Are you a content creator looking for ways to make your podcast, videos, or other content more entertaining to watch or listen to?
If so, this interview is for you.
Kelly Jean Badgley is a professional voice-over actor from Los Angeles, and in this interview she tells us exactly how we can get a professional voice-over for our podcast, video, audio book, or other digital content.
You already know it’s important to make your content as engaging as possible.
What you may not know is how to hire and work with a voice-over actor to get professional sounding voice overs like Hollywood uses.
In this interview Kelly walks us through the process of hiring a voice-over actor to produce quality audio content to help us gain more exposure and present ourselves in a more professional light.
She talks about why it’s important and also what the process is like working with a voice-over actor.
Near the end of the interview I’m going to play the audio intro and outro Kelly created for the special interview series within Enhancing the Human Experience, called A World of Creativity.
A World of Creativity is co-hosted by myself and Mark Stinson where we talk with successful people from around the world to find out how they get and stay inspired and how they apply creativity in their business and their life.
I couldn’t be happier with this intro and outro. It adds so much to the overall listening experience and is a really nice change from my own voice throughout.
Kelly is also the voice of Scarlett in the awesome children’s book, Scarlett’s Journey: The Adventures of a Runner Duck, written by the multi-talented Becky Dembowski.
If you’re thinking of incorporating a voice-over into your content, you can contact Kelly by visiting her website at kellyjeanbadgley.com
Until next time, all the best!
Mark
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Transcript
Mark:
Hi there. I’m Mark Phillips. If you’re a content creator or a podcaster, or maybe you’ve written a book and you want someone to narrate your book in a super awesome, entertaining way, Kelly Jean Badgley is your person. Kelly, thanks for hanging out with me.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah. Of course. Thank you for having me.
Mark:
So, you live down in the entertainment capital of the world from what I see. You’re a voiceover artist and professional looper. Let’s start off with what a voiceover artist and a looper is. Until you told me, I’d never heard of it.
Kelly Jean:
People don’t know, yeah. I’m a professional voiceover artist. I’ve been working in Los Angeles for almost ten years now. When I first started out, I came from Chicago doing theater, mime, clown, lots of improv everywhere even internationally. Then I was like, “It’s time to move to LA like every actor does.” Making the trek. Just I felt like it was time. I’d done a lot of stuff in Chicago and I was like, “I’m ready to go. California.” So, I went to California. The first year that I was there, I came back home because I’m from Louisiana. In my Christmas stocking, my family, or Santa, gave me a class to take voiceover. I remember opening it up and I was like, “What? This is something that I’ve always wanted to do. I didn’t even know I’ve always wanted to do this, and I just didn’t even know.”
Kelly Jean:
So, I took my first voiceover classes at the Radio Ranch, which is like a really famous radio place with Dick Orkin. He did a lot of radio ads and stuff. From there, I had an amazing teacher, Eliza Jane Schneider, who I’m sure you’ve heard her voice on so many things. She was a voice for a lot of the characters on South Park, like all the female characters for a long time.
Kelly Jean:
So, I trained with her. She was like, “You can do little boy voices.” I was like, “Oh, I can?” I always realized that I kind of had this androgynous sound in my voice, even though I can go high, I can go low. It’s like-
Mark:
You have some range.
Kelly Jean:
There’s a range. There’s a lot of range there, which we’ll come back to later when it comes to animation, because it’s really fun.
Mark:
Because I know you do so many different things.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah. From there, I got an agent. I put some demos together. I got an agent, and I’ve just been building and building and building and building and building. I’ve got a studio set up in my home, so I record a lot at home. I also go to the studio.
Kelly Jean:
Then with looping, I fell into that whole world … Looping is the background sound for film, TV, animation, commercials even, podcasts you can use that. They call it walla. It’s like background voices. When you see extras in a film, they’re not talking. They’re just flapping their lips.
Mark:
So, we listen to lopping and this walla all the time. We don’t even know that’s what it is.
Kelly Jean:
All the time. It’s even very subtle like breaths. If someone’s running, we’ll do the breaths very light. You’ll do lip smacks. You’ll do efforts like people getting hit, all that. Then the smacks, and the jingles and all that, that’s a lot of foley. They have been foley rooms where they have sandpits.
Mark:
I’ve heard of that term before.
Kelly Jean:
So crazy.
Kelly Jean:
I have a company, LoopTown, and we have an amazing roster of talent. There’s lot of voice artists. A voice artist is actually an actor, an improvisor, a creative person, a storyteller. We’ll come back to that. We have a great roster of talent, and it’s really funny when you get to loop stuff.
Mark:
I can imagine.
Kelly Jean:
…people walking by in the background. You have to start really boring, because it’s just boring dialogue. It ends up we’re just laughing so hard.
