A Demo by Any Other Name…

What’s in a name? Well, when it comes to your voiceover demo…it can be the difference between sobbing quietly as you wait for the phone call that never comes and happily chattering into a microphone for money.
Before you start chewing on that creative pencil as you try to come up with something imaginative (like—Bruce Bayley Johnson – Gone With the Wind, say)…let me make it clear, I’m not talking about a title for your demo. I’m talking about a clear, informative label.
A busy producer at a studio nearby has told me that he gets demos attached to emails that are named things like:

Audio-1.mp3
Bobspots.mp3
Commdem.mp3
Autospots.mp3
Narrdemo.mp3
Zx8971.mp3
Even if he likes the way one of those demos sounds, he has to change the name in order to store it in a way that he can reference it later. So here’s rule number one about your voiceover demo. Label the mp3 file (which is the principal method of demo submission these days…in fact it usually lives on your website and you email the link to prospects) something clear and explanatory, like: Bruce Johnson – Commercials.mp3. Or Bruce Johnson – Narrations.mp3. (It’s okay to use your name instead of mine, but if you want to use mine it’s okay, I’ll get more calls that way.)
Be careful to make the file name shorter than 32 characters because longer names can produce problems on some systems. In fact, my Pro Tools tends to corrupt mp3 files with names that are too long. But make sure the file name tells clearly who you are, and what the demo is. *#345.mp3 or Audio12-.mp3 won’t get you much work. So what’s in a name? Everything. A demo by any other name might just get tossed in the trash of your prospect producer’s computer.
What makes a good demo? Well, I used to say the best demo was the one in the mail. That’s changed now, so it’s probably the one that’s in the email or on the website. The principal, however, remains the same. A demo that’s about to achieve absolute perfection, but is still being in process of being tweaked won’t get you any business, a pretty darn good demo that is out there getting listened to by clients just might earn you some money. At one point, you have to get the thing done and out there.
Still, most producers have expectations. They expect your demo to conform to certain norms, to have a certain level of production and quality, and to be representative of what you can actually do. In the on-camera world, at least in the dim dark bygone days when I was involved in it, the 8 by 10 glossy with a resume on the back was the standard for actor submissions. If you sent a snap shot, it might well have been tossed aside as amateurish and a giveaway of the fact you weren’t for real. Much the same holds true for the voiceover demo. Nowadays, demos run about a minute in length. Not three minutes, not two-and-a-half minutes…one minute to maybe one-twenty tops. There are reasons for that, including the fact that most demos now live on the web, or spend their productive time shooting through cyberspace attached to emails. A one minute mp3 file is about a megabyte at 128 kilobytes—standard good quality. You’ll probably get away with nudging up against a minute and twenty seconds, especially with a narration or industrial demo, but the closer to a minute flat the better. (Some web hosts for voiceover talent insist on a minute flat absolutely, so if your demo is longer, they’ll just cut it to size anyway, without getting input from you on how it gets cut. Worse, they may just throw it out because it’s too long and they don’t want to bother. The same is true for some agent demo CDs and websites.)
There’s another reason for the one-minute demo. Nobody is going to listen to two or three minutes of your mellow mellifluence anyway. Nobody has time. (If they have time, they aren’t busy producers, and you want to be working for busy producers, right?)
Many producers will listen to the first few seconds and know right away whether you’re what they’re looking for. Don’t let your feelings be hurt by that…they might be looking for a young woman, and you’re an older guy…there’s no reason for them to go on. If they like your sound, or your resume, and the file is labeled clearly, they’ll put it in a folder for future needs.
What kind of thing should be on your voiceover demo?
Well, you can learn a lot by going on the internet and listening to what’s out there—on the websites of voice talent, agencies, and casting services. It’s always a good idea, because times change, standards change, and expectations vary from market to market to some extent.
My feeling is that the best demos consist of about 5 snippets…8 to 15 seconds or so in length each. They should have music and—if appropriate—sound effects. In other words, they should sound like tidbits cut out of fully produced commercials or narrations.
In terms of commercials I don’t like to hear too many national spots. Unless you actually did Advil or, say, Lever 2000, there’s a risk that it will sound a little phony. After all, a producer or agency creative type may actually know the talent on the Advil spot. It’s not that you are trying to fool anyone, but you don’t want a potential employer to be distracted by negative thoughts like: “Hey, she didn’t do that spot…I’ve heard that spot. Is this whole demo faked? Is she just a beginner? What the hey is going on here?” Many demos—even those of working pros—contain spots that are made just for demo purposes, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s not something you want to draw attention to, either. You don’t want the question of whether or not these are spots that actually aired to even enter the equation. What the listener should be thinking is: “Hey…she sounds pretty good, would she be right for this project?”
To achieve that result, I like spots to be local: like a car dealer, pet shop, restaurant; or regional: a small restaurant chain, supermarket, group of car dealerships; or what I call “quasi national:” a slightly offbeat web-based business like petfoods or shoe chain, or a “retail.com” of some kind. In other words, avoid huge national accounts and commercials that run—or ran—with readily identifiable voices like Lowes (Gene Hackman—not you), Smuckers (Mason Adams-not you), Volvo (Donald Sutherland-not you) etc.
Other categories of spots you might put on a commercial demo?

