Join Voice Over Expert Phyllis K. Day in her podcast lecture, "Helping Hispanic Talent Speak Unaccented English". Phyllis gives us a taste of her work with a female Hispanic voice over talent who is trying to break into the English market, identifying some differences between Spanish and English and how those differences affect how the language is spoken.

Download Podcast Episode 95 »

Transcript for Helping Hispanic Talent Speak Unaccented English

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It has never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Phyllis K. Day.

Phyllis K. Day: Hi, thanks for downloading this podcast. I'm Phyllis K. Day. You may have heard my other before and after podcasts here on Voices.com's Voiceover Experts or this might be your first listen. Well, I'm a voice coach and I can help you find what I call your X. Your X is something about your voice that is changing it in such a way that it covers your original sound. I was born with what I consider a God-given ability to not only hear sound but get an idea of what affects the sound as it goes from your brain to your body and out of your mouth. It's as if I'm getting visual feedback as to how you were using the inside of your mouth and throat and sometimes, what emotions are creeping in too.

Sometimes, I refer to myself as a drug sniffing dog. I'm the one that can find the drugs, your X. But for the finer points of acting, you'll need someone that specializes in that. Which reminds me, once I'm done working with someone, they'll ask me who they should use for an acting coach and I really don't know. I would like to hear from you if you are an acting coach so I can get an idea of how you work with your clients so I can give my clients a few choices that I can personally recommend.

Today, we're going to talk about Jessica. Jessica sounds like this.

Jessica: [Spanish voice over demo plays]

Phyllis K. Day: Pretty good, huh? But when she would audition for English parts, she sounded like this.

Jessica: Our community is waiting for people just like you to find their way home.

Getting old biz into to new media is not for the faint of heart.

Let your light shine at the Youth for Christ concert in support of our missionaries serving communities in El Salvador.

Phyllis K. Day: And Jessica was hearing comments like, "I like your voice but you have an accent." What could she do? She lives with her husband, her son and her parents and she's the only one that speaks English and she speaks very good English. Her family and her Hispanic friends don't hear the accent in her English but to potential VO clients, there was indeed an accent. My first thought when I heard her voice was Mexi-Midwestern and the sweetness of the American Midwestern accent was only making it harder for her to really differentiate between what she would hear in American voices and what she would hear in her voice.

So what's the deal with Hispanics and speaking on accented English? It's all in the song of Spanish speech. Spanish compared to English is sweet and is practically sung. Listen to it with that in mind and you'll notice most words are linked together. And the R's are rolled. Spanish is spoken farther back in the mouth and uses the center of the tongue and is very fluid and flexible. I call that the Spanish setting for the face.

In English, no R's are rolled and we use the tip of the tongue and all of our lips speaking in the front of the face and mouth and never in the back. I call this the English setting. Watch Spanish TV with the sound turned down then watch American TV with the sound turned down. You can see how differently they are using their faces. I've heard non-natives say that after a day of speaking English, their face hurts.

Aside from teaching Jessica how to stop using her face in a way that she has done for over 20 years, I had to also teach her to hear her accent so she could adjust as needed before a potential client gave her the "nice but too much accent" comment. There was a lot of laughing as we went over piece by piece what words caught here and which ones didn't. In particular, she had trouble knowing when an S made a Z sound or not. That might sound weird but when you think about it, there are a lot of words in English that if you read it, it's an S but it has a Z sound like 'bargainz', not bargains. It's 'bargainz' and chairs. It's 'chairz', not chairs. But anyway, she also wasn't used to enunciating each word. We don't link any words, almost like stopping the word and then starting the next one because that's really how English is spoken so when she didn't do that, it made her English sound sloppy in places.

Once she got the idea, her English began to come out without an accent but it sounded a little choppy and for a little while, it kind of took away her style but that's normal. It's kind of like learning to walk after an operation. It's not going to be smooth because you're using things differently and some, you were using for the first time. Jessica is a work in progress but the most exciting thing is that when she listens back to her work, she now hears the accent if it's there and that's the whole point, to improve and make me obsolete.

And again, here she is before.

Jessica: Our community is waiting for people just like you to find their way home.

