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Your Voiceover Demo

In This Chapter

Your Professional Calling Card

Your demo is your best first—and often only—opportunity to present your performing skills and abilities to talent agents, producers, and talent buyers. It’s one of the most important parts of your VO business. Your demo is your calling card, your portfolio, your audio résumé. It is, in a sense, your letter of introduction. You don’t need headshots, or a printed résumé, but you absolutely do need a high-quality, professionally produced demo—and you’ll need a demo for every niche of voiceover you want to work in. It is the single most important thing you must have if you are to compete in the world of professional voiceover.

Demo Rule #1:
Don't Produce Your Demo Until You Are Ready

How Will I Know?

OK, you’ve just completed several voiceover workshops, your training is well underway, and you’re excited about getting started on your new career path. You’ve received lots of positive feedback and encouragement from your coach and others you’ve worked with, and now you’re ready to produce your voiceover demo, right?

Probably not!

The single biggest mistake beginning voice actors make is to produce their demo too soon.

The reality is that unless you already have a strong performing background, you are simply not going to be ready for your demo after taking a single workshop—or, for that matter, possibly several workshops or even months of private coaching. You certainly won’t be ready for your demo after just reading this book. Mastering your performing skills may take a considerable amount of time. Producing your demo too soon may result in a presentation that is far below professional standards, potentially affecting your credibility.

Before you even think about having your demo produced, make sure you have acquired both the business skills and good performing habits necessary to compete in this extremely challenging business. Remember that there are a lot of other people trying to do the same thing as you. Anything you can do to improve your abilities and make your performing style just a bit unique will be to your advantage.

Study your craft, learn acting skills, and develop a plan to market yourself before you record your demo. Take lots of classes—you’ll learn something new from each coach! Acting and improvisation classes will help you develop your performing skills and voiceover classes, webinars, workshops, and conventions will help hone those skills. If possible, find a voiceover coach who is aware of current trends and who will work with you one-on-one to polish your technique before you go into the studio. Your coach knows what you do best and how to get the best performance from you, and ideally, should direct your demo session.

So, you’re probably asking the question: “How will I know when I’m ready to do my demo?” Good question! In her Demo and Marketing Magic for Voice Actors workshop and eBook, Penny Abshire, breaks this question down to four possible answers.

• The short answer is: You’ll know.
• The medium answer is: You’ll know after you have the proper training, you’ve researched and studied other professional voice talent and their demos, know what the marketplace is looking for and feel confident you can deliver at the same level as other professionals doing similar voiceover work.
• The long answer is: You’ll know when you can be handed any script—cold—and, within two or three takes, you can perform that script at a level comparable to other professional talent. You also feel confident that you can generate enough work with your demo to at least cover the costs of its production.
• The best answer is: You’ll know you’re ready when you can stop asking yourself the question “Am I ready to produce my demo?” Which takes us back to: You’ll know!

How Do I Get to Be That Good?

The craft of performing for voiceover is, for most, an acquired skill. There are some rare individuals who are natural-born actors, but most of the working professionals in this business started out by mastering their fundamental acting skills and moving on from there.

Of course, you certainly have the option to take some short-cuts and produce your demo without adequate training. I wouldn’t recommend it, but you can do it. And you might get lucky.

Remember this: Your performance, as heard on your demo, will be compared to every other demo a producer listens to—and most producers listen to a lot of demos. After a few hundred, it’s not hard to separate the great talent from the “good,” and the “good” from the rank beginners. Most producers will know within about five seconds. You want your demo to present you as one of the great talent and keep them listening more than five seconds!

To do that, you must become a master story teller and an expert at communicating with drama and emotion before you have your demo produced. Here are some things that will help you get where you want to be quickly.

