Join Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman in his podcast "Coloring Our Words", a liberating exercise in reaching your voice over potential. Discover how the same spirit and artistic techniques from your youth can apply to voiceover artistry when coloring words.

Download Podcast Episode 87 »

Tags:

Marc Cashman, Words, Coloring, Copy, Interpretation, Voice Acting, Voice Overs, Cashman Commercials, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques

Transcript of Coloring Our Words

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 Marc Cashman.
Marc Cashman: You know, it's hard to remember exactly when we got our first coloring book, but we do remember it was fun. At first, we sprayed crayon colors all over the page, without a care as to whether we stayed inside the lines or not. As we became toddlers, our coloring got more refined. We learned boundaries. We assigned certain colors to certain objects, and were more discerning in our choice of colors. A few years later found us drawing with colored pencils or markers. Later still, we marveled at the results of paint-by-numbers, and then on to watercolors and pastels.

The coloring books were random, assorted pictures, themed pictures or page-by-page pictures that laid out a story but each one of these pages had the same format, a black outline on a white page that showed a picture. At a glance, we could see a cabin on a lake, with smoke rising from its chimney; a boat tethered to a pier, fishing poles jutting out at its end; a winding road leading up toward the cabin, and a big, broad apple tree on its front lawn, with majestic mountains towering behind the cabin, backed by a full sky of puffy clouds and a bright sun.

As children, we looked at this black and white tableau and made some decisions, the sky would be blue, we'd leave the clouds white; the cabin would be brown and the lawn would be green; we'd apply the same colors to the apple tree, but add some red for the apples; the road might be charcoal; the lake would be blue, the mountains would be gray, and the sun would be yellow. We colored in the outline of a story.

As adolescents, we got better at drawing. Our sky might be bluish-purplish. The clouds might have shades of gray and green; the water on the lake would be a mixture of many colors, possibly reflecting the boat that floated on it; the road might be a mixture of brown, dusty tan or beige to signify dirt, with black rocks and pebbles strewn about; the cabin would have a different colored roof, and, like the apple tree, cast shadows from the light of the sun.

We'd use different coloring tools in our teens: pastels, colored pencils, watercolors and markers. And we'd start adding depth and shading, because we could discern perspective and light better. And we'd spend much more time at our task; we were more exacting and meticulous.

Printed words are groupings of black symbols on white paper. Strung together intelligently and creatively, they tell a story, just like the outline of a picture in a coloring book. It's our job as voice actors to color words, to give them depth, shading and perspective. Our tools: our voice, vocal techniques and acting abilities. And it's our acting that has to come to the fore through our voice and through our voice needs to pour conversationality and emotion in order for us to sound believable.

The reason that most great stage and screen actors are believable is because we can see their characters. We see their body language, their movements, their gesticulations, and their eyes. We see them embody characters through their actions. But people can't see voice actors, they can only hear us. So all the color and emotions we bring to a script or text has to come out of just one place, our mouth.

The nuances of the human voice are extraordinary. Millions of years of human evolution have made the sound of the human voice a wonder to behold and something no machine will ever duplicate. Oh, they've tried.

At first, people thought that developing speech recognition would be a simple matter of replicating phonemes, and they've had some success in transplanting those basic sounds into myriad applications. But like astronomers exploring the universe, the more they peer into the vastness of space, the more they realize how complex it is, in their quest to simulate real speech with a machine, scientists have found that the more they try to perfect speech recognition, they realize they can't. Because the human voice is so incredibly unique.

Our vocal cords hold a powerful gift: the power to paint pictures, with an infinite variety of colored shades, textures, depth, patterns and mixtures. We have the innate ability, through our voice, to convey meaning without even uttering a word. No machine could do that.

Many of us refer to ourselves as voice artists as well as voice actors.

If we're artists, then we have to take out our palette of vocal colors and brush those words, wash, tint and dab them. We have to channel impressionism, cubism, pointillism, abstract art, op art and realism into our phrasing. We have to apply the endless color combinations of emotions and infuse them into words. When you're presented with text that cries out for coloring, take out your 120-count box of vocal Crayolas with all their wonderful hues and shades and create a masterpiece.

