“Grant in Marketing has a really nice voice, we can use him for the commercial.”
What a great idea! That would trim the budget by not having to hire a voice artist, and they could keep the project mostly in-house. It was agreed that Grant would be approached to read the script for the company’s new radio advert.
Grant was nervous about going into a studio though. He’d never done that before, but he’d given the Best Man speech at his mate’s wedding last month and that had gone down really well with the crowd. Besides, it’s only 30 seconds long. So with a little persuading, he finally agreed to do it.
On the day of the recording, all of the main players were gathered in the studio lounge behind Ryan, the sound engineer’s recording desk. Through the sound proofed glass they could see Grant fiddling with his headphones as Ryan adjusted the microphone to the correct height and placed the little round fabric ‘pop-shield’ between Grant and the mic.
Grant’s mouth was understandably dry when he began reading. He took a sip of water from a bottle that he had been given by the studio; that helped a little. The engineer spoke into his headphones and explained how it would work, and then started the recording. Grant made it through the first take relatively unscathed with a couple of stumbles that Ryan quickly edited out. But the recording was 40 seconds long – 10 seconds over where it had to be for a radio advert.
The marketing guys quickly trimmed a word here and there, handing Grant the new script with the instruction to pick up the pace. Into Take 2 he went, conscious of the time and reading his lines faster. This time he took 38 seconds. Tension was growing a little in the studio, not least with Grant who was now starting to feel a little responsible for the delay. The marketing team were focused on another issue as well – the recording was good and sounded nice, but there was not enough energy in his voice AND it was too long. Let’s try again, they suggested.
Nearing the end of the 2nd hour, it was becoming abundantly clear that Grant was not going to be able to read the script in the required time, and while they had chopped the script down to accommodate him, they’d lost important words in the text and weren’t pleased about it.
Ryan, the now rather frustrated sound engineer, suggested calling one of his voice artists who sounded similar to Grant. Reluctantly they agreed and called him out of the sound booth while the engineer got on the phone.
I received the call at just after 11am and was fortunately not otherwise engaged. I jumped in my car and arrived at the studio just 25 minutes later, already briefed on the situation.
After greeting everyone in the studio and sharing a brief “Don’t worry, I’ve been there” look with Grant and a very sympathetic look with Ryan, I was handed their original script and stepped into the booth. As the engineer gave me the go ahead to record, I began the read. 32 seconds. It was long, but manageable. I suggested to the marketing team that we contract a couple of words, rephrase a sentence, and take the “www” out of the website address at the end. We agreed on the changes and set off for a 2nd recording, with slightly more energy.
29 seconds. After Ryan had quickly edited down the breaths and fractionally shortened some of the spaces, there was even room for the music to play in the beginning and fade out at the end. Plus the energy was just what they’d been looking for.
Ryan pointed surreptitiously to the clock… I had walked into studio just 6 minutes prior and we were already done. The great irony of this whole situation was that the company had spent more money on 3 hours of studio time than if they’d booked a professional voice artist and been in and out of recording in under an hour.
On top of that, Grant felt really badly that he hadn’t been able to do what they wanted of him – something that I couldn’t do anything about, but I hoped it wouldn’t affect the office dynamic going forward.
You see, this is the difference between having a nice voice and being a voice artist. The latter has years of experience (in my case, 17 years more experience at the time) behind them as well as a confident presence in the recording booth, something that helps to calm the client and the engineer – when you know what you’re doing, everyone can relax and allow the process to unfold without feeling the need to jump in and ‘fix’ things.
Voice artists have the ability to adjust their voice – and not just in a macro sense which most people can do, like talking much louder or whispering. It’s in the micro where their skill truly lies. Emphasising a particular word, more energy (or sometimes less energy), ageing your voice to sound a little older, or raising the pitch to sound more excited. The ability to control that comes from years of practice and countless hours in studio, learning from every session that you’re involved in, and accepting feedback from the client and the engineers.
So if you’re considering using ‘Grant in Marketing’ because he has a nice voice and it will save you some money on a voice artist, think about the risks should Grant not be able to give you the sound that you’re looking for (and what that might mean for the relationship between him and the company). Think about the potential cost of hiring the studio for longer than necessary, expecially if the engineer has to spend more time than usual cleaning up the recordings to edit out any mistakes or do-overs.
Artists can claim the designation because they’ve spent years honing their craft. Let a voice artist work their magic on your next script. Then everyone’s happy.