Finding voiceover representation

If you’re relatively new to voiceover work, finding an agent is probably one of the things you believe you need to do. You’ll find some very helpful guidance at Vox Daily, the main voiceover blog from Voices.com as well as two very fine posts (one and two) at their voiceover advice blog called Ask the Voice Cat.

Read them all. They are well worth your time.

But, let me offer one note of caution. Hopefully not discouragement, just caution.

You must be able to actually deliver the level and quality of work that’s on your demos. If you’ve hired a demo producer who has helped you create a killer demo or two or twelve that all feature reads you can’t pull off for real in the studio, you could torpedo your career before it even gets going.

Yes, you want to put your best foot forward on your demos, but it has to be your best foot, not the genius of your producer and editor. A killer demo will help you find representation, but if you can’t deliver the goods from behind the mic, a killer demo could kill your reputation. You’ll lose the represenation you’ve worked so hard to find, and you’ll lose opportunities to work.

This, by the way, is why so many auditions are required now. Too many killer demos from too many people who can’t actually deliver the goods in the studio. Producers really don’t like unhappy surprises when they are burning money at a booked session.

Tell the truth. Show what you can do. But, don’t try to fake it. You will be found out.

As I’m typing this, I’m remembering something that happened quite back in the late 1980s. I had signed with an agent in Chicago and was starting to get cast fairly often for commercials and especially for narration work. A friend of mine was a pretty decent voiceover talent, but his demo was produced using a number of editing tricks to make his voice sound deeper than it really was.

One day, he asked me to take a copy of his demo to my agent. I told him that I would be happy to. I also told him that if he were ever hired for a session on the basis of that demo, the first time he asked the engineer to use the speed control on the tape machine to make his voice sound like it did on the demo, he’d be laughed out of the studio. He dropped the subject.