Choosing your voice reel script

Choosing your voice reel script can be a super fun and creative task. For some people however, it can be a really difficult and complicated challenge.

Sidebar: If you choose to create your voice reel with us, we’ll take care of selecting scripts for you, taking into consideration the unique qualities of your natural voice, your range and ambitions.

Should you be preparing to create your own reel, or in a situation where you need to source your own scripts, the points below make it simple and easy to enjoy the process of pulling together the scripts for voice reels.

Before you dive in, it’s important that you’ve read and understood our discussion of the types of voice reel HERE.

Choosing your voice reel script

Practical steps to choosing the scripts for your voice reel. There are three principles that apply to all types of voice reel:

1. Understand your voice – this is actually a topic in its own right which we’ve written about HERE.
2. Go big, or go home – think about national and international brands with recognisable campaigns. Which of these brands does your voice lend itself to well? Think about what characters, accents and impersonations you can nail. Consider the types of stories, narratives or complex ideas that you’re great at communicating. This reel is about getting an agent’s (and eventually casting directors’, directors’ and producers’) attention and we’re going to do that both literally and subliminally. Set the foundation of where you want your voiceover career to go.
3. Variety is the spice of life – your reel is going to be around 90 seconds, but if your first two clips are too similar, it’s unlikely anyone will listen further. Range is everything if you want to build a sustainable career for yourself.

But where do I find my ad copy?!

We know how daunting this aspect can be. Here are our tried and true methods:

• There are a couple different websites where you can find ad copy for a variety of brands. Great starting place is Edge Studio’s Script Library.
• If you’re using those, we highly recommend you rewrite/make cuts/smash ads together as a lot of VO artists use these sites and you want your reel to be entirely original.
• Another great thing to do is watch ads on Youtube, transcribe and edit them–swap out some verbs, some descriptive words and maybe even replace one brand for a similar one.
• Finally, get a few magazines, rip out the pages with ads on them and chop up that copy to create a VO ad for the brand.

Choosing your Commercial Voice Reel Scripts

A Commercial Voice Reel demonstrates your ability to read advertising copy in various different sectors such as Food & Beverage (food/alcohol brands, restaurant chains), Kids & Family (toys, amusement parks, pet food), Retail (beauty products, clothing, homewares, jewellery, office supplies) , Travel (airlines, hotels, tours), Tech (computers, phones, software, apps, gadgets), Finance (banks, insurance, credit cards), Vehicle & Transport (car brands, train companies, bicycle brands), and so on!. Things to remember when sourcing your scripts:

1. Audience & marketing – it’s worth having an idea about the relationship between your voice and the intended audience/market of the product you’re selling i.e. a deep raspy growl might not be appropriate for selling Cherry Buttercup Fairies and a high pitch squeal doesn’t fit well with a luxury £40k BMW (unless it’s a comic script!?). Think about the connection of your particular vocal qualities and the purpose of the ad.
2. Timing is everything -each piece of copy should be no longer than 10-15 seconds max when read out loud. That’s roughly 30 to 45 words at three words a second. (In fact, many online ads are a mere 6 seconds, so including something very brief that shows you can get to the point and land a tagline is a good addition too).
3. Hack back – don’t be afraid to chop things up, move things out, make things up. This bit can be very creative!
4. Final product – the final reel will ultimately be around 90 seconds long with around 5-6 examples of copy. In other words, you’ll have 5-6 fake ads.

Now you know the specifics, go out and listen for examples. Listen to Spotify Premium, listen to private radio stations with commercials, watch the TV just for the ads, tear ads from newspapers and magazines, keep a keen eye and ear out there for the vast amount of copy we consume on a daily basis and make a note. Youtube is also a great source to watch legacy ad campaigns.

It’s good to have access to this information, if not for the material for your voice reel but also for your practice. Listening to real adverts and commercials is the best way to mimic and learn the phrasing of successful VO artists. We discuss this and more, in a lot more detail, when you download our ‘Create Your Own Voice Reel’ Ebook HERE.

Choosing your Corporate & Narrative Voice Reel Scripts

Our Corporate & Narrative Voice Reel service blends the worlds of corporate, audiobook and documentary/narrative dipping into sectors such as: Announcements, Training, E-learning, Medical, Public Sector, Non-Profit, Tours/Travel etc. Things to remember when sourcing your scripts:

• Audiobook – This one’s easy. Find a book you like, choose a section that dips in and out of dialogue and narrative. Simple. Creating an audiobook sample for your reel is really useful if you want to show off character voices without doing a character reel. It’s slightly more subtle than a character reel however as the jumps between narration and character needs to be coherent with the overall tone of the read. It’s worth having a couple of sections from at least two different books, with sections of around 250 words.
• Documentary – What’s an area that interests you? History? Science? Health? Find what you’re interested in and go down a rabbit hole. Again, you’re only looking for 250 words. If this is your attempt at being the next David Attenborough then watch David Attenborough, pick up a book on nature and find something in that. You can pull text off the internet, transcribe part of a documentary or read from a book. Make sure to edit it to make it your own. Obviously documentaries can have a more direct relationship with the listener than say an audiobook (depending on the book) so you might want to demonstrate that.
• Corporate – Here is an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to read lists, terms and conditions, privacy policies, HR policy, inclusion and diversity training, financial reports etc. You could read instruction manuals, medical reports, health and safety articles, the list is endless and the internet is full of them! If you can loop it back in with recognisable brands too then you’re winning. For example, take a look at one of your favourite tech brands help centre and create a short instructional script to read.

Character Voice Reel scripts

Character Voice Reels show off the scope of your character voices and accents, ranging from your natural voice to the uber wacky. Things to remember when sourcing your scripts:

1. No half measures – This is just a repetition of the more general point above about going big or going home, but nowhere is it more true than the Character Voice Reel. We all know the Spinal Tap reference about turning the amp up to 11, well this is the reel that needs to be at 11 (not in terms of volume, but in terms of performance).
2. Are your accents actually good? – It’s all very well being told you can do a good Scottish accent down the pub, but considering producers can just hire a Scottish actor is it really worth your time adding that to your reel? It might be! We just want you to weigh up all of your voices, characters and accents in priority order in terms of what is the most unique and what can you consistently deliver well for long periods of time
3. Accents vs Characters – we have made Character Voice reels of just accents, just characters and a mix of both. Maybe some of your characters have accents, maybe some of your accents have characters… Who knows. Both are acceptable. What is not acceptable is taking on the accent of a marginalised group of which you are not a part of, cultural tropes and stereotypes. Not only are these boring and dated, but they won’t get you through the door with agents and we’re not prepared to make them. That being said, we will help you navigate the complexities of these understandable and important sensitivities.

If you’d like to read up on why white actors are no longer playing global majority characters, check out the following pieces and do your own research too: