I came across a recent article by female voice artist Katie Flamman that resonanted with me.
It’s about an often overlooked aspect of voice over work – or a thing that you get so used to while doing it that you don’t really think about it. Katie says that although providing a voice over is part of a collaborative creative process the reality is that many times the voice artist never gets to hear or see the final project the includes their dulcet tones.

Katie was writing about having provided voice audio as part of an interactive experience at a centre devoted to bees. Sometime after completing the job she got the opportunity to visit and experience her voice in situ.
In fact her headline for the article was “Do you like the sound of your own voice?” Basically I can’t see how you can survive and prosper as a voice artist if you can’t stand the sound of your own voice.

However I can still remember the shock of hearing my own voice recorded for the first time – nearly everyone reacts the same – you think you know what your voice sounds like but of course what you really know is the sound of you voice resonating inside your head plus what comes into your ears.
The recorded voice is what everyone else hears – sometimes It’s a shock to discover your voice is not what you think you’ve been projecting.

I’ve got used to it now – you can’t spend hours editing your own voice and not get past that “is that how I really sound?” thing. In fact my problem is probably having got used to it I am now hyper critical – I know when I think my voice sounds at its best and so any deviation from that standard is a bit annoying and at times frustrating.

Sometimes in a directed session I’ll read a sentence and while I’m thinking I can do a better take the client or the producer is telling me it sounds great and to move on. You don’t’ want to waste time so often you have to accept that they may a different idea of what they need for their project – and it’s your job to give the client what they want.

Mind you I do a lot of video narrations and given that most seem to end up online eventually I actually do get to hear those kinds of finished projects quite often. However it is very rare to hear your work on things like e-learning projects though.

You can read the original article here

Chris Radley – Voice Over