Blog post written by The Voice Realm client Dominic White about his experience using the site to have his Sundance film entry narrated.
DSKNECTD is a documentary about communication in the digital age. If you’ve ever had to compete for the attention of a friend preoccupied with texting. If you’ve ever seen an entire evening slip away trolling through Facebook status updates. If you’ve ever wondered if something fundamental is changing about the way we communicate with each other. This documentary is for you.
DSKNECTD explores the promise and problems associated with digital communication. But it was also a documentary with a problem of its own. My name is Dominic White, the filmmaker behind DSKNECTD. And this is the story of how The Voice Realm came to my rescue in the proverbial ‘nick of time.’
With two weeks to go before submission to Sundance 2013 the voice talent I had been counting on fell through. Being that Sundance is the premiere film festival in the United States a compromise on the voice talent was just not an option. I quickly moved to plan B and attempted to find alternate talent in Los Angeles. Of course now at the end of the project the budget for voice talent was going to be, shall I say, ‘constrained.’
I used a popular industry website and within a day received a number of responses. But for my budget the respondents were almost exclusively amateur. When I finally received a commitment from a professional voice actor, but he surprised me the following day with requests for studio time and other expenses. Plan B was now out and with three days before my mix session mild panic was setting in.
On a whim I searched for voice over services via the Internet. After wading through a number of unimpressive (and expensive) sites I came across The Voice Realm. Intrigued I did a quick search and was blown away not only at the variety and premium quality of the voices but also the fast turnaround.
The next pleasant surprise was the pricing: it was within my ‘constrained’ budget.
That night I submitted my script and by the next morning I had multiple options for test reads. Within 30 minutes of approving the test I started receiving dry tracks; within four hours I had everything. There were a few small corrections that needed to be made and these were handled professionally and quickly at no extra cost right on time for my mix. Everything from submitting the script, communicating with the talent, receiving the files and submitting corrections occurred seamlessly through the site. It was truly ‘no hassle.’
During the session at Sony Pictures Post the re-recording engineer specifically asked, “Where did you get the narrator? His voice is perfect for this!” And I agree. Without The Voice Realm the quality of DSKNECTD would have been compromised. All the hard work, effort and energy required to hit the Sundance submission deadline could have had a shadow cast over it because of an amateur narrator track.
In a few months I will find out if DSKNECTD has made the final cut at Sundance. If it does The Voice Realm and my voice talent John will have played a significant part in making that happen. And for that I will owe them a debt of gratitude.
(For more information about DSKNECTD and to view the trailer, please visit www.DSKNECTD.com)
To help Dominic fund his documentary visit : http://www.indiegogo.com/dsknectd
