Voice Over Person

English borrows heavily from the film business.

The English are very adept at “adopting” property from all cultures and countries. Modern British museums abound with loot gathered over many centuries. Even the national tongue is a conglomerate mishmash assembled from languages both living and dead. Today the vocabulary continues to expand.

With the advent of moving pictures, a whole new source of words became ripe for the picking. In 1890 we heard the first use of “Cinema” when the Lumiere brothers described their new visual medium using the ancient Greek word for movement.

Throughout the 20^th century, the film business gave generously to English. Fade to black, pan left, zoom in, zoom-out, cinemascope, talkies, overdub, foley artist, and voice over the person to name a few.

 

It is easy to forget the origins of words and phrases now so familiar.

We can forgive young millennials working in film and television for not knowing that Jack Foley was the genius behind the sound effects process that carries his name. However, it is a shock that many old-timers in the film industry have no idea of the vital part foley-artist plays in creating film sound.

It is an even greater shock to realise that many of the people who describe their occupation as a voice over person have no idea where their job title originated.

The term “voice over” is an abbreviation of “voice over picture”. It was used to describe film footage where a speaker was not seen on screen talking directly to the camera. This was called 100% sound. 

In later years, radio writers began using the term voice over in situations where the announcer was speaking with music playing in the background. The description would be noted as “V/O music under” or voice over music.

 

Sorting out the valuable from the voluminous. 

With the proliferation of the broadcasting industry in television, AM and FM radio as well as narrowcasting via internet podcasts and Youtube videos the market for voice overs has grown exponentially.

Subsequently, there has been a proliferation in the number of untrained and inexperienced people trying to get work as professional voice artists. As you can imagine some of the results have been fairly amateurish at best!

When you are looking for professional quality male and female voice over talent don’t muck about. Go directly to Media Group, the business audio specialists. You get to choose from hundreds of highly skilled and experienced voice actors. Begin online by listening to actual sample recordings of their work. Go to www.mediagroup.com.au