By Darren Street @ thevoicereelstudio.co.uk
We take a quick look at what you should consider when planning your commercial voice reels, and how to find your own voice.
How do I decide which scripts to record? What's right for my voice?
Once you have decided to record a commercial reel, the first thing we need to do is look at what types of commercial scripts that would suit our voices. And this is where the fun starts!
What we need to do straightaway is open up our perception a little more to the commercial world around us. Why? Well most of us, as a default setting, will have naturally closed off a little from commercials. And who can blame us? Commercials are everywhere nowadays, right? As soon as we log on to Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, turn on the TV or radio, or even open google to do a simple search we are bombarded by an endless stream of advertising.
When we see the advertisement break on TV, we pop onto the kitchen to make a cup of tea and return, custard creams in hand (or whatever floats your boat) to the comfort of our sofas to watch the main event, whatever that may be. Or better still, pre-record our shows so we can fast-forward through the ad breaks, right? Nice (and yum for the biccies!).
When we look for content on YouTube we invariably hit the 'skip ads' button as soon as we can. Scrolling through Facebook, sometimes there's a long line of sponsored ads. We roll our eyes and speed-scroll through the stack of ads until we find something more interesting.
We are almost programmed to try to ignore adverts nowadays.
But we are Voiceover Artists.
Boom!
We are looking to immerse ourselves into the world of advertising, right? We want to understand how our own unique voice might fit into the hugely colourful world of commercials. Yay! Great!
“Ummm... so how do we do that then, Daz?” I hear you cry. Well the main purpose of this blog post is to help you do exactly that – to de-mystify the process and to help you to understand your own voice and discover which commercial scripts would suit you best.
From the moment that you decide to book a commercial voiceover reel, you need to tune into – rather than tune out of - the world of advertising that is all around us.
Of course, in a short blog post, we would never be able to cover every single aspect of the multi-faceted world of commercial voiceovers. The subject is vast. Here, I simply aim to focus on what we should look at when we are beginning our journey into voiceovers. To find our voices, and to plan our demo reels. More experienced voiceover artists will find interesting things to try here. If you are a beginner, this is most definitely for you, too.
As always, if there is any topic you would like me to cover on a separate post, or you have any questions, please post in the comments. Ok, lets jump in...
Finding Your Own Unique Voice
One of the questions I get asked the most is - How do I choose which scripts are right for me? And - What suits my voice?
This seems to be a common stumbling block when you are looking to record a voice reel - certainly for the first time. It can be a super-confusing minefield. But needn't be.
Let's break this down.
It's good practice at the start to try and understand how our own voices sound, with a view to beginning to understand what type of commercials will most suit our voices. You may not be familiar with how your recorded voice sounds and many of us hate hearing the sound of our own voice played back – I know I did many years ago when I recorded my first few jobs.
The key thing is here is to try and cultivate a love of your own voice.
I'm Darren Street and I love the sound of my own voice - there I said it.
The VO world is one of the few environments where it is good (and vital) to love the sound of your own voice.
Now, the first thing I recommend doing as you begin the process is to find a piece of text and record your voice. Almost anything will do at this stage.
Urp! Hold up, people! I know you're excited but here's an important message!
Before we do this, before we actually record our own voice it's really important that we do use our own voice here. Try to steer clear of putting on an accent, to make us sound slightly posher than we are maybe (used to be called our telephone voice) or going the other way, maybe trying to sound more 'London Gritty' or similar. Sure there will be times as a voiceover where we will be asked to come up with other voices and accents, for instance if we are recording an audiobook with different characters. But for now and at this stage in our voice journey, we must concentrate on using our own unique voice, our own accent and our own vocal register.
I cover this in some detail, too, in my blog post 'A deep-dive into voice acting for the gaming industry'. Check out that blog post too for tons more info on how to come up with great character voices using our own vocal register, particularly in the 'BEFORE WE GET STUCK IN' section.
Ok! Moving on to the fun bit.
The first thing I want you to do is to find some text from a commercial, write it down, and then record it!
Fancy a little time-saving hack? Check this out...
Here's a great kick start to begin with if you're unsure of what style of VO you should be voicing. There's a tip-top-fab agency called Excellent Talent. On their website they have a voices section with a useful search tool - you can search by Gender, Age, Accents, Reel Type and so on. Pop over to there, find some voices that are the same as you and see what they are voicing. This will give you a great starting point in your search for pieces to record. Don't straight up copy them though, it's not cricket :)
I'd suggest you read to the end of the this blog, so you understand what we're aiming at, then come back to do the recording exercise :)
Ok, here goes...
Turn on the TV or radio and listen for the ad breaks, choose an advert that sounds a bit like you, nice and up-beat if possible, write down the script if you can, grab your smartphone and record it. Simple as that. One take, try to do it in the style of the original.
