Foreign Voices is pleased to announce that we are going to be working closely with Alchemy, run by partners Barry Grint and Rowan Laxton.
More on the audio side of the business (central London recording studios specialising in localization, foreign language voice-over talent, dubbing and translation) in a later blog update but did you know that Senior Engineer Barry Grint has been Mastering for almost 30 years and has a track record that speaks for itself including hits for Madonna, Bon Jovi, Sir Paul McCartney, David Bowie and Guns n Roses to name but a few. Possibly the ultimate accolade came at this years Brit Awards where the Oasis album mastered by Barry was voted by the public the best album of the past 30 years. Alchemy also offer an emastering service, where files are sent via the internet for Alchemy to master. Recent international emastering projects have come from such diverse locations as America, India, Netherlands and Australia. To find out more about mastering give Barry a call on +44 (0)20 7248 2777 or email him at mastering@alchemysoho.com.

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Weightwatchers TV commercial for Holland.
Artist Saskia, agency Mccann Erickson.
Commercials are core business at Foreign Voices and we have a range of usage incentives and deals that when calculated alongside a basic session fee of £200 make a compelling case for planning your foreign campaigns and localization work with us.
We also offer an excellent studiosolution in St Pauls at highly competitive rates. For more information please phone James on 020 7517 3550.

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My name is James Bonallack and I’ve been booking, producing, directing and paying for voice-over sessions since 1986 when I set up my first agency in my front room in north London. I was two years out of university and drawn into a world of sophisticated foreign actors, journalists and broadcasters who were the first generation of voice talent to populate an exciting new foreign language voice-over community that has since grown into today’s multi billion pound localization industry.

I dug out an old file from 1986 and something interesting became apparent. All our talent was UK based and most were men that had come into voice-overs from a BBC World Service radio background. With no disrespect intended they now sound as quaintly old fashioned to today’s younger audiences as a 1940s pathé newsreel sounds to me! But times were good. The industry operated almost as a little club and £150 per hour was a lot of money in the 80s by any measure.

But hold on a minute, voice over artists are still charging £150 an hour in 2009 and the same is true for studios - 20 years later we are all still on 1980 rates. How did this happen and what can we say is coming round the corner?

Media deregulation and the growth of satellite television opened up international television markets and with the arrival of the internet the localization industry really gathered pace as corporate clients started to see the value of online corporate training. Things were changing quickly in Ad land too.

In the first six months of 2009 Foreign Voices worked on 10 full advertising campaigns for European TV with artists receiving four (and in a one case five) figure usage deals for their voice-overs. Nescafé, Xbox, Burger King and others still play well to a television audience but for every advert on television we’re doing three or four virals for the internet. And those virals are of course aimed at a younger demographic with more disposable income. Pepsi, Disney, Sony, Samsung, Mattel - a long list of blue chip companies are stampeding to the internet to reach their audiences.

From the point of view of localization, voice-over talents are working more than ever before. I think it’s probably true to say that for every voice-over session in 1989 there are 10 today - a growth of 1000% in 20 years. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that statistic but that’s certainly what it feels like.

So it must surely follow that today’s voiceover artist is markedly better off than his or her 1980s counterpart? Not so; the pool of talent has become an ocean.

The localization industry has matured into a dynamic global business with centres in London, Los Angeles, Brussels, Mumbai, New York and half a dozen other cities. This means that rates have been globalized and the UK voice-over industry has become just another cost centre with our rates having to stand constant comparison with those talents who are working in territory.

For example a Brazilian voice living and working in the UK needs to understand that there are American and Brazilian studios offering the same service at up to a 50% saving. We are held to ransom by exchange rates, the credit crunch, declining budgets and the cheap availability of competent talent working with widely available technologies that are increasingly affordable for home use including Protools, Source Connect and a host of other home studio solutions.

So today’s voice-over artist has to adapt and find a way to offer a creative service (we’re in this business for the fun factor remember) but at a globally competitive price.

My diagnosis: ever decreasing rates; the end of the “hourly” rate which is being replaced by a fee per word or a fee per audio minute as clients seek to compare suppliers and seek out those who are most productive and above all cheapest.

The good news is that voices, agents and sound studios can be certain of a busy future if they adapt to the high volume, low cost model that confronts us. The voices that aren’t prepared to take this on board will find that, however good they are, their phones will stop ringing.

Now where’s that voice in Brazil’s ISDN number gone again…

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