VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[kateu]

I am new here - long time lurker. I have learned a lot from following here - so thanks to all. I am an established audiobook narrator and am ready to branch out a bit - considering investing my time/money in getting good at medical narration and/or e-learning. I have a few questions to put to y'all. First, any opinions on which niche I might find easier to break into? Down the road is the pay equivalent in both areas? (I understand the specific challenges of medical and am willing to give it a go.) I know e-learning is a big tent so might be hard to say. Can anyone recommend a coach for preparing for these markets? (I hope that's a kosher question.)

Best,

Kate

[Mike Harrison]

Hi Kate...

Others may have differing opinions, but I would say the best way to determine which is best to pursue – at least initially – is to determine with which areas you are both most comfortable and most credible. Comfortable; meaning you can get an overall grasp of what the writer is trying to convey (i.e., you "get It"), and credible; meaning those listening will believe what you are saying.

As for medical/pharmaceutical stuff, of course, you'll have to learn the pronunciation of lots of jargon (however, I've yet to run into a client who doesn't provide the pronunciations, but there are other resources). And pronunciations alone will affect both your comfort level and degree of credibility. When doing med/pharma work, you'll be addressing people who already have varying degrees of knowledge, so credibility is key.

Unless other folks have some resources for finding suitable practice copy, you can Google a phrase that just popped into my mind: "mechanism of action" (how a particular drug works). That will give you some sites to pull some pharmaceutical material from. As for medical copy, you could try Googling something like "how do cells use water," for example.

If you eventually want to use material you get this way in a demo, you'll want to be sure you're getting accurate information. So be sure it comes from reliable sources.

Finding sample eLearning copy should be a whole lot easier. But I'll hand things over to someone else now, so you can get a second opinion (pardon the medical pun).

Have fun!
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Bruce]

With e-learning of all kinds you're speaking to audiences that are really interested in what you have to say or really should be interested for their job's sake. Therefore you need to sound knowledgeable and caring no matter how little you know about the information you're describing. Of course in all cases "knowledge is power", so boning up a bit on a topic is wise. And remember, you are most often informing, not selling.

In medical you are talking to doctors and other well trained people so I find a mental approach of "I know you know this but we're just covering this to be sure we're all on the same page" can be useful.

Head for an online medical dictionary (see our Research section) with spoken pronunciations and find some of the tougher words. If you can pronounce them after a couple of listens, go away for a minute or so, then come back to the word and if you pronounce it correctly without listening again, you are likely better qualified than most to do medical. As Mike said you almost always have one or more experts listening in while you record, but you need to pick up how they're pronouncing things quickly or they will get frustrated.

Of course it's fun when your experts disagree with each other over pronunciation. Rare, but it does happen. Then you record it both ways and let them figure it out "in post".

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

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