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When you're shopping around for a demo producer, what should you be looking for? What are the elements that you need to make sure are in your demo? Every voiceover genre is unique and has its own needs. Make sure your demo has all the right parts.
Make sure that there's a variety of emotions and styles in your demo.
So today I'm gonna talk to you about essential components for your voiceover demo.
So your voiceover demo is essentially your product, so you wanna make sure that you have some essential factors in there. Number one, make sure that you have a genre-focused demo. For example, if you want to sell to a commercial market, you wanna make sure you have a commercial demo. If you want to do corporate narration, you wanna make sure that you have a corporate narration demo. Animation, an animation demo; eLearning an eLearning demo. So number one, make sure that your genre is very specific and that your demo is targeted to that genre.
Now that means that you need spots in that demo that cater to that particular buying audience. So for example, a corporate narration demo would target different companies in different industries, and you wanna make sure that those industries and companies are typical buyers of your voiceover product. For example, during the pandemic, not a lot of people were traveling, so a travel spot in your demo would not have been as current or relevant as maybe it would be now that travel is trending again. Or let's say technology is trending. You should absolutely have a technology spot in your demo because technology's always evolving and trending. Also very trending lately is healthcare, especially again, since the pandemic. Auto- motive is trending, there are a lot of different industries that currently purchase voiceover. So it's very easy to go and do your research, do your homework, go check out YouTube channels, check out Vimeo channels, see what's popular, see what people are posting and using voiceover for, and then make sure that that's represented in your demo.
You wanna make sure that you have a variety of different acting styles, a variety of different emotions, and that will really help to showcase your range to a potential buyer. So one spot might be upbeat and bright and fast, and another spot might be more compassionate, warm, one might be more thoughtful. So make sure that there's a variety of emotions and styles as well in your demo. You wanna make sure that your demo is at the length that is not too long and not too short. So your spots should be representative of the spots that you would get if you were to book a gig in commercials. Maybe your commercial spot will be anywhere from 8 to 12 seconds, maybe a little bit longer, maybe up to 15 seconds. A narration spot might be a little bit longer. You don't want the spots in your demo to be too long. You wanna make sure that they advance from one spot to the next in an entertaining and interesting way. Make sure that your spots are long enough so that they can showcase your acting, but not too long so that they're going to bore the listener.
Also, you wanna consider the overall length of your demo. Typically, commercial demos are not more than a minute, a 1:10 seconds. If you're going to do a narration demo, that can be a little bit longer. If you are going to be handing your demo off to agents, you wanna make sure that that is trimmed to a little bit shorter length. The other thing you wanna consider in your demo is your production. You wanna make sure that your voice is highlighted throughout the demo and not necessarily the mu- sic or the production underneath it, so that when people are listening to your demo, they can actually hear your voice and not all of the music underneath.
Thanks for reading!
Keep on rocking your business like a #VOBOSS
About Anne:
Anne Ganguzza is a professional voice actor and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voiceover and business skills - including voice over Coaching and Genre-based Demo Production. She specializes in conversational Commercial & Narration styles, including Corporate, eLearning, Technology, and On-Hold Messaging. Located in Orange County, California, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students via ipDTL and Zoom.
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