• Study acting. Acting is the key to an effective performance. Learn how to act so your performance sounds natural and believable, and learn how to use your voice and body to express drama and emotional tension.
• Do your exercises. Set up a daily regimen for doing your voice exercises. Get into the habit of keeping your voice in top condition. Your voice is the “tool” of you trade—take care of it.
• Take classes, workshops and webinars. Have an attitude of always learning. You will learn something new from each class and workshop you take. The voiceover business is constantly adapting. You need to be ready to adapt as new trends develop. Voiceover workshops will give you a foundation upon which you can develop your craft and business.
• Attend large voiceover events. Putting in face time at a voiceover convention will not only give you opportunities to learn from some of the top voiceover talent and coaches in the world, but you’ll also get to meet and know your peers. Many incredibly powerful voiceover business relationships have been the direct result of meeting at a voiceover convention.
• Read other books about voiceover. Every author presents their material in a slightly different manner. That different approach might be all it takes for you to grasp a concept, learn a technique, or get a fresh idea. If you learn only one thing from reading a book, it was well-worth its purchase price.
• Practice your skills and techniques. When working on a piece of copy, rehearse your performance with an attitude of continually perfecting it. Have a solid understanding of the techniques you are using as you rehearse.
• Get personalized coaching. Every performer is unique and it takes personalized coaching to truly discover and refine that uniqueness. Seek out a qualified private coach to help you become the best you can be before you produce your demo.
• Avoid the temptation to fast-track your career. Professional competency in any craft is only achieved after consistent study and considerable experience. It simply never happens overnight. Before you spend any money for a demo, I strongly encourage you to study both the business and craft of voiceover to the point where there is no doubt in your mind that you are ready to get that demo produced.

Demo Rule #2:
Your Demo Must Accurately Represent Your Abilities

Your voiceover demo must be “great!” It cannot be merely “good.” To create a great demo, you must make the effort to develop and hone your performing skills. You must know what you do best. Are you best with commercial copy or character voices? Is your expertise with dialogue, audio books, or medical narration? If you don’t know, you’re not ready for your demo.

Since your demo may directly result in bookings, it is extremely important that you be able to match the level of your demo performance when under the pressure of a session. It’s easy for a studio to create a highly produced, yet misrepresentative demo that gives the impression of an extremely talented and polished performer. If your true abilities are less that what is depicted on your demo, the shortcomings will be quickly revealed during a session.

When I worked in television, the promotions producer I worked with booked a New York voice actor based solely on her demo. The demo had logos from all the major television networks on its label, was well produced and the voice actor had a long list of performing credits. Her voice was perfect for the project being produced.

When the producer arrived at the studio, the voice actor was already hooked up via ISDN from New York. After some chit chat, the session began and that’s when it happened. The woman in New York was having serious problems reading the script and after several takes, the session was gracefully brought to an end.

After the session it was learned that the New York agent had never auditioned the voice actor. She was represented solely on the quality of her demo. Turns out that the voice actor had dyslexia and could not easily read directly from a script. All of her acting experience was based on memorization. The studio that produced this woman’s demo had worked their magic to create a killer demo that completely misrepresented the actor.

Your demo must be an accurate representation of your voiceover skills and it should be professionally produced by someone who knows voiceover. Even if you’ve assembled a state-of -the-art home studio, without extensive production experience and practical knowledge of the business, don’t even think you can put a demo together at home and expect it to sound professional. You need to be focused on your performance, not your equipment. Let your engineer focus on the production.

You need a director to listen to your performance objectively, help you stay focused, and help get you in touch with the character in the copy. In today’s world of voiceover, it is essential that you develop self-directing skills because you will be recording many projects in the privacy of your home studio without the benefit of direction from your client. However, working without a director is the last thing you want to do when producing your demo.

All voice actors need a director to bring out their best work. The top professionals will tell you that they perform much better when a good director guides them through their performance, even though most of their work might be self-directed.

Consider your demo session to be just like a real, paid recording session. You need to be able to get to your best performance, in three or four takes. Anything after about the fifth or sixth take should be aimed at fine-tuning your delivery. If you need more, you may not be ready.

Be careful that you don’t spend a lot of time over-rehearsing. Too much rehearsal can lock you into a groove that can be difficult to break out of. Rehearsed just enough so you are comfortable with your copy, yet can be directed into alternative deliveries.

Versatility Is Your Selling Tool

There are three primary approaches to voiceover demos. The first approach is a character demo that demonstrates the performer’s range of versatility through a variety of examples showing different emotions, attitudes, and personalities. This type of demo reveals a wide range of vocal styles, placements, and character voices, and is commonly used to market voiceover for animation, video games, toys, and other character-based genres.

The second approach focuses on the performer being the most real and natural person he or she can be while demonstrating a range of emotion within the natural, conversational delivery of their own voice. This is the most common approach to commercial, narration, IVR, and telephone messaging demos.

The third approach focuses on a specific delivery style, often heard as an attitude or intonation in the phrasing. This is commonly heard in promo, trailer, and radio imaging voiceover demos.

Regardless of which approach is best for you, it is the range and variety of performance in a demo that demonstrate a voice actor’s abilities and gets the attention of talent buyers and agents. You need to capitalize on your strong points and present them in the best possible manner in your demo.

