VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[majaco01]

Hi There,

If anybody has the time to review some demos, I have a commercial and a character/cartoon at the following links:

http://www.meredithajacobs.com/Monster%20Website/Commercial%20Demo.html

http://www.meredithajacobs.com/Monster%20Website/CharacterCartoonDemo.html

Thank you!

[SkinnyJohnny]

Hi Meredith,
I'll jump in and offer a few suggestions on the structure of the demo.
You really need to keep the clips to around 08 to 10 seconds each. The first couple are really too long. The entire demo should be around one minute long, so that gives you about 6 or 7 clips worth.
I'd also tighten the edits up to make it move. It's way too loose. It should move from one clip to the next without music trails.
Be sure to place things to show your range. In other words, try not to have same sounding clips close to each other.
Good luck!
John
_________________
John Weeks Voice Overs
www.johnweeksvoiceovers.com

[Eddie Eagle]

I think you have a pretty smooth sound there Meredith.

[Mike Elmore]

Personally when I produce a demo I have only two different formulas that I use. For a commercial demo for someone of your voice type....I would start with something really short. Around 3 seconds. If someone hears your first clip and decides RIGHT AWAY "this is not what we are looking for"...why give them 15 seconds (or however long your first clip was) to fully solidify their dislike or disapproval of THAT particular read/delivery?? You shouldn't. 3 seconds (roughly) and BANG...right as they may be saying "III don't think so" ..up comes clip # 2 and it SHOULD NOT be like the first one.....etc.

There are definite formulas based on polls taken and just common sense psychology. I'm thinking the demo wasn't produced by a seasoned VO DEMO producer. But perhaps I'm wrong. Love your tone however.

[Mike Elmore]

I just listened to the entire demo and noticed a couple more things you might want to keep under your hat. The demo is 2 minutes long. A commercial demo should be MUCH closer to :60. Not a bad idea to have one that is EXACTLY :60 either if you decide to search for an agent. :60 to :70 max, I would say for a commercial demo. I would go back to whoever produced this for you and tell them to edit it down, taking an entire minute off. They should be willing to do this for you since that is (I would say) industry standard...they should KNOW that already.

Also...if this was produced by a professional that charged you money....I would like to have heard them NOT use standard stock music beds from Garage Band/Macintosh. There aren't that many beds in this program and they are very recognizable. If you paid a lot for the demo I would think they should have accessed a REAL music library and pulled some deep cuts that aren't known by anyone that has ever clicked around in Garage Band.

I really like tone and delivery you have but don't feel like your producer stretched you enough....too much "sameness" for my taste.

But you know...ask 10 different people and you may get 10 different opinions.....I am not a full time demo producer....but I have produced 100's over the years and do "demo makeovers" for some of our bigger names thru 2 different agencies.

I own a studio and do a little VO here and there. My demos aren't all that good and I need to redo them. But they have worked in a "National kind of way for me"...so...who knows. It's all in the ear of the listener I guess...Best of luck to you