does anyone know about outsourcing of voices for radio and TV commercials? who's offering it, how it works, experiences with them, prices, how they work... anything you can tell me!
The radio/tv station should and could help you with that. Your account rep can help you write scripts and find talent. At least, our rep does all of that for us. Brandon
In order to be on the radio, you need an fcc license. For TV, SAG is going to want you to use one of their people. There are plenty of agencies out here in SoCal that will scrounge up somebody for you, but I don't konw of anybody online. The company selling you advertising space should be able to give you some references for companies they work with regularly - and should also be able to line up show hosts, etc. to work with you.
thank you..! actually to be more clear, i'm doing a little research for a friend who's trying to offer the service online... what do you think of the idea? is it doable?
I've actually shot a few TV commericals. Depending on where you are and what market your commercial is you don't need to use SAG actors. I wasn't really looking to shoot any commercials, but I had finished a film and somebody recommended me so I just did it. Basically you have two different types of commercials. You have national and local. You have very little chance of getting a shot at national commercials until you've built up a portfolio. Local commercials run the gambit. Some companies have a large budget, a B list celebrity asigned to it, and a script. Other times you see companies that have very little budget and have horrible production values. I would suggest your friend make some demos until he builds up a portfolio. I would then contact a lot of local channels in as many markets as possible. A lot of times they will recommend people.
I think doing it online could work - for at least the low budget minded people. One thing I would do is put a lot of information about how to get a radio ad or a tv commercial up including contact information, general pricing, etc. so somebody who googled it on a whim might bite. I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but it's certainly a reasonable idea.
thank you for your opinions!! very interesting and useful. She's actually very famous here in my country, and has done lots of commercials outside too... for Ford in english, for Benneton in italian, and more. So she's very much in the game, has got lots of contacts.. her idea, as i said, is to make a website with a "pool" of voices (including hers) to offer outsourcing of voices, having in mind the exchange rates and price of living here would allow her to charge a lot less. It sounds to me like a good idea, and I would have no problem in helping her with the website, but I wonder: 1. would people hire such service online? 2. what about licenses? do you need one to make a commercial? if you do, i can't see the point to offer it online, unless you have licenses for most countries, right? or am i missing something here
I must be missing something here. Why should you need a license to make a commercial. Whoever broadcasts it needs a license, but why so you need a license in order to make one ?
I'm getting ready to do my own promotional video for a show truck using my own equipment, adobe premier pro and after effects. I was wondering if you have any advice or suggestions. Also I was wondering how I would find someone to do the voice over for the final production. If this site were live, I'd be using it right now.
interesting mopacfan! how would you search it? about the license, still not getting it... but... it does seem hard to beleive that you would have to have a license to do a commercial, since there are lots of commercials that are played on radio stations around the world... the voice could not be licensed in all those countries... so maybe the license is only to make your own radio show or something, not for commercials noppid, can you explain it? thanks!
It's not a license that I'm aware of, it's the unions. :/ I have no idea in the big picture, but I'm pretty certain it's the unions that control things, not a license per se'.
I'd be searching for a voice over artist that has very reasonalbe (inexpensive) fees. Location would be unimportant since the files can be emailed.
yes, that's exactly the idea mopacfan! payment and communication by internet noppid, i'll research some more, thank you
I've searched craigslist, but because each city is seperate, it makes it a real pain to look any further than the city I'm in.
Anybody broadcasting their voice on the radio needs an fcc license. The test covers a lot of radio basics, and seems to be complex for an actor, but that's the rule. I'm pretty sure there is no such rule in TV. I may be wrong about this, but I've known several DJ's and radio show hosts that all had to get licensed. Not too sure it it's the same for commercial actors, but if it applies to show hosts it probably applies to actors too.
Actors doing voice-overs or commercials do not need licenses. Jorge I think people would hire a service like that. Unfortunately, most of the online actor websites have one of three problems. They are either city specific or city specific search capabilities; or they have a lot of profiles of people that "want" to be actors. The other problem is most only target LA, NY, and a few other areas. If I could find a good programmer to help me out I have the design for a pretty good site… If I were you I would go a cheap route. I would avoid the LA area and target actors in large commercial areas. Dallas surprisingly is one of the biggest commercial markets. A lot of times you can find professional actors that will do the work just for the experience because they haven't gotten to do voice over work yet and they want to move into it, but they find it hard because they have no experience. One of the problems you are going to run into doing it over the internet is most actors don't just have access to recording equipment. So you're going to have to find a studio and pay studio fees. There are a whole slew of aspiring actors-aspiring filmmakers that have their own equipment though. The other problem is your not going to have any real idea of how they're saying the copy. Most actors need direction and immediate feedback. So you're going to be paying for this actor to be in a studio and they're going to say you know what I should do something to really impress him or it would be great if I could showcase my Cuban accent. I’ve had to use people for voice-overs and ADR. I couldn’t imagine not being there and I think you will have problems with that. While you may limit your options, you could always look for people locally. Every community I have seen has some type of theatre community and some type of independent film community. So you just look for it, and approach some actors that way. Since you have your own equipment you don’t have to pay for a studio. You won’t get as clean audio, but you can still get nice sounding audio from not using a studio. As far as finding local actors, it seems like many cities have yahoo groups. Also indieclub.com is broken into local chapters so you can post free classifieds. If anyone has any other questions I will try to help answer them. Like I said I haven’t done a lot of commercial work, but I have done some as well as TV, Film and Music Video.
great info, Hodgedup!! thank you, very useful The people that are going to be part of the staff are pros, with years of experience, specially my friend, who's to get them to join. Thank you all for your posts!! i'll go ahead with the project, we'll see how it comes out