The range of attitudes, emotions, and characters you can express during a voiceover performance is your own, unique, vocal versatility. Your strongest, most dynamic, and most marketable voice is called your money voice. This is the voice or delivery style that will get you the work. It is usually the first track on a demo and may eventually become your trademark or signature voice. Your other voices and stylings are icing on the cake but are necessary to clearly show your range and versatility as a voice actor.

Demo Basics

Demo Formats

An interesting thing about technology is that it is constantly changing. What was in favor yesterday may be out of favor tomorrow. Reel-to-reel and cassette demos are history! The audio CD, the standard for many years, has given way to demos that exist as electronic data files. There is even demo technology that allows for instantly listening to specific segments of a voiceover demo.

Digital audio files have several major advantages over previous formats: there is no expense for packaging; the demo can be posted on a website, which makes it immediately available for listening and/ or downloading worldwide; files can easily be copied and cataloged to identify a performer’s style, performance genre, or in whatever way works best for a producer or agent. They can be emailed, edited, re-sequenced, renamed, uploaded, and assembled into compilations. For auditioning purposes, it’s very fast and efficient to simply open a computer file folder and click on successive demos until the right voice is found. It’s anybody’s guess what the future may hold for voiceover demo distribution formats.

For the purpose of marketing, it is an absolute must that your voiceover demo exist as an electronic .mp3 audio file stored in an easily accessible location on your computer and even on your smart phone. This makes it easy to locate for emailing or for a quick playback from your phone. In this age of electronic files, it’s still not a bad idea to at least know how to burn an audio CD for those times when they are requested. And, yes, even today, there are still a handful of agents and producers who prefer hard-copy audio CDs.

Voiceover demos are generally produced as a series of short clips with the performer’s money voice at the beginning and end. The rest of the demo consists of a variety of attitudes and styles that reflect the performer’s range and abilities. Sequencing the demo clips will be determined by your producer or engineer and will generally be structured to grab interest and hold the listener’s attention as the demo progresses.

Preparing for Your Voiceover Demos

As with any business, you need to know your competition. Before producing your demo, it is important that you study current demos of professionals in your niche. You can listen to demos on pay-to-play audition websites or simply Google “voiceover demos.” You’ll be amazed at what you will learn as you begin listening to other demos.

Your demo should feature examples of what you can do that meets, or exceeds, the expectations of those who are looking for voice talent in your specific genres. In other words, your commercial demo should consist of only your commercial delivery style, and your character demo should feature your character voices. There may be some crossover, such as a character voice in a commercial, but avoid the temptation to combine multiple demo types in one demo.

Ideally, your demo should be compiled from actual projects you have worked on. However, if you are just starting out, this is not possible. You will need to locate or write your own scripts and design a demo that will catch the listener’s attention and hold it. Even working professionals will sometimes write original copy to create a demo that really puts their voice in the spotlight. This can be a challenging task, but it can pay offbig. Avoid using copy from online sources and pay-to-pay sites as these scripts tend to be overused.

There are several schools of thought as to the type of voiceover demo to produce when just getting started. One is to produce a commercial demo first, because this is the type of demo that most agents will request first. Another is to produce a narration demo first, primarily because this niche represents the largest percentage of voiceover work. Yet another approach is to produce a demo based on a determination of the specific niche area that the voice actor wants to work in. All three are viable approaches and can result in bookings for an entry-level voice actor. You will likely be most successful if you produce your first demo in the genre and style that you and your coach determine to be your greatest strength.

Types of VO Demos

At one time, not long ago, a voice actor could effectively market their talent with two or three demos running several minutes each. That’s all changed! Not only has the length of a demo shortened, the marketplace now requires a specific demo for each of the more than three dozen genres of voiceover work. Fortunately, you will only need a demo for those areas in which you are marketing yourself.

There are two basic structures for demos. The first is a compilation demo with examples of a variety of performing styles within the genre. The second is a concept demo that combines the demo clips into a logical sequence or story where each clip leads into the next. In both formats, as the demo moves along, there will be changes in attitude, pacing, energy, and character. Concept demos are rare as they are challenging to write, must be thought out very carefully, and fall into one of two categories: extremely good and unbelievably stupid!

Commercial Demos

Even though radio and TV commercials are only about 10 percent of the business, a well-produced commercial demo can demonstrate a performer’s abilities for nearly every other type of voice work. Every segment should reveal some aspect of the real you through your delivery and the characters you create. There is little demand for accents, dialects, and wacky characters in radio and TV commercials. Unless you are marketing your natural accent, those voices should be saved for other demos.

Your demo may contain as many as 12 to 15 segments, each of which demonstrates a different emotion, attitude, level of energy, personality trait, or delivery style at a variety of tempos. The copy chosen must be typical of what is commonly heard on radio and TV commercials. This type of demo should begin with your strongest performance and consist of several very short “clips” of about:03 to:10, fully produced to sound like excerpts from real-world commercials. The trend over the past few years is for a commercial demo run no longer than one minute. However, you might want a slightly longer version of no more than 1:15 to 1:30 for your website or direct marketing.

Industrial Narration Demos

Corporate and industrial demos tend to be somewhat longer than commercial demos. The longer length of each clip allows the producer time to more accurately assess your reading and delivery skills for this type of storytelling. It also gives them an opportunity to hear how you handle complex words, concepts, and sentences. As with the other types of demos, your money voice and strongest material should lead the demo, followed by a variety of styles, range, and versatility. Industrial demos offer a good opportunity to use various microphone techniques, a range of delivery speeds, and storytelling techniques to good advantage.

Where the average length of an individual segment for a commercial demo might be 5 to 10 seconds, a segment on an industrial demo might run 15 to 20 seconds, or even slightly longer depending on the complexity of the script.

A typical industrial demo will run about 1:45 to 2:00 and will include five to seven segments. As with a commercial demo, your agent will likely ask for a one-minute edited version for their use.

Character, Animation, and Game Demos

Character and animation demos will feature your talents primarily for animation and video game work. They also demonstrate your ability to create marketable voices for believable, “real” characters.

Animation character voice work is probably the single toughest area of voiceover to break into, so both your performing abilities and your character/animation demo must be of extremely high quality.

At its essence, a character or animation demo features voices that are recognized as either “real” people or extreme attitudes, but which are actually voices you create that are different from your real voice. For animation, the characters are often exaggerated or quirky in some way, while video-game characters are usually “real people.” Each clip features a different attitude, vocal characterization, or personality. If you don’t have the ability to create voices different from your natural voice, a character voice demo may not be for you.

Producing animation demos is a specialty area of production. Each segment of an animation demo must sound like it came from an actual show and similar voices should be separated from each other. The right music is critical, but not all studios have access to libraries with good animation or video game music. To find a studio that produces animation demos, visit voiceoverresourceguide.com.

A typical animation or character voice demo will be about the same length as a commercial demo, around 1:00 maximum, and may include 10 to 15 individual, fully produced elements. Again, if you have an agent, be sure to ask what length they prefer.

Audio Book Demos

An audio book producer wants to hear how you tell a story over an extended period of time, so the format for an audio book demo is far different from all other voiceover demos.

Audio book demos are the only type of demo that should include a slate of your name. The slate should be spoken by someone else who simply says your name followed by the word “reader.” After this brief introduction, you begin by giving the title of the book and start reading the story. Your choice of material should include a variety of emotions and attitudes. At least one excerpt should include multiple characters in conversation. You’ll need to find something unique for each character in the book you are reading for each segment. This can be a challenge for characters of the opposite sex. Usually a shift in energy or attitude will reveal a character’s gender far more effectively than a change of pitch. Change-ups of tempo, rhythm, and the use of other techniques can help differentiate the characters as you tell the story.

Practice for your audio book demo by recording yourself reading out loud, finding the drama, emotion, and attitudes for each scene and character of the story. You must develop the skill to be consistent with your delivery style for a very long period of time. Your audio book demo should reveal that consistency.

A typical audio book demo will run from 5 to 12 minutes and may consist of as few as 3 to 5 fairly long segments averaging about 3 to 4 minutes each. Ideally, you should be able to perform each segment of your audio book demo as a continuous read with a minimum of stops and starts. If you find you need to stop frequently, have difficulty reading the text, need to go back for pick-ups or need to do a lot of editing, you may not be ready for audio book work.

Imaging, Branding, and Signature Voice Demos

Unlike other types of voiceover work, those voice actors who work in the area of radio imaging need special knowledge of the broadcasting industry. If you don’t have a radio background or thoroughly understand the purpose of imaging and how this aspect of the business works, imaging work is probably not for you.

An imaging demo features a single, specific, often “edgy” delivery style throughout the demo. Most imaging voice talent have a separate demo that features a different, specific attitude for each radio format. Also, unlike other types of voiceover work, imaging often presents a detached delivery—more typical of an announcer, rather than the conversational delivery style for commercials, character, and narration.

An imaging demo should be no longer than one minute in length. Although any studio capable of producing a commercial demo should be able to handle an imaging demo, you would be wise to find a producer who knows radio and produces imaging work. As with animation demos, imaging requires special music and effects that may not be available at all studios.

Promo and Trailer Demos

A promo and trailer demo focuses on television programs and films. This is the only demo in which two genres are commonly combined, but many voice talent will market these separately.

Television promos are essentially commercials that promote a specific television program instead of a retail product. The program being promoted could be a local show, a movie, news program, news feature segment, or other station or network programming. A trailer promotes a movie.

To properly produce promo and trailer elements for your demo, you’ll need to find suitable sound bites, or excerpts from television shows or movies that you will wrap around your voice work. As with a commercial demo, the length will be about one to one-and-a-half minutes.

Most movie trailer work is done in Los Angeles, and there are a handful of voice talent who are consistently hired for this type of work. That doesn’t mean you can’t break in to trailer VO work, but you’ll need to find the companies that produce trailers, you’ll need an agent to represent you for trailer work, and you’ll need a killer trailer demo. TV promo work is usually booked directly by a station’s Promotions Department and can be an entree to trailer work.

Telephony Demos

Sometimes referred to as message-on-hold (MOH) or IVR (Interactive Voice Response), this type of demo is pretty basic. It usually consists of one or two examples of outgoing messages, one or two on-hold messages for different types of businesses, and perhaps even an example or two of a concatenation project or interactive voice responses. Examples should include appropriate background music. The idea of an MOH demo is to demonstrate what you sound like delivering information over the phone.

One might think that because a telephone connection has a reduced frequency response (about 8 kHz), an MOH demo should be equalized so it sounds as though it is being heard over the phone. Although this is certainly an option, but if you do this the reduced frequency response will not accurately reveal the subtlety of your performance. Even though the nuance and detail of your delivery may be lost during an actual phone message, your demo should show you at your absolute best. I’d recommend producing your MOH demo at the highest possible quality. As with most other demos, this one will also be in the one to one-and-a-half minute range.

Producing Your Demo

Preparation Is the Key to a Great Demo

I’ve said this before, but this is so important that I’ll say it again: Do not produce your demo until you are ready, and even when you are ready, have your marketing plan in place before you spend the money on recording your demo with a qualified demo producer. Spending some time on a critical self-evaluation to determine your performing strengths and weaknesses, your vocal style, the market you want to work in, and researching the talent buyers in that market is homework that will save you time and money.

From this point on, I’ll assume you know who you will be marketing to, you’ve got a marketing plan in place, you’ve mastered your performing skills, you’ve gathered a number of scripts, and you’ve either assembled a home studio or have some way to record your voice for practice.

With proper preparation, you will end up with a marketable demo that can potentially serve you well for several years.

Where Do I Get the Copy for My Demo?

Be creative! There are many approaches to obtaining demo copy and the same ideas can be applied to any type of voiceover demo.

Some demo studios provide stock copy and handle all the production. This is fine if you don’t mind taking the chance of other people having the same copy on their demos. The only real advantage of having the studio provide the copy is that your demo session becomes more like a real recording session; that is, you won’t have the opportunity to see the copy in advance.

The downsides are that your session may take considerably longer because you will be working the copy cold and relatively unrehearsed, and the scripts may contain copyrighted material. You might also feel rushed when you are “on the clock” to get through all the copy necessary, which could easily affect the quality of your performance. However, the major problem with the studio providing copy is that you can easily end up using copy that is not right for your style. Using “real-world” copy can misrepresent you as having actually done the spot. The purpose of your demo is to present you in the best possible manner. Performing copy that is not right for you or that misrepresents you can only work against you, no matter how well the demo is produced.

A better approach is to listen to radio and TV commercials and browse through magazines looking for advertising copy that fits your style. Record commercial breaks and transcribe the ads that fit your abilities and style, putting each script on a separate piece of paper. Practice each script to make the delivery your own—don’t mimic the original voice actor. If you have a talent for writing, put on your writer’s hat, or collaborate with a copy writer or possibly your coach to slightly modify those scripts to better suit your abilities. Writing your own copy can be risky simply because your writing skills will likely not be at the same quality as a national advertising copy writer. However, if done well, original copy can showcase your talent.

Talent buyers want to hear how you handle the primary parts of a commercial: the headline, features and benefits, story content (if any,) the call to action, and the client or product name. Any copy you create or use should be at least long enough to give you a good opportunity to show what you can do with the words and must sound as if it could be an actual radio or TV spot. During editing, only a portion of your copy may actually be used.

