When you hire voice actors for your own project, it is important to have a clear understanding of the needs of your project. The right voice talent can make your viewers connect to your product or service and help you sell your products effortlessly.
This detailed guide is designed to help corporate clients, agencies, and producers find qualified and talented voice actors in any language or accent for voice-over, video, or audio projects.
Looking for Professional Voice Actors?
If you’re not sure where to hire voice actors, it is recommended that you start your search with a professional voice-over agency. While there are many online apps that are able to provide quick and inexpensive text-to-voice services, those are mostly for amateur projects and social media videos.
For professional projects, you will need to work with professional voice actors who deeply understand your project’s nature. Voice-over agencies know the industry’s nuances and can help you find talent that exceeds your expectations. They follow stringent quality control steps to ensure accuracy and quality.
An agency will also have a roster of pre-selected professional artists so you can get easy access to a pool of talented actors, and successfully hire voice actors. They can help you find the right actor based on voice type, industry, and services offered. Additionally, an agency can also manage the entire project for you from start to finish.
Check for Voice-Over Skills
When you hire voice actors for your next project, check for several essential skills, such as enunciation, versatility, and range. Here are the top skills that a professional voice actor should have.
Enunciation
A professional voice artist needs to be able to enunciate each word properly and clearly. When the voice is hard to understand and sloppy, it can negatively impact the success of the project. Listen to the demo recordings of your shortlisted candidates carefully to ensure their voice is clear.
Emotional Range
Voice actors cannot rely on facial expressions, so they need to focus on their inflection and range to interpret each scene and deliver the necessary emotions. There are several different ways to deliver the lines of the same script, and the right voice actor will have the necessary emotional range to infuse the script with emotions.
Pacing
Whether you are recording an explainer video, voicemail, or a commercial, you will want to find a voice actor that will respect the time limit and will be able to deliver the key messages on cue. This is why good pacing is a crucial skill that you should look for in a voice actor. You should look for someone who knows just how fast or slow they should pace to spread the script evenly throughout the recording.
Consistency
Even some of the most experienced voice actors require multiple takes to deliver the perfect results. While this is natural and to be expected, try to hire voice actors that can consistently deliver great work. Time is money when it comes to voice-over, so it is important to limit the number of takes required for your recording.
Versatility
Check different voice samples from voice actors to assess their versatility and flexibility. Many actors are so versatile that they can switch effortlessly between character voices, audiobooks, and commercials. They can adapt their tone to suit the needs of the project.
Where to Hire Voice Actors
Voice actors are available at different levels of experience, services, and price packages, depending on where you look for them. While there are several freelance marketplaces where you can find independent workers, most of these do not vet their freelancers and don’t have a rigorous selection process.
It is also possible to find and hire voice actors on Google, but the sheer size of the database can work against you, prioritising results from those following SEO best practices and hiding potentially great actors.
Work with professional voice-over agencies like GoLocalise, which already has a large talent pool of voice actors in a wide range of languages.
While cheaper options are available on freelance marketplaces, they may cost you a lot more because of the time required to vet the voice actors personally. More importantly, it can compromise the quality and success of the project.
What to Know About Voice-Over Services
Other than films and TV, voice-over services are equally important for corporates and businesses that want to reach a wider audience by delivering localized audiovisual content to their global audiences. Here are some of the types of voice-over services to choose from for your next project:
- Dubbing and Lip Sync
- Corporate Video and Presentations
- Promo Videos
- E-learning Videos
- Educational Videos
- IVR Recordings
- Character and Video Games
Given below is a short guide on how to get a professional voice-over.
If you are a Voice-Over artist, this guide about how much voice actors make will be helpful.
Choose the Right Recording Studio
For professional results, to hire voice actors is just the beginning. It is important to find a specialized, state-of-the-art recording studio that has the equipment and professional standards needed to deliver high-quality sound.
Determine the Type of Voice You Need
It is important to determine the exact style and tone of voice you need for your project. Think about the goal of your project and the type of audience you are trying to reach. Share these requirements with the voice-over agency so they can help you hire voice actors that fit those requirements.
Ensure that the Script is Final
Double-check the script to ensure it is final before you deliver it to the recording team for the voice-over. The script needs to sound natural and read well. It also needs to sync perfectly with the audio of the original video, so the timing and script size must match flawlessly.
Provide a Clear Brief
To ensure the success of your project, provide a detailed and clear brief to your voice actor before the start of the project. Precise instructions will help the actor deliver the message in the way that you have envisioned.
Work with a Language Director and Sound Engineer
A language director can ensure that your script is delivered perfectly with the right intonation and pronunciation. A sound engineer can guide you throughout the recording session to ensure that the sound is top-notch.
Managed and Integrated Voice-Over Services
At GoLocalise, we understand that voice-over projects are complex and time-consuming; hire voice actors too! This is why we offer integrated and managed services that will take care of every aspect of your project so you can focus on things that are important to you.
GoLocalise can help you:
- Find and hire qualified, experienced voice talent
- Coordinate the entire project with a dedicated project manager
- Support with the vendor or legal requirements with contracts and NDAs
- Translation and localization services
Get in touch with us today to get a voice-over quote for your next voice-over project.
This Voice Over Rates Guide is helpful!
If you are a Voice-Over artist, this guide about how much voice actors make is for you.
