VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Philip Banks]

Having received his new demo a new voice wrote that he didn't like it and asked if there was anything he could do to make it better. What follows is my response. Even though I am in Stage II Sub-tropical Eurasian Wild Gibbon Banana influenza EbA1 that has not prevented me from producing a piece of writing worthy of Buster Keaton or Oprah Winfrey's former cleaner Inez Gomez-De-La-cruz.

Before you decide to try and sell yourself as a Voice Over you need to understand that the art of being a Voice Over is truly an intuitive skill. With no acting classes, no coaching, no mic experience at all someone who knows what they are doing should be able to tell whether or not you have the basic intuitive skill within no more than 5 minutes. Anyone who tells you anything to the contrary is probably trying to sell you something. Got that concept firmly in your mind? Are you sure? Now read on.

Your demo is about 3 people. The client, the producer and you in that order.

As a result of listening to your demo the client should know the reason why he should hire you - He only needs one reason.

The demo producer needs to identify the "why you?" factor and be certain that whether your demo is 30 seconds or 3 minutes and 30 seconds long, the reason "why you?" is the common factor. The first person the demo producer needs to convince is YOU. Please note that you should not be persuaded you should be convinced.

Before you sit in front of the mic you need to clearly identify "why you?". Do not get caught up in branding, mission statement, pretentious babble or slogans, simply create audio that says "Why me? This is why".

Imagine you have a meeting with L. Ezras Feinkletusch the great LA commercial director.

"Okay kid. Whatchya got? Why should I hire you?"

Do you say nothing and play your demo or do you start to explain?