Different types of Voice Overs

Different types of Voiceover Style Voice over is a fabrication proficiency where a voice is used in a radio, television, production, filmmaking, theatre or other presentations. The voiceover is read from a script and may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialized dubbing and voiceover artist. The Voiceover Industry is global and there are lots of opportunities to do many different types of voice over work. In fact most freelance voiceover artists do many different types of voice over work in any given time. This is what makes the work of voice over artist so exhilarating. Nowadays there is more rooms for much wider variety of styles than even before in the history of voiceover industry. With the emergence of the internet and easy to use audio editing software, new markets are continuously being created and inflated upon. The following are some genres of voiceover styles to be aware of when seeking for a dubbing and voiceover artist for your project.

• Corporate: Voiceover artists for corporate videos work in the corporate world. “Explainer” or promotional videos that appear on a companies or person’s website, explaining a product or service have the voices of dubbing and voiceover artist in training videos, promotional materials and human resource videos. They also work for trade shows as announcers. They can work for airports, stadiums, train stations, malls and other large public places.
• Films and Promos: Voice artists can have a large and small part in films or voiceover artists for news channel. Trailers of course are promotional pieces for films. Promos are essentially commercials for TV shows as they appear in between shows to promote what’s coming up. This is an extremely competitive genre. Comparatively few spots for newbie’s, as most people who have those jobs, keep those jobs. Super lucrative as it tends to be ongoing work. You have to have a voice that “cuts through” as they say – meaning a strong voice that will be heard over music and sound effects.
• ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement): The voices you hear in the background of movies or dialogue that needs to be replaced on a film. For background work, you have to be very well-versed in a wide variety of subjects to be able to successfully pull off talking realistically about whatever people would be talking about This is a pretty difficult one to get into as well, as most people work in a loop group or team of people and the same teams are hired over and over again. This pays very well but you’d really have to have a knack for this kind of thing and a lot of focused direction to get into a successful working group.
• Games and Animation: Character and animation work is fun for many voice artists. Video games are a hugely growing industry. They speak like a child to make toys or cartoons come alive. A sturdy instrument is a must, as there is usually a lot of screaming and dying to do. Toys are a niche industry that encompasses talking dolls and games for youngsters. This is the most competitive, smallest niche of the voiceover world. Many animation people are also writers and or comedians. It helps to be really quick witted, to be able to ad-lib and be funny while staying real. Everyone wants these jobs. If this is your heart’s desire, go for it.

The clear, appropriate and creative delivery of audio or visual message helps to hook the attention of listeners and viewers from beginning to end. If you are in search of a professional voiceover talent in India, then work with Prateek Sharma. His one-to-one voiceover training conducted by Freelance Voiceover artist Prateek Sharma an experienced professional in his field will help to fine tune your voice and provide you with a competitive edge.

Getting started as a Voice Over artist

The value of human voice remains significant despite rapidly arising digital world. Human voice remains the most effective tool for spreading a message. Being a voice actor is considerably different, nevertheless, many actors whose first goal was to be on stage or in front of a camera, they too choose to pursue a career in voice over.

Everybody starts somewhere and the best way to begin your career with when exploring your voice acting abilities and discovering more about your unique voiceprint is from knowing about the voice acting and why you are interested in voice acting because to proceed with something as a career one should be sure about their own desires. As a as Freelance Voiceover Artist one is responsible for providing narration and dialog for everything from television commercials to customer service telephone lines.

