For Voice Over Clients

Published by Debbie Grattan on 08/08/13

One of the truly unexpected pleasures of being a voice over actress is working with people all over the world. Just this past week alone, I had the opportunity to share my female voice over talent with clients in Singapore, Australia, Spain, and Canada, all while working with my regular voice over clients here in the US.

Having clients all around the world is mind-blowing—and I am grateful for today’s technology including PayPal, immediate payments and currency exchange all in a single invoice.

Experience as a Worldwide Professional Voice Over Service Provider

Here’s a quick look at the worldwide voice over services I have recently delivered :

• Singapore : A client in Singapore hired me to give female voice over services for children’s video games and applications.

• Australia : I was the female animation voice over for a cartoon animation company in Australia.

• Spain : A Medical Supply Company in Spain contracted with me to deliver voice over services in the form of english translation.

• Russia : A corporation in Russia selected me to give corporate web narration voice over services.

• Canada : Three different clients throughout Canada including Sizzle Video, a Corporate Homebuilder and Water Safety Company who each needed narration voice over services, chose to have my voice represent their companies .

Vacation Style Narration Voice Over Services

Working with international clients and providing vacation style narration voice over services for my clients here in the US, sometimes makes me feel like I’ve taken a vacation without ever leaving my home.

I always enjoy doing voiceovers for vacation style narration and creating whatever mood is required, whether for travel, adventure, contemplation, play, or simply relaxation—especially since I do this in most instances without ever having the benefit of seeing the visual of what I’m describing, or having the luxury of visiting the locale in person. I use these narrations as my own personal vacations, traveling virtually, from the comfort of my recording studio in Michigan.

This style of voice over service is being provided to eScapes, a paid television cable channel that features exotic landscapes domestically and abroad with New Age music in the background.

In this clip, I am introducing a segment about Thailand, featuring the Wat Arun temple in the capital city of Bangkok.

Supporting the Needs of International Clients for Worldwide Voiceover Services

Since a good majority of a professional voiceover’s work these days is done in solitary (without the benefit of another sound engineer, director, or client as part of the session), it can be tricky when working with a script containing words, locations, or names that aren’t part of our everyday vocabulary.  The hardest part for many professional voice over actors is knowing just “how to say them”.   Many clients have selected me as their female voice over talent because of my experience and ability to quickly learn how to speak words that are not in my everyday language.

Sometimes when dealing with clients whose first language is not English, it also helps to have a solid grasp of grammar to tweak some of the scripts and offer a more pleasing approach to the English-speaking target audience. Short re-writes and re-working of lines and paragraphs are a couple of things that are added bonuses when a client chooses to use my professional voiceover services for their project.

Even though it’s Sunday as I type this, I am working with a script today because one of my clients is in Australia and it’s already Monday there. That way they’ll have it at the beginning of their work week. Such is life when we are as connected as we are, through this amazing electronic and technological innovation known as the Internet.

It still amazes me when I think about how far our world has come– just in my career as a female voice over talent!

Debbie Grattan is a Female Narration Specialist and Voiceover Actor who has recorded professional voice-overs for over 20 years. To date she has worked on more than 10,000 projects and has partnered with hundreds of production companies, marketing and advertising firms, commercial voice-over recording studios and corporate/business clients around the United States and abroad. Check out her Professional Voice-over Talent Demos and request a complimentary custom professional voice-over talent services audition for an upcoming project.

Published by Debbie Grattan on 06/19/13

Company name changes…when they happen, they can be a challenge.

Having worked through a few over the years, I can say that I am now well-prepared for those situations when a company approaches me in need of voiceover solutions related to a name change.

The trick is being able to edit the new company name into old voice tracks (maybe several years old), and have it sound seamless. If I can’t do that effectively, then I’ll have to re-record huge chunks of scripts to make it work. That will be time-consuming and expensive for the client. So, it’s best for everyone if I can just splice in only the parts that need to change.

There have been many cases in which I’ve recorded something for a client weeks, months, or even years earlier—and the client is still using the video, but needs to make some voiceover updates. Which is why I keep a library of audio previously recorded; that way I can pull out what I did, to match it for tonal quality, pacing, inflection, and more. Sometimes I’m in and out of the recording booth a few times—for these pick ups, to listen back and match—and if I’m still not happy with the sound, I make sure to find the perfect match.

I’m always looking for ways to make my clients’ situations easier to manage. Through experience, I’ve figured out an efficient system to help companies deal with a name changes across all of the audio and video projects that I was a part of. One more reason why it can be very important to work with a professional voice talent, who’s been around a long time and will still be here when you need them to provide voiceover solutions for your important project!

 

As a professional voice over talent, when time is of the essence, I step into high gear.

Which is why I am going to share a project I did recently with Doug Clark Creative—with whom I’ve worked many times, both on-camera and as a voiceover talent.

Doug Clark Creative was working with a new client who hadn’t really thought of using video for their project until they saw one of Doug’s finished video projects for another client. So impressed were they by what they experienced while watching Doug’s work, they decided they wanted to hire Doug to create a video for a specific piece of machinery that they had developed. While the video was originally going to be a simple montage set to music, after seeing just how revolutionary the machine was, Doug suggested adding voiceover to further enhance the message.

Because the professional voice over track is often one of the last things to be added to the production schedule, it’s not unusual to have work arrive in my email inbox with a tight deadline. Sometimes when we’re working under tight deadlines, a few things can happen, including having to rework some things after the initial session.