Then choose another piece of text. Again, anything will do. Choose a paragraph from this blog if you like! Or if you are listening to this as the podcast version, nip over to thevoicereelstudio.co.uk to find the blog. I'd suggest choosing the paragraph above that starts with “It's good practice....”
But really, any piece of text will do for now. Not too long, just few sentences.
Then read that and record it on your smartphone. Just one take. If I were to give a note for you to think about when recording I would suggest the following. Just be you, talking enthusiastically to a friend, but keep it natural. Try and just chat – so a very different read to the advert you've just done.
So great! We've now got a couple of different reads to listen back to. It might not seem so, but if this is your first time recording your voice, this is a big step in your Voiceover journey. Actually having your voice recorded – ready to listen back. You'll remember this moment for a long time!
Now have a good old listen. How did you do? Ok I hope!
What are we actually listening for? Well for your commercial read, compare it to the original that you first heard on the TV/Radio. Were you close? Did it sound in the same ball-park? Remember we are not looking for exactly the same read as the original here, we are using our own vocal register, our own voice. So does it flow nicely? Is the vocal energy in the right place, does it feel that it fits the product or service you are selling?
There's no right or wrong here by the way – you are merely testing the water, having a play, checking out what style you may have come up with.
Then repeat the process with your second recording. Have a good listen! It'll be a different read here of course. It should sound much more natural, just you chatting away. And this is important because this is your voice. The one you will carry with you all the way through your voiceover career.
The voice that clients will book you for.
You.
Feel free to repeat the process with a few more adverts and chunks of text. As you progress you will have a better and better idea of your vocal style. If you're already booked to record your commercial reel (or any other reel!) here at The Voice Reel Studio then feel free to send me your first few recordings and I'll give you some feedback. I'm nice like that.
Let's get hunting...
Alrightee then! You will by now have a good general idea of where your voice might fit within the commercial industry. Much easier when you have a few recordings of yourself to study, right?
So now you need to find the scripts you will use for your actual voice reel here at the studio.
A quick note about scripts. We don't have a database of scripts to choose from. Advertising trends and styles change all the time, and older scripts tend to feel dated. It's much better to get your ears and eyes out there and see how commercials are being produced today. Remember you want to have a reel that sounds dynamic and up-to-date. A reel that grabs the attention with fresh content.
Remember the opening part of this blog? Social media, YouTube, TV and radio? Well now is the time to embrace all those lovely ads that get thrown at us on a day to day basis. I suggest getting a little note-book. Carry it around with you wherever you go. When you hear an advert that's in your style, note it down! Keep a good ear out when you're driving your car, too. Please don't attempt to write things down while driving (!) but if you hear an advert on the radio, make a mental note and write it down when it's safe.
Make sure you pay attention the the advert breaks on TV. As you relax in the evenings keep that notebook to hand and scribble away to your heart's content!
And when you're on YouTube - don't touch that 'skip ads' button!
If you have found a great ad online that you think suits you, it's also good to copy and paste the link to it, so you and I can reference it for style and pace while you are choosing your pieces.
If you carry around that super-useful notebook for a week or two, you will have a list of great ideas for scripts before you know it. As before, if you are booked in for a reel please send in all your ideas and I can advise you on which ones to choose for your final reel.
We can then adapt the script ideas slightly if we need to, keeping the same ideas, but changing them so they are not carbon copies of current ads running.
A good thing to remember, too, is that your commercial demo reel is for audition purposes only and you should only use them on your own personal websites, agents pages, casting sites and so on.
Also, I offer 1-1 zoom coaching sessions on everything voiceover and recording.
If you are a beginner to the industry it is definitely a good idea to get some training.
I'm a really experienced coach and director, with a string of very happy, working students. You can book me for vocal coaching, voice acting training, how-tos on home studios tailored to your own space etc. etc. just head on over to the ACADEMY page on my site for more info and to book your sessions.
Well! Thank you so much for reading, lovely voice people! I really hope you've found this interesting and that you have learned some useful things. If you have, let me know in the comments and subscribe to my blog so you never miss a post. There will be lots more useful content and how-tos covering all aspects of voice work, recording, home studios and much much more. I'd be so happy to know you've found this article useful, and I would really appreciate it if you would share it with your peers too.
I've had such fun writing this!
Please have a look around the rest of my website, there's tons more content and information about booking to record your voice reels.
Please do get in touch via my website contact page if you would like more info on recording your voice reels with me, or to book your free 15 minute zoom consultation where we'll have a chinwag about where you are on your voice journey, and how I can help!
All the best for now, amigos!
Darren Street
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