Man of many voices
Voice-over actor calls Lake Country home but is heard around the world
Jordan Wiberg of Lake Country can be the guy next door, a college dude, a middle-aged man, an adrenalin junkie, the bad guy, the caring dad, dark and moody, edgy, dramatic, sympathetic, solemn or endlessly bright and happy. And, as a voice-over actor, he’s done it all. “As voice talent, you don’t want to be pigeonholed,” said Wiberg, 34.
“You want to be able to deliver whatever the client wants. However, the majority of clients simply want an everyday nice guy voice, that pleasant and friendly guy next door conversational voice. Most don’t want that booming Ron radio voice, unless it’s for one of those dramatic movie trailers.”
Since 2011, Wiberg has been making a great living doing voice-over work full-time.
His clients include well-known brands such as WestJet, Mountain Dew, Budweiser, Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, Nintendo, Telus, Visa, Netflix and Fox TV.
But clients can also be ones you’ve never heard of, from a big church in the southern U.S., an assortment of audio books and non-profit agencies and a self-help app for a company in Denmark.
“Most jobs are one-offs for $250 to $500,” said Wiberg.
“Sometimes, you get repeat and re-occurring work or jobs that pay $2,000, which is great. But my biggest client has been this company from Denmark that needed a ton of copy edited and voiced in emotional tones for its self-help apps. It ended up being a few months work and I made $100,000.”
The client from Denmark found Wiberg online at JordanWiberg.com, and all the correspondence since has been done via email.
Wiberg lands most of his jobs through Voices.com — the world’s largest voice-over marketplace, which represents 200,000 artists globally — through his own website and through his agents in Toronto and Vancouver.
With six successful years in the business, he’s also generating a lot of repeat and referral work.
It is and it isn’t unusual that Wilberg can operate an international voice-over business from a small town in the Okanagan.
In the past, voice-over actors would have to go to auditions in person and record in big commercial studios, which meant they would have to be based in cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles.
Now, with the Internet, voice-over actors can audition via Skye or by sending an audio file via email.
They can also receive live direction from clients on Skype and send final voice-over work via email from their own home professionalgrade studios.
Wiberg went to Vancouver Film School to become a studio engineer and worked at postproduction house Six Degrees in Calgary for four years before striking out on his own as a freelance studio engineer.
It was during a freelance gig as a studio engineer for WestJet that Wiberg got his big voice-over break.
“The guy they hired to do the voice for the TV commercial couldn’t make it, so WestJet suggested I just do it,” remembered Wiberg.
“I didn’t think I had the right voice. But they just wanted the pleasant and friendly everyday guy voice and I delivered.”
Wiberg’s voice-over work with WestJet would span 20 TV commercials and 20 radio commercials.
Now based in Lake Country with his own professional in-home studio, Wiberg finds continued success.
“It’s a huge advantage to be the voice talent and be a studio engineer with a studio who can record and edit and do the whole tech side of things,” he said. Not everyone can be voice-over talent. Even the most requested guy next door read isn’t simple.
“You have to be born with a voice with certain sonic qualities,” said Wiberg.
“You also have to be able to take direction and read scripts a certain way. And when the job calls for it, you have to be able to do those dramatic or bad guy reads.”
Currently, Wiberg is have the most fun with the Red Bull account. “It’s definitely a guy’s guy read,” he said. “I narrate a lot of Red Bull’s videos for its YouTube channel where I’ll give it a dude edge to describe things like a mountain bike back flip over a 75-foot canyon gap. Then in the slow-motion replays that break down the stunt technically, I’ll give it a cool read because Red Bull is such a cool brand.”
Wiberg is a bit of a self-described introvert, so he enjoys the solitude of working by himself from home.
Plus, his chosen career gives him the flexibility to pretty well work when he wants, how he wants and frees him up to be able to get his five- and sixyear-old kids to and from school.
Wiberg’s goals for the future include doing more high-profile promotional work for national campaigns and international clients.
“It would be nice to become the voice of a TV network,” he said.
“And when you get those kind of jobs, you can work less and make more money.”