C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 85
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Conclusion
Getting to work on many shorter jobs
with a wide variety of clients keeps my job
interesting and fun. I love that I have the
ability to wear many different hats in the
process every day. What I've learned most
working in commercials is that, while
mixing with your ears is important, it's a
good idea to also keep in mind where your
material is going to play—and maybe keep
checking those meters as well.
Here are some screen shots from a
recent commercial campaign titled
"Pizza" for the food delivery and
pickup company Postmates.
You can
listen to (and watch) the ad on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=gDc-6FiZyEs
Choosing VO Tag Selects
An example of how a VO artist will do
several takes of a single line. Together
with the writer, we choose the take of each
version that has the performance they are
looking for.
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Building VO Versions
This is fully staged, but while building
voiceover options, I generally stack
different voiceover takes and mute and
unmute to make sure the different options
will match for tone and timing.
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Building Mix Versions
Here is a picture of a couple versions
of a 30-second Postmates spot I mixed
called "Pizza" that has several different
lengths and voiceover end tags designed
to play in different markets. The third audio
track from the top is called "Edit Guide." I
like to create a blank group region and edit
on the grid to mark the edit points. I find this
helps me re-conform from the longer length
spots down to the shorter versions.
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