You know, we're blessed with the ability to lift words off the page effortlessly and to articulate them clearly. But if we don't inject emotional depth and real meaning into them, if we don't artistically color in the outlines of those pictures, we'll never do justice to beautifully crafted text or copy or capture a listener's imagination and we'll waste a great opportunity.

This is Marc Cashman and thanks for listening. If you have any questions of comments, don't hesitate to send me an e-mail at cashcomm@earthlink.net, that C-A-S-H-C-O-M-M@earthlink.net.

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.

Links from today's show:

Cashman Commercials
The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques
Ask The Voice Cat Blog
Marc Cashman Voices.com Website

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman

MARC CASHMAN creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards, he also instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA. Enjoying the distinction of being one of the few voice-acting instructors in the U.S. who is on "both sides of the glass"-- he creates, casts and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television clients such as Kroger, Charles Schwab, Quizno's, Pella Windows and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer among many, many others.

In addition to his production schedule, he's been an instructor at USC Graduate School and does pro bono work for numerous charitable and public service organizations. He instructs voice-acting of all levels through his online and tele-coaching programs, his V-O classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles, CA, and produces voice demos. He also has a monthly online column, Ask the VoiceCat, plus blogs and podcasts through Voices.com, VoiceOverXtra.com and NowCasting.com.

Cashman Commercials © 2009

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

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Join Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman in his lecture "Get The Point : A Lesson in Interpreting Punctuation". Marc shows you many different ways to interpret punctuation in voice over scripts and how you can turn exclamation points, commas, and periods into useful allies that will help you to make interesting choices in your peformances.

Download Podcast Episode 72 »

Tags:

Marc Cashman, Punctuation, Interpretation, Copy, Interpretation, Voice Acting, Voice Overs, Cashman Commercials, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques

Transcript of Get The Point! A Lesson in Interpreting Punctuation

[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 Marc Cashman.

Marc Cashman: Hi, this is Marc Cashman and thanks for joining me today. One of the many topics I cover with voice acting students is navigating punctuation marks in copy or text. I make the distinction between copy which are the words and phrases used in advertising or promotion and text, the words spoken in narration.

Punctuation marks can be easy or difficult to navigate for some voice actors depending on their skill and depending upon how good or bad the writer is in using punctuation correctly. While the period, comma, colon and semicolon can be used fluidly, the question mark can be used in dozens of different ways and narrating quotation marks takes a bit of skill and timing, the one punctuation mark that needs to be honored and should never be ignored is the exclamation point. I can't count how many times I've heard voice actors ignore exclamation points and I don't understand how they miss them. They're impossible to ignore, there's no other punctuation mark that makes its presence known as well as the exclamation point.

Granted, copyrighters tend to use them liberally particularly with retail or direct response copy. Do it today! Call Now! But wait, there's more!

But that's no excuse to miss them or pretend they're not there. The writer plays them there on purpose. They didn't plant themselves on the page by accident but exclamations points are used for just one purpose, to convey excitement and when you see exclamation points in copy, that's the writer's way of telling you, "Make this sentence exciting." An engineer who I worked with who has listened to thousands of voice actors recommends bringing a pocket full of exclamation points the next time you have piece of retail or direct response copy to perform and if they're not embedded in the copy, liberally sprinkling them over the page.

Sometimes there are sentences which don't have exclamation points that need them but too many sentences with exclamation points will start sounding silly after a while. Just how much excitement should an exclamation point convey? Well, it needs to be appropriate to the product, the situation and the audience.

Exciting copy for young kids for Hot Wheels is going to be read differently than exciting copy for a casino aimed at adults and there are so many different degrees of excitement. The amount of excitement and projection varies in myriad situations, shouting in a stadium, "All right, a home run!" Or ring side at a boxing match, "Knock them out!" exclaiming, "Happy Birthday!" or "Happy New Year!" at a party. Seeing someone take a fall and exclaiming, "Oh my God!" or accidentally knocking something over and apologizing, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Calling to your kids, "Dinner is ready," or hailing your neighbor from your porch, "Hey, haven't seen you in a while!" Then there's hushed excitement when you lean over to whisper to your friend or relative or a spouse in a opera or a recital, "I've been waiting for months to see this!" Confessing to a loved one, "Oh, you are going to love this!" or fighting with them, "You never listen to me!" Sometimes, excitement goes into the realm of terrorized or insanity.

