Telly Award for Best Commercial Voiceover awarded to voice actor Genevieve Baer!

On Tuesday morning I woke up to an exciting email in my inbox informing me that I had won a Telly Award!

The Telly Awards are a prestigious international awards program that happen every year and honor the best in Television and Video creative across all screens. They also happen to have a craft category that considers the voiceover only of the piece.

It was my first time entering and I decided to submit one of the Television commercials I voiced for US Steel. This piece, in particular, allowed me to access the textured, gritty, and authoritative part of my voice. Grounded and powerful, the voice over delivers the message without overpowering the visuals on the screen.

You can see and hear the spot HERE.

A Win in More Ways than One

One of the things that made this commercial campaign extremely gratifying was that it was never meant to be voiced by a woman at all. Considering the subject matter (the steel industry), the creatives assumed they would go with a booming male voice. They did open up the auditions to both men and women though.

And my audition changed their minds.

Power, Grit, and Authority comes in all forms

Rather than try and compete with a big, booming male voice. I decided to access my grounded authority by going in the opposite direction. After all, when a person knows their subject matter deeply and speaks with authority, they don’t really need to shout about it.

I’m so glad the creatives agreed and the result was a truly powerful and effective campaign.

A New Era for Voice over

This textured and gritty side of my vocal range has been popular lately. As creatives are beginning to recognize the strength in women’s voices more and more, there have been more and more opportunities and requests for me to deliver in this powerful tone. It’s a such a fun area to play in.

It feels authentic to who I am and just the act of allowing my voice to sit in that lower and textured end of my range, immediately grounds me to the copy and intention of the piece.

Grateful for Great Creatives

I owe endless thanks to my voice over agents at ASPVO along with the Morgan Young (writer and director) and Julie Mays and the team at IMG for production. I am so grateful for their vision and the opportunity to be a part of it!