My Journey into the World of Voiceover and Narration Production

I’ve been working in marketing and media production industry since 1997. I attended Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts(now known as Specs Howard School of Media Arts). The first half of the course is split 50/50 between radio and television production. By midterm students must decide to specialize either in radio or television & video production. I’m a talker, so I was very interested in narration and voice overs, but in the end video production won out. I loved the hands-on nature of working with the camera and lights. At that time Detroit was a major media production market due to the auto industry. I worked on training, news and marketing videos for Kmart, Ford, GM and Comerica Bank. I often worked on small production teams, where everyone wore multiple hats. Over the years I worked as a producer, editor, writer, and cinematographer. But, in the back of my mind I always wanted to do narrations and voiceovers.

In 2008, I got married and joined my husband in Montreal. I absolutely love Montreal - such an interesting and inspiring city with an international feel. But my lack of fluency in French proved to be a barrier. To work in the marketing industry you need perfect fluency, so I wasn’t able to get a job at an agency. So, I started my own small marketing agency, and produced online marketing videos for a variety of clients.

I also do interpreting for the local Deaf community. In 2009, I had obtained national interpreter certification from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. This may seem like totally divergent from my other endeavours, but the Deaf community is visual, and the only way to properly document and capture their language is through video recording.

As my husband and I anticipated expanding our family, I started to think more seriously about transitioning into a career as a narrator. In 2014, I built a tabletop audio recording enclosure that could be set up in a matter of minutes. This allowed me to create voiceovers for marketing videos as well voice translations of sign language videos.

The birth of my son was the big turning point for me. Yes, I admit I had underestimated motherhood. My son was born hungry! I was breastfeeding him every two hours for six months, and every three hours for the next two month, and then every four hours for the next two. It was exhausting but deeply fulfilling. I fell deeply in love with this little bear who needed me so much. As I nursed him and cared for him, I barely had time to shower, but I did have a lot of time to think about our future. Video production can be all consuming. It can take weeks, even months, to guide a project from an inspiration on a napkin through the creative development process of scripting, client meetings, filming, editing and online deployment. You take a break when the video is done, but it’s often long hours to hit a deadline. That roller coaster was fine before my son was in my life, but I didn’t want that inconsistency for my son. It’s a little scary to shift direction after 20 years in video production, but I now had good reason to do it. I decided it was time to really focus on my voiceover career.

I started working with voice coach Terri Apple - a voiceover artist based in LA with many years of experience. She’s been working with me to focus my performance and nail specific commercial reads. I spent a great deal of time researching every aspect of voice over and narration production and realized what a big market there is for audiobooks. I asked Terri about it and she thought it was a good match for me. In November 2018 I started construction on an in-home voiceover recording booth. If you’re interested I’ve documented the entire process so you can learn from my mistakes and successes. Subscribe to this blog and my YouTube channel to be notified when I post Behind the Scenes videos and tutorials.