Here's a tip if you see a lot of exclamation points throughout a spot. Be careful not to get too excited at the beginning. Otherwise, you'll have nowhere to go but down. You need to ramp the energy up gradually, believable and (paste) out. Plus if you're being directed in a session, the director will explain the appropriate energy you need to give the exclamation points in the script. Just don't ignore an exclamation point. Honor it and give it its due. Get the point?

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:

Cashman Commercials
The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques
Ask The Voice Cat Blog
Marc Cashman Voices.com Website

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman

MARC CASHMAN creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards, he also instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA. Enjoying the distinction of being one of the few voice-acting instructors in the U.S. who is on "both sides of the glass"-- he creates, casts and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television clients such as Kroger, Charles Schwab, Quizno's, Pella Windows and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer among many, many others.

In addition to his production schedule, he's been an instructor at USC Graduate School and does pro bono work for numerous charitable and public service organizations. He instructs voice-acting of all levels through his online and tele-coaching programs, his V-O classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles, CA, and produces voice demos. He also has a monthly online column, Ask the VoiceCat, plus blogs and podcasts through Voices.com, VoiceOverXtra.com and NowCasting.com.

Cashman Commercials © 2008

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

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Join Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman in his podcast "Giving Depth to Words". Many voice actors deliver their words with awesome articulation and precise projection, but have a detached delivery. Learn how you can color words or phrases with the appropriate attitude or emotion in this excellent lesson.

Download Podcast Episode 62 »

Tags:

Marc Cashman, Giving Depth to Words, Interpretation, Copy, Coloring words, Voice Acting, Voice Overs, Cashman Commercials, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques

Transcript of Giving Depth to Words

[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 Marc Cashman.

Marc Cashman: Hi. This is Marc Cashman. My subject today is giving depth to words. You know, I've been struck many times while listening to a radio or TV commercials or various forms of narration or in the classes I teach. How many voice actors deliver their words with awesome articulation and precise projection? But detached delivery. They're quite adept at lifting the words off the page effortlessly but failed the opportunity to color words or phrases with the appropriate attitude or emotion.

They sometimes forget to use their acting abilities to give depth to the words they speak. In voice acting, all our emotions and attitudes come through our voice. People can't see our eyes or our body language like they can on stage or in film. The slightest nuance in the tone of our voice can convey myriad feelings. Non-verbal utterances can convey even more. But there are so many places and copy where we can really give the words the depth they need but feeling the words were saying and putting emotionality into them.

An example that came up in one of my classes occurred when we we're working on a spot for a regional hospital and one word that kept popping up was hope. Ask yourself, what is hope sound like? When you say the word just by itself out of context, you tend to naturally say it on a down note. Hope. One word spoken with a period after it, but think about what hope means. Hope means to cherish. A desire with anticipation. To wish for something with some amount of expectation. It could be something you long for that's realistic or unrealistic.

It's an attitude or a feeling that could be attainable. And then the context of a hospital and the feelings that evokes in potentially life-threatening situations, it's a word with a very powerful meaning. So in this context, hope is a word we need to lift and the attitude is a positive one. When we say this word, we need to have hope in our heart in order to have hope in our voice, because people can hear if we're being sincere when we say this word or any word for that matter.

Of course, we could say hope in a sarcastic way, the mean way, the forlorn or a hopeless way. But in a spot or a narration for a hospital, we have to infuse the word hope with a positive attitude, with compassion and complete sincerity. On the other end of the spectrum, I hear the word pain a lot in copy. And I hear it thrown away but this is another opportunity to infuse the word with emotion. When you're talking about pain and you're a sympathetic or empathetic person, when you say the word pain, you should be wincing a bit. A listener can hear it in your voice.

