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Subject:Re: Taking a slightly different tone From:voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> Date:Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:15:24 -0400
I have had some tiny experience with VO work, both on the voice talent end
and the studio engineering and production end. It takes about 1.5 minutes to
read one page of material using 12 point (Times New Roman) type and 1 1/2
line spacing. That's the finished time - not how long it takes you to record
it.
Your rates should reflect what it is you are actually going to be doing. Are
you "simply" appearing in a studio, and speaking into a microphone? Or are
they expecting you to be your own recording engineer as well? If the latter,
do you have "decent equipment"? Decent equipment these days is a lot cheaper
than you think - you can do very acceptable VO work with a good MP3-type
recorder (such as the M-Audio stereo recorder that records on compact flash
cards) and using your car as the sound booth (the acoustics in a car parked
in a quiet neighborhood are quite similar to a recording booth).
I did VO for a video game (a "fan module" for the NeverWinter Nights 2
computer game). There was no pay involved. I recorded maybe 4 pages of
dialog. It took me probably 8 hours to record something I was happy with and
another 16 to process the sound files.
My husband did some freelance VO work for an answering machine (they needed
an "American" voice). He read 3 or 4 paragraphs - literally "phoning it in"
-- it took him less than 30 minutes and he got $75 for the gig.
Other vocal work that I did (recording a Cher imitation vocal for some sales
meeting) took much longer, and I also had to re-write the lyrics so that
they scanned properly with the song (the version I was handed did not). I
spent a full day in the studio, doing many takes, and I was paid $300. The
finished product was three and a half minutes in length.
Good luck with your negotiations
-Wendy
www.sheridanmultimedia.com
On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> This post may be a waste of time but I can't think of anyone better to
> ask...
>
> I've been asked to provide a quote for doing some voice recording work, for
> a company that is fielding some web-distributed training. I'm told it would
> probably be about 8 hours' work.
>
> I have gone online and researched the going rates for voice work, and they
> are frightening. Apparently it's normal to charge by the *second* at rates
> like $200 for a 30-second gig. I and the people doing the training materials
> have no experience in this and I'm pretty sure asking for $100 for each 15
> seconds is a good way to scare them off.
>
> So, what do you think would be a good rate? This came to me through a
> friend who is working form that company as a technical writer, and most
> likely the company is thinking of paying for the voice work in the same
> manner as her. They're probably thinking of an hourly rate in the same
> neighborhood. If I got a new gig as a tech writer I certainly wouldn't be
> making money by the second on it, and I have nothing better to do right now.
>
> I have to get back to them by 3 this afternoon, so if you open this message
> for the first time after that, you may as well not waste your time replying.
> Unless you just feel like throwing something out on general
> Friday-whathtebleep principles.
>
>
>
>
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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