0661 – The Variety of Voiceover Opportunities 2

2022.10.23 – 0661 – The Variety of Voiceover Opportunities 2

·        Gaming – Acting in character for online games

·        Live events (aka ‘Voice of God’) – from large sporting arenas to smaller concerts, theatres, balls and awards events. These may be live or recorded

·        Narration – Not necessarily audiobooks, but TV, radio or movie documentaries, and news articles. It may also include the voice-over in a film or TV show to move the storyline along, explain a backstory or add depth to the character as you can hear their thoughts, for example, in “How I Met Your Mother” or “The Girl On The Train” (?)

·        Podcasts – scripted podcast (which is more like conversational narration), fiction (akin to audiobooks) and dramatization (‘voice acting’ or ‘audio acting’). Also, voice tracking for radio stations (providing recorded links for music shows which are automatically played in between songs to give the impression it’s a live show)

·        IVR (Interactive Voice Response systems), phone system recordings (‘telephone trees’ and on-hold messages) – phone greetings for any size of company (“Welcome to … press 1 for accounts, 2 for sales…”)

·        Promos and trails – usually for TV (“The Heat Is On”: Friday night at 10 on channel 10”) and movies (such as the cliched “In a world…”)

·        Radio imaging - (“You’re listening to 97.7 The Frog”)

·        Toys and Theme Park animatronics -

·        Virtual Assistants – on games and information apps on services such as Siri or Alexa

Most voiceovers specialise in a niche before branching out, and of course, the goal of every voice actor is to become the vocal brand of a product, service or production for a higher rate, higher exposure and longevity of contract.

Let’s take a look at some of the voice skills required for some of these genres.

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