Voiceover News March 2013

It was quite busy, busy-wise here at BigFish Media Towers in March:

We made an On Hold audio production for 24-7 Cars which was voiced by Samantha . We made a voice reel for radio presenter Eddie Castle and Cate from Southampton came to us for some Voice Training with Fenella.

Among our younger voice talent, James recorded a voiceover for a Dorset museum exhibition about Warhorse and Dylan voiced for 6 episodes of a new CBBC TV programme called Sarah and Duck.

For the grown-up boys, Ricky was the live Voice of God at the Pf Awards for the pharmaceutical industry in London alongside comedian Ed Byrne as well as recording a voiceover for the European Food Safety Authority. Steffan recorded a voiceover for Petroserv, Taylor voiced for the AA and Graham D lent his vocals to Kalixa.

For our international voices, Michel recorded a French voiceover for Erwinaze and Paul voiced for Sangart.

And finally to the women: Penny D recorded a voiceover for Office Principles, Aanya voiced for Schneider Electric and Sally voiced on hold prompts for Auto Direct and a Pyrex video shown in selected Tesco stores. Corrie recorded a voiceover for the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, Scarlett voiced a dozen product web videos for Lakeland, Jill recorded a voiceover for the Ministry of Defence and Helen S recorded for Ontex Healthcare.

Phew! Time for another break ...

How do I make a voiceover showreel?

How do I make a voiceover demo? What should I put on my voiceover showreel? We get asked this all the time.

In short, any voiceover styles that you can do. If you can do languages and accents then put those on. But only if they are completely convincing.

Here is what NOT to do:


No singing. We don't do singers. 

No travel bulletins. No newsreading. No radio presenting. This is all broadcast work. Make a separate showreel for these and send them to the right people. 

A Voiceover Agency is not the right place for these - radio and TV stations are.

How long should my voiceover demo be? 90 seconds about right. This is the length we make when we make showreels. When auditioning new voices, we know within 10 seconds if it's a yes or no. Make the first clip your best!

                                                      BigFish Media Audio Producer Nathan



Does the showreel sound good? Is it well produced? Is there music which is well matched to the subject matter and the voices? Or is it just a dry read with lots of background noise?

The voice recording sounds like they are reading rather than "being" the part. There should be a flow to the read - this can be harder than you think.

Don't just use acting scripts and poetry. They may sound lovely but you will need to use a mixture of scripts: corporate reads/E-Learning/On-Hold - maybe even a TV documentary or some radio commercials.

Are you reading material which is too old or too young for your voice age? We dont want to hear 20 something women talking about pensions or 50 something men talking about video games - you wouldn't be asked to do that by a client.  

Make sure your demo shows a variety of tones, pitches, pace and style.By all means produce the showreel, but don't over-produce it so we cant tell what your real voice sounds like. And if the voiceover showreel is produced we shouldnt be hearing any bad microphone technique, “pops” or plosives, mouth noises” or any nervous reading.

And this is how we make great voiceover reels You will need a great showreel to be taken seriously by any reputable Voiceover Directory and Audio or Video Producer  - let alone a Voiceover Agent.