As a professional photographer with over a decade of experience, and a former newspaper photographer, believe me, I’m no stranger to the world of video, and its prevalence online. Yes, video may be taking over the world. But the world of voiceover?
Well, evidently the answer is a resounding YES.
Dave Courvoisier talks about it in an article this week on VoiceOver Extra. He doesn’t go into any specifics about exactly WHAT you should be showcasing when it comes to video of your voiceover; rather, his article talks more about the software you can use to produce videos. And for any Mac users out there, like me, since Dave’s a PC guy and doesn’t seem in the know about Mac-friendly video editing software, I can offer some advice here. Mac has a TON of video editing software options, which of course run the gamut in terms of price. There’s iMovie, Final Cut Pro X, Final Cut Express, Adobe Premiere, and Avid, to name a few.
A LinkedIn group I belong to, called “How To Make Money With Your Voice,” also recently talked about video marketing as an important way to promote your voice. The arguments here included the fact that videos are engaging and user-friendly, that video marketing will help increase your Google ranking, and that most Creatives are checking stuff out on YouTube and Vimeo, so it’s a good idea to have a presence there.
Ok, so video. What kind of videos should we, as voiceover talent, be creating to promote our services?
Here are some ideas/options that span a range in terms of the skills you’ll need to produce them:
— Put together a short montage of some of your VO projects (assuming you have permission from your clients to use any of the footage. Note, however, that while this option doesn’t take much video production skill on your part, because you’re just grabbing from pre-existing footage, if it’s not edited together well the end result could be really disjointed and difficult to watch)
— If you’ve done any animation/videogame/app work, use visuals from those (again, assuming you have permission from your clients) and add in some of your voice handiwork that corresponds to each project
— Videotape yourself during a VO session, and either use that session itself as a video, or use that video footage together with excerpts from other projects
— Create your own unique visuals (i.e. type, still photography, etc.) to accompany a selection of your voiceover work. Consider adding a music track as well, remembering that whatever music you choose will really set the tone for the whole piece
Experiment and have fun with it! If you have friends/cohorts who can help you out, maybe you can return the favor and everyone wins with some sort of fun video VO project!
Ok, now that I’ve taken the first step (thinking about it, writing about it, reading about it), I better put my money where my mouth is, eh?
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