And here's a perfect example of how the sound of one word can provoke an emotional response. How many times have you called someone you know and just by the tone of one word they use to answer the phone. Hello. You can tell if something's amiss. It'll provoke you to either say, "Hi, how are you doing?" or "Are you okay?"

So if one word can get that kind of response, just think of how thousands of your other spoken words and phrases are perceived. There are enumerable words that you can color and give depth to whenever you come across them. These words are loaded with attitudes and emotions. Don't throw away the opportunity to infuse these words with the appropriate color, feeling, and attitude. When you say the word excitement or exciting, deliver it with an exclamation point.

An exclamation point is the only punctuation mark I know that literally connotes an emotion, excitement. When you talk about how a particular client cares, care should be delivered with concern and compassion. Whether they're nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs, don't throw these words away. For voice actors, words are easy to say and lift off the page effortlessly, but the listener needs to hear some thought and feeling behind those words.

When you really start thinking about them, words are easy to bring to life when you say them with the appropriate feeling or attitude. Here are just a few examples.

Friendly. Elegant. Patriotic. Confident. Sultry. Scary. Stiff. Sensual. Helpful. Funny. Concern. Evil. Tiring. Appetizing. Sad. Cautionary. Breathless. Wacky! Tough. Delicious. Carefree. Perky! Nervous. Stuffy. Mellow. Heroic. Magical. Cute! Bored. Sly. Exciting!

In my classes, I have my students say these and many other words with their accompanying meaning and sound and also have them say them with their opposite meaning and sound. It's funny to say friendly in an angry tone. It's funny to say confident in a wimpy way. And when you do this exercise, it becomes clear that as voice actors when we speak, we're painting a picture for the listener, compensating for the fact that they can't literally see us saying what we're saying.

A lot of the copy you get as a voice actor will not be chock-a-block with words and phrases that you'll be able to get behind emotionality. There's no emotional hook in 2.9 percent APR financing for 60 months on all vehicles in stock, but the next time you do get some copy to perform that has any kind of emotional words or phrases or theme, sit with those words for a minute. Feel the emotion behind the copy. Think about how you would feel. How someone you loved or something like a pet would feel and then deliver it with a newfound depth to the feeling.

I guarantee you that you'll start performing two-dimensional words on a page in three-dimensions. This is Marc Cashman. 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 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:

Cashman Commercials
The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques
Ask The Voice Cat Blog
Marc Cashman Voices.com Website

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman

MARC CASHMAN creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards, he also instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA. Enjoying the distinction of being one of the few voice-acting instructors in the U.S. who is on "both sides of the glass"-- he creates, casts and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television clients such as Kroger, Charles Schwab, Quizno's, Pella Windows and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer among many, many others.

In addition to his production schedule, he's been an instructor at USC Graduate School and does pro bono work for numerous charitable and public service organizations. He instructs voice-acting of all levels through his online and tele-coaching programs, his V-O classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles, CA, and produces voice demos. He also has a monthly online column, Ask the VoiceCat, plus blogs and podcasts through Voices.com, VoiceOverXtra.com and NowCasting.com.

Cashman Commercials © 2008

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

---

Join Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman as he teaches you about "5 Areas of Active Listening". A critical skill to hone, listening can help you to become objective about your performances and will also assist you in meeting goals to achieve the nuance and deftness that great voice actors possess.

Download Podcast Episode 47 »

Tags:

Marc Cashman, Listening, Active Listening, 5 Areas of Active Listening, Voice Acting, Voice Overs, Cashman Commercials, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques

Transcript of 5 Areas of Active Listening

[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 Marc Cashman.

Marc Cashman: The art and skill of voice acting is an intricate exercise in interpretation and voice control. All the skill sets that comprise great voice acting, articulation, projection, intonation, dynamics, timing, acting and a myriad of other talents are absolutely necessary to be successful in this field but one skill that I ask my students to develop in classes and in one on one coaching and through this podcast is listening.

Many times you can learn more by listening than you can by actually doing. Listening is a critical skill to hone because it cannot only help you be objective about your performance, it can help you achieve the nuance and deftness that great voice actors possess. I've come up with five areas of active listening. You need to one, listen to yourself but don't yourself. What? Sounds like a contradiction.