Mark:
Yeah, you’re using your creativity. I’m sure that’s hilarious to go work every day making these sounds.
Mark:
That’s so awesome. You’ve worked on a number of projects, Motown Magic, The Loud House Nickelodeon series. You have your company LoopTown. Audio book narrator for people who want to have children’s books.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of children’s books lately.
Mark:
Podcasts, videos, YouTube. I should say that later in the video, we’re going to play the audio intro and outro that you made for my podcast with the collaborative series I’m working on with Mark Stinson. That is his brainchild called A World of Creativity. Super awesome intro/outro. I love it. It makes the piece so much more entertaining.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah. It pumps you up.
Kelly Jean:
He chose the music, and then I heard the music. Then they gave me the script and we put it together, and it was really fun.
Mark:
It was super easy to work with you. That’s one of the things that I was in the mind of, “What do I say writing a script?”, all this kind of stuff. You made it really easy in the sense that you kind of just … You do this, and so you took a lot of that burden off me. So, thank you.
Kelly Jean:
You want to make it right, because it’s your project.
Mark:
Let’s talk about why it’s important, and I think we touched on it a little bit, but why is voiceover and looping important to content creators, or filmmakers, or narrators?
Kelly Jean:
It brings it alive. It’s something really authentic, especially having all these different character voices in the background. It depends on what your brand is. What kind of content are you creating? A voiceover artist can bring the tone, what’s the tone. If it’s a commercial on the radio, it’s going to be high energy. If it’s an animation, sometimes they just want your normal voice. These days, they don’t even want it to be so crazy. Narration, you’re telling a story.
Kelly Jean:
It’s like what’s the texture of it? What’s the vibe? The voice artist will bring that alive no matter what it is. It’s a muscle you have to work, because the first time I ever did certain types of narration, I do a bunch of narration for these YouTube channels, I don’t even have to read through the script. I already know the tone, and I can read it. It’s almost like a reporter for a young kid’s channel or a teenager’s channel. You’re kind of like E News, but that’s their tone. For medical narration, it’s something totally different. So, we know what the tone is, and then we bring it to life. It’s really fun.
Mark:
I can imagine. You’re going to talk about the process that people who want to hire you can go through to make that step, because I think it’s a lot of unknown. I didn’t know how it went. So, talk about what the process is like working with you.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah, it’s really easy. I mean, you jump on a phone call and we talk about, “What are you looking for? What are your needs? What’s your brand? What’s your deadline?” We just talk about how long is the copy that you want. Then I go through kind of the process of how I work. So, we’ll go over rates. There’s a great industry rate guide so that no one’s confused so you can see something that’s non-union and union is.
Kelly Jean:
A lot of the stuff with new content creators, beginners, it’s non-union stuff. So, you don’t have to worry about all the union stuff. Sometimes you can create your own rates depending on what your budget is. There is something called the GFAA Rate Guide, and you can look at that and you can look at everything you need on that from radio to e-learning to IVRs, which is like voicemail greetings and stuff like that, on hold messages, if you want that. That’s really fun stuff.
Mark:
Sky’s the limit when you’re talking about this kind of creative stuff.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah. Then I take the script once it’s all finished and I review it, and I go into the studio. Depending on how long it is, I have a pretty quick turnaround time. I mean, I do a lot of stuff in 24 hours, two days. If it’s really long, if it’s an audio book, obviously it takes a week, two weeks. It’s all about what are your needs, and I’m really easy about making it happen in an easy and fun way and creative and thoughtful.
Mark:
Yeah, like I said, it was easy. You sent me three options, A, B and C, and three sets of music, which I thought was perfect. Not too many. Not too little. Is that typical what you do for all of your clients?
Kelly Jean:
Sure, A, B and C recording. If I had any corrections, which we call pickups, then they’ll send me the correction. It might be like, “We say the name like this,” because sometimes there’s all kinds of stuff with pronunciations. So, that’s a lot of times when I’ll go over it with a client as well like, “How do you want this pronounced, tomato, tomato?” You know, data, data. There’s all kinds of little things that people are particular about.
Kelly Jean:
So, I go through it. I read it, go into the studio. Usually it’s nice to have an upfront … to pay a portion of it, and then the balance at the end. There’s an invoice sent out, a creative project brief beforehand to just know that we are all on the same page. It’s really easy.
Mark:
It was super easy. It was super easy. Like I said, I just listened to those a couple times, picked my favorite one, and it was done deal.
Kelly Jean:
I gather your information, and then I put it all together and get to work.
Mark:
So, we talked about some of the ways that content creators, or filmmakers, or authors can use you, but give us kind of another snapshot. Tell us what kind of people you’ve worked with or what people would benefit from your services?
