- In this video
we're going to talk about making your own voiceover demos.
(energetic music)
Whether or not you should make your own
voice over demos is a huge, raging debate
which goes on, and on, and on, and on.
And depending on who you talk to,
you'll get a different verdict.
There are those people
that say that you must not
organise recording your own demo
until you've paid multiple hundreds,
if not thousands of pounds or dollars
to work with a voiceover demo of a certain level.
And that's after you've done years and years of training
or months and months of training,
depending on your ability.
And then it's a huge investment
because it's your calling card,
which is completely understandable as well.
You want to make your first impression
your strongest impression.
And, at the same time,
you have those people saying that,
yes, of course you can get work
and you can have great success
by creating your own demos.
Now, ultimately,
surprise, there's no single answer to this debate,
but I would of just wanted to draw on my own
personal experiences because I've had both done
and I've had professionally produced demos,
not by myself,
made
at a whole different variety of rates.
I've never paid thousands for a demo yet,
but I would certainly be willing to,
to work with the right person to,
put a pin in that for now,
also though, some of my demos on my website,
which are also on casting websites, et cetera, et cetera,
are some of my own self-made demos.
This is why I'm equivocating.
I think the crucial thing
to bear in mind with this
is who the audience is.
The traditional audience for a lot of voiceover demos
were casting directors and agents.
They are the gatekeepers to work, generally speaking.
In commercials, especially,
in video games as well,
and therefore, because those fields are so competitive
and the quality is so high,
I would say it's more important
to have a demo which is professionally produced.
The reasons, the benefits for having
a professionally produced demo
is that you have someone
who can write custom made scripts for your voice,
that you can get professional direction and feedback.
You can get guidance,
they take care of the sound effects and the music,
if you choose to have sound effects and music as well.
So, the whole production side of it.
Leaving you to focus
purely on the performance aspect of it as well.
For a lot of producers that you'll work with
they'll have connections within the industry.
Maybe there'll be able to let you know about people
that you could send your demos to.
They'll have this awareness of particular trends
that are going on,
so they can adapt
the material that you're using
so that it's as relevant as possible.
There are huge numbers of reasons why
it's an incredibly useful process,
not wanting to get too sidetracked
about what should be in a demo,
cause that depends on the genre of the demo,
but you want to be narrowing in
on what your signature voice is,
what your voice and what you authentically bring
in terms of your characteristics and your habits
and all of this kind of thing
to a specific genre.
But then you want variety within that
as much as possible to showcase that.
And quite often,
having an objective director
to be able to push you out of your comfort zone,
as long as they know what they're doing,
can be invaluable.
There are a lot of benefits to that.
However, caveat,
I would say there are a lot of people
who also are
making money for jam essentially.
To unpack that saying a little further,
is that they're charging way more
than the actual services that they offer.
In my career up to my stage
It's only when looking back
at some of the demos
that I had made for me and recorded for me
and some of the tracks were great,
some were wonderful,
but some were already outdated
as soon as they were released.
Some of them,
the scripts weren't very original or engaging.
Some of them,
the reads were quite flat.
You need to be responsible for doing your research
in terms of what these demo providers really offer.
And that doesn't mean
just relying on the testimonials on their website.
It means
contacting people who have used these demos
and really honestly asking them
how they felt the whole process went,
because it's such an investment.
If you're going to be dropping
two, three, 4,000
on a demo,
which might have a shelf life of a couple of years,
then you owe it to yourself
to get those direct testimonials
so you have an idea of what the process is.
And quite often demos will be created
in conjunction with coaching,
so that's another thing to bear in mind.
You might have a separate coach
who then will pass you over
to a demo producer
and that's perfectly a valid way to go.
But that again,
crucially depends on your relationship with
your coach.
However, DIY demos
there is I think, a real value in DIY demos
for a number of different reasons.
And I'd say probably not
in the genres of commercial so much,
and video games,
but then again, it all depends.
It depends, as with all things in acting,
it depends who you're talking to.
It depends who your audience is.
So yes, if you're approaching traditional gatekeepers,
you're looking for representation at a high level,
then probably do all that you can
to make sure it's a brilliantly produced demo.
However, if you come from a background
of having huge, extensive production experience already,
you're an audio engineer,
or you've been mixing all your life
or all of this kind of thing,
then maybe you already have
that skill set available to a degree.
Similarly, if you are a writer
or you're used to copy writing,
I don't want to negate skills that you may already have.
That's valuable.
Obviously another benefit of a self-directed demos
is that they are free.
You can come up with your own scripts
and if you can come up with your own scripts
or go online and transcribe
videos,
commercials,
explainer video scripts,
or anything that you can then either use
for demonstration purposes by rerecording,
although, if you try and use something
that's quite a big, famous campaign
that will only reflect unfavourably with you
because you won't necessarily have nailed it
as good as the original voice,
but
it's very much a kind of a learning process.
Going back to the video that I made a couple of weeks ago
about where is voiceover in 2021
in terms of making a career out of it?
One thing that I'm very passionate about
is that voiceover artists
should try and monetize voiceover
as soon as they possibly can.
I mean, obviously if you can
keep yourself pure
by not having to delve in lower paid work
because you have
an existing job or money
to be able to just invest in your voiceover business,
then that's possibly, arguably the ideal
or an ideal, or a model.
However, for those people that don't,
I think that a DIY demo
can really be useful for a number of reasons.
One thing is that going through that whole experience
of working with the copy
of working on the production side,
all of these kinds of things
can be a really useful education for you.
It certainly was for me
when I put together some of my demos.
And that was also because of a current trend,
which is that, certainly in the U.S.
and increasingly in the UK,
rather than having three or four core demos,
which kind of cover every eventuality,
people are niching down.
As well as your corporate demo,
you now have your explainer demo or your IVR demo.
