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- it's simply formatted differently. The trick is to look for copy that mirrors the better ads you've heard on radio and TV; by "better", I mean copy that stands apart from the same old advertising cliches ("plenty of free parking" or "our friendly, knowledgable staff"), and grabs the listener.

Finding Narration material is equally simple; go to the website of nearly any large company, and you'll likely find an "About Us" or "Mission Statement" section. It's not uncommon for that same material to be used by the company for training and promotional audio, so take advantage of a ready-made resource. (Be cautious, however, of actually using the company name in the demo.)

A Character demo should be more than just audio of you doing funny voices; this is where your acting chops really come into play. Use copy that requires you to get inside the character, and create the voice from within that. Also keep in mind that the Character demo is something of a "specialty", even within VO work; several voice artists do plenty of work without ever pretending to be a frog. If certain types of characters or accents or dialects aren't your strong suit, by all means leave them on the shelf for now, and showcase the strengths you do have.

That's all for now. Best of luck, and lay off the dairy products...

Learn more about this author, David Houston.
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