Q: What does your average voiceover artiste and a leprechaun have in common?
A:Answer: they both know how to avoid getting found.

If you catch a Leprechaun, he has to give you his pot of gold. As a result, Leprechauns are secretive little fellows. One was however once caught by a young farmer. The farmer couldn’t believe his luck. Demanding his pot of gold, the Leprechaun reluctantly pointed to a tree in a forest under which the gold could be found. The farmer tied a red ribbon around the tree and headed off to get a shovel so that he could dig up his new found wealth.

Here voiceovers and indeed many other business people go wrong. You see – on www.piehole.ie, the most popular category of voice talent is ‘versatile’. In other-words “I can do anything”. As a result, searching the ‘versatile’ voices tells your pretty much nothing about the voice. But if the category is pretty useless in finding the one VO you need for your job – why does everyone choose it in the first place?

The reason is that they don’t want to lose out on all of the other work on the site. Fear is the strongest human emotion and the fear of losing out drives them to put themselves in this bland category where they get lost in the crowd.

The Leprechaun in our story used this effect to his advantage. He didn’t want the farmer to find his gold so while he was away he tied a red ribbon to all the other trees in the forest – making his pot of gold completely vanish.

The Leprechaun here knows how not to be found. So does a your average voiceover. The only difference is – one wants to be and the other does not.

Don’t miss Diane in Epilogue. A new one-act play, Epilogue takes a blackly humorous look at choice, regret, acceptance and the unique way we all have of viewing our own lives. The storyline revolves around Henry, who considers himself a successful business man. He has worked tirelessly and with relentless ambition toward a thriving and lucrative career; a career that has just been abruptly cut short.

Stuck in a waiting room between death and the afterlife, Henry is given the opportunity to review his life. With the help of a suited ’Lawyer’, his ’list’ and a host of people from his past, Henry is forced to consider that his memories may not be as regret-free as he would like to believe.

PLAY DIANE’S DEMO

Although Tara Flynn is based in London now, she’s still available for voiceover work, and is happy to travel to Dublin for voiceover gigs. In fact, she’ll be Dublin this week for a few comedy gigs at the Comedy Cellar (Wed 19) and the International Comedy Club (Thurs, Fri, Sat 20, 21, 22), all at the International, Wicklow St.
She was last seen on BBC’s Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle and The Omid Djalili Show… so don’t miss her when she’s in Dublin. PLAY TARA’S DEMO.

1.  If you are inexperienced:

If you’re on your first or second demo still, a rule of thumb is to wait until you’ve done a few gigs, say 4 - 10.  That extra experience will help, because with voiceovers, there is a very steep learning curve in the beginning.  Your next demo will already be much smoother and your skills will be improved even after such a short time.  I’ve worked with many voiceovers who are still new to the game, and after a few rounds in studio, it’s like they’re a different voiceover. More confident, better and basically, really starting to find their own style.

2. if you are experienced:

Once you’ve had a certain amount of experience, the learning curve isn’t as steep anymore.  Now you just have to make sure your demo is “acting your age”.   You don’t need to waste your money re-doing your demo every year.  You can refresh your existing demo every 2 years or so (simple editing - adding in new bits of work you’ve done, and taking out some of the older stuff that dates your demo).  And then, re-record and make a new demo every 4 years roughly. Too often I’ve heard people sound really young on their demo, and then when you get them in studio, they sound nothing like they do on their demo. 

3. when your demo is letting you down

If you did a demo you were never really happy with, plus, you’re not getting booked for gigs - it’s time.

CREATE A NEW DEMO

REFRESH YOUR EXISTING DEMO

I would have no hesitation in recommending Piehole for recording a voice demo. They were invaluable in helping to source and select good material in advance of the recording session. As a result of their practice session and ongoing consultation, I went in to the studio much more prepared than I would otherwise have been, confident that I had the best scripts available to me to record. Their advice in the studio pushed me to achieve the best recording I could and helped me to feel much more confident in the studio environment. The final demo was brilliantly produced and it was only a couple of weeks before I got booked for a gig off the back of it.

PLAY WILL’S DEMO

We still have a couple of places open for the next demo day.  If you’ve been toying with the idea of creating a genius new demo, click here baby to read all about the Piehole Demo Days.

YAAAAAAAWNNN!!! Boring topic.  But the topic of how to charge and what to charge does keep popping up, especially for those voice overs who don’t have an agent.  I’d recommend for VOs to have their own invoicing set-up, so that you can keep a record of all the work you’ve done in the year, and it’s a more professional way to invoice your voice over jobs.  Try blinksale.com - they have a free account that allows you to send up to 3 invoices per month, and all it’s all stored online.  You can upgrade (I think it’s 9 USD per month) to send more invoices.

In terms of knowing what to charge, you can get a copy of the standard Irish rate card in our free ebook.