The job is just sitting in an air-conditioned room, each word you say earns millions of dong.

"About a dozen people sat outside the studio and just waited for me to finish reading the 30-second dialogue," Mr. Ka Nguyen (30 years old, living in District 2, Ho Chi Minh City) recalled the moment he performed the advertising reading process for a major brand in Vietnam.

Previously, Mr. Ka only received the content exactly 5 minutes before the recording time. Ka had to concentrate all his efforts to research, find the highlights, and create emotions in each sentence. After entering the room, he read the content carefully 3 times and had it reviewed by the staff as well as the company's leaders.

"You can earn millions in just a few seconds, but this job requires voice talent when customers have strict terms," ​​Mr. Ka affirmed.

Ka Nguyen is a voice talent with more than 10 years of experience in the profession (Photo: NVCC).

Millions of dollars per second

"Voice talent" is a term used to refer to people with good voices who work in the advertising voice industry. This field has long had a huge demand for human resources, but finding good voice actors is like "looking for a needle in a haystack".

Mr. Ka shared that he was lucky to be born with a warm, deep, emotional voice. Realizing his advantage, he began to improve it when he grew up.

15 years ago, there weren’t many voice talent training schools. Ka often watched videos of famous presenters, practiced reading, recorded and corrected his pronunciation mistakes. He also honed his vocal skills to perfect his tones.

"People usually have different voices, ranges, and timbres, such as metallic (bright, sharp) and earthy (deep, warm) voices... By understanding voices, people will learn and gradually change to achieve the best reading voice," said Mr. Ka Nguyen.

Besides innate skills, voice talents also have to practice pronunciation, timbre, range, pitch... to achieve the best voice quality (Photo source: Pexels).

Similarly, Hoai Anh (24 years old) has been a voice talent for 5 years. From his passion to become an MC, the young man applied to the journalism and communications industry in Ho Chi Minh City. After working for a while, many customers liked his voice and asked Hoai Anh to support them with their advertising dialogues, helping him get into the profession.

With the great demand of the market, voice training courses are now flourishing. After the training, students can take on the positions of MC, read TVC commercials (video commercials), radio, audiobooks... According to Mr. Ka Nguyen, the income level depends on each job but is always attractive. Even in many cases, just reading a few seconds of dialogue, voice talents still earn tens of millions of dong.

"Every time I participate in a TVC, I earn from 4 to 7 million VND for 30 seconds. As soon as I leave the studio, the customer pays me right away," said Ka Nguyen.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hoai Anh was chosen by a brand to read a TVC in the form of healing the soul. Immediately after going through the recording process, he received a large sum of money.

"It must be said that the cost depends on the job and each brand, but a number of 6 or 7 zeros is normal," Hoai Anh said.

Hoai Anh once worked as a radio MC on the radio (Photo: NVCC).

Requires strict rules

Although it brings high income, voice talents share that the profession also requires many strict rules. Besides talent, voice talents always have to go through a long training process to achieve stability and uniqueness in their voice.

In addition, voice talents need to stay healthy, never drink ice water, or get caught in the rain to avoid losing their voice. "In my life, I always say no to alcohol, cigarettes, and chemicals to protect my health. At night, I limit the wind and close all the windows because just a sore throat or a change in voice color can lose an advertising contract," said Mr. Hoai Anh.

For customers, TVCs carry a special meaningful message for the brand, so they are always strict in choosing the voice. Mr. Ka Nguyen shared that customers can listen to dozens of voices for months just to choose the right person.

Despite the high income, according to Mr. Ka Nguyen, voice talents must have many strict rules to ensure the health and wishes of customers (Photo: NVCC).

The voice talent must then be tested before entering the main recording session, undergoing countless rounds of scrutiny by the company's staff and senior positions.

"Especially recently with short-term training courses, the number of voice talents has increased, creating fierce competition. Many companies, because of this, have oppressed and lowered prices, even choosing newcomers with fees only 1/10 of those of experienced voice talents," said Mr. Ka Nguyen.

The Threat of AI

Besides the human factor, the development of AI (artificial intelligence) also threatens the voice talent profession. Mr. Ka Nguyen said that currently, audiobook, newspaper, podcast, film narration services, etc. have all been replaced by smart readers to save maximum costs.

"Reading advertisements requires emotion, so voice talent can still survive, but anything can happen in the future and we could lose our jobs," said Ka Nguyen.

Today, the ad reading industry is under direct threat from AI (Photo source: Pexels).

Faced with this situation, Mr. Ka said that young people pursuing this career should create their own highlights and promote their strengths to convince customers.

"Everyone has their own unique voice, so how do you make customers choose you among the sea of ​​people? The emotion in each word makes you never be threatened by anything," Mr. Ka added.

Source link: https://dantri.com.vn/lao-dong-viec-lam/nghe-chi-ngoi-phong-may-lanh-moi-loi-noi-ra-thu-ve-ca-trieu-dong-20230930223905372.htm