My broadcast-quality home studio where I record commercials, documentaries, e-learning, corporate explainers, animation and audiobooks. Full technical capability and connectivity means I can send fully edited and mastered recordings to producers ready for use, or for them to add music.
It is absolutely dizzying how fast the world has been turned upside down by COVID-19. A month ago, something that many of us thought would be serious but fairly manageable, like SARS and Ebola, has become unspeakably widespread, complex and stunningly hard to grasp. There are still many frustrating examples of people who refuse to believe that the dystopian reality in Europe will ever cross the pond, but thankfully, there are lots of examples of people who take it very seriously and who are staying in isolation, whether out of concern for their communities or because they themselves are vulnerable with underlying health conditions. Through it all, everyone is trying to figure out how to keep working to keep their income coming in and in a bigger context, keeping the economy moving. At first, being a voice actor and audiobook narrator seemed to me like a very superfluous profession and one that would dry up quickly. It seems I have been wrong and that voiceover professionals may get through this with some metaphorical bruises, but with all limbs still attached.
Back in a simpler era….
Back in the simpler era of the real Mad Men advertising execs, professional voice actors mostly worked on radio commercials, some TV commercials, cartoons, some foreign language film dubbing, radio dramas and some documentaries. Voice actors went into outside studios to do their work and were sequestered in a sound-proof booth with a window into the control room. There, an engineer sat at a sound control board the size of a 747 flight deck, flanked by a director, producer, a cadre of account executives from the advertising agency, and some people from the client’s marketing department. The voice actor would stand in front of a microphone with a script on a stand and get direction from the control room through their headphones.
If you’re a fan of the Amazon Prime-produced show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, who can forget the classic episode where Midge and her manager Susie Meyerson ran all over NYC from studio to studio to do a day of commercial voiceover… at the end of which, they fell into exhausted sleep on the subway perched on a giant box of tampons which they received in lieu of payment!?
Fast forward 60 years….
Fast forward 60-ish years. With the explosion of accessible technology, voice actors today still do all those types of jobs, but also do a much wider variation of work including:
Corporate promotional and explainer videos for websites and social media
Promotional and donation videos for non-profit and charitable organizations
E-learning for everything from children’s education, corporate compliance, professional training and consumer tutorials
Telephone messaging system
Audiobooks
Live event announcing
Transit announcing (Mind the Gap)
TV announcing
Movie trailers
Documentary narration
Medical narration
Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR)
Video games
Animation for film, TV and web-based programming
Audio drama
Amusement park rides & shows
Hurled into lockdown….
Amazingly, up until January 2020 when the coronavirus seriously started hurling the world into lockdown, a large quantity of voiceover work was still done the way it was 60 years ago: in an outside studio. However, in the last two decades, as technology has become less expensive and more accessible and user-friendly, more and more professional voice actors created home studios. These spaces are professionally built, sound-proof and treated for reflection (echo), have a professional microphone, audio interface, recording and script-reading software, and direct-to-studio connectivity options. This allows the voice actor to create recordings and send them to clients over the internet, offering remote sessions that are broadcast quality. Before mid-March of 2020, Some big ad agencies and production houses were a bit slow to embrace this way of working. This crazy pandemic will force producers to re-think how they operate to stay in business, and it makes voice actors who have this set up, perfectly poised to continue working, uninterrupted. In fact, I have found, as have many of my colleagues, that work is still coming in and we have barely missed a beat.
That may seem surprising, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Businesses that are still able to operate and have adapted quickly with shop-at-home services, or new home delivery options, or even “touchless” product procurement, want to get the message out to their customers fast. If they have a mailing list of previous customers, they will send out a mailing, but they will reach a wider audience by putting out a radio ad, TV ad, or a video on their website and social media. For that, they need a voice actor to give the ad the professional polish it needs to convert listeners/viewers to customers.
Medical narration about to take off….
Award-winning professional voice actor, demo producer, and voiceover coach, J. Michael Collins had this to say about the state of our industry during this very challenging time:
“For perhaps as long as the rest of 2020, all learning will be E-Learning. Academic. Corporate. Institutional. Governmental. Some classes and seminars will be held online, but many will be shifted to classic E-Learning models. E-learning companies, already part of a rapidly growing industry, will see unprecedented growth. E-Learning voiceover will follow.
Medical Narration, in forms both educational and corporate, will witness demand on a previously inconceivable level. Every public and private entity in the entire world will be creating content regarding the outbreak, whether to educate, inform, promote products and innovations, avoid liability, or for countless other reasons. Medical narrators will be the most in-demand voice actors for the next year….”
Medical narration is a specialty that is not going to suit everyone. There is often very complex terminology which can be difficult to read, let alone pronounce with authoritative fluidity, and warm yet crisp, formal diction.
The middle-aged, polished authoritavie and reassuring read is poised for a comeback….
In commercial voiceover, Collins says, “Those of you who have been patiently waiting for the return of the middle-aged, polished, authoritative, and reassuring read; This is your moment. Whether advertising contactless delivery services or other creations of the COVID-19 world, the dawn of a new age of products requiring warm mature voices is upon us.” This, it would seem, is my moment….
Given current travel restrictions, residential lock-downs and home isolations, there is an abundance of availability among voice actors. This, in turn, is enabling shorter and quicker delivery schedules for clients. So the voice professionals that are fully equipped and ready to go to record a finished job from home, are going to be in relatively high demand and be able to help get much needed information out quickly. It helps companies of all kinds, the economy and our own businesses. Win/win/win.
May you and your families stay safe and healthy, may our communities support one another, and may we find common ground as we all move into this brave, new world together.
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If you need a warm, authoritative, mature voice for your project, reach out at www.RobinSiegerman.com/contact I’m ready to help.