Actually, this takes a bit of getting used to. When I say don't listen to yourself, I mean don't fall in love with the sound of your voice. Otherwise, you're favoring form over substance. Unless you're doing a phone patch session or need to hear another actor who is in an isolation booth, don't listen to yourself with headphones but when I talk about listening to your voice, I'm referring to your acting, your conversationality if directed to do so, your believability. You have to develop the ability to listen to yourself objectively and ask yourself, "Do I believe this person?" It's a bit schizophrenic but you need to step outside yourself to determine whether you're connecting with the copy or performing in a class, submitting us an audition or delivering in an actual session.

Two, listen to your fellow students. Whenever you're in a voice acting class with actors who are performing the same script you are, if you hear anything you like, make note of it and incorporate all the good stuff every one does into your performance. If you hear something you think is wrong or don't like the way a particular word or phrase was interpreted, make sure you avoid repeating it when your turn comes behind the microphone and most importantly, listen intently to the instructor as he or she directs the other students. Make specific notes so that when it's your turn to bat, you'll hit the ball out of the park.

Three, listen to the director whether it's a class, an audition or an actual session, it's crucial that you listen to the director in between takes and incorporate that direction into the next take. If a director asks you to emphasize a specific word or phrase and you don't follow their explicit direction, the director might think that they didn't make themselves clear and hopefully give you the benefit of the doubt and repeat their direction. However, if you don't incorporate their direction on the following take, the director will then realize it wasn't them. It was you and that you were listening.

Four, listen to the engineer. What? Is an engineer as important as a director? Sometimes an engineer can be crucial to your performance so anything they instruct you to do in the booth, whether it's adjusting your microphone, working with your headphones, shouting off mic, working with the monitor, whatever. Listen carefully to what they're saying. They're there to help you give your best performance possible and they usually know what they're talking about.

Five, listen to your competition and who are they? They're on the air and there's a reason why they're on the air. They've got all the skill sets a director wants in a voice actor and they are people you should listen to intently and emulate. Now, is everybody on the air great? No. But there sure are a lot. Sure you'll hear a performance from time to time that will make you say to yourself, "Whoa, how did that person get that job? They were terrible." But that's usually about one percent of the time and they don't count.

When you listen to voice actors on the radio, listen to their delivery, their energy, their articulation, their acting and mimic them literally. Repeat what they're saying and how they're saying it. Listen to their cadence, their conversationality, their believability and when you're watching TV and a commercial comes on, close your eyes and listen to the voices. Listen to commercials, narrations on documentaries, acting on animated programs. The people who are getting work are on the air and we need to hear their delivery as models as to what ours should and could sound like.

This is Marc Cashman. 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 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:

Cashman Commercials
The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques
Ask The Voice Cat Blog
Marc Cashman Voices.com Website

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman

MARC CASHMAN creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards, he also instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA. Enjoying the distinction of being one of the few voice-acting instructors in the U.S. who is on "both sides of the glass"-- he creates, casts and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television clients such as Kroger, Charles Schwab, Quizno's, Pella Windows and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer among many, many others.

In addition to his production schedule, he's been an instructor at USC Graduate School and does pro bono work for numerous charitable and public service organizations. He instructs voice-acting of all levels through his online and tele-coaching programs, his V-O classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles, CA, and produces voice demos. He also has a monthly online column, Ask the VoiceCat, plus blogs and podcasts through Voices.com, VoiceOverXtra.com and NowCasting.com.

Cashman Commercials © 2008

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

---

Join Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman as he coaches you on "Auditioning in Your Home Recording Studio" to set the stage for success. Learn how to create a perfect audition from home by following directions, being professional and paying attention to detail.

Download Podcast Episode 23 »

Tags:

Marc Cashman, Auditions, Auditioning in your home recording studio, Voice over work, Home Studio, Commercials, Voice Acting, Voice Overs, Cashman Commercials, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques

Transcript of Auditioning In Your Home Recording Studio

[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 Marc Cashman.

