Flexibility for an italian voice over talent is an increasingly strategic quality
There was a time when the key factor for an italian voice talent to be successful was being desirable on the market. It was more important to be discovered by the producer, or to ensure that one’s talent was identified and recognized by others, rather than being the a communicator and a self promoting subject towards the market. On the contrary: this kind of activity has always qualified a category of voice talent – please forgive me – not very “noble”, more devoted to commercial promotion than to artistic voice acting related research.
The artistic nobility of the italian voice over talent e is undoubtedly an oxymoron. We are serving the advertising and audio visual industry for commercial purposes, it is no secret, just as it is not a mystery that many of those who work as an advertising voice over talent do not have an artistic profile that allows you to consider this activity as a simple compendium of a much more important artistic career.
In short, no one displeases money and I do not find anything wrong with it (indeed) in enhancing one’s voice talent services with promotion actions.
This topic reminds me a story that was word of mouth a few years ago about a very famous italian voice actor, one of the few in Italy who got successful outside Italy (I don’t mention the name because it should come to your mind almost instantly). Well, this super-noble colleague had been called up for a commercial voice recording. Client, agency, production house and recording studio were all ready to welcome that extraordinary voice talent, with a mixture of admiration and respect.
At the end of the recording rather listless, wanting to make it clear that it was time to close the session, the famous italian voice talent gave an expression of impatience.
When the producer uttered the fateful phrase: “free studio”, the actor let slip, with the microphones still open, the joke: “Well, now I can go to work!”. By making it clear that what he had done up to that point was considered anything but real work.
A small and subtle gesture of contempt that did not fail to surprise everyone present, who until then had tried to provide the interpreter with deliveries, tones, research that, objectively, had no correspondence with the result.
Accept the unexpected: are you ready to this my dear italian voice over artist?
Things have therefore changed. Offering your ability as an Italian voice over talent for advertising video is indeed considered an intelligent gesture, the result of analysis, evaluation of one’s possibilities, awareness of one’s artistic potential. In some way it is our commodity and we must communicate it as best we can. That’s right.
On the one hand, therefore, we expose ourselves more to the market, on the other, the voiceover professional is considered as a real commodity that can be hired, evaluated, possibly purchased, but also returned to the sender as if nothing had happened. Amazon, how you transformed us!
Why shouldn’t the “satisfaction or your money back” rule apply to us too?
Given that respect for the work component of our performance is absolutely to be guaranteed, I find it correct that the customer can somehow reject the recording that a voiceover just made for him. It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen. In this article, however, we talk about flexibility, which is obtained through understanding the needs, the willingness to make oneself available for any type of change requested, even the possibility of not getting upset if it turns out that the customer was wrong choosing us from a rich and in-depth italian voice casting.
Are you still there? So let’s see what are the dynamics in our brain that are established when we are “penciled in” (bad idiom, right?) For an italian voiceover job.
When you are called for a voicecasting an adrenaline-pumping effect of satisfaction is typically activated, which feeds your ego, which defines a goal of a life spent doing auditions, practicing at the microphone, discovering and learning all the techniques. of the professional voice. We always think it may be the beginning of a professional relationship, or the triumphal continuation of a relationship that has already been established. This, at least, until the phone call arrives – or worse – the whatsup message that cancels the pencil on your agenda with a customary sentence: “see you next time!”.
The resulting disappointment is equal to the previous enthusiasm. We fall into a deep depression made up of self-accusations: “Well, I’m not the italian voice over talent I thought, I’m a dog, no one will call me again, etc., etc.” All true? No, all wrong.
The world of italian professional voiceover , is determined by rules that we cannot predict, the variables are numerous and imagining the reasons why we are chosen or – worse – discarded by a italian voice casting is a claim that cannot be objectively satisfy.
In short: the curriculum shows what we have done and not what’s next. Therefore, let’s try to look back and find out what our career as Italian advertising voice talent is made of.
There is an antidote to anxiety: opening up to being surprised
Luckily, digital tools are helping us: seeing an old moleskine battered by cancellations for voiceover job options for missed advertising is truly agonizing. Today, with electronic diaries, we can cancel and pencil in whatever is needed, grant a chance, mark a makeover, and show ourselves light and available in front of the thousand ficklities of the advertising voice-over industry.
“Are you free Wednesday at 11.00 and Thursday at 13.00? Good! Then pencil in both options, I’ll let you know ”.
We therefore become waves prey to the waves of approvals, of customers who do not know whether to record with a professional female voiceover, or with an italian male voiceover. Or maybe they’re questioning a word of the text, or they’re waiting for customer confirmation.
Go find out!
Opening up to the apparent randomness of this world is the only antidote to this anxiety that the advertising announcer takes whether he receives a job call that may not be confirmed. Thus we enter the daily philosophy of the italian voiceover, with a decalogue to be respected religiously:
1 accept every request for to be confirmed jobs even if it is asked at impossible times and in defiance of every principle of good manners
2 respond to the inevitable cancellation of the meeting with an enthusiastic answer that shows how happy we are: “Imagine, no problem, I had another job that was confirmed at the same time and I didn’t know how to tell you!”
3 show yourself available after a long and careful analysis of your agenda with comments such as: “wait, I’ll check … then I would have another italian advertising voiceover job at that time but I can move it, no problem.
4 be ready for any text rework, retake or any other word that begins with “re”.
5 define yourself as italian voice over professionals in any circumstance, therefore demonstrate a professional approach even in the face of the unprofessionalism of your interlocutors
6 avoid the killer phrases: “you can’t cancel my afternoon job a couple of hours before”: bad news, they can.
7 Avoid showing the whatsup message double check box without replying. Otherwise you’ll have to answer the question: “I saw you red it, why didn’t you answer me”?
8 Never ask for the confirmation of an italian voiceover job. If they didn’t call you there was definitely a reason. Forget about it
9 Do not send Whatsup and do not call from landlines to verify that your smartphone is working. It always works. The problem is, they don’t call you.
10 Take a crash course in narcissism to heal self-love and endure periods of abstinence.
There would be another dozen rules for the italian voiceover talent. But a very inflated magic word is worth it: good resilience to everyone!