Podcasts Voice Over Experts Coloring Our Words
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Coloring Our Words

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Stephanie Ciccarelli
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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

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.jpgMARC 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!

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 [email protected], that [email protected].
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.

Stephanie Ciccarelli
Stephanie Ciccarelli is a Co-Founder of Voices. Classically trained in voice as well as a respected mentor and industry speaker, Stephanie graduated with a Bachelor of Musical Arts from the Don Wright Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario. For over 25 years, Stephanie has used her voice to communicate what is most important to her through the spoken and written word. Possessing a great love for imparting knowledge and empowering others, Stephanie has been a contributor to The Huffington Post, Backstage magazine, Stage 32 and the Voices.com blog. Stephanie is found on the PROFIT Magazine W100 list three times (2013, 2015 and 2016), a ranking of Canada's top female entrepreneurs, and is the author of Voice Acting for Dummies®.
Connect with Stephanie on:
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Comments

  • Herb Merriweather
    April 24, 2009, 8:54 pm

    Thank you for that wonderful reminder and lesson.

    Reply
  • Scott Fortney
    April 25, 2009, 1:49 am

    This is one of my favorites.

    Reply
  • Diane Havens
    April 25, 2009, 1:49 am

    Marc is a standout coach. And one helluva guy.

    Reply
  • Alex Rain
    April 25, 2009, 1:56 am

    Great podcast. Marc is always a pleasure to listen to and i think the analogy is very true. Thanks, Marc.. and Voices.com!

    Reply
  • Avdhessh Arya
    April 27, 2009, 11:05 am

    Great information!
    I hope to color all the words come my way!
    Thanks!

    Reply
  • Scott McDonald
    May 11, 2009, 7:40 am

    Thanks for giving me a great picture for voice-over coloring. It was great!

    Reply