Marc Cashman: Hi. I want to thank Voices.com for letting me air this podcast which is a duplication of an article that was published last month. So let's get right to it.

VO auditioning and its protocols are changing now that home studios are becoming ubiquitous. If you put together a home studio or planning to soon, then subscribing to audition services like Voices.com is a great idea and you'll be submitting auditions with your software via e-mail.

Now if you are a full or part-time voice actor, when you go to a casting company or your agent, you usually have two to three takes and then you're done. In your home studio though, you can do as many takes as you want until you feel you've nailed it. But there's no one to direct you. This is a totally self-directed exercise with no feedback.

Doing this myself for the past few years has given me invaluable insight into the process of auditioning and submitting so I wanted to share with you a few things to keep in mind and a number of things to do to prepare you both physically and emotionally for this process.

First, warm up your voice before you record. Do whatever vocalization exercises you need to do before you enter the booth just like you would do for a live audition. Next, as with any audition, go over any directions, mark, rehearse and time your copy before you record. Rehearse your copy standing up and speaking at the volume you'll be speaking in the booth. If the spot requires a lot of energy, read standing up and don't forget to use your hands and arms to help you with emphasis and projection but if the spot asks for a relaxed laid back read, consider sitting on a stool or chair.

If a job asks for an audition, audition the copy provided. If you don't have time to audition, don't send your commercial demo. You won't be considered. Clients have a very difficult time making the leap from your demo to their copy. If you have a number of different auditions to record, record the ones that are on the low-end of your vocal scale. In other words, the deepest ones. Your voice is most resonant first thing in the morning when you haven't been talking for six to eight hours. Then proceed to the scripts in a higher key then finally, to any scripts that require a louder sound or say a textured voice or gritty character.

If a job gives you a description or direction, follow it. Read any directions carefully and give the client at least one take the way they want it. Then record a second take the way you think it should be. If you don't match the casting specs, don't embarrass yourself or waste your time or the client's time by attempting to cast yourself in a role that's obviously not even close to what they're looking for.

For instance, if they ask for a young twenty-ish voice, don't audition of you're 60 plus. Be objective enough about your voice to pass on an audition that's not right for you. If a client asks you to label a file in a specific way, follow the instructions to the letter especially cognescent of details like upper and lower case, spacing, underscoring, hyphens, et cetera. If there are no labeling instructions, ask your agent if there's any particular way they like the file labeled. If not, label your files generically, your name, hyphen, product, dot MP3 or the reverse, product, hyphen, your name, dot MP3.

Every casting director has his or her own way of managing filenames and if you don't pay close attention to the template they give you, you can rest assured your audition won't be considered. If the template shows a hyphen or dash, use a hyphen or dash, not an underscore. If the template shows all upper caps or upper and lower case lettering, follow the template.

The reasoning is simple. If you can't follow labeling directions, you won't be able to follow real ones in a session. If the client gives you a file labeling template like J Doe, hyphen, announcer, dot MP3 with your information, don't be an idiot and label it J Doe, hyphen, announcer, MP3. I work with agents all over the country and they can't believe that they constantly get submissions labeled with the template that they gave their talent instead of the talent's actual name.

Lastly, if a client asks you to slate your name at the top, just slate your name at the top. Slate it clearly and follow any slating instructions carefully. Some ask for a slate before the audition, some after and you don't need to give your life story. Keep the slate short and sweet and get right to it. Don't give your phone number, don't give the client's name, don't give a pitch. As long as your name is labeled correctly on the file, that's enough information. If you haven't been given the proper pronunciation of the product or service, try looking it up online to see or hear how the name is pronounced or call them if you can locate them. If you still don't know, take your best guess.

Have water in the booth at all times and drink in between takes. Stay hydrated. It truly helps to cut down on mouth noise. I even recommend a nasal rinse before you get behind the microphone which helps abate adenoidal deliveries. Record your auditions at 128 kpbs or 96 kpbs if it's a particularly long audition. Mono, you don't need a stereo file for an audition and you want to try to limit the size of the file you're e-mailing. If the file is really big, arrange to upload it instead of trying to attach to it to an e-mail. Yousendit.com will allow you to upload 100 megs free. You'll know if the file is too big when it bounces back with a "Cannot be delivered" message.

