Voiceover work in Ireland

[horizonverizon]

Is it lucrative? I have a family member with a very good voice and is quite talented in putting on an American and English (RP) accent. They are looking at making it a career.

I have heard that most professional voiceovers have several years experience as actors or presenters in the radio industry.

How would they go about this?

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I know a guy who does it, but he is an established actor.

I think that the ad companies go to the actors' agents. So that is the first thing he would need to do.

Someone like this:

Home

Founded in 2011 O'Sullivan the Actors Agent is run by Tom O'Sullivan who represents a broad range of trained actors working in Theatre, Film and Television. PHILIPPA DUNNE MATTHEW O'BRIEN DENISE MCCORMACK AIDAN O'HARE ERICKA ROE ROSS FITZPATRICK NIAMH MCPHILLIPS PAUL ROE EVA HEIN

osullivantheactorsagent.ie

 

[mozzer]

I don't know much at all but a quick Google brought this up which might help your family member.

Lisa Richards Voice Department

Representing Irish voiceover artists for over 25 years, with some of the best known names in Irish entertainment and some of Ireland’s greatest voice talent on our books.

voicedepartment.ie

I also highly recommend he/she/they watch Toast of London just for a laugh as the central character is a voice over artist, very funny.

 

[Leo]

Most working in this area will have had some form of voice training. Consistency is key, some will only work at a set time each day, and only for a limited time to avoid the voice tiring, only use a particular microphone and maintain a set distance away.

I doubt that an ability to put on accents we might find convincing would be of much value unless they are so convincing as to be able to fool the locals. There are lots of international agencies who will give you a choice of samples of natives of most area.

As above though, they will need to get on the books of the agencies to get any work. If they have a good voice and can record some good consistent samples, they could send these out to agencies here and abroad. Some of the US or UK ones might like a well spoken Irish accent on their books.

 

[odyssey06]

As a portfolio they could circulate, they could do a volunteer audiobook reading for LibriVox.

This provides free audiobook versions of books out of copyright.

Volunteer for LibriVox | LibriVox Volunteer for LibriVox | free public domain audiobooks

librivox.org

Or even do a chapter of such a book on a Youtube profile so they could circulate. Suggest picking an Irish book or poem.

Most of James Joyce's work is out of copyright - a complete Dubliners short story perhaps.

Joyce Works in Copyright and in the Public Domain

Q: Which of Joyce's works are in the public domain under which copyright regimes? United States of America Material published in the United States before

joycefoundation.utulsa.edu

 

[Peanuts20]

bear in mind it's not just for ads, my company have used professional voices for the "press 1 to talk to an agent" on IVR for phone systems. If they can do it in Irish as well, it can be an advantage

 

[NoRegretsCoyote]

This is something that machine learning is going to do very well in a few years.

 

[peemac]

I've always used Fiverr when looking for vo.