Technical, news, travel, and women’s magazines often have ads that can be easily adapted for voiceover. Most print ads are written for the eye, designed to be read, and include a lot of text that may not be appropriate for voiceover. However, if you think about it, you’ll realize that the people who write these print ads are often the same people who write national-quality radio and television ads. Since print ads are written to be read silently—and are also copyrighted— you will want to rewrite the copy so it can be used for voiceover.

Look for ads that target specific audiences: men, women, young, older adults, and so on. Look for products or services that will allow you to perform your modified copy in a variety of styles: serious, humorous, hard-sell, soft-sell, dynamic, emotional, and so on. Look for key phrases and sentences that have emotional content—these will be your keys to an effective performance.

For a commercial demo, start with as many scripts as you can and narrow them down to about 30-40, making sure there is a lot of variety. This may seem like a long process and a lot of copy, and it is, but by starting with many possibilities, it will be easier to choose the copy that best fits your style. By the time you start recording, those 30 or 40 scripts will be whittled down to about 12 to 15.

If you have full scripts, be prepared to perform them in their entirety. The reason for this is that you may actually end up with an extremely effective delivery on a segment of the script that you may not have expected. If you only rehearse portions of your scripts, you might overlook an opportunity for a perfect transitional element, or an especially compelling performance.

Thoroughly wood shed and do a character analysis for each piece of copy, making notes on your scripts about the character, attitude, and emotional hooks, as well as ideas for music style and sound effects if appropriate. Time yourself with each rehearsal, recording yourself if possible. Rehearse each script with different dynamics and phrasing to determine options and what you feel to be the strongest delivery. Mark off what you feel to be the strongest:10 to:15 of each script. The work you do at this stage will pay offlater.

Practice your performance for each script just enough to become familiar with it. Be careful not to get yourself locked into any specific attitude or character. Keep in mind that your session engineer might direct you into a performance completely different from what you had decided on. If that happens, you need to be able to adapt to the direction. If you can’t, or if you find yourself getting stuck in the same delivery for each take, then you may not be ready for your demo.

If your coach is unable, or unavailable, to help with your demo, you should find an experienced director to assist. Hiring a director or professional demo producer is like having a second set of ears. It allows you to focus on your performance so you will not have to worry about the technical details of the session. If you hire a professional demo studio, your engineer might handle any necessary direction. If you book a music studio, you’ll be on your own.

On the day of your session, take at least three clean copies of each script with you to the studio: one copy for yourself, one for the engineer, and the third for your director.

With the exception of animation, game, and other demos requiring complex production, be wary of studios that record your VO tracks and ask you to leave while they handle production over a period of days or weeks without you there. If you trust your producer/engineer, and you know the quality of their work, you might be fine. However, leaving everything in the hands of your producer/engineer puts you at risk of not getting the demo you want and expect. Your input is valuable and may actually help with the production process. With the exception of animation, video game, and some commercial demos, most VO demos can be completed in one or two days and often the same day as your session.

When you are in the studio, have fun, enjoy the experience and stay through as much of the production process as you possibly can. By observing how your demo is produced and edited, you will learn a lot about audio production and how recording studios work. And that knowledge will definitely come in handy later.

Remember, you have the luxury of being able to prepare and rehearse for your demo. Take advantage of it! You will not have this luxury in a real-life studio session.

How Long Should My Demo Be?

There are two answers to the question of length. The first answer is: If you have an agent, ask what length is preferred by their agency. The second answer is: If you don’t have an agent, you’ll want your demo to conform to the current conventional length for the type of demo you will be producing.

In major markets like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, you’ll find the average length for a commercial demo to be around 1 minute to no longer than 1:30. The trend has been moving toward shorter demos, and some Los Angeles agents are requesting demos as short at:30. Other markets may prefer longer demos between 1:30 and 2 minutes. It will be rare to find commercial demos longer than 1:30 in today’s voiceover world, although demos up to 2 or 3 minutes were the standard length only a few short years ago.

Using Product and Brand Names

There are actually two schools of thought on this. Some producers believe that including brand names lends credibility to the performer (especially if the spot is one that the performer actually worked on) and that they give a good opportunity for talent buyers to hear how the performer “sells” the client, or puts a spin on a product name. Other producers feel that the most important aspect of a demo is the performer’s ability to communicate the message or tell the story, and that product names can actually be distracting or may be misrepresentation if you didn’t do the original spot. The reality is that most talent buyers, agents, and producers don’t really care if you actually did the spot or not. They want to hear what you can do with the words and how you tell the story. They know that most voiceover demos aren’t the real thing—and it doesn’t matter.