If the script is 60 seconds, submit one solid take. If it's a 30, submit two. If it's a 10 or 15, submit three. If it's an animation audition, decide on your character's voice and commit to it. If you're using an audition service, you should know that there are a lot of voice actors out there with great equipment in their home studios with a great sound. Check, double check and triple check your recording settings before submitting your audition. Make sure your recording is like Goldilocks, not too soft, not too loud, no distortion but just right. Send some of your sound files to people you know in the business who can give you feedback, no pun intended, and constructive criticism about the sound you're getting out of your microphone.

The bottom line, if your audition sounds like crap, forget about being considered for any job because most clients can't make the leap. If that's the case, get your recording system tweaked before you send out any more funky-sounding auditions. And also, make sure you're recording in a dead-sounding space where the sound isn't bounding off hardwood floors or high ceilings. You can do a lot to dampen the sound around you mic. Many times if you have some basic soundproofing, your auditions will sound great and can be used as a final track. Remember that you're competing with professionals who have been in the business a long time so your sound needs to be competitive.

If a job asks you to submit a specific demo, in other words, commercial, narration, audio book, whatever, make sure your demos or the demos you've posted on the audition service site are competitive. If you want examples, go to my website to hear some of the demos I've produced for my students. If your demo isn't competitive, you better think twice about submitting yourself for a job because a lot of other demos out there are going to make yours sound amateurish and that's the last thing you want.

Here's another thing. Listen to your playback objectively. Do you believe the person you're hearing? Be honest. If not, record it again and again if necessary. If you capture a convincing performance, send it on. If not, pass on it. It means you're just not getting it. Don't worry though. There will be plenty of others down the road.

Now for auditions going to agents, a cover letter isn't necessary but you should always attach one to every audition that goes directly to a client. It should not only have all the necessary information like your name, phone number and e-mail address, it should clearly state what you're auditioning for, the reasons why you would be a great candidate for the job and where they might be able to listen to other examples of your voice work.

If the want you to submit a quote for your service, be as explicit as possible given the job description and address any ancillary costs involved such as studio costs, phone patch or ISDN charges. Finally, there are myriad factors that determine who is hired for a voice acting job, voice print, acting ability, rate quote, turn around time, studio equipment, availability. But your first impression, how well you sound, how well you follow directions, slating, acting, labeling files, et cetera can help a potential client decide quickly whether they're dealing with a pro or an amateur.

Performance is important but always pay attention to the details of the presentation. Good luck. You can contact me through Voices.com and hear examples of voice demos on my website at Cashmancommercials.com. 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 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:

Cashman Commercials
The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques
Ask The Voice Cat Blog
Marc Cashman Voices.com Website
Voice Acting
Listen to Voice Over Experts on YouTube
Marc Cashman : Finding The Music in Copy

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman

MARC CASHMAN creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards, he also instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA.

Cashman Commercials © 2007

Enjoyed Marc's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts by clicking on "comments"!

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Join Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman of Cashman Commercials as he discusses "Finding The Music in Copy". By taking a musical approach to copy you'll have a better understanding of the music hidden in scripts.

Download Podcast Episode 01 »

Tags

Marc Cashman, Music, Copy, Ad Copy, Commercials, Voice Acting, Voice Overs, Cashman Commercials, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques.

Links from today's show

Cashman Commercials
The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques
Ask The Voice Cat Blog
Marc Cashman Voices.com Website
Voice Acting
Listen to Voice Over Experts on YouTube
Marc Cashman : Finding The Music in Copy

Transcript of "Finding the Music in Copy"

[music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voice Over Experts brought to you by www.voices.com, the number-one voice over marketplace. Voice Over Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voice over.

Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voice-over talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform and succeed from the privacy of your own home and at your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, www.voices.com is pleased to present Marc Cashman.

Marc Cashman: And this is Marc Cashman. I am the VoiceCat on www.voices.com and I appreciate the opportunity www.voices.com is giving me to put these podcasts together, and get you some, hopefully, valuable information.

