VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Philip Banks · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:34 am Post subject: Marketing hyperboly splat

If you look at the way a number of voices describe their skills and experience then listen to the audio you could be forgiven for thinking that they have loaded the incorrect audio. Putting a positive spin on things is OK but being wildly optimistic is quite wrong and does no one any favours.

On the internet the situation has got to such a state that producers and casting directors don't believe you and they don't believe me.

Over the past few weeks when time has permitted I have tested one claim made by Voice Overs "can do a British accent". Failure rate of 134 voices with supporting demos? 134!

I would tell what else they couldn't do but my will to live was well and truly diminished by the time I got to 134.

Voice Over rule No13(b) Only sell what you can do standing on your head while juggling two battleships.

todd ellis · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:06 am Post subject:

clint eastwood said it best: "a man has got to know his limitations." that's why i don't do "voice of god" stuff ... so many out there do it so much better.
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asnively · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:10 am Post subject:

Some of those bad British accents probably feel confident because they have been paid to do them, and American ears were fooled.

I was recently corresponding with a friend's agent in Australia about a job. She decided to use one of her local talent who "lived in America one summer and can do a dead-on US accent." I heard her. I didn't comment. It might have fooled people in Oz, but any American would agree that she was speaking very oddly. And there are some bad American accents being committed in the UK, too, by some top-notch talent. Reportedly they sound American to British ears, but they wouldn't pass muster here.
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Philip Banks · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:24 am Post subject:

My post wasn't about bad British accents as such, I wouldn't take my specific example too literally although I do take know what you mean. My exercise was only intended as a little test to see where people were and where they thought they were. My point was more of a general one that we have a problem which is largely of our own making - Too much marketing too little accuracy. In the UK we have the Advertising standards agency to whom complaints can be made regarding unsubstatiated claims. If the voice over community ever became subject to the ASA regulations a lot of people would be fielding complaints

As a general rule of thumb males fail on the "can do movie trailer" and females tend to fail on "very sexy"

asnively · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:28 am Post subject:

Ah. I see what you mean. My label doesn't say "very sexy" for that exact reason. I can only sound "reasonably attractive."
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Deirdre · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:17 am Post subject:

I can only make one claim for other-than-American fluency and that's German.

Shepherd.

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todd ellis · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:26 am Post subject:

w00f

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tackerman · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:38 am Post subject:

I can do a very convincing "white guy in his mid-thirties". Bitchin

Brett Mason · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:08 am Post subject:

...still workin' on a flawless read of The Pledge of Allegiance here...... Rolls Eyes

...and to the republic for witches' stands........
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:12 am Post subject:

Well put, Philip. I don't ever try do "movie trailer" voices nor do I do any radio imaging. I also avoid females and old people.

Wait, that came out wrong.
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