Hiring a Professional Voice Actor

You have a project that requires a voice over. Should you to do the voice over yourself or have someone from around the office do your VO? Does it make a difference if you order a $39 voice over or hire a more expensive professional voice actor? If your project is meant to be heard by a client or the public, it is best to hire a professional voice talent.

Professional Voice Overs Win Accounts

Believe it or not there are still major producers out there that cheap out their voice overs. We are talking major agencies that cut corners when it comes to VO. Sure, they save money, but at what cost?

Imagine you walk into to a crucial pitch to challenge a competing ad agency for a big account. There you sit in a giant conference room with the president of the company and ad execs. You watch anxiously as your arch nemesis presents an amazing video with incredible photography and visual effects. The script is dead-on. The music, editing and sound effects: perfect. And that voice over - it is killer. They went all out cast a professional voice actor.

Then you step up for your pitch. Your work is equally visually stunning. You spent hours creating the video. Your script and music are perfect and your sound effects expertly mixed. But you hired a bargain basement voice guy. And that voice over just can’t compete with your competitor’s. Guess who wins the account?

You must be sure every single element of your work the very best it can be. And you must be willing to pay a fair market price to get a truly professional voice over.

How Professional Voice Actors Make a Difference

To put it simply: professional voice actors make projects better. Learners retain more information when an eLearning course is narrated by a professional. A professional voice talent has the ability to take your direction and suggestions and make your voice over sound exactly the way you imagine. No matter the medium, the message and emotion of your script are conveyed more effectively by using professional voice over talent.

Two more factors to consider are reliability and availability. There are a lot of low-budget part-time voice talent that work fulltime jobs not related to VO. This can cause major issues with deadlines and availability. You cannot afford to hire a semi-pro voice that cannot voice for you during standard business hours. You most likely cannot wait until after business hours or the weekend to receive your much-needed voice files. You certainly can’t have a voice talent go missing when it is time for a scheduled voice over session. It is crucial to hire a fulltime professional voice actor with a proven track record. Fulltime professional talent are reliable and available when you need them.

Is It Ever OK to Use an In-House Voice?

There are times when you are doing a job with no budget and an in-house voice might make sense. However, if you are creating a TV or radio ad, a corporate video, a training course or a documentary, the voice you choose can literally make or break the project. Imagine spending weeks creating a stunning eLearning course, sitting down with the client to show off your stuff and the first thing the client hears is Jerry, the guy with the deep voice from your office. While Jerry may have a really nice voice, he most likely has no voice over training. It’s like owning an expensive bass guitar but you do not know how to play it. You need to take lessons to learn how to make that bass sing. Same thing with voice over. An experienced, professional voice actor takes the words off the page and brings them to life. Karen from accounting, not so much.

How To Hire A Professional Voice Actor

Ok, so you know you need a professional voice actor. You get it. It is smart to hire a professional voice talent. But when you search for voice actors you get a dizzying array of rates for the work.

Searching for true professional voice actors can be intimidating. It is hard to know who you can trust. You could search voice actors and go from individual website to website searching for a great sounding, trustworthy voice talent. Or you could put out a call on social media and be inundated with hundreds of emails from inexperienced voice talent.

Or you can make it easy on yourself and just post your voice over job on VOPlanet.com. We only have carefully vetted, highly experienced voice over professionals. It is easy to cast voice overs with VOPlanet. Just tell us a bit about the voice you need, drop in a script, and in minutes you get auditions from professional voice actors. Best of all, casting is absolutely free and there are no project fees or commissions.

Cast your professional voice over on VOPlanet.com and find the best voice for your project.

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