You picked up your local community college catalog looking for something a bit creative and you saw it!
VOICE OVERS… NOW IS YOUR TIME! A business that you can handle on your own terms, on your own turf, in your own time. An exciting and fun class that could be the game changer you’ve been looking for.
So you took the class and loved what you heard. The next step was to begin your training with Such A Voice and your coach. You had butterflies, but you also had determination; and you had scripts – SCRIPTS! This was getting exciting!
The first of the coaching sessions was an amazing, one-on-one session with an experienced voice actor and coach. You learned why script analysis is vital in determining the aspects of your performance. From identifying your demographic audience to the back story, deciding your character and analyzing the scene, YOU were becoming a voice actor!
With each session, your confidence grew. You received valuable feedback from your coach, learned how to take direction, and utilized techniques for developing diversity in a variety of copy. Then just when you thought it was safe to relax and really enjoy each session, your coach says, “Time is absolutely flying and we need to talk about your custom demo scripts and your recording session.”
Custom demo scripts? Recording session? “But wait! I’m not ready,” you think and the butterflies begin fluttering again.
“No worries,” your coach says. “First you have to complete some questions so that our copywriter can write commercials and narrations that fit your vocal characteristics and personality. We want them to reflect companies, industries, products and organizations that you value and simply couldn’t do without. Take a week or so to think about each category and once you’ve returned them, we’ll get them over to our copywriter. He’ll return them to us by the next coaching session.”
Fast forward, your custom scripts are returned, and you love them! A few more coaching sessions, your recording session is on the calendar, and your day arrives. It’s your debut as a voice actor.
You’ve practiced, prepared, treated your voice with tender loving care. You pack your essential voice over tool kit; bottles of water, a pencil in case of script changes, your marked up scripts, a clean copy for the sound engineer, some throat lozenges (just in case,) a bag of Granny Smith apple slices for the dreaded mouth noise, and you’re ready to go.
You arrive at the studio, introduce yourself to the engineer and take a look around. A microphone, headphones, music stand, pop screen, perhaps a stool to sit on, a place to park your things. Good studio etiquette indicates that the engineer handle any adjustments to the mic, but you’ll have control of the headphones, so ask where the volume control is before putting them on. You give the clean copy of scripts to the engineer. Your Such A Voice Producer calls in and you can hear her voice in your headphones. Wow! This may not be such a bad gig after all.
The engineer then needs to set your levels for the proper recording volume. The Producer has provided you with a test script to read until the engineer is satisfied that your vocal level is where it needs to be for the very best sound performance. Take advantage of this time to lose any residual nervousness and warm up your voice.
You are now ready for take off! Your Producer has explained that you’ll be delivering anywhere from three to six, seven, or eight takes of each piece of copy. Not necessarily because you’re doing anything incorrectly, but in order to get the finest, most seamless performance from you. There will be plenty of playbacks, conferring with the engineer, discussing the keeper and backup takes. You’ll be directed to ‘warm it up,’ ‘don’t sell me, just tell me,’ ‘add some smile,’ smooth it out, ‘and ‘take it from the top.’ You will find your rhythm and have the most fun you’ve ever had.
The two hour recording time will fly and you will realize that you’ve made the absolutely best decision about delving into this industry.
You are perhaps physically exhausted, but also excited and emotionally charged. This is not the end of your voice over journey. This is the BEGINNING! Now, go get ‘em!
Angela Castonguay is a successful voice-over artist, coach, and author, whose book Feeding Your Voice provides an essential guide to voice care. For more of her work, visit her website angelacastonguay.homestead.com.
