Drop the mic!

Sometimes there are very ambiguous briefings for voice-overs! The client has huge stylistic requests, most of them contradictory.

“This voice-over must be calm, energetic, inspiring and informative. Please have a serious and jovial tone that convinces a person to buy this product without being a commercial voice-over”.

Honestly, the guidelines don’t really help…

Sometimes, at the same time, the client shows me the video in the original language, in which it can be seen that my fellow colleague foreign voice talent did it his own way, probably after being as confused as I was reading the briefing. But at least I know that version was approved, so I emulate the style of my colleague.

A few years ago, I had one of these projects and the outcome was… Ambiguous…

I recorded the voice-over and sent it to the client. Answer: “Marcos, that sentence in the middle is not quite what we wanted. Can you record according to our instructions in the briefing?”. The conflicting guidelines…

Not really knowing what to do, I recorded with another style. Customer response: “Marcos, it’s so much better! But try to be a little more serious and confident and, at the same time, looser and more colloquial”. As if the initial contradictory indications were not enough…

As I was even more puzzled, I didn’t record anything else. I changed the name of the audio file I made the first time and sent it again, without any changes.

Customer response:

“Marcos, it’s perfect!”

Please believe me! This happened!

It is always better to take a perfectly risky and safe approach. Or not.