Why DIY Demos Are a Bad Idea
When it comes to marketing and growing your voice-over business, your demos are not just your calling card, they’re proof to the world of the quality of work you do. They are at the very core of all of your marketing. They should be front-and-center on your website, and driving new prospects to listen to your demos is the most important and prolific call to action you will ever make.
Why, why, dear god why would you leave something that important in the hands of someone who is not only inexperienced in the art of voice-over demo production but who also cannot possibly be objective about their own performances? That someone is you.
There’s a fantastic moral throwdown in the original Jurassic Park movie when Ian Malcolm, (Jeff Goldblum) tells the park founder, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
DIY voice-over demos: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
And so it is with DIY voice-over demos. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
DIY voice-over demos are a bad idea. Telling talent to produce their own demos is a worse idea.
If anyone tells you it’s ok to produce your own demos, simply ask yourself, “Do I already produce great voice-over demos for other voice actors?” If the answer is no, then the so-called expert who told you it’s a good idea to produce your own demos is lying to you.
If it’s you, you’re lying to yourself.
I’ve been producing broadcast-quality audio since 1989 and I still don’t do my own demos. To understand why I don’t, you need to understand the anatomy of a great voice-over demo.
Great Scripts
Scripts may be the most overlooked element of the voice-over demo. Most talent will unwittingly grab stock scripts from the internet and use these as a basis for their DIY demos. They give little to no strategic thought to what kind of scripts play to their strengths as an actor, how they compare and contrast to show the actor’s range, what categories of content to include, and multiple other crucial strategic considerations.
Great demos start with great custom scripts, written for you and your talents and abilities, not stock scripts every other chucklehead pulled off of Edge Studio and slapped together.
Great Audio Production
This is the spot where most bad DIY decisions start. The talent thinks, “Well heck, I produce quality audio all the time. Of course, I can produce my own demo!” Often even this assertion is straight-up wrong because many DIY demos are given away by poor audio quality. The bigger issue here is that if your home studio isn’t dialed in, that MUST be addressed before you invest in a professional demo. Otherwise, you may as well light your demo money on fire.
Secondly, producing broadcast-quality audio and producing a great voice-over demo are not one and the same. Great demo producers understand how to use production to optimally showcase the talent, show their range, and enhance the performances without over-producing the demo and pulling the spotlight away from the talent. Unless you’re an experienced demo producer, you just don’t have this sense of balance and this skill set.
Great Direction
The biggest reason I don’t produce my own demos is this: I need an objective, experienced coach/director to get my best, most authentic performances out of me.
Great demos are great collaborations between coach/director and talent. Ideally, the demo is the culmination of an ongoing training collaboration with a coach who has come to know you and your strengths, weaknesses, and abilities and can help you navigate the twists and turns of each read of your demo in the demo session.
Great Performances
Great performances have two main ingredients: great preparation and great focus. If you’ve trained well and developed your performance skill set, you are prepared. But you can only give a great performance if you’re focused. Playing writer, producer, director, and talent drains your energy and objectivity and dilutes your focus.
If you’ve ever tried to run playback or edit your own work in a live session with a client, you understand what I mean. It’s difficult if not impossible to commit to being a great talent and a great producer/engineer at the same time. Working with a coach/director and producer frees you up to focus on your reads and give your best performances.
This is the part you do best, yourself. Be the expert in being uniquely you in your reads. That’s what you bring to the table. Let the other experts do their thing and you do yours.
Collaborate with your scriptwriter, producer, and your director/coach.
Crush the reads and let them crush the rest.