Getting [Indiscernible] [0:05:35] to new media is not for the faint of heart.

Let your light shine at the Youth for Christ concert in support of our missionaries serving communities in El Salvador.

Phyllis K. Day: And here she is after.

Jessica: Any church consultant will tell you that if you are not focusing on attendance and follow-ups, then your church is simply not reaching its maximum potential.

If you've been looking for a family dentist, you're in luck. Certified as a practicing orthodontist for kids.

For surgery scheduling, for information regarding Web consultations, press 1.

Phyllis K. Day: Of course there's nothing wrong with a Hispanic accent. However, the job leads for unaccented English are far and away more plentiful than any others in English VO projects. Plus, there are times when we don't want to be profiled by the way we speak and once you know how to use you face in an English setting, you can make a choice that fits the situation.

Is your X your accent or is your X something you can't quite figure out? Contact me at VoiceCoach@PhyllisK.com and we'll go from there. Thanks for your time today.

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voice Over Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceOverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.
If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: This has been a Voices.com production.

Links from today's show:

Phyllis K. Day
Phyllis K. Day on Voices.com

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Phyllis K. Day

Phyllis is a freelance technical writer and voice professional with over thirty years experience. A Broadcast Journalism graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, Phyllis became an anchor a few months later on the North Carolina News Network. She has also anchored on Business Radio Network and American Forum Radio Network in Colorado. Her voice has been heard nation-wide and she was also the narrator for a show heard daily on NPR and Armed Forces Radio in the 1990s. Phyllis was part of a mentoring program for several years at North Carolina State University for the students in NC State's radio program. She currently runs personalized coaching workshops, in addition to narrations for e-learning and business presentations.

Did you enjoy Phyllis' episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

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Join Voice Over Experts Nancy Wolfson in her lecture "Adjusting Interpretation to Book your Brand". Kara Edwards poses a question on a live call with Nancy Wolfson and Anna Vocino about getting the perfect read. Nancy advises Kara to move outside of her comfort zone and readjust her audience to achieve a desired affect. Experiment now with Nancy's advice and apply it to your own reads.

Download Podcast Episode 94 »

Transcript of Adjusting Interpretation to Book Your Brand

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It has never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Nancy Wolfson.

Female: Going back here reassures someone else ...

Nancy Wolfson: Thank you, yes.

Female: ...what we're talking about earlier. What about those of us that just kind of sound like we're smiling when we're like bawling?

Nancy Wolfson: Everything is relative like I was saying about the people who might sometimes be on the other side of the spectrum who come across - who's flat and have to really get out of their comfort zone to hit a middle read that sounds warm and pleasant. You might have to get out of your comfort zone and go a little darker. If - from a one to a 10, one is disconnected flat and unemotional and a 10 is joyful exuberant, cheery, loud, and a five is the middle. Well, if you feel like you skew towards an eight skewing it an eight, you might have to pop down out of your comfort zone and pretend to feel a bit more solemn yourself ...

Female: Okay.

Nancy Wolfson: ... if you're doing warm equals warm or you might have to imagine someone who is in a greater state of anxiety and that will just inspire a level of reassurance that takes it down a couple of notches. I always prefer the second way. Rather than trying to dive into the swirling vacuum of self and trying to just make your self be something, it's so helpful to adjust your audience. So, if you feel like what you're doing is about as much of a five as you can possibly do but your brand skews cheerful, just adjust your audience. If you thought you had been talking to someone who was sort of wide-eyed and listening to you and concerned, you know, about their healthcare and you were reassuring and it came out too cheerful, it came out it like an eight, then imagine them in a serious panic and anxiety. And they're really in a bind and they've got a really more grave problem, you'll just autocorrect it better.

So I always say, adjust your imagined audience to put the difference. So just really keep this trick in mind. Reassurance will purge the saccharin from your read. If you were just on autopilot with your brand being warm, being told to put a smile on your face, yes, it could triple whammy you into something too saccharine to believe. But with your brand intending reassurance, that ought to cut the mix right down the middle.

Julie-Ann Dean: To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voiceover Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.
If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: This has been a Voices.com production.

