 Rosi and Brian Amador, center, tour nationally with their award-
winning Pan-Latin band, Sol y Canto - when not recording
Spanish and English voice-overs. (Susan Wilson photo)
Bilingual Talent: 10 ‘Value Added’
Things For Pleasing Your Clients
By Rosi and Brian Amador
Voice Actors & Musicians
 In nearly 15 years of doing voice-over work – much of it in Spanish as well as English - we have had the good fortune to work with many repeat clients.Their projects have ranged from documentaries, eLearning and marketing to web tutorials, telephony and children’s audiobooks - as well as movies for museums.
 And many of these regulars have consistently pointed out that what makes their lives easier when working with us is that we offer reliable, high-quality product in less time. Following is a list of 10 things that we recommend you consider incorporating into your own voice-over work.
Some come from our upbringing and others we’ve learned and adopted over time. We have found they have added a great deal of value. Perhaps they can be useful to you, too.
WHAT CLIENTS WANT
Clients look for voice-over talent who can offer the following:
1. A neutral Latin American accent that will be intelligible to people of all Spanish-speaking origins.
2. A neutral North American accent that will be intelligible to all English speakers.
3. A native bilingual speaker who can comfortably recommend corrections and edits for a script translated from English that doesn’t yet sound natural.
The script may have translating errors (which happens frequently) or is overly long, since Spanish uses twice the verbiage of English! Clients may not always think of it beforehand, but they usually prefer not to have recordings of awkward or incorrect Spanish.
4. For bilingual scripts, a bilingual speaker who switches effortlessly between the two languages.
5. A professional home studio and the ability to deliver broadcast quality files via your own FTP site or the client’s, to meet deadlines, and to satisfy clients’ requests promptly, with a phone patch for any necessary coaching or supervision desired.
6. A great relationship with local sound studios for complex jobs and translators who can turn work over quickly.
7. The capacity to deliver files in the format and with the specifications the client needs, whether as mp3, wav, aiff, etc.
8. A network of well-established connections to other seasoned bilingual VO talents in the area who can help the client populate a project with the best people for the job.
9. A positive attitude and a sense that you’re on the same team; that you care as deeply as the client does about the end product.
10. Flexibility and good acting skills: the capacity to voice different types of characters, emotions, intentions, ages and paces, and an easygoing personality that responds well to coaching.
ABOUT ROSI AND BRIAN ...
 Rosi and Brian Amador have been voicing English and Spanish scripts since 1996, for clients including PBS, WGBH-Boston, National Geographic School Publishing, Houghton Mifflin, Comcast, Motorola, Staples and many more. They also provide translation services and a network of voice-over colleagues for multiple voice projects. They particularly enjoy narrating for documentaries and children’s audiobooks, voicing different characters. Rosi – of Argentine and Puerto Rican heritage – and Brian, of Mexican heritage, are also 25-year veteran Latin music recording artists, touring nationally with their Pan-Latin band, Sol y Canto, which is a three-time winner of the Boston Music Award for Latin Music. Email: amadorrosi@yahoo.com
Voice-Over Web: www.solycanto.com/amadorbilingualspanishenglishvoiceovers.html
Sol y Canto Web : www.solycanto.com
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