Are you a budding voice over looking to develop yourself further? There are certain things you can do now to set yourself up for greatness in the field.
From learning how to project your voice and engage your audience, to knowing when to take direction in the creative sense. This post will take you through some of the key things you need to be able to grow as a voice over artist.
Know your audience
Knowing your audience is half the battle when it comes to recording a voice over. What we mean by this is ensuring that you’re presenting your voice in a way that’s appropriate for who you’re targeting.
If you’re targeting a corporate audience, you’d want to use more formal, straight to the point language; for an everyday consumer audience, you’d want a more informal, emotional approach.
As well as ensuring you’re targeting your formal or informal audience correctly, you also want to pay attention to the tonality you choose to convey, in regards to which demographic you’re targeting.
Knowing your audience is beyond just distinguishing between formal and informal, but also knowing how to switch between a younger and older audience; Much like age range, you’ll also sometimes need to adapt for a more male or female dominated audience, so bear this in mind before you approach your next project.
Treat your monologues like a dialogue
What may seem rather obvious, one key tip when building your reputation as a voice over is to treat the monologue you’re given, as a dialogue.
Remember, you’re targeting an audience, so you must speak to them, as opposed to reading off a script as if you’re in a play. Monologues are typically a one-sided conversation, which in our case wouldn’t work for, say, an advert.
Treating it like a dialogue allows the end user to be more engaged with what you’re saying. Should you choose to ask questions to be extra convincing, your target audience will be answering these in their head – That’s the power of treating your monologue like so.
Treating the voice over script like a dialogue not only directs the dialogue to the end listener, it breathes life into it and makes the overall production much more personable.
Don’t be afraid to take creative direction
What every great voice over has in common, that separates them from the rest, is their ability to take creative direction of their project.
It’s all good that you can read a script in an engaging way, but how are you going to do the job better than your competitors? The key difference between the two is that the best voice overs are able to take creative direction and bring that script to life.
Creative direction could be putting that extra pzazz, which could be anything from a softer tone, a more energetic take on reading the script, or even a specific voice put on for the role.
When you add this extra unspoken rule to your voice over game, you’ll soon become unstoppable. Besides, it only takes one great gig to set you up for life.
It’s no wonder why certain voice overs are chosen to be the voice of a certain brand, the ability to take creative direction in your voice over recording is priceless.
Top tips for the beginner voice over
Hopefully these tips will help you improve over time as a voice over. With a little patience and practice, you’ll certainly get there.
To summarise, so long as you keep these main principles in mind, you’ll be well on your way to success:
- Know your audience
- Treat your monologues like a dialogue
- Take creative direction