As the number of electronic media grows, and the public's patience for getting new information through text wanes, the market for voice talent continues to skyrocket. An actor can put his voice on a CD-Rom, giving a guided "tour" of a purchaser's new computer; on a cassette or CD to "tour" a new car; on a portable "guided tour" unit in a museum or historical site; on telephone on-hold advertising; on in-store point-of-purchase machines; and on the Internet. New voiceover opportunities are emerging as quickly as new technologies are developing, and actors are going to have to keep pace.
Perhaps the newest voice-over opportunity is with the newest voice technology in the world, which is currently under development at the cutting-edge San Francisco Bay Area firm Nuance. Specializing in voice-recognition software, Nuance already has clients such as Sears, UPS, Bell Atlantic, General Electric, and American Airlines. Voice-prompts ("If you want the billing department, press 1") and voice-recognition may seem old hat, but Nuance is pushing the technology's flexibility so that, in the future, users will be able to speak full-sentence, everyday English to surf through telephone-screening systems, the Internet, and whatever other technology comes down the pike. And that canned voice on the other end of the wire will eventually sound a lot different, too.
"We are currently in dialogue with voice-talent agencies about how unique it is to record system prompts as opposed to advertisements or even touch-tone-operated services," explains Rebecca Nowlin, dialogue design expert for Nuance. "While some aspects are the same, like the ability to link up separate recordings with correct intonation, yet have them sound fluid-for example, the digits of an account number-others are very unique. For example, since there are certain responses a voice prompt is designed to recognize, the prompts need to be recorded such that the delivery indicates exactly what the user should say in response. Also, it's been damn hard to find a voice we consider "conversant.' Most of the people I've been listening to are informative, overtly cheerful, directive. So many people adopt this persona when they're doing prompts, and it sounds acted and forced. No one seems to be able to relax and imagine they are in an actual conversation with a user," Nowlin complains.
Nowlin says that the performers who could master these skills could quickly turn a huge profit with voice-prompt design firms who are turning away otherwise commercially viable voices every day. However, she warns that becoming "The Voice" for a company like Bell Atlantic may be more than an actor is bargaining for. "There's a lot of customer service and commitment involved. I actually turned down an offer to record a customer's product "at any cost' because I couldn't guarantee the time to record last-minute additions or changes at the drop of a hat," she explains.
Deborah Duckette, owner of Austin, Texas-based DB Talent, represents the voice talents who serve Southwestern Bell and Pacific Bell. "Yes, it is the difference between night and day [compared to standard voice work] and, yes, those people do make a mint," she confirms. Duckette says that voice-prompt work can be difficult to cast in part because of the innate secrecy of the high-tech industry. "We aren't always privy to what the end use is going to be," she explains, adding that certain types of technology respond better to lower-register voices; but she does not always know enough about what a company is looking for to send the right voice its way.
New Coaching for New Talent
Tim Walsh, president of Jingle Phone out of Chicago, which acts as a talent agent for technology companies like Nuance, agrees that a new type of voice talent is needed for voice prompts. Training that talent will require a new kind of coaching. He continues, "There are people that can latch onto it and some that don't get it. If you've got a radio personality, you'll never get it out of him. So coaching is important because this is really more of a niched arena."
Walsh admits, though, that the pay scale in the industry is not yet up to AFTRA (American Federation of Radio and Television Artists) standards of $230 an hour for multimedia work. "Voice recognition is still on the cusp," he says. "I believe IP phone will bring it into the mainstream." "IP phone" stands for Internet phone, a technology that allows users to check email and surf the net over the telephone, using voice prompts and their own voices to choose options. Sites like http://www.mytalk.com are already providing the ability to check email by telephone.
Even now voice-work competition is stiff in the technology industry, because actors must overcome the status quo of using in-house voices, like Nowlin's, for lucrative work. For voice talent to truly break into the voice-prompt industry, voice-over actors, coaches, and agents will have to surmount a steep learning curve.