When is five minutes not five minutes? Pretty much all the time, really.
When it comes to business, we would all love to have the important things done quickly. Preferably yesterday. Time is a commodity that is highly prized no matter what industry you might find yourself in. Let me tell you about a phenomenon that pops up from time to time in which people many times don’t realise just how much time goes into the creation of a finished product.
Take the creative industry of voice work, as an example.
On the face of it, a five-minute voice over recording shouldn’t take that long to complete. What actually happens in my studio when I’m commissioned to record a 5-minute voice for a video project? I’ll let you slip behind the curtain for a quick peek at the process…
The Workflow for a Voice Over Recording
Before any voice over recording takes place, I read through the script and make notes. It might sound obvious, but I need to get a feel for the pace, the tone, and try to “hear” how it should sound from the brief sent through by the client. Also, keywords and jargon, clarifying the pronunciation of industry-specific terms, and potential “stumble phrases” where I might need to pay a little more attention when approaching that passage.
Once I’m familiar with the script, I will record it once to time the piece and see if the style that I heard in my head during the initial reading matches the client brief. I’ll probably read it again another time or two to have an alternate take in the bag to work with (sometimes I’ll find that I said a phrase with a particular inflection that I liked in a second take and will cut that into the best take). The recording process can take between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on how many tracks I put down.
Now comes the fun part — the editing process. Essentially, this is choosing the best recording, pasting in phrases from the other takes that I thought were particularly well voiced. It is a lot of painstaking work removing breaths, mouth noises and clicks, and fumbles. This can take at least half an hour, depending on how accurate I was in the recording phase.
Once that’s finished, it’s a case of mastering the recording into the correct format for the client, sending it via WeTransfer, along with an email containing any pertinent notes for their attention.
Experience and skill can save you time
Adding it all up, a 5-minute voice over recording can take an hour to complete and is not a “quick” job after all. But that is where experience comes in because the more of it that you have, the more practiced you are at recording and editing. When I began editing audio tracks back in 2003, I was nowhere near as efficient and accomplished an editor as I am now — being able to spot a mouth noise or an errant breath just by looking at the waveform is a skill that I’ve developed over time from looking at countless waveforms. Plus, I also know my voice really well – and what it looks like on the screen — and I can anticipate where it might require a little more attention.
In the end, 5 minutes is never just 5 minutes. It’s probably closer to an hour.
If there is an emergency where I am trying to assist a client who has no time at all, plans can be made and miracles can be achieved — but those miracles happen from the skills learned over the years that I’ve been doing this. And a thrilled email reply followed by a prompt, grateful payment from the client is often the best reward one can receive, knowing that your loyalty points with them have just gone through the roof on this one.
So yes, you’re getting 5 minutes of audio. But what you’re paying for is a career-long learning curve of expertise and skills that make your 5 minutes sound… well, just right.
If you want that feeling when it comes to voicing your project, let’s start the ball rolling here.