A Guide to Your First Voice Recording as a Client

A Guide to Your First Voice Recording as a Client

 

First time getting voice-over or narration work done? Don't panic! Here's your cheat sheet:

Every day a new industry or a new client realizes the benefits of professional voice work and recording for their media project. Sometimes it's as simple as making an internal presentation that much more polished and professional, and sometimes it's the keystone of an entire new image for a product or service. Regardless of the specific circumstance, more and more companies and professionals are seeing the level of production value in even small communications continue to rise.

 

So, you've determined the need for a professional to bring all of your hard work to life and make it pop, but you've never directed a voice actor before, or even sat in on a session; what do you need to do to make it all work?

 

Relax! If you're committed enough to your project to be here, you're already on your way. It's the same as any other collaborative effort. Chances are, the same organizational principles apply here as they do when you work in a team in your industry. Let's a take a look at the keys to a successful recording session:

 

•      Make the pre-production phone call. Sure, we can work out schedules, pricing and file format details over email, but if this is your first time as a client, a phone call to talk about the project itself is a great idea. We can discuss your concerns about the final product to make sure we avoid any thing you don't want, but most importantly, we can find out exactly what your ideal product would be. Sessions go much faster and smoother if we're both working from the same page about exactly what we want. Remember, a voice actor has their voice on this project too. They want it to be the best possible recording as much as you do. If a text or email could convey all the subtlety and nuance of what you're looking for, then you wouldn't be looking for voice acting for your script in the first place!

•      Be prepared. It goes without saying in any job situation, but sometimes the newness of working with a recording studio, in person or remotely, throws off the normal work rhythms people have. Just make sure everyone involved has the same (current) version of the script, (especially me!). Make sure everyone has the right session start time, and, this is crucial, voice actors work with clients all over the world, so don't forget to add the time zone, or use UTC, when sending out scheduling information. Just like so many industries, a few minutes of prep beforehand can save hours of time when it counts.

•      Script review. There will always be questions that come up during a recording session, no matter how prepared you are. Sometimes just hearing the script out loud for the first time can make certain edits or improvements obvious. Other times, edits are necessary for time limits. You can however, significantly reduce time scrambling for rewrites, or worse, trying to track down the person who has responsibility or authority for re-writes. Have a pronunciation key ready for technical terms and proper nouns. I have a lot of experiencing in the medical and engineering fields as far as lingo and terminology, but I'm not a doctor or engineer. There will be some terms I don't know, and even doctors don't always agree on how to pronounce a term made of both Latin and Greek roots. If the responsible person for the script content will not be present for the session, try to have a quick script review the day before. Finally, if you can't make a decision between two different versions of a phrase or sentence, why choose? Write the alternative version at the bottom of the script, and we can always record both, so you have them ready to go should you decide to change in the future!

These are the three biggest steps you can take to help yourself and your project be the best it can be using professional voice over. It's a lot easier, and even more fun than you might think. Of course, if you have any other questions about what's involved, please don't hesitate to call or email Suncoast Voiceovers.