Truth and Dare : Communicating Truthfully in Imaginary Circumstances
- December 18, 2007
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Join Voice Over Expert Ellie Devers of Audio Paint Voices as she teaches you how to create a secondary world in her lecture "Truth and Dare : Communicating Truthfully in Imaginary Circumstances". Using the basic acting technique of substitution, you can speak the truth of the moment and then dare yourself to go wherever the script and your imagination dictates. Learn how to use three tools effectively to create authentic voice overs.
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Ellie Devers, Audio Paint, Truth and Dare, Voice Acting, Audio, Voice Over Demo, Voice Overs
Transcript of Communicating Truthfully in Imaginary Circumstances
[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's 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 Ellie Devers.
Ellie Devers: Hi, I'm Ellie Devers from AP Voices in New York City. My partner Frank Piazza and I want to thank Voices.com for giving us the opportunity to speak with you today. I'd like to start of by saying, one of the biggest misconceptions about working in voiceover is that you have to have a great voice. Although, having a great voice is a really good thing to have, it's what you do with that voice and how you use it that counts. The key to voiceover is the ability to communicate truthfully from your true self not who you think you should be, not who you would like to be but who you are in the present moment. That's got to be the place you start from.
In this podcast, we will go over some of the basic techniques you need to become a good voiceover artist. Creative voiceover acting requires being able to tell the truth in imaginary circumstances. It's a technique originally taught by the renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner and anyone can do it if they work on it. Telling the truth in imaginary circumstances, what does that mean? Well, in part it means having the ability to create a second imaginary world.
When you are booked for a voiceover often you have to come to a studio. In the studio there will be an engineer, often the clients and then you behind the mic in a booth. I'd like to call that the first world, reality. The second world is the world of the copy you're doing. Let's say you're doing a spot for Coca-Cola and you're playing the part of an upbeat mom, who loves her Coca-Cola. Now, you the actor may hate Coke, you may hate moms who love Coke but there is something in the world you love and that's what you need to focus on when you go in and do that audition or job. That's the art of substitution.
It's a basic acting technique and it is part of how you create a second world. You want to know who it is you are talking to, why you were talking to them and what you want to say. The more specific, the more personal, the better. You have to use the truth of who you are and what you know from your real life experiences and then dare to add on layers that help you fully express the script you're working with. Frank and I called this process, Truth and Dare. Tell the truth. Get in touch with the truth of the moment and then dare to go where ever the script and your imagination dictates.
Ultimately, you want to get good at telling your truth using someone else words. You never leave yourself. Stay with the moment. To be able to stay connected with yourself while doing the voiceover is an art and it takes work but that's the goal and that's where learning technique and study comes in. You want to learn how to relax your mind and body, commit to what it is you're saying and then communicate it fully. Three basic tools, relax, commit, communicate. You need to learn how to use your body so that you're not tense at the microphone. You need to begin to learn what your specialty is. Are you funny? Do you have a nurturing read? Are you authoritative? Every person is unique.
This is a process and it doesn't happen overnight but that is part of the joy of training and studying. You want to get to a place where when you pick up a script, you know just what to do. It's essential that you take your time studying and really get to know your strengths before you record your demo. I think that one of the most common mistakes people make is that they feel they have to be on in some way, forced, heightened. They don't want to feel their fear so they push it away or do something false with their voice to mask their fear and you know that would be great if it worked but it doesn't and often what you get is a false or pushed sound.
Listen, it's a natural thing to be nervous. I'm a little nervous at this very moment. So how can I use it? The thing is do you use it or does it use you? When you get up to the microphone the first order of business is to check in with yourself, do a little meditation, scan your body for where you might be feeling nervous or a little tight. Take a moment, breathe, come into the present moment. From there you can begin to relax, get connected and do your work. Then you can start to add on a specific circumstances of the script but if you start from a false forced place you have no where to go, you're out of touch but if you're really in the present moment you can communicate from that place. You are then more available to work with the producer or client and add on whatever their script requires.
These are just a few of the tools we use at AP Voices. There are a million voices out there but there's only one you and if you're doing your job correctly and really coming from your truth, your original point of view, your personality, that's what the clients will hear when they're reviewing the auditions and that's what will book the job. Please visit us at www.apvoices.com for more information about our classes and demo production and thanks for listening.
Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast visit the voiceover expects show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExpects. 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.
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:
Your Instructor this week:
Voice Over Expert Ellie Devers
Ellie Devers is a professional voice-over actress in New York City. Her voice can be heard on national voice-overs for FDS, Maybelline, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Dennison's Chili, EPT, and many more. Founded in 2001, Audio Paint Voices is a voice over coaching and production company. Audio Paint Voices (Frank Piazza and Ellie Devers) teaches students, actors, and industry professionals how to understand and improve their reading and speaking skills with the ultimate goal of helping people learn the art of communicating effectively with their voices. Ellie and Frank's coaching and voice over production is geared toward helping each student apply basic acting technique to the art of voice-over acting. Instruction takes place in a comfortable, recording studio environment.