They should be able to reach audiences as small as one or two people and as large as hundreds of millions of viewers. Nearly every industry is represented in this field, with many voice artists choosing to focus on one or two specific fields. All you need is a good business ethic, a drive for success and some quality resource to teach the pro’s and con’s of voice acting. To be an inspiring actor, one needs to have a closer look on some of the basic needs for pursuing good voice acting career. Some are stated below:

• Taking voice over classes: Voiceover training are widely available in major cities for the ones struggling for voice trainings. If not able to join those classes one can opt for online trainings too. Needless to say, if being a voice actor is your long-term career goal, continue improving yourself and your voice in any way possible. Inclusive of these classes, you can take general voice lessons where you’ll be taught proper breathing, warm-ups, voice control, elocution and tons of other methods that will improve your voice over skills.
• Taking acting classes: One should definitely go for regular acting classes. You will be able to gain access over many great skills like acting skills, speaking skills which are among the essential needs for voice acting career. Another interesting fact about acting classes is that it prepares you for how to get into the character, become present, breakdown analyze scripts and ultimately sell yourself as a character. All of these techniques from regular acting classes can be applied to your voice over work.
• Joining voice over community: Being a voice actor can get lonesome, since you’ll do a lot of the work by yourself, either at your home studio, or at casting directors’ studios, or on the job. Becoming a part of a community of people who share the same goals can keep you grounded and focused.
• Personal branding: Marketing is the key to a successful business so that you are never out of work. You need to think of your voice is your business. Personal branding can be difficult but it’s definitely worth it. You can market yourself in many different ways but the best way is to build a website that will help to promote you and your work. Write about yourself, show off your portfolio, anything that helps to promote your business is what you need here.
• Perfect quality recordings: High quality recording are a must in this industry and this is where you can stand out from the others and become successful. If you are able to you should invest in a professional studio demo rather than paid for recording apps, agents and directors will be able to tell the difference.
• Health Care: When just starting out, you’ll spend many hours pounding the pavement and looking for work, auditioning, making connections, creating new material and so on. You need to stay in good shape, stay hydrated and on your toes. Never underestimate the power of your mind, too. Voice acting is by no means easy. There are emotions that you need to deliver without “cheating” with body language, so you need stay connected to your body and mind to deliver what casting directors want to hear.

Well as you can see becoming a voice over actor is a great career and if you dream of becoming one then just go for it, it’s fun, exciting, and the rewards are great. Becoming a voice over takes time, there’s no doubt about it, though your voice may be amazing it doesn’t mean you can be a voice over actor. You will need discipline, skills, the right attitude, and a lot of ambition to be renowned in this field.

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Voice acting - A simple science but a difficult art to master

Before I even start with, let me clarify that this article is not at all about how to be a voice actor? or What does it take to have a great voice? etc.

I am here to share with you all my amusement about one thing that exists everywhere in this universe.. right from the smallest particle like atom to the largest bodies outside the observable universe, and that is SOUND. What astonishes me more is the result you get when you give this sound a pattern, a frequency a tempo, which we call VOICE !!! Even more amusing is the result, when you hold the reins of this Voice and modulate it , throw it at right points.This is called VOICE ACTING!!

I think no art can beat the experience you get from the "Theater of the mind", which happens with some great voice acting. So who all need to learn this skill? Is this only for those who want to be great RJs, Voice actors, dubbing stars?

My experience in the domain of voice acting/narration/public speaking says something different. Voice acting is a skill that should be learnt by everyone. It's one crucial thing that can make a difference in the game. Voice acting is inherent to us. Right from the time we were born, we knew how to act through our voice. We learnt fast that the more we voice-act the better the results are, hence the famous saying "Only crying baby gets the milk"

But with passing times, we started taking this art for granted. Slowly, we tend to loose rhythm, we tend to loose focus, we tend to ignore the power of Voice acting in our daily lives.If you really want to be successful in your life .. be it at your workplace, in your friends circle etc, just know that you need to master the art of Voice Acting.

You've got to know, how, when, what to speak. You need to understand what tempo and with what throw should something be spoken. You need to know what words and what tone should be used to express the feelings behind those words. You need to understand the audience, you need to read the script which is not otherwise visible. You need to LISTEN, you need to read the message, decrypt it, unfold it, understand it, encrypt your replies in the best possible fashion and deliver. This is voice acting.