Links from today's show:

Braintracks Audio
Break Into Voiceover
Anna Vocino
Kara Edwards

This excerpt is taken from that last Acting for Advertising (#8) Teleseminar, "Reassure Someone Else", available for purchase at the Break Into VoiceOver website.

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Nancy Wolfson

Based in Los Angeles, CA Nancy Wolfson is a private voice over consultant and freelance casting director for commercials, animation, narration, and audio books. She writes, produces, and directs demos for her clients and has been the leading coach in the top market(s) over a decade. Her coursework has been accredited at the university level in private and group classes throughout North America and Europe. For over 15 years, she has worked with beginners, working pros, and celebrities as a producer and talent agent.

This podcast is a mini excerpt from Nancy and Anna's Break Into Voice Overs series of MP3s featuring Nancy Wolfson.

Did you enjoy Nancy's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

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Join Voice Over Experts Dan Lenard and George Whittam as they discuss "Pro Tools and other Multi-track recording programs". Discover different recording software programs and learn more about Pro Tools, the industry standard recording software for musicians, but not necessarily for voice over talent recording dry voice. You be the judge!

Download Podcast Episode 93 »

Transcript of Pro Tools and Other Multi-track Recording Programs

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It has never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Dan Lenard.

Dan Lenard: Hi. I'm Dan Lenard and welcome to this podcast. And this is going to be a very interesting thing that some of you beginners and some people who are not so much beginners are doing voiceover [Indiscernible] [0:00:56] using their home studio really need to listen to as we discuss something that you really need to know about, recording software. And my guest today is my good friend out in Los Angeles, California. We're talking with George Whittam from ElDorado Recording Services. Good morning, George.

George Whittam: Hey there, Dan.

Dan Lenard: We're going to talk today about software and you and I both use different types of software to do certain things but as voiceover artists, we need specific types of recording software and one of the things that I'm finding in - I get these 911 calls from clients all the time when I'm consulting about home studios and they say, "Help, my Pro Tools doesn't work," or, "I don't understand what this thing does. Somebody said get Pro Tools." And that brings to mind a number of things about Pro Tools.

Usually, Pro Tools is sold bundled with what's called an Mbox from Digidesign and these are fabulous devices. They really do a great job of taking our analog sound input and changing it to digital sound and then it multi-tracks it into these multi-track programs like Pro Tools. But Pro Tools will work with the Mbox but Pro Tools will not work with anything else or is it the other way around? Sometimes, I get confused about that.

George Whittam: Yes, the Mbox will work with others and - other apps but Pro Tools has to have an Mbox.

Dan Lenard: That's right.

George Whittam: Or an M-Audio brand product in the case of M-powered Pro Tools.

Dan Lenard: Right. And in some cases, you actually need a NASA scientist to get you to configure that with some other program but what's happening is people are getting a lot of advice from - and this is - note that these people are getting a lot of advice from musicians, people who have recording studios and they have certain ways of doing things and when we, as voice artists approach them and say, "Hey, I would like to start a voice studio in my basement," they refer directly to their base of knowledge and most of them use Pro Tools. Now, what is Pro Tools for?

George, the other day I was - you know, the great thing about modern technology is we have iPods and I downloaded one of my favorite albums of all time the other day, Graceland by Paul Simon which won all sorts of Grammy Awards. And now, this was what? Twenty years ago, when he came out with this. It was probably the last of the great analog recorded albums that came out on vinyl. For those of you wondering what vinyl is, it was these big, black discs that we used to have.

George Whittam: The end of vinyl about 20 years ...

Dan Lenard: That's right. And if you listen to a little bit - and I'm going to play a little bit of it right now. And then we'll just fade out of that and I'll explain to you what it is you're listening to.

[Music plays]

Dan Lenard: As you noticed, it was incredibly well-recorded but there were lots of different instruments playing in there and each one of those instruments, the guitar, the drums in the background. I think there's a tambourine in there, Paul Simon's voice. They're all recorded on individual tracks one at a time.

George Whittam: Yes, one at a time or simultaneously but they're all on separate tracks, exactly.

