More thoughts from the Talent Coordinator
I recently was asked this question. Why would I go to a professional VO service when I can Google an amateur and get production done for pennies?
Remember the old adage, You get what you pay for? Well, in the voice over business, that still holds true in most cases. I decided to try an on-line voice over company to see how it would work for one of my typical clients. When asked to cast a spot or narration I am usually given some guide lines to follow as to what type of talent they are seeking. In this test, I used myself as the talent style the client requested, 30-40 year old female to be the wife in a spot. So, I put in those descriptive words into the search engine of this on-line service and 554 women came up. Thatıs right 554! Each with their photo, MP3 demo and contact info. Now, I listened to the first 10 demos, that took me 20 minutes. It would have taken three days to go through all 554. You can not hear how a person sounds by looking at their photo...duh! You need to listen to the demos. Each demo took a minute or so to load, plus the time to listen to maybe 15 - 20 seconds .. and to my ears most of the women sounded the same. Nothing special about any of them.
Now, an argument might be .. use more of a description to narrow the search down. That would be hard since most clients arenıt really exactly sure HOW they want the voice over to sound. Most descriptions ARE that vague. I'll know it when I hear it is a common producer comment. If a producer had to listen to 554 women, by the time they got to the end, if they made it that far, I'd wager they still wouldnıt have chosen one, since they would have all blurred together. And who really wants to do that anyway?
Now on to the cost .. all these talents were going through this service, so there was some sort of rate card ... but they had individual e-mail addresses to contact them to discuss the rate. Now you have all the back and forth of the charges discussion. Again, spending more time and effort and possibly settling for one of the talents because you donıt want to listen to any more.
If you are lucky enough to stumble upon a talent that sounds good for your project and they are unavailable to do your session on the day you need it, well, itıs back to square one. And will they sound that good on the day you need them? Studio tricks can make someone sound better than they are for a demo, but you need the real thing the day of the recording. Maybe their demo was done at a professional studio, and their home studio has a cheap mic and trucks driving by. HOW will you know before hand?
It comes back to how much is your time worth? The main reason to go through a casting agent is the agent knows the talents ... knows their strengths and weaknesses, has the talent's vacation schedule and work habits. Are they better in the morning or afternoon? Can they ACT? That's the real secret . Being a good "announcer" is one thing, being able to "act", well that's another. Most any talent can say: Available for a limited time only at the end of a spot, but to play the wife of a husband going through heart surgery? A casting agent is likely to know whom among their talents could really pull it off. In addition, the casting agent knows who is "directable" and which talents can add that something extra to the part. With an amateur you usually get what you get and not much else.
And you get all that information with one phone call or e-mail to a professional talent coordinator. OR you can listen to 554 MP3 demos and hope you find your girl. Thatıs what the choice is these days.
Also with a professional studio and talent coordinator, it may cost a bit more for your talent fee and the studio charges to record them, but should you ever need that talent again, for revisions or updates, you know the voice will match. Using the same room and equipment gives you a uniform sound. Saving money and headaches in post production. The studio engineers can help with pronunciations, making sure all the words were really recorded during the session, timing of script sections, inflections of certain words ... in other words, another pair of ears to listen to the talent to be sure the producer has what they want and need for their project. A professional engineer can make a so-so talent better and a good talent, GREAT. Most home based voice over talents are not engineers .
If you already know a talent and like their abilities, saving a few dollars by booking them on-line is fine. But if you are searching for a talent, I still believe seeking advice from a casting agent is the way to go for true quality and ease during the session.
You do get what you pay for. A professional talent, represented by a studio like Williamson Evans, will save you money in the long run through ease of booking and less time editing.
Dyana Daniels
Talent/Engineer/Talent Coordinator
Williamson Evans Words, Music & Moving Pictures