What’s New With DAN HURST Spring 2021 is part of a series in which MVO: The Voice-Over Guys checks-in with one of our male voiceover talents to learn more about a recent media project he has voiced. Here’s what Dan shared with us.
1. You mentioned a really cool voiceover project in your recent MVO: The Voiceover Guys update. Can you talk about who the project was for and where it was heard or seen?
I think one of the fun and interesting parts of my work is the opportunity to be the signature voice for a number of TV and radio stations all over the world. Yes, many radio and TV stations broadcast in English throughout the world. But because I’m also fluent in Spanish, that opens up some great opportunities around the world. In the business we call it imaging or promo work. It’s fascinating to me to discover how different media outlets promote themselves to their audience. I get to discover the local culture and language of each client’s location.
Every day is kind of like a quick trip around the world. The other day I was in Finland, Sri Lanka, St Maartens, Mexico, and the U.S. all within 2 hours.
2. What made the media production’s content interesting from your perspective?
Well, every station is different, obviously. It’s fascinating to me to discover how different media outlets create a style for their targeted audience. For example I have a news/talk station in Singapore. Their audience is the business world, so my voiceover delivery there is very straightforward, informative, and measured.
Then I have a rock station in the Caribbean that is very high energy with an island slant to it.
One of my clients is a TV station in Sri Lanka. They want a very dramatic, hard-hitting read for the news show promos, a very movie trailer delivery for their documentary shows, and a rather friendly, laid back delivery for the family shows.
Some of the really fun ones are the country stations. Their promos and liners can get pretty funny and quirky. I mean, where else can you say that some station’s morning show is “more fun than a bull-spittin’ contest!”
Sports stations vary a lot in their style, believe it or not. Some want to come across as the friendly hometown sports station. Some want to come across as the big, all-knowing sports authority. Some who carry big name teams on their programming lineup want to come across with a sense of awe and respect. I think every one of my sports stations sound different from each other.
I have a Public Broadcast station in New Mexico where half of the stuff I do is that very laid back, resonant PBS type of delivery, and the other half is a very bright, enthusiastic voice for what is essentially a bilingual Top Forty station.
And the work I do for Telemundo will vary from the crazy energy for Spanish sports broadcasts to the really steamy and intense telenovela promos.
3. As the voice talent in the media project, were there any technical or performance challenges during this voiceover recording session?
Oh yeah! When doing promo work for foreign radio and TV stations, I invariably have to promote special guests or on-location broadcasts. It’s a real challenge to say many of those names and places correctly, smoothly, purely, and make it sound as fluid as the rest of the VO. I end up spending a lot of time online researching those names and places to learn how to pronounce them. What’s weird is that in some countries, they may pronounce the same name or place two or three different ways! It’s true here in the U.S. and it’s true all over the world.
Along with that, every country I’m in has their own version of English grammar, so I have to familiarize myself with their style and inflection.
4. Is there anything else you would like us to know about this voiceover project?
Well, I’d love to talk more about it, but I’ve got to be in Quito in five minutes.
ABOUT DAN HURST
Dan -daniel eduardo- Hurst was raised in Honduras, the son of missionary parents. He grew up speaking Spanish AND English equally. That’s one of the things that makes his talent so unique. He’s fluent and natural in both languages. A rare combination!
Dan has extensive experience in bilingual voiceovers, including such national and international clients as Volkswagen, T-Mobile, Telemundo, Pizza Hut, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Océ. Dan’s production studio is just outside of Kansas City. He offers fast turnaround on any format by FTP, or ISDN, and now ipDTL – ISDN quality online (completely free to Dan’s clients).