Kelly Jean:
Some people don’t always realize that they need voiceover until they hear a sample. Even when it comes to businesses with voicemail greetings or on-hold messages, you don’t even realize you need that. That’s something that voiceover people provide all the time, and it can be very computery or it can be very casual. What tone?
Mark:
That’s something typically Sue from accounting does, but she’s not actor. Not to knock Sue from accounting, but come on
Kelly Jean:
No, no, no, not at all. It’s nice to have something professional. It makes your present yourself-
Mark:
It makes a big difference, because people are always looking at your content and going, “Okay, what’s the level? How much invested are they?” If it’s professional, they’re going to know.
Kelly Jean:
If it feels right for you, you’re like, “Yeah. I sound good.”
Mark:
It ups your game and brings your game up.
Kelly Jean:
Exactly.
Mark:
In today’s day and age, which is why we’re having this conversation, attention and content is so important in entertaining high quality-
Kelly Jean:
So much so.
Mark:
Because it’s so competitive.
Kelly Jean:
It’s like a first impression. First impressions are so important. When they can’t actually see you in person, How much do you care about how you look in the beginning.
Kelly Jean:
I have a little list – There’s so much media. There’s so much content. I do intros and outros for podcasts. I do a lot of character voices for all kinds of things. Depending on what your brand or product is, I mean, you can do voices for toys. I do voices for commercials. I did a Charlie Brown voice match years ago literally for like a Teleflora commercial where he’s just flying through the air at Christmas time at the ice skating rink. It’s like Snoopy, he slips and then Charlie Brown goes flying through the air and he’s like … So, I did a voice match of that. So strange, right?
Kelly Jean:
With animation, I do multiple voices. I’ll play a mom and a kid, or a teacher, or a little boy all in one episode. They call that a utility player. Especially with looping, you have to play all kinds of stuff.
Kelly Jean:
I don’t speak Spanish, but I will bring in Spanish and we will read it depending on … We’ll cast it appropriately with authentic Spanish speakers, but also I’ll bring in my own dialogue just so I can jump in because I direct the group. I mean, there’s all kinds of stuff you use your voices.
Mark:
Yeah. That’s why I say people don’t realize. Every day we hear it all the time … but unless you’re in that industry … Like I said, it’s behind the scenes but it’s so important.
Kelly Jean:
It’s so important. You’d be surprised how authentic you can get with looping. I mean, it’s really amazing. Then I do ads for podcasts or sponsorships. Everybody needs those in podcasts, because it’s like a … If you have your voice talking the whole time and then having another voice that’s opposite of that.
Mark:
It mixes it up. It gives it variety. It makes it more fun and engaging. Like I said, it just spices it up.
Kelly Jean:
It could be really seamless too depending on … Pandora’s so great, because they kind of changed their whole thing. They make it really seamless when an ad comes in in-between music. It’s really cool. You’re like, “Yeah, I love how this is happening.”
Mark:
It’s mixed in a little bit.
Kelly Jean:
Then there’s e-learning. There’s all kinds of different types of e-learning where you can do kid’s e-learning as well as adults. So, there’s like that whole I can go back and forth in that range. There’s narration for corporate, medical training videos. My company right now, we’re casting this huge project for sexual harassment, and there’s like over 40 characters.
Kelly Jean:
They’re doing some amazing things. I can’t talk about it a lot, but it’s such a cool project. In terms of casting too, if you’re looking for something specific, I do a lot of casting.
Mark:
Yeah, you can help people get what they want.
Mark:
You have a lot of this stuff on your website, by the way, which is where I listened to some of these commercial options and things. So, what is your website? Did we cover everything on your list first?
Kelly Jean:
Stop motion, dubbing. I did an animation recently, it was stop motion. It was really hard and really cool, because like the flip flaps, you have to match … I played a really cool 12 year old girl, so I can’t wait until that comes out.
Mark:
You have all your creative things that you’ve done on your website.
Kelly Jean:
Yeah. You can go to KellyJeanBadgley.com. You can find all my information there. If you want to email me. I think there’s even a Google number on there, so you can call me. I have a Google voice number. Email is the best way. If you want to contact me, just email me.
Kelly Jean:
Especially with questions too. If there’s new people that are out there that are like, “What do I do?”, if you’re a new voiceover person starting out, the best advice I can give you is go get behind the mic. Take a class somehow, somewhere. If you’re not in a place where there’s voiceover classes, then you can email me and I can actually find … maybe there’s a remote class. A lot of teachers teach remotely online, so you can really learn about that like commercial animation, whatever you want to do.
Mark:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, Kelly, thanks for hanging out with me.
