Voiceover artist blog

I originally wrote this blog a few years ago after realising something slightly alarming about myself. My attention span appeared to have disappeared.

There are plenty of ways to make an advert look good. A decent budget helps. So does a clever script. Beautiful shots. The right music. A product that somebody might actually want to buy is a distinct advantage as well. The one element that doesn’t always come straight to mind is actually one that has the power to make or break the whole thing. The voice.

It used to be so simple. Not so very long ago, if you needed a voiceover for your project, there was a very obvious solution. Hire a professional voiceover artist. Today, if you believe everything you read online, there are options aplenty.

In 2014, I was living in Dubai. These days, many voiceover artists work from professional home studios and connect remotely with clients all over the world. Back then, things were a little different.

It’s been a strange few years in the world of professional voiceover. For many human voiceover artists, voice actors, and narrators – most of us working alone from home studios and soundproofed booths talking to ourselves for a living – the rise of AI-generated voices has felt somewhere between mildly unsettling and absolutely terrifying. The entire industry has been built around human performance. Successful careers in professional narration, documentary voiceover, and commercial voice acting all depended on storytelling and emotional connection.

Corporate voiceover sounds deceptively simple from the outside. A business has something to explain. A voiceover artist reads the script. The finished audio goes neatly over the graphics, animation or video. Everyone nods. Someone might say something like ‘great work’. Off we all go. Goodnight. Job done. Lovely. Except, of course, it is rarely quite that straightforward.

When you’re hiring a British voiceover artist, it’s very easy to think the whole thing comes down to one simple question: Do they have a good voice? Well… yes. Of course that does help! But in truth, that’s only a small part of it.

When people set out to hire a voice-over, they usually want something professional. Clear. Trustworthy. Perhaps warm. Perhaps serious. Perhaps persuasive. Occasionally, something ‘a bit like that chap off the telly… but not too much like him.’

There is a persistent belief that voiceover sessions are complicated affairs. That they require extensive explanation, detailed direction or a lengthy preamble before anyone is allowed to speak. In reality, if you’ve hired a professional voice-over who knows what they’re doing, it is usually far simpler than that.

Most of my professional life has involved explaining things clearly. Selling something. Telling listeners how something works. Reassuring someone. Guiding an audience calmly from A to B. Gaming, however, has required me to interrogate heretics, command genetically enhanced super-soldiers, whisper conspiracies, shout battle cries, and ride across 13th century Mongolia delivering diplomatic messages.