Restaurant
Car spot
Inspirational
Travel
Financial/credit/bank
Retail
Promo
Kids commercial

By the way, if you do happen to be so lucky as to have a spot running nationally, or even locally, and you’re proud of it, a piece of it belongs on your demo. It’s good to keep a demo current that way. Advertisers and casting people are copycats, they love to use a voice that they’ve heard someone else use. It makes them feel secure. When I first started I had a lot of commercials running on the radio in my local Connecticut market. People said I was getting “over exposed.” You hear that term a lot. “Aren’t you afraid people won’t use your voice since it’s so over-exposed? I don’t really put much truck in it. Whether it’s your voice or Paris Hilton’s navel, when folks say it’s “over-exposed” it just means you’re going to be getting a lot more work. (It’s the “hey. let’s use the guy that does the whatchamacallit spots. He’d be perfect for this” phenomenon.) It happens on every level, from local to national. It’s human nature. Work begets work. A producer feels comfortable using your voice if somebody else has taken the leap before him or her. So, if you have something good that’s running a lot, it should be on your demo. Hopefully, you’re going to find yourself in that situation soon. Then again, as the market spreads out through the influence of the web and accessible technology, you can work a lot and never hear what you’ve done. Your children’s book read might be running in India, your commercial in Saskatchewan, your training narration in New Jersey cubicles. Wow, you’re everywhere. Kewl.
Of course, commercials are only a small—but glamorous—part of the voiceover business. Most voiceover work falls into the category of “narrations.”
What’s a narration? Almost everything that isn’t a commercial. Back when I first started in this business…(and that’s been quite a while, you may have heard that I was the original voice of the SuperCrack buggy whip. It was a great account in it’s glory days, but then business seemed to fall off rather sharply. Same thing happened to my horsefood account for some reason. Drat those pesky Model-T’s)…narrations were called “industrials.” It’s a category that includes sales training videos and CDs, corporate identity pieces and pitches for investment, how to build a deck videos, how to get the most out of your new software DVDs, how to repair the space shuttle or a nuclear submarine(if you have a good security clearance and a military-industrial manner, you can specialize in that kind of work in some areas—like say, Washington D.C.). It also includes telephone hold messages and prompts, infomercial narrations, point of purchase and product manual recordings and more. It can be low-paying and local, or high paying and international. Corporations sometimes can provide some big-budget work. They can also provide some very small budget work. A hold message for a local bakery can be poetry for a pittance, while doing all the messages and prompts for the corporate offices of a national snacks and cookie chain can be purely profitable. Hey, be thankful for work of any kind these days, big or small, that’s a good motto.

BUT YOU WANT TO DO NARRATIONS...WHAT THEN?

So, what should be on a narration demo?
It depends somewhat on your voice and the markets you’re targeting. A good narration demo for a talented newcomer with a mainstream voice might be something like this…
--A 15 second piece of something financial…how to save for retirement, how to make a budget, etc.
--A 15 second piece of something documentary or biographical…to show how you could read a narration for a serious tv piece (History Channel, Discovery, PBS) and also give a sense of how you might read an audio book.
--A 15 second selection of a “how to.” This could be how to remodel your kitchen, how to prevent viruses from infecting your company’s computer network, how to close a real estate deal, how to cook coq au vin…
--Something Corporate. Selling the services of a company, describing a process such as installing concrete forms for a skyscraper foundation, narrating the history of a company and it’s potential for future growth to encourage investors…
--Something related to travel…perhaps a narration that would describe a tour, a cruise, or a depiction of a dream destination—Aruba, Jamaica, even Brooklyn.

THERE ARE LOTS OF OTHER CATEGORIES…INSPIRATIONAL, KIDS NARRATIONS, ETC.
Nothing is writ in stone…every voice calls for a different menu…the basic thrust of a demo is to showcase the heart of what you do well—the kind of reads you’re most likely to be cast for—versatility is great, but don’t overdo it. The demo should have variety in tempo, pace, material, and delivery, but don’t throw in something off the wall or off the charts just to show your “range.” If you do a great cockney accent—or any accent for that matter—it probably doesn’t belong on a narration or commercial demo. Save the specialty stuff for specialty demos later on…voiceover folks have demos of almost any specialty they might do: audiobooks, children’s books, animation, imitations, characters, accents, medical narrations, you name it.
Your basic two demos—commerical and narration—should be very much examples of the heart of what you do best and can deliver consistently and professionally at a session.
Once you have a couple of good, representative, well-produced, demos you’ll want to put them on a CD, and maybe get a colorful attractive label and jewel case insert. It doesn’t need to be complex, just professional looking. Some people do their own. Some people pass on the jewel case inserts and just have the label. That’s fine, though it means there isn’t a label on the skinny end of the jewel case—the spine. It’s cool to you’re your name on the spine because when the CDs are stacked on a shelf, your name shows. Then again, lots of people just throw the CDs in a box and rummage through the stuff when they need to find a new voice. Decisions, decisions!

DON'T SPEND TOO MUCH ON CD PACKAGING...NOWADAYS THAT MONEY IS BETTER SPENT ON A WEBSITE!

Actually, CDs are being replaced at a whirlwind pace by the now ubiquitous mp3 file. Mp3’s are great, they can be downloaded, emailed, or even burned to a CD by the producer if he wants to play them in his car on the way home. Yes, mp3’s are great, but…they need somewhere to live. Where would that be? Why, the place to which all roads lead these days—the world wide web. How do you get there? Via the Hyper Text Transer Protocol of course!
Hop on board, and wisk on over to your voiceover website!

Demos in cyberspace…browsers encouraged!