Voice-Over Career: Money & Reality

How Much Can I Make? — Real Jobs. Real Stories. Career Insights

Heike Bachmann shares her 30-year journey in the voiceover industry, detailing how she transitioned from a German literature graduate to a profess

Key takeaways

• Voiceover requires precise timing and emotional delivery, especially when syncing with visuals or other recorded voices.
• German is significantly more wordy than English, making translation and timing adjustments essential in dubbing projects.

Main topics

• Voiceover career path and industry entry
• Lip-syncing and timing in dubbing

Notable quotes

If there's a live recording, if you worry about the next word, you are messing up the one that you are trying to say right now. You have to give each word, each syllable, you have to imbue with life, with energy.

Conclusion

Heike Bachmann's story illustrates that voiceover careers are accessible

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:03) If there's a live recording, if you worry about the next word, you are messing up the one that you are trying to say right now. You have to give each word, each syllable, you have to imbue with life, with energy. Speaker 1 (0:16) Hi, welcome back to How Much Can I Make, the podcast about jobs and careers. I'm your host, Mirav Uzeri. Can your voice make you thousands of dollars for just a few hours of work? Well, my guest today... Heike Bachmann is doing just that. She fell into voiceover almost by accident. She turned it into a 30-year thriving career. Today, she tells us what the job is really like, the pay, the demand, the opportunities, and whether AI is about to change everything. So, let's hear it from Heike. Thank you so much for being on the show. I was looking for a voiceover artist for a very long time. That Speaker 2 (0:58) is such a surprise because I think there are many out there. Speaker 1 (1:01) I know. It took time. Thanks for Fatima that introduced us. So first of all, for people that don't know the industry, what exactly a professional voiceover is? Speaker 2 (1:11) Usually what you do is you get a script and often a video. That is already shot and a script with time codes. Then you are recording, you're bringing the script to life with your voice. In my case, there often is already an English voice with the video and I have to lay the German over. Speaker 1 (1:31) That's it. I can hear your accent. So you do German voiceover. Speaker 2 (1:35) Yes. I would say 90 % of what I do is German voiceovers and 10 % sometimes some multinational companies want to get a continental European accent. Speaker 1 (1:46) Oh, in English. Speaker 2 (1:47) In English, exactly. So, for example, I once had this already a long time ago, so I can talk about it. I had a job for Pfizer, a biological research report that they wanted to send out. And Pfizer has subsidiaries all over the world. And they said to me, they don't like when they're being, they feel talked down to when they get everything always in American English. So we would like it in English so everybody understands, but with an accent. So they all feel, oh, OK, it's somebody like us who chose. speaks well English. Yes, Speaker 1 (2:17) it Speaker 2 (2:17) makes Speaker 1 (2:17) sense. How does a woman from Munich end up in New York and doing voiceover? Yeah, very Speaker 2 (2:24) good question. I came over first on a practical training visa. I had studied German literature, got my master's degree in Munich, and I had a little part-time job during the time at university at a publishing house as a student. Doing what? Proofreading editions, microfiche editions that were recording. parliamentary sessions in Germany. Speaker 1 (2:46) And Speaker 2 (2:47) while I was not interested in the law, I have to admit, but I wanted to get international experience. And I saw that they had one book that they published with an American publishing house. Back then it was called Matthew Bender. So I went to my editorial director and I said, do you think there's a chance I can do a year overseas in this publishing house and just get my resume going? He sent back then still a fax. Speaker 2 (3:12) To Charlie Morrow, who was the editorial director in New York City. And he said, yeah, come on over. Let's see what we can do with you. I just fell in love with New York and life in New York. I have to say what started out as a practical training ended up in a 13-year career in legal publishing. Voiceovers fell in my lap already in the first year almost. What Speaker 1 (3:32) was the first job you did as a voiceover? As a Speaker 2 (3:35) voiceover? Hilarious. I voiced a video that is being played in Germany. in American embassies in Germany or in consulates. So if Germans go to get a visa for America, they go to the American consulate in Germany. But they see a video about life in New York or about the West Coast. And the voiceover has to be in German, of course. So that was my very first job. Speaker 1 (4:01) So who hired you for that? The State Department? They probably Speaker 2 (4:05) were the ultimate client, but it was an agency in New York City. And the way it came about is that I started teaching German at a Berlitz language school. And they said, after a week or so, they said, you know what, you have a good German voice. Once in a while we get a request for voiceovers. Can you give us a tape? I didn't even know what a voiceover was. A voice who? And back then I had friends in the jazz world in New York and somebody recorded my voice and I handed in my little cassette tape with my telephone number. And then it was quiet for two, three years and I completely forgot about it. And Speaker 1 (4:42) then one day my phone Speaker 2 (4:44) in the office rings. Oh Speaker 1 (4:46) my God, that's so funny. Are you still doing voiceovers? And Speaker 2 (4:49) I was like, I never had done one. And of course I had to say, sure, the American way. Speaker 2 (4:57) And then that's it. They said we sent you a VHS tape. And