A Beginner’s Guide to Writing, Recording, and Editing Narration, Part Three
Click here if you missed Part One or Part Two of this series.
Choosing a narrator for your project is such an important part of the audio development process. You need someone who can match the tone of the script you’ve written and also lend credibility to the words. And if there’s a lot of humor in your script, or if it calls for the narrator to make a clown car full of silly voices, they obviously must have the comedic chops to pull those things off.
As you begin your global search for America’s Next Top Narrator, you might start the process by first considering your audience. Does your audience respond better to a female or male voice? Should they sound younger or be more distinguished, like the rich, cutting bite of Jeremy Irons (he was Scar in the The Lion King)? Speaking of Jeremy Irons, should the narrator have an English accent? An American accent? Klingon, perhaps? Should the narrator have more of a dry monotone delivery (perhaps you’re making a sleep tape) or a more playful sing-song style? You may need to talk these things over with your stakeholders to verify how the audience will connect with this voice.
And when the time to narrow down a narrator nears, pricing will usually be a factor. If you have someone in-house who is perfect for the role, then great! Use them and save money like you do by switching to Geico. But make sure everyone is satisfied with that voice and think about how the learner will perceive it. And don’t be surprised if hiring the right narrator might cost you a bit. One suggestion is to look online at Fiverr for voiceover artists (and this is assuming that you won’t be overseeing the audio recording process yourself). Be sure to listen to example recordings from various talent, check on pricing, and examine every talent’s feedback ratings. And don’t forget to search for a voiceover talent’s turnaround time. Some talent might have a couple weeks of backlog before they can get around to your project, while some might be able to turn a script around for you in under 24 hours (and sometimes requesting a rush charge to do so).
Also consider if the voice talent will be easily available to your for future projects. If you’re going for consistency between multiple training courses, you should think about using the same narrator between projects.
And of course, if you need further assistance selecting a voice talent or would like to use our Converging Solutions voice talent selector tool, give us a shout.
The voice of a generation,
Steve
TLDR: When selecting a narrator, there’s a lot to consider: audience response, comedic timing, gender, age, accent, comedic timing, delivery, price, turnaround time, and comedic timing. But make sure everyone is happy with whomever you enlist.