Doug told me that, per his client’s request, he had to go out and shoot the client’s machine in one day. It was the only machine available and, to raise the stakes a bit more, the machine was being shipped off somewhere immediately, so time really was of the essence. There was no script written at that point, so Doug planned on shooting the video in hopes that the footage he captured would be enough to work with the step-by-step instructions of how to operate it.

The logistics of a production schedule can be tricky, but when you’re working with a seasoned production company like Doug Clark Creative, the natural order of things is that it always works out, and you end up with a quality finished product.

Because of the tight schedule, I did have to go back in and change a couple things in the recording booth, since the shots weren’t initially matching with the voice-over tracks.

But it all came out great in the end! Watch the video and tell me what you think.

The client was very happy, which is the ultimate goal. And, what is most important to the client: Communicating their message clearly so that they can accomplish their sales and marketing goals.

 

Instructional videos are an important part of my voiceover services work, so I was happy to hear from this new client who found me via a web search.

We communicated only by email, but the process worked out well.

He needed a voiceover services audio turned around quickly for an e-learning type narration. Since his client was going to conduct a training on this new machine,  they needed a narrated video tutorial to go along with it.

Female Narration Voiceover Services

I’ve done a few salon nail programs, but I’d never seen one like this. Of course, as in most instances, I’m narrating without the benefit of seeing any video first. So when I do get a copy of the final video, it will be fun to see how it all comes together, and how the product/machine actually works. In this instance, the machine “tattoos” a design onto the nail. You can see it in the video—it’s called Tat’z. With this “tattoo,” you can put works of art on your nails. Some of the technological devices being invented these days are really amazing.

I tried gel nails for the first time a few weeks ago, and I’m amazed at how good they look and how long they last. Maybe I’ll get a chance to try Tat’z at a salon near me sometime soon. I am also voicing a direct response TV spot for another nail care system called “Haute Nails,” which is a do-at-home gel nail system. They sent me a sample, which is always fun to try out.

“As Seen on TV” products are often ground-breaking and very popular, so it’s neat being on the cutting edge.

Here’s a very recent female narration project I completed for Durham School Services, which explains their “Child Check System” as part of an overall focus on child safety.

This was produced by Kaye Veazey of VZ Communications located in Lake Forest, IL, and I just recently connected with Kaye over the summer to work on this video.

Female narration projects are a staple for my business these days. I enjoy recording scripts that cover all different types of topics, products and services… Nice to be able to learn something new every day!

Debbie Grattan is a female narration voice artist who has been doing voice over work for over 20 years. She’s the “go to” artist for scores of production companies and recording studios across the US. Check out her female narration demos and home voice over studio specs for more information.

Caring for the mind and body is an important part of our everyday lives—for ourselves and our families. Which is why I’m very proud of the voice-over services work I’ve been providing for the health and medical industries.

In my career as a professional voice-over artist, healthcare and medicine are among my busiest industries, I get a huge amount of requests for health and medical narration voice-over services as well as requests for radio and tv commercials for hospitals and medical groups. I enjoy my work immensely. It’s extremely gratifying to be able to help share the messages of these important companies.

Here, I share some highlights of my work as a professional voice-over artist for the healthcare industry. I’ll highlight a few voice-overs for tv commercials in this post and I’ll do a followup post that features a few health and medical narration voice-over samples.

Commercial Medical Voice-over Services Sample #1 – This first voic-eover commercial spot is very new (as of this December 2012 posting) and turned out great! The exploding (and re-assembling) heart visual is pretty amazing. This was booked through my Los Angeles Voice-over Agent, Voices Talent Group, and is playing in the Madison, Wisconsin region. It was a challenging session and the director was excellent and really knew what he wanted. He was looking for strength and succinctness combined with an overall sense of warmth and ease. Hope I hit that mark, you can be the judge!

 

Commercial Medical Voice-over Services Sample #2 – Here is a regional and currently running spot for IU Health Goshen Heart and Vascular Center, which is a local medical facility. It was produced by my friend Kyle Bainter with Overdun Productions. I love the look and concept of this tv commercial. It is a followup to a previous commercial that I voiced for Kyle about a year ago that had a similar concept. The music and heartbeat that precedes the VO is always a cue for me to perk my ears when listening to TV in my own market, since I see this one a lot.

 

Commercial Medical Voice-over Services Sample #3 – Another commercial voice-over services series of spots, also for my local region, was produced by The Big Idea Company, and markets the Michiana Hematology and Oncology Center. These were all touching, heart-felt, emotional spots with clever visual concepts. Here is one of my favorites from that series.

 

Commercial Medical Voice-over Services Sample #4 – Next, we have a totally different type of healthcare & medical voice-over for tv a commercial, for Kinney Drugs “Ready Scripts” which is an automated prescription ordering and delivery system. I really love the look and feel of this commercial too. One of my favorites in this category.

 

Commercial Medical Voice-over Services Sample #5 – And, finally, a more technological feel is found in this tv commercial for Cyberknife, which uses focused beams of radiation to destroy tumors. Produced by Dimension X, a long time client of mine. There are many Cyberknife centers in major cities across the country, and I’ve been fortunate to be the voice on these spots in most cities.

 

Check out nearly 30 Health & Medical Voice-over video samples in my Health & Medical Voice-over Services Youtube Playlist.

Debbie Grattan is a full-time Professional Voice-Over Artist who has been recording medical voice-overs for more than 20 years. Check out her Voiceover Services Talent Demos and request a complimentary custom voice-over services audition for an upcoming project. Find out why Debbie is More than Just Lip Service!