The care and feeding of VOs

Whether it’s TV, radio or online, a good voiceover can be one of the central building blocks of any campaign. The right voice can convey a brand’s confidence, accessibility, sophistication or humour. It can aid recall and help tie together disparate messages and diverse media.

Finding your voice

Who are these voiceovers and where do they come from?
Being able to deliver a script with clarity and charm in a specific few seconds in a pressurised studio environment is a particular skill that is not as common as it might at first appear. (We’ve all heard our own voices on answering machines after all.)
Occasionally a brand will set out to find a voice that they can ‘own’- a distinctive voice that hasn’t been heard before. This is the right ambition but one that soon runs into a paradox. Jobbing actors worth their salt have practiced their delivery elsewhere. In other words, they can do a voiceover well because they, well, do voiceovers. And while sector exclusivity is not unheard of (a voiceover on your car ad may agree not to do voiceovers for other cars) in the Irish market actors are seldom paid not to act for anyone else at all- so there’s always a chance they’ll be voicing the next ad in the break. The only way around this is to try to ‘discover’ a voiceover. This can be done but can prove time-consuming and expensive. There’s also a school of thought that says that people are happier taking information from a voice that is somewhat familiar and therefore authoritative.

So while in an ideal world each brand would have its own unique voice, in reality the number of talented, tried and tested voices is finite. Generally, voiceovers come from three sources; the general pool of Actor Voiceovers, the Celebrity Voiceover and the Client Voiceover.

The actor voiceover

Your average Irish commercial recording studio has a contact list of about 150 voiceovers numbering more males than females.
These are mainly professional actors and members of Equity, the actors’ union. If a mass-market brand is looking for a voiceover it’s most often looking for a voice that sounds between 25 and 50. Regional voices are not usually sought. For instance, Dublin accents are seldom used to talk to farmers (which, on reflection, may be all the more reason to consider one). As a general rule, it’s not difficult to find an actor who can do a regional accent or act out a dialogue between ‘normal’ people if the script has come to that. What’s rarer is a voiceover who can convincingly deliver a ‘straight’ voiceover. Someone who can sell soap- i.e. deliver a corporate line compellingly and persuasively within a few seconds and in a reasonable number of takes. When looking for the solid ‘corporate’ voice it’s always worth spending a little extra time and money to demo a range of people. Like any casting this is time well spent as the chance to experiment will help inform and refine the final voiceover. Then again there’s always the option of using somebody well known.

The celebrity voiceover

Using a recognisable celebrity voiceover can add stature and generate interest. The glory of the celebrity can reflect on the brand and people who like the celebrity a brand employs can like the brand because of it.  Of course, the opposite is also true. Any high-profile connection between a brand and a celebrity (which will usually mean substantial sums have changed hands) carries a risk if the celebrity does something that means the campaign cannot be used, like dying or getting caught with their pants down. Or both. Some insurers offer ‘Death and Disgrace’ insurance to cover the costly eventuality of having a campaign that can’t go ahead because of the celebrity used.
If you’re about to choose a celebrity voiceover the logistics are worth considering in detail. To really forge a connection between brand and voice would probably require more than just a limited use of a celebrity for flagship communications. That’s when celebrity availability, flexibility and cost, often established through a Rottweiler agent, may start to be a problem. The celebrity may not be available at short notice and voiceovers may have to be done by remote control (eg ISDN links between studios- in itself expensive as two studio hires are involved).  Stars may also be reluctant to get into the nitty-gritty involved in some aspects of a sustained campaign. Oh, and they can be just plain tricky.

Here, During a voiceover to picture for Findus, Orson Welles lets the agency know his true feelings.

http://irishinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/Orson-Welles-Blooper.mp3

The client voiceover

“When a client proves refractory, show a picture of his factory. But only in the direst cases should one show the clients’ faces”.

That maxim generally applies to the client’s voice too. Of course, Dear Client, you may have dulcet tones that are clear as a bell and sweet as a nut to the ear. Your presence may convey a caring, hands-on, cost-conscious management standing behind the brand. But equally you may be too close to judge (or may even have been the victim of flattery.) So perhaps you should forbear. Or at least get the copywriter’s opinion. It would be terrible to have to fire yourself after negative research or falling sales.

In the studio

Voiceovers often exude confidence and make it all look easy but being able to deliver under pressure is always an art and sometimes a slog.
Actors have off days like the rest of us, but at the best of times they need encouragement and clear direction.
For a copywriter, directing a voiceover is somewhere between lion-taming and midwifery. It’s about bringing the best out of an actor, under pressure, and getting them to understand the way the script is intended to be read.

Take a minute to listen to the late, great Donal McCann deliver a script (early on a Saturday morning) with formidable power and emotion.

http://irishinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/DonalMcCann.mp3

Studios tend to be about putting people at their ease and everything from the nice coffee and comfy sofas to the chocolate bars are designed to take tension and nerves from the situation, but’s there’s no doubt that some of the best voiceover performances are born out of relaxed rapport between writer and actor. The writer knows what they hear in their head and actors are by definition interpreters. Rapport is something that rarely builds between a committee and a performer- in fact it can vanish under observation. So while it’s often good to have a second opinion (a role a good engineer can fill too) there are few performance situations in a small space that improve with extra viewers.

This award-winning voiceover by Risteard Cooper was crafted, take by take, in lengthy sessions with the mininum number of people present.

http://irishinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/RisteardCooper.mp3

So while attending a session is often necessary, best practice is that direction is only given by one person, customarily the copywriter. Voiceovers benefit from the focus and it can sometimes be surprising just how customised a delivery can be, a true collaboration between actor and writer. That way a voice can give a brand the personality that will connect with the consumer. When you do find the ideal voiceover, remember- they’re not just for Christmas.*

*Unless they’re just for Christmas

Eoghan Nolan