Maria Pendolino

Pivoting, changing, and reinventing. All industries have used at least one of these words to describe the impact of a voice actor working from home during the pandemic, and our industry is no exception. It’s been a challenging year and a half, but thanks to technology and a little out-of-the-box thinking, it’s easier now, more than ever, to find just the right voiceover talent for that upcoming project.

Great Talent is Everywhere

Remember staying home, binging Tiger King in one weekend, making sourdough bread, and finishing the next puzzle in your stack? Me too. I also remember noticing that top casting directors, who would normally only consider talent based in New York City and Los Angeles, were now open to hearing auditions from voiceover artists like me who are based in other areas (Buffalo, New York represent!). Looking for talent beyond specific geographic locations increases the chances of finding just the right person for that next project.

Studio Quality at Home 

More production studios, post houses, and engineers are realizing that there are voiceover talents with true professional setups at home. Brands like Pillsbury, Panera, and Hoover have brought me on for projects that I’ve voiced in my own professional home studio. For the past decade, I’ve recorded, edited, conference-called, and participated in live-directed sessions from my StudioBricks OnePlus booth with a Neumann TLM-103 and a Sennheiser MKH-416 Shotgun Microphone, an Audient id14 Interface, and a MacPro Editing Suite.
I’ve even been able to provide pristine raw audio that’s ready to mix via services like SourceConnect, ISDN, ipDTL or CleanFeed and I’m comfortable editing my own audio for industrial projects like e-learning or explainer videos.

Problem-Solving on the Fly

I’d love to think that technology works great all of the time, but let’s be real — whether collaborating on projects on-site or remotely, there are times when things don’t go quite as planned. Voiceover artists who have their own professional setup at home know their equipment inside and out. They become their own in-house tech support to troubleshoot their equipment and come up with solutions so that the end result meets (and exceeds!) the client’s standards.

Case in point: During a scheduled live-directed session with a client on the West Coast, the power went out across the entire Eastern seaboard. They were supposed to be recording me remotely through SourceConnect, but after I realized it wasn’t a problem with my router and that actually thousands of people were without power, I quickly set up a Zoom meeting for the entire team to join. They listened in and directed me while I recorded the session on my side and uploaded all of the takes to send to them after we finished. Ultimately, the session went perfectly — I was able to deliver exactly what the engineer needed to build the spot with my takes.

In a world that encourages DIY-ing everything, there are just some things — like voiceovers — to leave to the experts. Here are four reasons for hiring a professional voice actor (and not Janice from accounting, although she is a very nice person) for your next project:

1. Keep Listeners Engaged
   With the rise of online learning, assisted audio devices like Siri and Alexa, and podcasts and audiobooks, audiences expect a certain level of quality to keep them engaged. Professional voice actors prepare and practice the scripts so they can get the intonation just right, know when to pause for emphasis or dramatic effect, add excitement or energy as needed, and take extra care to pronounce all of the words correctly. They make sure all of the details come together to deliver a recording that makes dense and hard-to-understand topics digestible and enjoyable to listen to so that the content sticks.
2. Ensure Great Audio Quality
   Many professional voice actors who work from home have their own professional home studios. Personally, I record from a StudioBricks OnePlus booth with a Neumann TLM-103 and a Sennheiser MKH-416 Shotgun Microphone, an Audient id14 Interface, and a MacPro Editing Suite. (See my setup here.)Getting great audio quality isn’t always easy, but working with a voice actor who uses a professional setup at home guarantees that you’ll receive a high-quality audio file that your engineers will be happy to use.
3. Save on Time and Effort
   No more spending time asking Janice from accounting to re-record the audio and add just a little bit (or a LOT bit) more personality and excitement or asking if she could maybe soften her p’s and b’s. Hiring a professional voiceover artist means you’ll be working with someone who takes the job seriously and has the training and experience to turn around the project quickly so that you can delegate the task and check it off your to-do list *cue the choir of angels*.
4. Keep Your Brand, on Brand
   Picture the Geico commercials and I’ll bet you can hear the voice of the Geico gecko. His voice has helped to establish Geico as a friendly, relatable, and cheeky brand that customers can trust. Strengthen your brand voice (literally!) with the talents of a professional voice actor. Even better, establish a consistent brand voice to use throughout your commercials and marketing videos so that your audience comes to recognize the voice and the brand.

Whether the project is a commercial, training video, e-learning module, announcement, or product launch, working with a voice actor adds quality, professionalism, and peace of mind. You’ll be glad you left it to an expert to get the job done right!