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Recording Your Demo

Lesson 36 from: Voice-Over for Real People: Complete Freelancing Guide

Keith Harris

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Lesson Info

36. Recording Your Demo

Next Lesson: Quiz: Making a Demo

Lessons

Class Trailer

Welcome to the world of Voice Over

1

Introduction

02:13

What Is Voice Over?

2

Myth Busting

03:17
3

Where is all the money?

02:54
4

Quiz: What Is Voice Over

The Voice Over Performance

5

A Conversation With One Person

03:34

Lesson Info

Recording Your Demo

Okay, so you've listened to countless demos prepared 10 or 15 scripts and now you're ready to record. Right likely. Yes, but let's take a look at your final preparation before laying down your demo tracks since your demo is going to be your main business card, I highly recommend working with a coach for a session or three to make sure your reads are polished and ready to go. In fact, you might even want your coach to be in your session over Skype, helping you get the most out of your performances on the day of your session. Make sure you are well rested, you have a good breakfast and if possible record your demos somewhat early in the day where you are still fresh and energetic. If you wait until evening, you might be a bit tired and might not have the experience yet to bring yourself up to level over time, you'll get better at knowing exactly what energy level to bring to a session even when tired. But for the demo session I think it's best to plan your day for the most fun and energe...

tic session. Each of your scripts only needs to be 20 to 30 seconds long. And with the homework you have done, you should only need to perform each script two or three times once those performances are captured. You can then take the best four or five clips to make your demo. If you find you have a lot of great options, you might even make two demos which will allow you to share an even wider range of material with your clients as you noticed in an earlier lesson. I have quite a few demos now, but I did not start that way. Most of my newest demos have come from work I did at the beginning, I focused on a single narration demo. Now we've already discussed editing and adding music and you may find you are very pleased with the results. Since the demo is such an important part of your business, you may want to consider hiring a fiver pro engineer to master your demo for you. This will ensure the music and voice are brought to their best audio levels and mixed to attract buyers when deciding how to order your clips. Always put your very best performance first on the demo, many potential clients won't listen to your demo past 10 or even 15 seconds and yes, they will hire you on that short, 12th listen, But if you save the best for last, your client might never hear that fantastic clip and move on to hiring another talent. Now, if part of you is thinking, Wow, this seems like a lot of work. If a potential client is only going to listen to 10 seconds of a demo, just remember that voice over is a highly competitive field and this demo in most cases is your only introduction to a potential client with that much at stake. You can see why it's important to be well prepared before recording the demo, take the time to follow all of the steps outlined in this program. And it will lead you to a much better and competitive demo. Once you have the final demo product, make sure it's labeled with your name and then you're ready for business. You can now upload your file to emails, soundCloud and of course start your gig on Fiverr. In the next lesson, we'll start talking about working with clients and keeping them returning as repeat clients are truly happy clients. And when the repeat clients start to add up, business gets exciting.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Audio Assignment
Tongue Twisters
Practice Scripts
Video Template (mp4 video)

Ratings and Reviews

Joe Wiese
 

Keith Harris is an amazing teacher. His coarse is timeless. Thank you Keith. Please come up with another coarse.

Matthew Longmire
 

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