George Del Hoyo: Voiceover

Home-based creative juggles the pros and cons of house as workplace

By PETER DEBRUGE

Half the mystique of "that guy" who narrates trailers is wondering what he looks like in person. By doing his recordings from home, George Del Hoyo makes it so that even those who hire him have to guess.

"They say, 'Children are to be seen and not heard.' I think the opposite is true of voiceover people: We're to be heard and not seen," says Del Hoyo, who worked for years as the voice of Fox, recording all the "American Idol" promos since the show first aired.

When Del Hoyo started, he would drive from his Toluca Lake to studios around town, losing hours daily at the wheel.

"The first two years I had the car, I put 36,000 miles on it," he says. Since adding a home ISDN connection, Del Hoyo drives less than 2,000 miles a year.

His equipment is industry-standard -- a Sennheiser mic, Avalon M5 pre-amp, Rane mixing board and Zephyr Xstream ISDN transmitter from Telos -- but Del Hoyo prides himself on a relatively low-tech operation.

Del Hoyo eschewed a basement studio, preferring to work in a comfortable office with double-paned glass, heavy drapes and a thick sealed door.

"This is a very quiet street," he says. "If the neighbor's gardeners come to take out a tree or grind a stump, I had (an identical setup) built in a spare room upstairs on the other side of the house."

He also created a third studio at his getaway home in Arrowhead, converting a spare closet into a booth.

"My family felt a little trapped by my work ethic," he says. "I'm in here working so much of the time, anywhere from 11 in the morning till 9 at night."

CREDITS

Can currently be heard narrating the campaigns for "Nacho Libre," "Monster House," "The Ant Bully" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."