VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Darren Altman]

Hi all,

Just put a new Radio Imaging reel together. Any thoughts/tips would be appreciated.

http://tinyurl.com/2uqpt5r

Thanks in advance.
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https://www.darrenaltman.com/
http://twitter.com/darrenaltman

[Mike Sommer]

Darren,

Great to hear from you.
You have a pleasant warm voice, that reminds me of a talent I used to hear in LA sometime ago.

The demo is way too long, you need to boil this down to about a minute, and what I heard in this demo was a lot of the same.

Out of curiosity I went over to your website to listen to your demos there, and what I heard again, was much of the same style of read. What I'm hearing sounds studied, unconversational and emotionally disconnected.

Radio imaging requires a specialized talent and needs a special kind of person to pull this off really well. Guys like John Frost here in LA http://www.premiereradio.com/shows/view/Frostbytes.html (who basically invented this kind of in your face imaging) and Chadd Pierce http://www.piercevoice.com/ (another great and wonderful talent).

That's not to say you can't do this or carve out a niche for yourself in this ever changing world of radio imaging. But what you have right now is a little hard to get through.

To get you to this point, you should spend time mimicking the sounds you hear in these radio promos, and understand where they come from, not just in voice but in character as well, all the while developing your own style.

As I mentioned there is a lot of sameness to your reads. The one thing that stuck out was the reggae spot. Now there are not a lot of reggae stations here in LA, but there have been a few stations in the past that have had reggae shows. This maybe me, but when I think of reggae I don't think the "in your face" POWER 106FM imaging format is the best choice. This would have been an opportunity use a different kind of approach or style to show off your acting chops.


I think you really should pullback, regroup and focus on one thing at a time.
Work on getting your acting chops, and developing the conversational style that is so greatly desired in VO. Along with enunciation, and mic technique.

I suggest acting and improv classes, along with a good VO coach. Acting is a never ending process; classes and training are apart of a good actors life until they are so busy, that there is no time for classes. And even then they still learn and expand from every job.
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The Blog:
http://voiceoveraudio.blogspot.com/

Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong.

[Philip Banks]

Additionally I would suggest buying Emma some Belgian chocs and a bottle of Moet and Chandon as it will centre your to the rightish performance level.

[Darren Altman]

Mike thanks you so much for your response and the links, I've taken your thoughts on board and will check out the other sites. I get what you're saying, both you and Phillip, think I should tone it down! I'm going to work on it.

Much appreciated.
_________________
https://www.darrenaltman.com/
http://twitter.com/darrenaltman

[Mike Sommer]