MPEG saving audio in smaller file sizes.

MYTH 3: My demo should be fast paced!

THE TRUTH: This really applies to radio DJ's, and 'shock jocs' hoping to WOW a program director at radio and land a gig. The objective of a "faster paced demo" is more so for the radio DJ as to show station management, how exciting, fun, clever and energetic a radio morning show might sound on the air. To the radio DJ, it IS about excitement and energy, so most DJ demos, or "Air-Checks" as they're called at radio, are produced using a fast pace and lots of energy to blow the minds of the PD and get hired. When it comes to a "voice over demo", you want to offer a vareity of samples, show a wide range of ability, share you're a flexible talent, yet do so while giving the prospect longer samples that will reassure them you can stay in character, deliver dialogue, read smoothly, and are consistant as a voice talent. Anyone can do a quick voice impression, or read for a few seconds. But can the talent STAY in character for several seconds as Mr T, or carry a longer narration, or voice over? This is what separates a professional from the new talent.

MYTH 4: Most clients and people will only listen to a few seconds anyways, so don't waste your time with a longer demo!

THE TRUTH: This is such garbage and really flips me out as a casting director, and media producer. In most cases, this ONLY applies to custom auditions for a particular job. Yes, a director, or casting director will know in seconds IF you're are a candidate for a job based on your sound, delivery, age, or character voiced. However, when it coms to a voice over DEMO, the more you can share, the better your odds of landing work, now OR later. Don't be FOOLED by this crazy way of thinking people. If a prospect wants to stop listening within 18-seconds, so be it. But you tell me what makes more sense - giving the prospect as much as you can while you have their undivided attention, OR sharing only a little bit of your work, in hopes they will call you for more? Please - as Homer says, DOAP!