Keep in mind that by using a company or product name, or duplicating a script you copied off the air, you may be violating copyright law. It’s a gray area, but using brand names is common practice in high-end professional demos. That said, many large companies are very protective of their image and brand name, so it may wise to avoid using brand names in your demo. There have been a few rare cases of copyright infringement in demos.

If you choose to include brand names in your demo, I’d suggest including only one or two and let your performing abilities shine for the rest of the copy. You can, of course, make up your own client or product names to avoid any concerns of copyright infringement or misrepresentation, but this can often be a “red flag” to talent buyers.

As you acquire copies of projects you have worked on, you should include a few product names from actual spots in your updated demos. Getting permission to use excerpts from projects you work on can be a clause in your booking agreement.

The same goes for using company or product logos on your website and marketing materials. Listing your client’s names is totally permissible but, assuming you actually did the work, you would be wise to obtain permission from your clients before using their copyrighted materials in any manner.

What about Dialogue, Music, and Sound Effects?

Your demo is YOUR demo. The purpose of your demo is to feature your performance and nothing else. Most types of demos should include only your voice with appropriate music and production to support it. If you want to create a separate dialog demo, that’s fine, but make sure that yours is the featured performance and that the other voice is of the opposite gender with fewer lines than you have. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised at the number of demos with two voices that are hard to tell apart. Also be certain that the other performer knows how to act. I’ve heard far too many demos that include a dialog spot where the second player showed little or no acting ability, or worse, the other performer showed superior acting ability. And don’t be tempted to do both voices yourself. Producers want to hear how you work with other voice talent, not how clever you can be performing multiple voices. That would best be saved for a character demo.

Music and sound effects are essential to creating a great demo. Don’t worry about finding music yourself—this is part of your engineer or producer’s job. If used, music must be appropriate for the mood and energy of the message. It is an infringement of copyright to use music from store-bought CDs or downloads, or even arrangements of popular tunes that you perform yourself. Only suitable music from licensed music libraries should be used in your demo. A music library is a collection of music created by a company that produces music specifically designed for use in commercial, TV, and film production. Sound effects should only be used where appropriate, and although sound effects are not copyrighted, they must be of high-quality. This aspect of your demo requires a knowledge of audio production and editing that is acquired only through many years of experience. If you don’t know how to produce and mix professional audio, you would be best to leave the production to an experienced demo producer/engineer. Attempting to do this yourself will generally result in a demo that is substandard and can leave a bad impression with those who hear it.

The Demo Production Process

Every demo producer has their own style and process. However, the basics of producing a demo will be pretty much the same regardless of the genre or who is producing. The differences will be in the quality of direction, advance coaching and consultation, and how the studio session is handled.

Some producers will do little more than supervise your demo session at a recording studio while others will provide everything needed for a fully-produced demo, including engineering, music, sound effects, and post-production.

Some producers offer a production service that includes script selection, customized copy and pre-session coaching while others will provide scripts from their archives or ask the client to do everything up to the day of the session.

Some producers will take up to two weeks or more to deliver a completed demo while others will deliver the project in one day.

The point here is that you should do your homework. You need to feel comfortable and confident in your producer’s ability to listen to you and make you sound your absolute best.

How Much Will My Demo Cost?

Your first demo will very likely be the single most expensive part of breaking into the business of voiceover, perhaps equaled only by what you spend on training.

Demo costs can vary widely from market to market and will depend on the type of demo, the market you’re in, and your demo producer. To a certain extent, it will also depend on your performing abilities. If you’re in a studio at an hourly rate, time is money, and the faster you can record a high-quality performance, the less it will cost.

Check with your studio to find out what portions of the session or materials will have sales tax applied, if any. If you’ve set up your voiceover business properly, the entire cost of producing your demo can be deducted as a business expense.

If you’re in a major market like Los Angeles, New York or Chicago, you can expect your demo to cost in the neighborhood of anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000. In other markets, you can expect to pay anywhere from $300 to $1,500, or more. Studios that are known for producing excellent demos will give you a great product, but it will cost a bit more. In most cases it will absolutely be worth it.

Although your time in studio will vary and session fees may be lower or higher, the following breakdown will give you a rough idea of what you might expect to pay for your demo session at a studio with a rate of $125 per hour.

Some of the above costs asterisk ( * ) may be negotiable, might be part of a package deal, or may not apply at all, depending on the studio or producer and your specific marketing strategy.

