Another newb needing lots of demo help...

Dan Powell

Hi all,

Nervous newbie Dan here with my first, what I call proper, demo.

I just want to know what people think of it and then I'll apologise later...well here goes, it's kinda written, produced and directed by me on a $15 microphone in my bedroom. Well apart from the kitten ad and the pizza depot ones where the woman is someone else and was written and produced by someone else too, and yes I have their permission to use the commercials which are fake anyway...what am I saying, they're all fake!! Smile

by the way, tried to put the demo in as url to my voice123 page but the formatting kept getting screwed up so 'attached' it. Hope that's ok people.

Thank for listening!

Dan

Amy Snively · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:09 (GMT) Post subject:

Hi Dan--

I think your first step is to listen to what professional demos customarily sound like. You can listen to agency house reels on Voicebank.net. You can find some here on V123, too, but beware-- there are a lot of homemade crap demos on this site mixed in with the good, so be discerning.

I hope you don't mind me being cruel to be kind, but this demo needs to be tossed completely. You should get a fresh start after familiarizing yourself with what a competitive demo sounds like. I don't believe any voice seeker would listen past the first sentence of the recording you just posted.

Good luck! It'll be ok. You just got a bit of a false start this go.

Amy

Dan Powell · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:12 (GMT) Post subject:

Ok that's fair enough. Is the intro speech just not worth it, as I have listened to a few that have that kind of thing, or is it all just totally worthless?

Amy Snively · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:13 (GMT) Post subject:

Beyond worthless.

Dan Powell · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:16 (GMT) Post subject:

Cool, shot down but has to be done or I won't learn so thanks for that! Just out of curiosity is the sound quality ok to you as I only have my ears and other non professionals seem to think it's ok?

Amy Snively · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:22 (GMT) Post subject:

I'm not the one to ask about sound quality. It's outside of my area of expertise. Some of the guys here are audiophiles and with any luck, they'll chime in.

Have you had the chance to attend a voice over workshop?

Dan Powell · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:28 (GMT) Post subject:

Yeah, done that, here's one of the commercials they had me voice as an example which was classed as a good one by me...

Scott Pollak · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:44 (GMT) Post subject:

Hey Dan,

Ditto what Amy said about the demo. But let me dig a bit deeper and try to offer some constructive help here.

First of all, I generally tend to hate character voice demos, even though I have one myself that's posted on my own website AND V123 page. I'm going to attach it so you can hear what a character voice demo with pacing, tight editing and energy sounds like.

But here's why I hate them so much: most of them, like yours, are obviously demos where someone sat down at their computer and recorded various voices done to weak scripts they wrote. It's obvious they've never really done any real character voice work and it's kinda painful to listen to. So how do you GET real v/o work? Intern at a radio station or production studio for starters. Attend voice classes, and so on.

Your demo is flat and slow with gaping holes between the too-long segments. And while you seem to have a pretty decent range of voices that are NOT badly done, the demo itself is just terribly home-grown.

I didn't listen thru headphones, but the quality is average, at best. On cheap computer speakers it sounds passable, but not up to par with someone working with professional equipment.

Which kind of brings us full circle here: you're in an arena with the pros now... people who do this for a living. To compete you have to be on their/our level. You have to have the experience, training, expertise, background, resources, talent, equipment, scars, sweat, blisters and knocks that we all have. There's only ONE WAY to get that: time, persistence, training, practice, more practice, more training, more time, more practice and working relentlessly toward your goal. It will NOT happen overnight. Oh, and you'll need to invest in some better gear than a $15 mike.

Finally, don't expect to get many leads for character voices no matter how good you are. That's not what clients want. I'd say less than 1% of the leads that come thru here want anything other than real, personable reads. Character voices are definitely in the minority.

But plug away. You seem to have some talent and spunk, and your willingness to accept criticism will take you a long way. Hang in there, work like a dog to become a pro, and the rest of us will be here cheering you on.

Peace.

Scott Pollak · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:46 (GMT) Post subject:

Oh, I prattled on so long I forgot about attaching my own character voice demo.

Which, by the way, has gotten me VERY LITTLE work! Laughing

Robert Jadah · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:48 (GMT) Post subject: Demo

Dan,
I'm not stalking you or anything..just happen to be catching up on Savvy and you're everywhere....
Amy's right: that demo MUST be reworked. Don't be rushing into this stuff; a commercial demo is not an integral part of Voice 123.
You'll be able to add to your library as you answer leads, and then pluck some good'uns out later to compile a bit of a portfolio.
I manage with a dozen short snippets that I send in as Generics depending on what the client's looking for.
If they're seeking a classy tone for a diamond sale, they'll not sit through characters and hard sells of a catch-all demo.
So you can wait with that, until you've got more experience and bits and pieces.
Listen to some of the best demos around; you'll find many on this forum.
On the plus side, you have an elegant and velvety tone which - when added to the Brit lilt - will stand you in awfully good stead.
You'll be fine. But steady, old chap.
Voice On!

Dan Powell · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:51 (GMT) Post subject:

Woah, really really thank you for that Scott, you really prove yet again (as I've seen so many times) that you go beyond what's hoped for. Yeah I know the $15 mic isn't going to cut it but my studio mic is worse so in the process of having to get it replaced.

Still I needed to know if the material and chops were even in with a fighting chance. At the moment only if fighting someone without a mic hehe.

Thanks again though and believe me I'll keep plugging away until I get somewhere Smile

If only money weren't so tight *sigh* well that's for another time.

By the way I've listened to your demos already and yeah I know they're 10 times better than mine even without the naff beginning (I don't believe I thought that was ok to start with).

Amy Snively · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 22:55 (GMT) Post subject:

Scott's right. A character demo should be the last demo you should cut, from a practical-get-work perspective.

#1 Commercial. You need a strong commercial demo full of real-person, conversational reads.

#2 Out in the real world (or "reel" world!) promo would be next. Here on V123, you can skip to...

#3 eLearning and corporate narration. This is what a lot of the online auditions for your voice type will be.

#4 IVR, on hold, telephony. You might not like this kind of work so you can skip it if you like. But there are a lot of phone projects on V123.

On this list, a character demo would be somewhere around.... #26

Dan Powell · Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007, 23:01 (GMT) Post subject:

Thanks you guys, that's the kind of information I didn't get from the course and is essential. Hey I'm on here for 10 minutes and already have loads of help, you guys are stars and I won't be the newb for long.

Thanks also for the direction, one of the hardest things for me to figure is what kind of thing I should be going for so your advice is really helping loads!!

Hayley Richards · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007, 21:25 (GMT) Post subject:

Hi,

The demo is a tad too long in my opinion. I only got to :47 seconds. Another thing I noticed was I couldn't tell if you were British or American - not sure that's a bad thing, because it must mean your accent is good for either (if it was supposed to be an accent - or mabe I need to dewax my ears Very Happy

)

Hayley

Dan Powell · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007, 22:49 (GMT) Post subject:

Hey that's great to hear...the critisism that is, really shows that people here tell it like it is rather than trying to go softly softly with the newb. As for the accents I'm English but most of my accents have been for americans and therefore have had to learn certain American accents too and I change to and from relative to what I want. Thanks again!