Dan Lenard: So what happens is usually, they'll put down a baseline or the drum line, the rhythm line to that and then the artist will build their song on top of that. They'll listen to the rhythm line, sing their parts or play their instrument part on it and then the engineer can mix that all down. And, that's what Pro Tools is for.

George Whittam: Exactly. It is meant to be the replacement for the tape machine and the replacement for the razorblade and now, it's a replacement for even the mixing consul so it's an all-in-one tool for music production and mixing and editing. And it's used often in film scoring and post for film and it has many, many great uses. But it's not the ideal application for your typical voiceover artist who just needs to be able to record their own voice, cut it, maybe clean it up a little bit, pop it into an MP3 file and send it off. It is far more cumbersome than it needs to be for that purpose.

Dan Lenard: Now, your work with a lot of people out in Hollywood and out in L.A. and there's a lot of engineers out there that have always been using Pro Tools, a lot of voice artists that have been using Pro Tools, at least the ones that have been doing it for a while. Are they recommending Pro Tools to other people? Do you find?

George Whittam: That's a good question. I don't know what my clients recommend to other people. I really don't. But I have, occasionally, heard, you know, someone that uses Pro Tools and has been using it for seven or eight years. They're comfortable with it. I think a lot of voiceover talent that are comfortable with something will tend to recommend it. So, it could easily be, you know, misrecommended if I can think of a better way to say that, in that case.

Dan Lenard: With Pro Tools, I like to use the analogy - you know, it's getting a nuclear control room panel to control a hamster in a wheel generator. I am not doing what I used to do when I was in radio 25, 30 years ago. We did radio production. An advertising agency would come in. They would say, "Here's a script. Produce it." That would be the voice, the music, all the different elements of what goes on there. I think that a lot of people who are getting into voiceover still think in that mode or think that that's what they have to do in order to make a living doing voiceover. When in reality ...

George Whittam: Yes, they come from the production angle.

Dan Lenard: The reality is, is that's hardly necessary. I think with - probably most of the genres of material that we as voice artists are putting out these days. All the producer is looking for, and that is if you're doing a commercial for a fairly high-end ad agency or a production house or something, they don't want you to put in reverb and add music and do all these other things.

George Whittam: Yes, they want to hear your voice as purely and cleanly as possible with as little noise floor, that's the background noise in your room or your equipment that hiss, as possible and they don't want it to sound processed in any way, compressed when you're sending in an actual job. They want you, nothing else.

Dan Lenard: Exactly. And, the thing is, is that you buy Pro Tools or SONAR or Sound Forge or any one of these other big, you know, packaged, multi-track recording programs to do all of those things of compression and reverb and adding music tracks and all that sort of stuff. It really is total overkill for what it is you're trying to do. And there are a lot better choices for what you can use as a voice artist.

A lot of people use Adobe Audition, which is a multi-track program that's supposed to be linked with Adobe Premiere for doing - mixing audio for video and it also works as for recording voice work and music production. But Adobe has another system that I had been working with for over a year and I find it absolutely fabulous. It's called Adobe Soundbooth and I'm not necessarily endorsing it for our friends at Adobe but it is a good program. It's a single track recorder that has the capability to do multi-tracking and not in the way the other multi-track programs work. Their new CS4 version works more like a video overlay interface where if you're adding music or you're adding sound effects or you need to intersperse another voice in there, you put it in this timeline in the same non-linear fashion that you do as with video and it works really well.

But there are some other cool features with it that I know you were playing with last night. What did you like about it?

George Whittam: I do like the very clean, simple interface. I like that it has some very powerful editing features that are extremely easy to use. It makes it very easy to take out clicks, pops, lip smacks, all those little things. [POP] Yes, pops and lip smacks. That's probably what you're going to end up as a - when you're editing your file to send off to your client. You'll probably spend more time taking out certain breaths, lip smacks and extraneous noises at your file than anything else. And this program makes it extremely easy to take those out using features like Heal which literally you select a sound you don't want and it heals the audio around it and it's as though it was never there. You don't lose the continuity of the recording, the timing or any kind of background noise like the noise floor stays there. So, it doesn't sound like there's a big hole in the file whenever you take out a click or a pop. And I think that's one thing that makes this program so great.