Today, I would like to talk to you about "finding the music in copy." Now, we are all musical. Whether or not we are singers or play an instrument, music is all around us. We are humming to ourselves all the time. At one time or another, most of us have pounded drums, tickled the ivories, sung in a choir, strummed, plucked, blown or whaled.

We sing in the shower. We sing in the car. We have sung on Saturday or Sunday morning services and we followed the notation in the hymnal. It is a rare person with a tin ear. Even someone who can't carry a tune or dance can understand rhythm. Most of us can tell whether a note is sharp or flat, whether it extends or stops abruptly.

Advertising copy or text is musical. It has cadences and beats, tones and keys. It has sharps and flats, and rests, words that are held or chopped off. It has highs and lows and dynamics. It has droning sounds or wild up and downs. A lot of copy reads or plays like a song or story, with a beginning, a hook, and an end.

Some directors, myself included, use musical terms to direct voice actors. I will ask an actor to take a beat and that means to wait a moment. If I want an actor to raise their voice, I will ask them to raise it a key or raise it up a step. I am asking them to raise their pitch a bit. If I use the term staccato, I am asking an actor to hit words crisply and quickly.

If you try taking a musical approach to copy, you will have a better understanding of the music hidden in scripts. Listen carefully to the sound of your voice in playbacks and hear the variation of notes and volume.

Most professional voice actors stay within a middle range of notes with occasional highs and lows, and maintain a consistent volume and projection. The more breath control you have, which comes from your diaphragm and with proper posture, the more you will be able to hit certain notes as you deliver your copy.

Now if you are ever in a situation where you have to deliver a specific phrase that a director isn't happy with, ask them to give you a line read. Now I know a lot of you hate that, but this is how the director hears the phrase in their head, and we want to know how they want it to be delivered. When they give you the read, consider it a gift. There is no way you can read a director's mind.

Listen extremely carefully for the notes, then be able to mimic that phrase exactly, note for note. It is like when you were a kid and your mother said, "Take out the garbage." And you muttered under your breath mimicking her, "Take out the garbage" in exactly the note she spoke.

Elaine Clark, a very talented lady up in San Francisco from her book "There's money where your mouth is" Back Stage Books 2000 says it eloquently, "There is music in speech."

It lilts up and down to separate thoughts, emphasize key elements, or give directives. Even a monotone speaker lifts and lowers the pitch slightly to separate phrases and add punctuation. It is all a matter of degree. When words are read, many readers forget to apply this natural melody to speech. The problem with reading words on the page is that the words don't naturally belong to us.

Often the spoken words sound read rather than real. What the actors fail to achieve is matching the way the words would sound had they come out of the speaker's mouth first before they were typed. As voice actors, we have to learn to break that acquired habit of sounding like we are reading and learn to speak in a real and natural manner.

Now just as I said before that copy is musical and has beats and keys and sharps and flats and all sort of dynamics going on, there is one place however where music and copy diverge. Virtually all music has a steady beat, even jazz, copy does not. The cadences in our conversational speech have rhythms, but not a time signature, not a steady beat.

We don't talk like this. Our cadences make our speech speed up or slow down, stop and start again. We stutter, we stammer, we don't talk in a steady beat; therefore we should never read a script that way.

The next time you are watching TV and a commercial comes on, I dare you not to watch it. Close your eyes and listen, listen to the notes, listen to the cadence. You will hear the majority of voice actors stay key-wise right about in the middle of the musical staff with slight inflections up or down.

If you are familiar with musical notation, this usually means raising or lowering the voice one or two notes up or down, not uttering extremely high or low notes. As you are listening, mimic them about a half-second behind, note for note.

Learn from your competition, the ones on air, they do it effortlessly. And if you listen carefully, you will hear some of them, even though they are speaking, sound like they are singing.

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 podcast.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 voice-over career online, go to voices.com and register for a voice-talent membership today.

Your Instructor this week

Voice Over Expert Marc Cashman

MARC CASHMAN creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards, he also instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA.

Cashman Commercials © 2007

Enjoyed Marc's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

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