the script. And then you show up next week, three o'clock. The first recording, interesting, was in the Citibank Tower in Queens. I don't know if you know that. Back then, at least, had a voice studio on the top floor. And the client had booked the studio for three hours because it was very intricate. Sometimes I had to actually lip sync over a Chinese policewoman in Chinatown and lip sync the voices. But being German, I overprepared. And I showed up and we were done in less than an hour. And that was the beginning. Speaker 1 (5:33) But you said something interesting, overprepared. I want to know, how do you prepare? Somebody comes to you for a job, let's say the German consulate. What does it take before you even start recording? How do you prepare for a job like that? Speaker 2 (5:46) Yes. So back then, I prepared much more than I do now, actually. Now I prefer almost a little more cold reading. But what I did, so basically, I watched the video several times. And each video had the second. and the tenths of seconds and the milliseconds. And then I have a script. And then you look exactly how much time do I have? When does the mouth open and the mouth close again? I have to be done. And that is pretty intricate. So when you start out. I highly advise to spend a lot of time with it. And then later you can find out that there is a muscle somewhere up there that helps you if you have it. I never knew I had it. And somehow it became intuitive for me to watch the video a couple of times, look at the script while I watch the video back and forth, and then just let it flow. Speaker 1 (6:35) So, okay, they give it to you in the German language. Yeah. Do you do anything with the translation? Do you correct them? Do you fix Speaker 2 (6:42) it a little bit? Usually. Usually not until you have the session. You're in the sound booth with a sound engineer and the sound engineer says, you are two seconds over. Then I try to read faster. Then the sound engineer said, we are still a second over. And that's when you then talk with the client or the agency or sometimes there's a linguistic director. You say, we have to change the script. We don't always have the permission. So when I recorded for Pfizer, it had to go through. gasoline legal department there was nothing we could change they had to actually adjust the video that happens sometimes to the visuals right to the extent but often the problem is that german is about 30 percent more wordy than english you Speaker 1 (7:26) actually have to see when they close the mouth so your mouth will be closed with a word yes Speaker 2 (7:31) if Speaker 1 (7:31) you do lip syncing Speaker 2 (7:32) which was my first job was already the hardest job later it got much easier didn't always Speaker 1 (7:38) Do you ever have to work with dialogue? Like somebody else says something and you have to say, so it's more of a timing issue? Speaker 2 (7:45) Yes, I love dialogue. But it's the same thing when, for example, people record a jazz or pop album. You go into the studio by yourself and you hear them, but they're not necessarily in the studio with you. So I sometimes go in and the male voice is already recorded and then I come in. And do my part. And then the male voice comes back in. So Speaker 1 (8:06) that brings me to the question. Did you have to study acting? I didn't have to. I later took a Speaker 2 (8:12) couple of acting classes just for fun on the weekends. I still had a corporate career. I went actually in my lunchtime to my voiceover studios. I think it's almost a hindrance to have acting background. And I'll tell you why. I have a couple of... colleagues, they're amazing actors and I've recommended them for voiceovers sometimes and it's just not working. It's for some reason, very rarely is a good actor also a good voiceover, very rarely. And vice versa, I'm a horrible actress by the Speaker 1 (8:45) way. Speaker 2 (8:46) But I'm a good voice actor. I'm really good with voice so I have no qualms saying that. And I feel more comfortable when the door closes and there's just me. And the microphone, the headset, I hear my heartbeat, my breath. I calm down and I feel liberated. And it's a very different environment than being an actor. So what kind of training did you have to get? Very good question also. I think in my case what happened is our parents read a lot to us and then encouraged us as children. to Speaker 1 (9:22) read Speaker 2 (9:22) out loud. Out loud. So we did always the season leading up to Christmas, we were, when it's winter and you're doing little crafts, crafty things at home, I was always the one reading out loud. I loved it. I loved it. I just loved reading and reading out aloud. And then I ended up studying literature because I love words and reading. But Speaker 1 (9:45) you do things, like you said, for Pfizer and you did some commercial, you did some for Google. These are all very dry kind of things, like especially if you read medical stuff. Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:56) So Speaker 1 (9:57) what do you do to liven it? I Speaker 2 (9:59) just want to say that's where the art comes in, is to actually imbue that with life. as a dry text like that. And it's really, I think you can see the humanity in everything. That's how you go about that as well. If it's like a clinical trial where it says, if patient is many years old, Speaker 1 (10:17) you give five milligrams Speaker 2 (10:19) of Paxlitaxel or something, okay, there's only so much you can put into that. But a biomedical research report that talks about how they were able to provide clean water in certain areas in Africa, it's very moving. And other things that are very moving, talking about that. Museum audio tours that I did quite a bit. And there was one particular one for the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. I heard it in English, Speaker 1 (10:45) actually. Oh, Speaker 2 (10:46) yeah, you did. Yeah. It was an incredible one. It was called Journey to