Rates for Voice-Over…?

[Greg Ball]

Hi Todd,

I would think that you’re looking at around $1,200 for a 1 hour recording. That usually get’s you a Spanish voice talent recording in their own studio. Of course pricing depends on how technical the wording is. Also will the voice talent need to edit the audio track for you?

Keep in mind that 1 hour of English could end up being 1:15 or more in Spanish, since it takes longer to say the same thing in Spanish.

Did you forget that we translate and dub videos as part of our business? I’d be happy to help you or your client

Best,

Greg Ball

[Todd Terry]

Thanks for the confirmation, Greg… when first hearing the project I was thinking something in the $1200-1500 range myself, so your numbers are right in line there.

Going by the “suggested guidelines” on one of the voice sites we use, based on average per-minute rates this track would be pushing $4K and I know our client wouldn’t entertain that rate.

Fortunately we don’t have to do any translation, the script is being provided (or will be, the client has decided to handle that). And fortunately we don’t have to worry about any dubbing, producing, marrying, or syncing at all… the gig is simply to get a script recorded and hand the audio track to the client, so it doesn’t have to “fit” any existing English production.

The last time I put out a casting call for Spanish voice work I had great response, probably 100+ auditions and we hired three great voices who did a terrific job. No doubt I can easily find good people to choose from again, but I just wanted to offer a rate that was both fair to talent and didn’t break the bank. It’s really a super-easy and brainless job on our part, I just didn’t know what numbers to budget.

I’m always amazed at how the internet has changed voiceover work… when we used to get tapes in from the few big VO agents in NY or LA. For that last Spanish gig when it came time to pay the talent, one of them was in LA (no surprise there), but the other two were in Ecuador and Colombia. Small world getting smaller.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Greg Ball]

No problem Todd. Glad to help. Yes the world has gotten smaller thanks to the web.

Have a great day.

Greg

[Rich Rubasch]

Call the GEO group….I think you can do better….could be wrong. But they have a great resource of any language voice.

https://www.thegeogroup.com/

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Mark Suszko]

Be sure the client specifies in advance what “dialect” of “Spanish” they want. Castillian, Columbian,Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatamalan, etc. they all use slightly different idiom and style, which may be important to the client and desired audience.

Just like saying “American” accent and not specifying Brooklyn, New Hampshire, Boston, Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Fargo, St. Paul, Houston, Raleigh, Berkeley, etc.

[Claudia Rousseaux]

Hi Todd,
As a French native Female professional voice talent for over 20 years, I can give you the regular rates usually applied for such job, even if I guess you already got the answer since long ago; I have a rate sheet for all kind of projects, I believe it will be helpful to set up your budgets in the future :
My rate sheet is based on: usual clients’ I work with, rate lists found on internet, quotations requested (and approved) by direct contacts;
The best way for you is to set up a rate per word count up to 1 minute of recording, we usually apply a minimum rate bellow 1 mn of recording (non broadcast and internal use), approximatively $120,00;
You can contact me at any time if you wish me to send my rates to you by email; you can contact me: claudiavoix@orange.fr
Hope to be helpful 🙂

Claudia | Professional Voice Recording
*** Hight quality Home Studio ***

[Todd Terry]

Thanks, appreciate the info, good to have.

In this case we completed this project a couple of months ago, though… so we got it all settled.

If anyone is curious, I think we ended up paying the guy something in the $1500 neighborhood.

I thought that was a really good rate considering the painfully-long length of the script. Plus, the guy we got was really good. He’s an actor in Mexico City whose more-usual job is doing Spanish-language dubbing for films. He provides the big-screen (and TV) Spanish voices for Mark Wahlberg, Jackie Chan, Michael J. Fox, Jon Cryer, and about 20 other actors.

We had about 30 guys audition. It’s tough though (at least for me) to determine if a voice actor is really good in another language. It probably sounds xenophobic of me, but to me they really all sounded the same. It’s similar to when I watch a foreign film… I really can’t tell if an actor’s performance is great if they are speaking another language. Sad, I know.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Claudia Rousseaux]

$ 1500 for a narrative recording? I hope that the final project was marketed and sold to broadcast use… Very well paid indeed!! You will find my new 2016 rate list, very close to the current market offers to professional voice talents.
If your need in Spanish voice talent happens again, please feel free to contact me as a proofreader (quick overview without charge), I speak fluently Spanish (From Spain)
Claudia

Claudia | Professional Voice Recording
*** Hight quality Home Studio ***

[Walter Biscardi]

[Claudia Rousseaux] “$ 1500 for a narrative recording? I hope that the final project was marketed and sold to broadcast use… Very well paid indeed!! You will find my new 2016 rate list, very close to the current market offers to professional voice talents.”

We just paid $1500 for a national broadcast spot and that was with the talent taking a $1200 pay cut because $1500 was our max budget.

We pay anywhere from $350 to $3000 for voice over in general depending on the project and delivery. Longer narrations and major talent can cost more. For example Sigourney Weaver and Mia Farrow narrating our documentaries were significantly higher, but they’re well known stars.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Todd Terry]

No it was not broadcast, I believe it was a training presentation (we didn’t produce that, our only job was to get the narration recorded and delivered).

I didn’t think $1,500 was bad at all (it was inline with what others had recommended), especially considering it was almost a 90-minute script.

It’s not unheard of for us to pay even that much or more for a :30 broadcast commercial track from one of the top known voiceover artists like Beau Weaver or Peter Thomas, etc. They get what they get, and some of them command a lot (and are worth it). I think the last time we hired Don LaFontaine (back when he was alive, of course) we paid a fair bit more than that for commercial work. Although on the surface it seems wildly expensive for fast and easy work with no heavy lifting at all, when you look at the big picture and consider that can be a relatively small percentage of a project’s total budget sometimes it’s worth getting exactly who you want.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com