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Voicereel Material Suggestions (commercial, or 'agent' reel). Updated April 2022.

1. Corporate – Preferred these days to audiobook reads as second 'Narrative' piece, simply because of how much of our work as VAs is corporate. Think primarily of Explainer Videos on YouTube, or company websites. Can include telephone hold messaging, training videos, learning modules, presentations, appeals, website audio, instruction manuals, Voice of God, public announcements etc. Usually 'in house' training/information voiceover. The art of simply giving information.

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2. TV Commercials. - The mainstay still of most reels intended to bag an agent. The possibilities here are infinite, but the crucial thing is to find ads that perfectly suit your voice, in terms of age range, gender and natural accent, and find a balance and variety across the three. Just be really honest with yourself about what would make sense in an ad using your voice. ie Don't age yourself up. And try not to always go for big name ads - sometimes the more local or smaller companies add a more interesting range to your reel.

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3. Radio ad/Character piece - Radio ads are written and performed differently to those with a visual, so make an instant change of pace and tone to a reel. A lot of radio ads particularly are very character driven, and an ad that has characters in it is a nice change of energy on a reel. This piece should be an actual radio ad with 1 character or more (even with 2 characters interacting, followed by a tag line VO). It allows you to bring the energy of a character to the reel and show off sides to your personality or range that the rest of the reel doesn't allow. The Radio Advertising Bureau website has an advertising database on it which is amazing for sourcing pieces.

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4. Documentary - Here we can recreate the feel of a TV documentary, working alongside music and SFX to create a sense of a VO over video/TV images. The subject matter can be anything, but its crucial you stick to something that relates to your age/gender/accent. It can be dramatic ('do ghosts really exist?', 'the disappearance of Flight 107' etc), or more journalistic (i.e. 'the miracle of multiple births', 'discovering King Tut's tomb', Dispatches etc), or more reality TV/Fly On The Wall based (First Dates, The Undateables etc). Try YouTube for examples, or the main TV channel online players (4OD, iPlayer etc)

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5. Narrative, prose/novel - descriptive - A paragraph from a book/novel, usually quite descriptive. The opening paragraph often works best, or start of a chapter. Obviously, something closest to your own accent/ethnicity is best. This is so we can hear you make a story come to life. Character dialogue can be very useful too, especially with accents. Largely passed over these days in favour of a documentary or Corporate. But if audio books is your goal, definitely worth including.

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6. Promo/Trailer - A promo/teaser for an upcoming program or series - on TV or radio. The kind of thing seen at at the start and end of virtually every ad break. Ends with something like Mondays at 8, on ITV2, Coming soon on 5 Live, etc. Try to avoid movie trailers, unless you have that classic voice. Not to be confused with continuity.

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7. Narrative, modern/childrens -Something from a children's book - perhaps a Roald Dahl or similar. As a contrast with piece 1, its useful to have dialogue in there along with the 'narrative voice', for which there is no limit as regards accents/age/gender. A great chance to include some characters/voices/accents.

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8. 2nd Documentary Reality TV and Fly on the Wall docs are now extremely popular, so a second 'narrative' read is sometimes useful for the non commercial part of an 'agent' reel. Make sure you contrast it with the previous doc's style if you intend to include a second. If the first was more serious, this might be more upbeat or throwaway (cat obsessives, or hidden camera social experiment types, for example). For both documentaries, you'll find all you need on YouTube, iPlayer, 4OD etc. The introduction, or first minute or so leading up to the titles, is perfect., but any section will work.

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9. Idents/Sponsors messages - Very short. Often seen at the start of a programme, or start of an ad break. Ie 'Comedy on Dave, brought to you by Cobra Beer. Now You're talking'.

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10. Character (drama) pieces (ONLY if doing radio reel) - Restricted now to Radio Drama reels. Voice agents won't use them, and they shouldn't go on a modern commercial reel. Radio reels require a broader age range and accent range in these pieces, and you can find out how all that works here.

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11. Continuity - Very much out of favour now on commercial reels. The kind of 'coming up next' VO heard over end credits. Has an improvised/friend on a sofa feel to it. Usually chattier and quirkier than a promo. Usually written by the VO artist in the real world.

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Please bear in mind this is just a guideline, and by no means a definitive, carved in stone list, and it’s extremely unlikely you’ll need to record more than 8 or 9 pieces for your reel, so you won’t want to include all these options. Most people, however, find it very useful to have a starting point to help them start choosing. Also remember that no one piece should ever be more than a minute long, so the amount of material to source is probably much less than you think.

Have a look around the voice agents websites and listen to their clients reels to see what works and why. You'll see that most of the time they don't want crazy voices or accents that aren't genuine. 'Natural voices' is usually what they're after. And notice how they will often summarize your main selling point in just a few words. i.e. "Young, light, effervescent sound. Versatile and fun", or "Rich and resonant, yet natural and unaffected". Our job is to help you find what yours will be, and make it easy for them to know how to sell you in an instant. Your uniqueness is your best ally.


A few good agencies to start looking at:

The Joneses

www.meetthejoneses.co.uk/

Another Tongue

www.anothertongue.com/

Lip Service

www.lipservice.co.uk/

Hobson’s

www.hobsons-international.com/

Yakety Yak

www.yaketyyak.co.uk/

Sue Terry voices

www.sueterryvoices.co.uk/

Excellent Voice Co.

www.excellentvoice.co.uk/index.php

Just Voices

www.justvoicesagency.com/

Harvey Voices

www.harveyvoices.co.uk