So, because of all of these little different niches,
finding three or four or five different
explainer video styles is a whole different kettle of fish
than nailing
commercial copy
cause the production values are typically,
typically much smaller as a result.
There's also the thing about getting into the habit of
any work that you do record
that you ask for a copy of at the end,
or at the very least you make a note of it
and you scour YouTube at the end of every week
to see if you can find it
so that you can rip it off
and add it to your portfolio,
because this is a good habit.
First of all, in terms of having,
being able to build an actual video portfolio
so people can watch the work that you've been doing
as well as just listen to it.
But it's also a valuable thing
in terms of,
it gives you ready-made examples of finished work,
where the production is already being done,
that you could possibly, possibly use
in a DIY demo
or use it as an inspiration
if you think that you could do better.
There are advantages to all of that kind of thing
in terms of the level of experience that you're at,
in terms of how to monetize a DIY demo
while I don't think you would be reaching out
to these agents or these casting directors with DIY demos.
I wouldn't recommend that,
but
there are freelancing sites.
Some of the pay to play sites maybe as well, it's arguable,
anywhere where in actual fact,
the whole idea of a demo
is to just give a brief demonstration of what you can do.
And then you'll actually be asked for a custom audition
a lot of the time, in order to be able to book stuff.
But if you're dealing with IVR
or if you are dealing with explainer videos
or something where the reads
are a bit more
kind of straightforward, possibly, I'd say,
then that's a really useful thing to focus on
and maybe start to monetize
so that you can invest in the training and the coaching,
and
to be able to go
with a really good demo producer
that can really make a difference.
I think regardless of this as well,
because tastes are continually developing
and trends are evolving
and all of this kind of thing,
you need to be aware that the market seems to be shifting.
It's continually shifting and evolving, obviously,
but in terms of small samples,
(gentle chiming)
Hello.
In terms of small samples,
there's like VoiceZam, for example,
which is a player, which it can play your entire demo,
but then it'll play the individual tracks
in their entirety as well, which is quite useful.
I think getting into the habit
of knowing how to do basic mixing,
even if it's like,
you've got all of the tracks
that have been produced for you,
but how do you cut them together?
Do you do a cut or do you do a cross fade?
How do you make sure that the levels are consistent?
That is something that you as a voiceover artist
should probably take responsibility for
because as tastes change,
rather than recording demos in their entirety,
I think it's much more useful
to think of them as ongoing projects
that you can add and subtract as you go,
rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water.
If you've got three or four core reads,
which are booking for you consistently already,
maybe it's about augmenting those three or four reads
with another two or three auditions.
Additions even,
speak for a living, it's great.
And that could be self-produced
or it could be a question of you
going to a professional demo producer again,
same one that you used previously, or what have you,
and going, right,
I don't want to record an entire demo.
I want to pay less and only focus on two tracks.
Is that possible?
So that, again, if you see a particular gap in the market,
you think, oh,
I don't have that cool, indifferent,
conversational vibe
read.
And I really feel as if I could book in that area
in my commercial demo,
then go out, get a couple of examples as a reference,
go to a demo producer that you trust
and invest in that recording.
And then you've added that to what you already have
as opposed to
I've got to start at ground zero
and I've got to come up with five or six reads
to do anywhere between a minute
to two and a half minutes, depending on who you talk to.
I think it's important to kind of reframe that idea.
And so, rather in terms of it just being the entire demo,
which is an untouchable thing
that is produced for you on a platter
that you think of it in terms of individual tracks,
that you can begin to develop,
and augment as you see fit.
I suppose the proof of the pudding
is if you're booking work in any way, shape, or form.
And the crucial thing for me
is that having got to this level of experience,
I've been able to replace
some of the work that I was not happy with
that had been produced for me
with stuff that had been produced by other people
and other tracks that I replaced
with ones that I either wrote myself,
or which I transcribed and then recorded myself.
And then it's a question of
are clients citing these examples
when they're booking me?
And if they are, then great.
Then I know that that's a keeper.
And if they aren't then be open
to feedback from various people,
see what they think.
But the tricky thing about feedback
is that it very much depends on
the taste of the people that are feeding back,
like posting on forums for feedback
generally, I think is a very bad idea.
It's about, again,
cultivating people that you,
relationships with people that you trust,
and that could be clients
that could be certain other voiceover actors that you rate,
but it's about cultivating your own taste
so that you have that level of autonomy
in the selection of both your process
and the end product,
so that you feel confident in what you're putting forward.
The end of the day, you are where you are now,
and you can't change that.
You can't click and suddenly become better.
Your demos have to be
a good reflection of where you are now.
And similarly,
I don't think that you should go to the extreme
of being so pumped up
by direction in a demo session that you pay for.
So you might get these wonderful results,
but if left to your own devices
in a source connect session with a client
in a different time zone,
where you've got to do the tech as well,
that level of read is beyond you.
You need to be self-sufficient.
You need to be self-sufficient ultimately
in the performance level,
as well as on a technical side
throughout your entire voiceover career.
I think that's the important thing,
that level of autonomy,
but don't let anybody tell you
that DIY demos have no place,
but also that you might as well just do it yourself
because it's a complete racket.
There are those demo factories out there, for sure.
They churn it out of variable quality.
And I think when people have invested so much as well,
they're not gonna publicly create a spat
if they're not satisfied with their work,
they might just quietly ask for a discount
or ask for their money back.
It's just something to be aware of.
Hope that was of some use or interest anyway.
Please do check out my website
and let me know in the comments below,
if you can work out which demos were self-produced
and which ones were professionally produced,
because I'd be really curious to hear.
But thanks very much, as ever,
for putting up with me,
please do like, subscribe, and all that good stuff.
And I look forward to seeing you next week.