Another Newbie.... Another Demo!

[lynderanne]

Hi, I'm new at this and would love some feedback on the attached demo -- including the bad and ugly!
(Additional demos can be found at http://voice123.com/lyndaseminara (http://voice123.com/lyndaseminara).)

Any advice on newbie marketing also would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a bunch!

Lynda

[jsgilbert]

From a somewhat practical standpoint, I might look at what your strengths are and work to create a demo that highlights those and also allows you to develop a focused marketing campaign.

I read your introduction and also listened to this demo twice. I also work across a number of industries as a vocei actor, but also as a writer and a producer/director. I would think that as a bilingual talent performing technical and medical reads for the internet or corporate videos that you have the most marketability.

I would tend to think that while you might get some work in commercials, I didn't hear anything in your commecial reads that made me take notice. Some of it was pleasant and well read, some a little stiff, the timing on the double seemed off and mis-matched and one was over enunciated, but all of your medical reads and your Spanish was darn nice. I don't work in Spanish, but I do speak it fairly well and I produced Spanish and English dialog for two documentries "Ciudad Blanca" and "El Venemo" and your Spanish sounds quite neutral and very marketable.

I'm sure the IVR and voicemail people will write me hate mail, but that's gotten super competitive and the tickets are pretty low. If you can get in with the right people and crank out volume, you can make some money, but you may spend more time marketing than you really want to.

Go after production houses, corporate videographers and medical companies, as well as web developers for the Pharmaceutical companies. Most of the Web companies have some sort of bug or contact info. But more importantly sit down and make a list of everyone you know and everyone you have ever dealt with and start calling and sending emails and find out who they know and so on.

Good Luck,

j.s.

[lynderanne]

Thanks so much, J.S.! I greatly appreciate your feedback and advice.

I posted this demo on another VO board -- and heard from two longtime talents. They liked my commercials (minus the double) but said I sound too young for medical material. However, being that I've done medical writing/editing for over 2 decades, I had thought it would be a good bet for me. Do you know how I might be able to obtain a list of medical/pharma agencies to which I could market myself? Do they typically accept emailed demos?

Thanks again -- very much!

Lynda

[connieterwilliger]

I read the "too young" comment on the other board, but didn't listen to the demo until I saw it here. I don't think you sound too young. You sound a bit like a nurse who has been around the floor and knows her stuff. I think it would work well for the kinds of things JS suggested.

As to how to find agencies in this area - there are professional groups for b2b agencies that specialize in biotech, groups just for the biotech companies and groups for hospitals - plus there are video departments and multimedia groups at hospitals who need voice services.

[jsgilbert]

I used to do some casting and direction for a couple of companies that produced various industrial videos for the medical field and I re-listend to the reads and stand by what I say.

As for marketing, most of these companies will use an outside production company to develop their materials and the current trend does tend to have mroe and more of the actual employees faetrured on camera and as spokespoeple.

One approach might be to use something as simple as Superpages/ Yellowpages or even Google to do genreal searches and then call the companies and find out 2 things

1. What company (or companies) do they use to develop audio visual assets and

2. Who at the Biomed company (or hospital or Pharmaceutical company) is most responsible for interfacing with the production company.

The ideal situation would be to have that person contact the production company and ask them to consider you for future work. Alternatively, getting permission from the person at the med company to use their names when approaching the produciton house could also work.

Ask the person at the med company if they have an old piece of copy lying around and offer to read it and send it to them as an atachemnt and then set a time to discuss their impressions.

While this seems like a lot of work, it's not atypical for these companies to spit out 10, 15 or 20 pieces per year and they often like consistency with their look and feel, including voiceover talent.

Good Luck.

[lynderanne]

Dear Connie and J.S. -- Thanks so much for your helpful information and advice.

I feel extremely fortunate that such pros (you!) take an interest in Newbies like me -- and give so generously of their time and energy.

What a nice community this is! I hope I'll be able to make meaningful contributions to it.

Thanks Again!

Lynda

[jsgilbert]

Lynda,
Your very welcome, although Connie is the nice one. Me not so much.

[Robert Jadah]

I'm late to the party, Lynda, but - you see - we Savvy folk were hiding in the basement and it took a while for them to find us, round us up, and dump us here.
I think you can do better. You certainly have the tones and nuance to set a better table.

My biggest quibble is the incongruous Spanish/telephony clip. I mean...really...how many seekers looking for a Minnesota radio ad will be wowed by your ability to do a :10 Spanish phone message? Stick that in a whole other demo. My second-biggest quibble would be the lack of variety: it's like 90 seconds of same-ness. I actually liked your youthful litany of medical terms; it conveyed the casual, devil-may-care, what-the-hell , irreverent and youthful tone that may just be your niche.

The perfect demo has not yet been recorded. Anywhere. By anybody.
This ain't it either.

Encouragingly Yours,
RJ