Dan Lenard: And they've got some great video tutorials too, you know. The first time I watched those, it was like saying, "Oh, that's how you do that. Very good ..."

George Whittam: Yes, they have a very good tutorial. I watched the 12-minute introduction tutorial. I liked it so much, I put it on my webpage. It's embedded on my website actually. But it immediately gives a very good overview of the software and gets you started with running recording right away.

Dan Lenard: I would say try it and the great thing about Adobe is, is they give you these 30-day free trials for these things. And try it on your computer. If you like it, buy it. I find that if you start it and use it and follow the tutorials, you'll go, "I don't know why I would use anything else especially for voiceover." And I guess the bottom line is, is that if you're looking for a piece of software, I think a lot of people make the mistake of they want something that's going to make them sound great. And I would say - and I'm sure you agree with me, it's - you're not looking for something that makes you sound great. You're looking for something that makes you sound like you.

George Whittam: Yes, the software is not going to make you sound great. The only thing that's going to do that is your performance. You want to capture it as well as possible so that means good - a nice microphone and proper production techniques which you will learn over time. But, in the end, it's really all about you, the performer.

Dan Lenard: Right. And easier software will make that easier for you to do because what you want to do ...

George Whittam: Exactly.

Dan Lenard: ... is set it and forget it so when you want to do an audition, you click it on, you record it, you go to your software, you edit it and it's out of here. You don't want to have to deal with arming the track and making sure this isn't on and not - you know, all the different things that nobody understands except musicians and recording engineers and that should ...

George Whittam: Right.

Dan Lenard: This should simplify the process because as I always say, keep it simple.

George Whittam: Yes, the $200 price tag of that software sounds steep. There are some others real quick I'll rattle off.

Dan Lenard: Sure.

George Whittam: In the Mac world, there's TwistedWave for about 80 bucks which I've been promoting heavily because it's the same idea, very simple program, gets you to the end result as quickly as possible. It just doesn't have all the powerful bells and whistles of Soundbooth. That's what I like on the Mac. Audacity which I think everybody in voiceover has been told about at one point or the other. It's a great way to start for totally for free and I think you would be surprised how far you can actually get with that program. Don't dismiss Audacity and then on the Windows side of things - that's cross-platform Mac and Windows. In the Windows side, I do like Sound Forge and they make a version called Audio Studio that's like the stripped down version. It's only $55 and it's actually a really good value and it is not that difficult to use. I think it's one of the easier platforms to use on the PC that is still a good value.

Dan Lenard: I agree. And, you know - and the most important thing is people need to learn how to use a basic program before they start using something more sophisticated. George, thanks so much for joining us today. I think we'll continue this conversation because we get a lot of questions about microphones and USB mics. I know a lot of the podcast that we do here are on technique. I think people have many, many questions about physical set-up of their studio and how to maximize it and I think you and I can probably get them through it if they really would like to.

And if they want to contact you, they can get you at your business.

George Whittam: Well, you could just go to my website. It's ElDoRec.com. That's ElDorado Recording Services. If you Google that, you'll find it immediately. And all the information you could need and I'm always adding more useful stuff on there all the time so it's a great information resource for voiceover.

Dan Lenard: And if you need some more consultation, perhaps on a less complex level, you can find me at HomeStudioMaster.com and you'll see the things that I deal with too.

George, thanks for being with us today and let's continue this conversation.

George Whittam: Yes, there's a lot more to talk about so you'll be hearing from us again. I guarantee it.

Dan Lenard: Very good. Alright, everybody. Go out there and keep it simple.

[Music Plays]
Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voiceover Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.
If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

DansVoice.com
Dan Lenard
ElDorado Recording Services
Master VO : Demystifying the Home Recording Studio
Home Studio Master

Your Instructors this week:

Voice Over Expert Dan Lenard

Buffalo, NY native Dan Lenard has been a radio personality, an insurance sales consultant, a high school Media and Social Studies teacher and a stay-at-home dad. He earned his BA in Broadcasting from Buffalo State College in 1980, a New York State teaching certificate from Buff State in 1997 and then in 2002, an MA in Creative Studies from again, his hometown Alma Mater.

