Developing the characters

I’m going to start a 4 part series on developing voice over characters for imaging and general production. The first part of this series involves finding that voice that suits the production.

Too many times I’ve heard commercials (especially in micro markets) that the same VO is ALL the characters in the spot. First and foremost find as many people as you can to audition for the parts in the building, from the receptionist to the GM if need be. Second, just because the production calls for a “type” of voice, doesn’t hold true for ALL production.

You know the characters you do best are the ones you voice in your car on the way home as you listen to talk radio for instance and you try to emulate the imbecile caller from *city* that has no clue as to what he or she is talking about, or the lady in the grocery store with 3 toddlers in tow trying to get them to behave. Listen to those voices, develop your own ‘character’ to wrap around those types of characters and write the commercial to fit the voice over.

If you’re selling cars, make fun of those over hyped but very well produced mega car dealer ads by having all the production values, but perhaps the VO is a smarmy 88 lb weakling, or even better, if you know a child that can read, and I mean really read and is a drama queen/king, then have them do the VO, run all these specs by the account exec, give them to the client, and sell your ideas on WHY you did what you did. Your job is to sell that clients product and this is but one way of doing it. Next time, we’ll chat about developing the characters in a more pristine environment for say, funeral homes. yes I said it, and I’ll stand by it.