You definitely “get what you pay for” when it comes to demo production. However, beware of the demo mills that will offer to produce your demo as part of a short—but very expensive—course. The demos produced by these operations will not present you at your best. You will rarely get any work when your performance on every clip in your demo sounds exactly the same.

What Do I Need to Know about Recording Studios?

Most commercial recording studios are designed to record music. Engineers at these studios may be very competent, but often know very little about producing commercials or directing voiceover talent. Home-based project studios are also often designed to handle the needs of musicians and composers, and may not be suitable for, or capable of, recording quality voiceover. Even if you have a state-of the-art home studio, you should hire a professional demo producer.

Most studio engineers are not directors. If you are self-producing, you need to be prepared to guide your engineer through the process and have a good idea of what you want in your demo, including music and sound effects, and the final sequencing of clips. If your engineer is not capable of directing you, and you haven’t hired a producer, you’ll need to rely on your self-direction skills to get you through. This can be a real challenge because you should be focusing on your performance—not on the details of directing.

How Do I Book a Demo Studio and Producer?

Just because your coach might produce demos does not mean that you should hire them to produce yours. One of the best ways to find a demo producer is to ask other voice talent who they worked with and what their experience was like. It won’t take much effort to learn who the best demo producers are. Ask a lot of questions on your quest to producing your first voiceover demo. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Find a studio that records radio and TV commercials: These studios work with voice talent all the time. If they also have experience producing voiceover demos, all the better.
• Does the studio produce voiceover demos? This should be one of your first questions. Even if a studio does a lot of radio commercials, it does not mean that they do voiceover demos.
• Does the studio have an engineer who can direct? Many demo producers are also excellent engineers and talent directors. Many studios have engineers who know how to record the human voice, but don’t know how to direct talent for voiceover. Even if you hire a director, you need to find a studio that has an engineer who knows how to work with voice talent.
• Listen to other demos produced by the studio or producer: You’ll be investing a lot of money in your demo. It’s important that you hear previous work so you know what to expect.
• Can the studio work around your availability? Many recording studios offer evening or weekend studio time. You may be able to get a reduced fee for late-night sessions, but you may not be able to get an engineer experienced with voiceover.
• What is the studio’s hourly rate for voice recording? Sliding rate, flat rate, block discounts, or package deal? Shop around to find the best price for what you want to do. Ask if there are any price changes between the voice recording and production. Book your session based on quality, not the lowest price.
• Does the studio have music and sound effects libraries? Your demo will need music and possibly sound effects to underscore your performance. Audio book demos are the only exception to this rule. Animation and imaging demos require specialized music and sound effects. Find a demo studio that has access to music libraries appropriate for your demo.
• Is there a charge for music or sound effects? Some studios charge a fee for music, while others include music as part of a package price. If there is a music use fee, make sure it is a blanket license rather than a per use or laser-drop license. A blanket license covers all music used in a project for one fee and is considerably less expensive than several laser-drop licenses. Usually, there is no charge for sound effects.
• What other fees will the studio charge? Does the studio charge for digital delivery or any materials used in production? Do they charge for archiving) your demo project? Is there sales tax? All of these items will affect the total cost.
• What is the estimated production time? Depending on the type of demo, your session could be 6-8 hours, more or less. Some producers will record your tracks on one day and produce your demo over the next several days or weeks, while others do everything in one day. Ask how long you should expect to wait before hearing your demo. Also ask how many changes are allowed.
• What will you take with you when your demo is done? In most cases, your demo will be emailed to you as a high-quality MP3 file or put on your flash drive.
• How will your session be backed up? A backup of all demo elements is important if you ever want to modify or rebuild sections of the original project. Ask how the studio will backup your project.

Your Demo Recording Session

If you are prepared, your demo session can be a lot of fun, and very educational. If, on the other hand, you are unprepared or have not mastered the necessary skills, it can be very uncomfortable.

Arrive on Time and Prepared

Time is money! Most studios bill for their time whether you are there or not—so be on time! Arriving late for real world sessions will get you a bad reputation. Arriving late for your demo session will create unnecessary stress and cost you valuable time and money.

Working with Your Engineer/Producer

Your engineer will be one of the most important people you work with during your session. Demo production is a team effort. Remain flexible and open to suggestions. There’s a very good chance your engineer will know more about voiceover than you do. You can learn a lot from a good engineer and he or she may even become a good contact for work later on.

Keeping Your Demo Current

A good demo will be useful for at least six months to a year, or longer. Get copies of paid work to update your demos. A new demo is a good way to stay in touch with past clients and reach out to new prospects.