Remember, voice over talents are like professional golfers…VO’s and golfers don’t compete against each other. Voice talents compete for the ear of the producer and golfers compete against the golf course superintendent (well, the course itself actually, but I’ve always felt most superintendents didn’t get the proper credit).

But as performers of a kind, both for voice actors and for golfers, ego “occasionally” rears its ugly head.

There is a “heady” gentleman in the UK who by most accounts as a voice talent who has always been well respected; through his web postings on various voice talent message boards, his thoughtfulness usually appreciated and his humor is sadly lost on a few…but not on me.

His name is Philip Banks and if you need a wonderful, truly British announcer (or some funny character voices too) you should simply call him and stopping your shopping at once. Having spoken to him and corresponded with him at various times over some years, he is quite a thoughtful gentleman. And he reminded a few of us the other day of a phrase he has used before with equal effectiveness each time:

“It’s not about me.”

For a voice talent, no matter the specialty, these are simple words. But their stunning, almost epiphany-like impact because of what they mean to the very core of our professional lives cannot be ignored. Why?

While voice talents are cognitive tools for producers and directors, we are still tools….voices through which messages are conveyed. But it’s the cognitive and emotional part of we “tools” (sentient & egotistical) that sometimes do not allow us to “get out of our own way.” Sometimes we put OUR interpretation of a script, or a line or a character ahead of the writer, producer or director. We can be inflexible.

Note well, I do not mean to say that any voice talent shouldn’t share an opinion if its welcomed. But ultimately, we can take our insights and interpretations too personally so that when a director says finally “do it my way” we feel in some way slighted. Cognitive tools made up of oversensitive wiring with an ego on top; that’s a recipe for a voice talent sundae.

But what we forget sometimes is that the director has a goal, a vision and we’ve agreed to take part in it using our tools (voice over abilities) to help “get him there”. So with her critique or alteration of our vocal performance, we need to remember is not a means to our end, it’s a means to her end. It’s about him or her.

It’s not about us. And that is as it should be.

Tags: announcers, audio books, character voices, commentary, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice // 3 Comments »