Imagine, you are on a sandy beach enjoying the sun. You hear the waves splashing up over the rocks, the sound of seagulls singing a tune, and the laughter of children playing in the background. Suddenly, you hear footsteps walking toward you and then a voice appears asking to take your drink order.
Ah, the voice…deep yet comforting; bold yet soothing. You realize the power this voice has over you and you have the sudden urge to quench your thirst. Hiring a professional voice talent will captivate your audience whereby convincing them that they need your product or service.
While cost is a factor in any business decision, it should not be the number one objective when hiring voice over talent. Take car shopping for example. Do you look for the lowest price tag or the car that will best fit your needs? The same holds true with a well-versed and seasoned voice talent.
They can interpret a script to make it sound conversational and believable. A specialized voice talent will offer superior sound and quality, which comes at a cost. They take pride in purchasing top-of-the-line equipment and have expenses as with any professional business.
Occasionally, a client will take the less expensive route only to be dissatisfied with the quality of the talent and eventually hire a more experienced talent to record the voice over. Understanding the proficiency and skill that I have as a professional voice talent, the cost should not be a factor as the end product will result in exactly what you are looking for. Keep in mind the old proverb “you get what you pay for.”
This is so true, and sometimes just the opposite is just as true. When I was just starting out, my first big job was re-doing a voice over where the client had been disappointed with the original voice actor they had hired. The real funny thing about it is that I was probably cheaper (being new to the business-less than two jobs under my belt) than the professional they had previously used. They immediately hired me on for the next 5 videos in their project.
Going along with what Alison said and also unleashing some alarming news..;0)>> a client that I do a lot of editing for…doesn’t use me much for Voice Over…because she doesn’t have the budget after paying for my editing and everything else involved. She told me that she uses one of the pay to play sites for EVERYTHING (and she does a ton of stuff for a WB afflilitate) voice related. She said she goes straight for the low bidders and finds almost every time that a good portion of them are just as good if not better than the ones that are bidding 100 and some even into the hundreds for a 30 second spot (not a smart thing to do on one of these sites)…
So the market is NOT what it used to be and there are some decent actors out there that are working by the “sell em cheap and stack em deep” model~
did my novel post just vanish?? I dont’ see it. Maybe it’s gone over for approval>> but I ain’t typin’ it again~
Ditto, ditto… Amen!
I dealt with this when I had my commercial photography studio and I’m still dealing with it now. But with a bit more humor and less aggravation!