A simple science but a difficult art to master. Over many years doing voice acting/dubbing, I learnt one thing, that there are thousand ways to say something and all of them have a certain meaning, a texture attached to that meaning, nothing is void here. It takes a lot of practice to act just through your voice, but when once done right it makes an everlasting impact.

Trust me, you cannot learn in a day, and mind it, not every presenter,public speaker is a good voice actor. You can call yourself a good voice actor only when the listener is in unison with you, when you become one with the audience, when they start understanding you even before you have presented the facts.Remember, anyone can present facts and play with the perceptions of the audience, the real fun is in not presenting the facts, yet taking everyone in your confidence. This can be achieved only by Voice acting.

Voice overs / dubbing /hosting shows for so many years has taught me a lot, I would love to share with you my experiences, my mistakes that you should not do which can make you a better voice actor.. all this and more .. in the next blog.

Meanwhile do share with us what do you think is THE most important thing to be a great voice actor??

Voiceover by Prateek Sharma - Explainer video

Latest Voiceover for an insurance Brand

When an Announcer type does the Conversational type Voiceover!!

Who says its easy to do a conversational type voiceover?? .. learneda lot with this VO

Do you know your audience?

Standing on the podium, in front of the microphone, you deliver your speech. Audience starts jumping in joy, they start praising you, claps and hand shakes everywhere when you get off the stage. Job well done!! After all your audience loved it. Well.. might not be true every time.

It's been observed that 62% of the times, yes 62%!!! when you speak in front of a live audience, you don't know your audience!!! You might not believe this. Obviously, you are an awesome presenter, a killer machine when it comes to exploiting that microphone, you have that swag, that persona/aura to create an impact and people love it. Well, i don't doubt you, but the problem is that your audience most of the time does not know how to REACT.

You need to understand the psyche of the audience well before you enter that hall. You need to relate with them. Following are the major categories in which your audience generally falls, knowing these categories well can make a difference.

1. "Me too" audience - It's a chain reaction when it comes to audience feedback. In a gathering of hundred, even if five start praising you for nor reason, the others would soon join them and you would start to believe that it's going great. But think of it in a different way, if even two start with negative feedback, then a group of fifty taking you down would not be a good scene. Most importantly many of them are doing out of a chain reaction, they have not used their brain at all. Majority of the feedback you get when you speak is driven by this, do not fall in this honey trap. 

Always, keep a self check mechanism in place when you are speaking. With every line that you speak, you should ask yourself if you are going in the right direction or not? If you genuinely ask yourself this question, you will get the right answer. Tweak your speech then and there, otherwise your speech would die an early death!!

2. "Need a change" audience - In many cases you will find the auditorium/hall fully loaded with people dying to listen to you. Beware, many of them have no idea what your show is all about, and many of them even don't know who you are. This group has come to listen to you for a change, and it's not that they genuinely thought of coming to your show, in fact they had no other choice and thought of killing their time by occupying a seat in your show. They do not connect with you at all, they would not respond to you, they would put a poker face throughout. You end up in a confusion, if your are going right or not. Not to mention,

With practice you will learn to identify such people, it's better to ignore them, as they do not add anything meaningful to the equation.

3. "Mystery shoppers"- So you think you know the best on a particular topic. Well, you might be, but then there are some "Mystery shoppers" in the group who are best in this game.They are here to judge your talent, to benchmark how much they know vis-a-vis the competitor i..e YOU. They will listen to you seriously, they will stare at you, their gaze might make you nervous, they would grin on every wrong statement put in front of them. They would try to take you down any time. This species is a bit intelligent than you think they are, and their feedback can make or break your reputation.

To tackle them, it's better to do your homework before the speech, ask the organizers about the invitation list, analyse it, research about them, know who your audience is. If you get it right, you can atleast ask for a truce, if not beat them.

Speaking well and a great response not necessarily paints the right picture when you deliver a speech We need to read what's not visible, audible. Believing what you see might not be true for you. Better watch out for cues that you ignore most of the times.

So what do you think? Do you have any other category in your mind? Do let me know, I 'll share the same to all my readers.