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If I were a voice guy, I’m not sure what I’d think…
This topic has been discussed at length here before, but this is such a radical example I thought I’d share it….
Like most of you probably do, I get tons of cold-call emails from voice guys (and some gals) looking for VO gigs. I actually do listen to most of them. I can’t say I’ve ever hired anyone from that, but I do listen.
The one I got today was surprising. This guy has a website, but he very purposely and noticeably does not give his name anywhere on it, just refers to himself as “My Cheap Voice Over Guy.”
He does commercial spots for $15.
Yes… FIFTEEN DOLLARS.
https://www.mycheapvoiceoverguy.com
The thing is, he actually doesn’t have a bad voice at all. But, he’s a very definite “Voice of God” type, and much like the advertising trend everywhere we tend to go with much more natural/conversational voices these days. I just never hire a VoG type anymore, ever (the last one I used was Don LaFontaine, so that tells you how long that’s been). I can’t say I wouldn’t ever, as trends do roll back around… but right now?… no.
I just think it’s very telling as to how the business has changed, mostly thanks to the internet, of course. “Back in the day” Beau Weaver or Peter Thomas would get five figures for a :30, and now this guy is working for minimum wage (of course, this guy is neither Beau nor Peter… but still).
Here we still pay voice talent well (very well, actually), but man… this is crazy.
I’m glad I’m not a VO guy.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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1 Reply
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Backing music and fx makes it harder to hear the voice alone. I wouldn’t offer demos just that way alone, or with a lot of processing. I wanna hear it “dry” first.
I’d agree, it’s an average station in-house announcer voice. He must be counting on sales volume to make this worthwhile, and there are a lot of places out there where they love cheap and they love easy, because they’re just not really all that invested in what they’re making – the end product is ephemeral, here today, gone tomorrow.
Maybe he is an in-house announcer somewhere and he does this to fill-in during the dead times between house gigs.
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