VO Tips

Dan O’day, radio and voice over Guru is running a contest on his blog.

He posts an ad for Target that he says (and I completely agree) is completely awful, posts the general idea of the copy, and says rewrite and revoice it. So I did.

Here’s the result:

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If you would like to participate in the contest, submissions can be made until the 8th, so you’d better hurry!

Good luck!

You’re really missing out if you don’t know about this awesome resource for scripts:

Script Collection

I was writing a script collection until I came across this AWESOME resource on Jeff Kafer’s blog.

There are thousands of scripts in this collection and they all seem really great. DEFINITELY take advantage of this resource for your demos.

Let’s just admit it: There is some copy out there you wish never existed. It is redundant, half the sentences in the darn thing make no logical sense, long words are used but their placement is incorrect (trying to make the author look smart, but actually achieving the opposite), etc. There are about a million different kinds of boring and terribly written copy, so what do we do about it?

So there’s nothing like sitting in your chair at your computer for hours on end staring at your computer screen, right? Me, I would rather be behind the mic, but here’s some tips to make your editing a lot easier and your clients a lot more happy.

Continued from the post before last…

Odds are, unless you happen to have oodles of cash lying about, you will not be working in a real studio for your first little while as a new voice over person. You won’t have a director, a producer, and an editor/mixer at your beckon call. That means you get to become quite familiar with the wonderful world of editing audio! How fun!

As a freelance professional VO artist, I would say that I spend about 35% of my time in front of the mic and the rest of the time in front of my computer. Of that 65% of the time I spend staring blankly at my computer screen, about 45% of that time is editing audio. It’s not the most fun thing in the world, but it can separate and elevate you above the rest of the VO people out there.

So if you’re spending a lot of time editing like me, it ought to sound good when you’re finished. Here’s some tips to help your editing.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of e-meeting Bettye Zoller, one of the great female voices in the world of voiceover. She has granted me permission to use her article “What Is A Voiceover” on my blog. Without further ado: Bettye Zoller’s “What Is A Voiceover?”:

What Is A Voiceover and How Do You Do It?

By Bettye Zoller

www.voicesvoices.com

btzol@aol.com

What Is A Voiceover?