Its not what you read, its the way that you read it
Posted on November 4, 2010
Filed Under Voice Over | Leave a Comment
Sit back and listen to any radio ad break and you’ll discover that not only are there a squillion voice overs out there all vying for your attention, but also the way things are read.
For example the hard sell read is now a thing of the past on TV, but is still very much in use on local radio stations up and down the country. The hard sell read is a remarkable phenomenon. It’s based on the premise that if you are a voice over and get extremely excited and shout lots of prices, the people listening will get excited too and rush to respond.
Typical phrases include ” And there’s more” ” It’s the sale of sales” ” Now only 29.99″ and “unbelievable savings”
I am told in the 1980’s this was regarded as a remarkably popular thing to ask a voice over to do. Extraordinary amounts of energy were required by voice overs, and the hard sell read became a barometer of whether you were too old to do voice overs anymore. I remember being told by an actor that he simply felt he was “biologically too old” to do hard sell reads any more. And so voice overs become a conveyor belt constantly moving. the old ones fall off one end, while young ones come on at the other.
The hard sell read is almost dead. It’s evolved into a young club read often heard on Kiss or R&B stations. Scripts may read something like
“Fridays nights at Envy just got even better – with DJ twinny two decks spinning funky house in room one, Daisy Duke from the USA strutting her very own mix of progressive trance on level two, and of course cages, chillout rooms, and the famous bouncers kissing babies on the door – prices are VIP guestlist exclusive – £15 before 11, £30 thereafter. Loovvveee iiit”
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