Now working from his home based, digital studio, Dan produces high quality audio narration in many genres. Specializing in Tutorial, e-Learning and Documentary narration, Dan also voices non-fiction, business oriented books as well as a wide cast of unique animation characters. Dan uses his vast life experiences to bring his clients just what they need; a knowledgeable voice that conveys confidence, warmth, intelligence and humor.

His years in radio and television production made his transition to his home built and based studio, seamless. His experience as a teacher and lecturer on many subjects allows him to convey the daily, nitty gritty of a home-based studio voice over business to the many newcomers in the industry with his dry sense of humor and a commitment to the American entrepreneurial spirit.

Voice Over Expert George Whittam

George M. Whittam is a 1997 graduate of Virginia Tech with a Bachelors degree in Music and Audio Technology and a Minor degree in George Communications. George discovered his talent for the trumpet as a child and performed through high school and college. In doing this he developed a finely tuned ear with his performances in orchestras, jazz and rock bands as well as alternative groups. George acquired a high level of expertise in music recording by working with various musicians and artists in the Philadelphia area after his training at Virginia Tech.

He gained a large amount of broadcast engineering experience working for 94 WYSP FM radio in Philadelphia as the remote engineer for the NFL Eagles Radio Network. He furthered his diverse experience in Los Angeles by working on over 15 film projects in 3 years as a sound mixer and boom operator.

George has become an industry innovator by developing specialized services that cater to voice-over industry professionals, such as the late Don LaFontaine. His extensive knowledge of computers, software, equipment, and troubleshooting abilities makes him a sought after expert and indispensable on-call technician for his ever growing client base.

Did you enjoy this episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

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Join Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley in his lesson on "Voice Over Improvisation Skills". Improv is spontaneous writing, and for voice talent, it's spontaneous rewriting! Of the nine critical skills of voice over, improvisation is the most misused and at the same time the most underused voice over skill. Learn more about a topic that is shrouded in mystery and controversy with master teacher, Patrick Fraley.

Download Podcast Episode 92 »

Tags:

Improv, improvisation, Pat Fraley, Patrick Fraley, voice acting, voice over, voice talent, voiceovers

Transcript of Voice Over Improvisation Skills

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It has never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present Pat Fraley.

Male: Doctor, doctor, we need help.

Pat Fraley: Diagnosis?

Male: Lethargic copy, humor is low, 75-second line count and we just can't get it down to 60.

Pat Fraley: Analysis on text checked?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Acting injection?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Character, accents done?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Mic tech?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Reading and voice?

Male: Yes.

Pat Fraley: Energy level.

Male: No response. We're losing it. What do we do?

Pat Fraley: Stand back. Time for E.R. improv. Paddles, clear. We're back in business.

Male: Thank you. Thank you so much, doctor.

Pat Fraley: Hi, this is Pat Fraley with a lesson on voiceover improvisation skills. First, let me establish a working definition of improv or improvisation. It's spontaneous writing and for many of the genres of voiceover, it's spontaneous rewriting. Of the nine critical skills to voiceover, acting, reading and voice, relaxation, character and accents, energy, microphone technique, business, sense of scene and text analysis, improvisation is the most misused and at the same time, underused skill of them all. It's shrouded in controversy. Half of the voiceover instructors and casting people advise talent not to even bother even on auditions. And very few, if any instructors, teach how it specifically is applied to the various genres of voiceover.

So why the confusion? Let's first look at the misused problem. And I'm applying this to commercials right now. Many voiceover talents misuse and misapply improv to commercials for a couple of reasons. First, to make the spot funnier and somehow draw attention to their comedic abilities or to make themselves comfortable with their performance. Both of these applications are generally wrong and folly.

First, comedy is not king with regard to commercials. Humor is. There's a critical difference. The objective of comedy is to amuse. If you look back to the word roots of amuse, you'll get to not think. Advertisers want people to remember their product or service. How many times have you seen a commercial which is so funny you can't remember the product or service?

