Voice Casting Episode 2 Show Notes

Welcome to the second episode of Voice Casting, a show designed to help you pick the perfect voice for your project.

In our first episode, I introduced the concept of finding voice actors online through searching and posting a job at Voices.com. This week, we’ll discuss how to decide what gender of talent to hire to record your voice over.

First, let’s have a little history lesson.

A Brief History of Gender Roles in Voice Over

In the past, voice overs were recorded predominantly by men with the occasional female voice being used on its own. Those were the days of “Father knows best”, the stereotypical announcer, and the Voice of God.

Women’s voices were almost exclusively used for telephone recordings and character roles in commercials and animation.

A Balanced Work Environment

Now that the playing field in the voice over workforce is nearly level, there are more choices than ever before when you are looking for a qualified voice actor to read your script.

The question we’ll ponder at present is “Does gender matter in an audio recording?”

One major misconception is that only the male voice can succeed in the realm of authority.

While some areas of voice over still favor the male voice, particularly movie trailers, radio station imaging, and sports announcing, many doors have been opened to women in commercials, narration, and character voice acting.

Stereotypes aside, it all comes down to the individual voice actor’s ability to convey your message clearly, with purpose and charisma – and additionally, they need to possess the vocal qualities that your audience innately wants to hear delivering your message.

When Gender Matters in an Audio Recording

That being said, sometimes gender does matter in an audio recording.

Here are five questions to consider when deciding which gender, male or female, to work with on your project.

5 Questions To Help Determine Which Gender Should Provide the Voice Over

1. Who is your audience?
2. What are you selling?
3. What is the message?
4. What are your expectations?
5. And who does your audience want to hear from?

Deciding on the voice for your project depends heavily on the audience you are targeting.

Set the stage by answering the questions I just asked you. If your script were being targeted at you, which gender would you prefer delivered the message?

Do your answers point to one gender over the other?

In our next episode, we’ll talk about the importance of accents and dialects when hiring a voice actor.

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