Meet Dane Reid: Professional Voiceover Talent

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dane Reid and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dane, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I think many great things are born from necessity. Sometimes the motivation is profit. Sometimes it’s personal. For me I knew that I needed to express my creative side. It was spiritual. I was never meant to work for someone else. Money could never provide me what I really needed. I could’ve been a millionaire and have still felt empty. I needed to create something. I used to listen to commercials for nightclubs on the radio thinking, “These guys get to create new content all the time and it’s so cool” From then I started imitating them and a fledgling career was born. I started doing voiceover. I began in 2004 and I haven’t turned back.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Voiceover is an interesting thing. We all have a voice. We speak everyday. But voiceover is an art. It is the art of using your voice to stimulate someone into action or thought without them realizing they are being encouraged. It’s an art of sounding perfectly natural speaking about something that would ordinarily seem unnatural. It’s not something that most people can pull off, yet so many people think that because they have a nice sounding voice, that they have the secret sauce. The secret to voiceover is that you don’t have to have a nice voice at all. You just need to know how to use it to act. For me, I had a natural acting ability from the start, largely because I have a great ear. I used that ear to study other talents and then I got professional voiceover coaching. Coaching was the breakthrough with my sound. They taught me to understand exactly what I was hearing. I took that and practiced it with every voiceover I did every day. Knowledge of the secrets excited me and I could hardly wait to use it. To this day I try to learn from colleagues new secrets and practices within the industry while still evolving my own style of voiceover. One thing about my style and brand is that I have taken the best of what I have been trained in and incorporated the best of who I am in life. I love great humor, great knowledge, great travel and culture, so I trow all of that into voiceover. Some of the lessons I have learned is that things change quickly. Voiceover has changed from the announcer read, to the conversational read to a very throw away Millenial style of read and it will continue to evolve to reflect the changing society. I have to change with it and keep learning.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take them back to the airport, because I’m not a local guy. I’m an international guy. I don’t really hang out in my city. But Atlanta is a great town. There is a lot of history here and I think that should be understood before you hit the clubs. The civil rights movement was based here. It’s important that anyone who comes to Atlanta to experience Black Excellence understand the work that was put into this town to make it the Mecca of greatness for African Americans. So It’s important to explore the Atlanta University Center, Ebenezer Baptist and the King Center and Busy Bee. You have to take them on a stroll around the city and point out to them what used to be where before the tall buildings replaced that spot. And you “gotta” roll around to the neighborhoods and show them hip hop history in Atlanta too. They have probably heard of Colli Park and Decatur in rap songs along with Bankhead. Atlanta his Black History. Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I am nothing without the people around me. Starting with my family. My father has always been a self-sufficient, hard-working entrepreneur. The spirit that I have to forge my own path comes from my dad. But as my career flopped, my mother has always been my back-up. When I failed, and even filed bankruptcy, she was there to help get me through. And so many other people aided me in growing my career. From the first studio that produced my first demo for free, to my fellow big voice guy friend who taught me to produce commercials. There were so many people who helped. Like the National Artist League who made my first website. My friend who encouraged me to do voiceover. My brother who gave me advice of recording equipment. And others who gave me direction. Two books I credit for motivating me are the 10 Hustle Commandments and Release Your Brilliance. I couldn’t have done any of it without this behind me.

Website: www.DaneReidMedia.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danereid/

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