Now, the objective of humor is to emotionally connect the audience or listener with an experience. When a message is connected with emotion, the memory recall of the message goes way up. Humor is the glue between message and memory. Making a line or word in the commercial funnier can adversely affect the commercial. Of course, there are exceptions. Remember there are no rules, only notions.

The second way the performer misuses improvisation is to make them selves more comfortable with the language. They read a sentence. It's awkward so they rewrite it or they sense the copy needs to be more real so they put in a lot of 'ahems' and 'huhs' or some, 'you know'. This is simply using one's skill, improvisation, to cover the lack of another, acting. A performer's job is to take text, script or copy and breathe life into it. Some of the copy we get is horrid. It's a challenge. Hey, so is Shakespeare. Get over it. Get more training.

You know, copywriter have the right things that make their skin crawl because clients are involved and marketing. You know, the marketing people come with a list of words to some copywriters like zesty or scrumptious that must appear in the copy. That's their burden. The talent's burden is to say them in a way that makes them work. Now that's two of the most common misuses of improv.

Now, a couple of thoughts on how improv is underused. It's underused because agents and casting people have heard it misused so much. They get a middle management mentality. No improv, stick to the script. Same with dialects by the way. The talent gets a fear of improv mentality when in fact, rewriting or improv may be the only way to make the commercial work. You can only fix bad or unclear copy with acting to a certain point. Sometimes, rewriting a line, a phrase, untwisting a sentence especially when it sets up the whole premise of a spot is needful. Your improv should be solely guided by this. What needs clarification? Is the story unclear? Is my character unclear? Is the scene unclear? This questions kick in when you've exhausted your efforts with fixing it with your other skills particularly with acting.

Now, a couple of tips on improv for commercials. Look for the word "approved" on the copy. If you find it somewhere in the masthead, forget about improv. Also, if you find a note on the copy that gives you the impression it has gone through a lot of revisions, forget improv. Another tip, try to resist the arbitrary, funny adlib at the end of a spot. If the copywriter had 65 seconds, he or she would have written it. If you really must improv a line or phrase, say in an audition, do it at the top of the spot. At least there, it will make your audition sound a little different from others.

Now, thus far, I've been referencing the voiceover genre of commercials for improv application. A couple of other genres, animation tracks. In many shows, comedy is in fact king and if you can make it funnier, go ahead. Improv. On auditions and in shows, TV copy versus radio, less on TV. They have a bigger budget than radio and they get more attention from the copyrighter. Interactive gaming, very little, primarily because you have no time. I only request to change a line for clarity or wrong grammar depending on the appropriate education and knowledge of the character. Audiobooks? Zero. Finally, improv doesn't have to happen in the booth. If improv is spontaneous writing, that can happen as you prepare to audition or perform.

John Cleese, the television and film actor, veteran of the comedic group Monty Python and Fawlty Towers was once in the recording booth when an engineer asked him if he were ready to read. John Cleese replied, "Not just yet. I haven't finished writing down my adlibs." Believe me, it's a whole lot easier to be spontaneous in the lobby than to add it to all the other pressures in front of the microphone. If I've opened up a can of interest [Phonetic] [0:07:22] and you would like to get some personal attention on improv skills, just go to my website, find my teaching schedule and you'll have access to more information and the way to enroll. Thanks for listening.

Male: Doctor, we're losing it again.

Pat Fraley: Oh, dear. I must have missed a verb. Come on. Come on.
Julie-Ann Dean: To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voiceover Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.
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Julie-Ann Dean: This has been a Voices.com production.

Links from today's show:

Pat Fraley
Pat Fraley Free Lessons

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Pat Fraley

Patrick Fraley has created voices for over 4,000 characters, placing him among the top ten performers of all time to be cast in animation. He has produced dozens of award-winning audiobooks, such as, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Very Easy Death, and The Light in The Piazza. Pat produced and performed all 100 voices on the award winning audiobook, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which People Magazine hailed as, "The best yet of this evergreen." Patrick teaches events, workshops, and seminars on various aspects of voice over across the country, and has created a variety of instructional books and CDs, all available at PatFraley.com. He is a member of The Voice and Speech Trainers of America, and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Professional Acting from Cornell University.

Did you enjoy Pat's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

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