The Many Faces of Voice Over

The world of professional voice over can be a fascinating one. It can involve short or long term projects and can be quite varied in the types of recordings that it covers – from commercials to podcasts, trailers to e-learning. There is no doubt that it’s a very interesting and challenging profession too!

There are a wide range of styles and tones that can be used in a voice over recording and each type of project requires different production techniques. Some people are true all-rounders and can work across a number of the genres but most tend to specialise in a few that they enjoy working in most.

For example a female VO might be able to work across all of the main genres but will often prefer to focus on character or commercial work, where they can get more creative freedom. A male VO might choose to specialise in corporate, documentary or radio idents, where they can focus on being confident, authoritative and smooth.

Many voice acting courses will give the trainee a professional demo reel at the end of their training, which is a very useful tool when looking for work. This is particularly useful if the trainee wants to focus on being an announcer or documentary voice artist.

Every business has a telephone and most have some sort of answer message or on hold system where the caller is left to listen to an automated recorded message. Some companies will record these themselves but most will use a professional voice actor to do it for them. voiceovers.uk