How many times have I heard that sentence from students in my Intro to Voice-Over class? A lot. In fact, I probably hear that sentence from a handful of voice-over hopefuls in almost every class I teach.
I refer lovingly to those who make this statement, often apologetically, as covert actors. Covert, meaning hidden or in secret – their ability to act has always been there, but it has just been hidden from them, or, from their awareness.
Let’s think for a few minutes about what it is that actors actually train to do. It’s basically what we do as voice-over talents. We take written words and bring them to life. We make them appear real in the moment, and believable. We strive to connect to the audience, or listener, and pull them into whatever world we’re creating. We never want to seem as if we are just reading words off a page, because that would break the illusion, and our connection to the audience. The main difference is that we don’t have the ability to use facial expressions, posturing, or costumes to help us create that believability; it all has to be in our voice.
Now, here’s the part where I always smile to myself when I hear the sentence, “but I don’t have any acting experience.” So, let me ask you, have you ever been extremely sad at any time in your life, if not several times? What about angry? Confused? Jealous? Joyous? Cranky? Sexy? Scared? And the list goes on. My point is, actors spend a lot of time training how to be believable in every facet of human emotion or human nature, and they use that knowledge in their work to bring those written words to life in a believable way. Therefore, you, and I, and any human being who has truly experienced these emotions, is in fact the original form of what the trained actor is studying! It’s all there, right inside of us!
But now you might be thinking, if a client were to direct you to be sad, or angry, or cheerful, maybe you might not be able to transfer those emotions to the words in your script as believably as you would live them organically in life. So, here is a great way for you to begin to transfer how you experience those emotions or tones, in your real and believable way, into your work.
Whenever you’re feeling the actual emotion, (so for instance if you just finished watching the Green Mile, and you cry every time) while you are in that true state of sadness pick up your phone and record about thirty seconds, right off the top of your head. Be in the moment of that true emotion. “I can’t believe every time I watch that movie, it just tears me up, and I mean the part where he, where he…oh man, I need another Kleenex, I…” but, you get the point here.
Now, take that recording and transcribe it, make a script, word–by-word-by-sniffle, exactly as you said it. It has to be verbatim. Next, fold that script up and put it in a drawer for no less than two weeks. Save your recording but DON’T listen to it! When the time is up, pull out your script, and without listening to the previous recording, record yourself reading those words. Now, compare the first recording, which was real and true to your emotion, to the second recording where you read the script of words that you transcribed. Are they similar? Do you sound real and natural? Believable? If not, what did you do differently when you were reading the script? Take note of what “personal sound effects” might have occurred in the original. Did your voice break? Was your pitch the same? Was your tempo more varied? Were there sniffs or gasps? This is a great way for you to learn more about what to do to sound believable, learn what your realistic sound is and where you are delivering or coming up short. Try it again, when you’re truly angry about something, or shocked, or confused, or excited…pick up your phone and record that 30 seconds! Transcribe your script.
Even if you are someone who feels you have no acting experience, or, even if you have an acting background, remember that we all have the hidden ability within us to be believable, and this exercise is a great bridge from our own original and true human emotions to our voice-over projects.
Get out of stealth mode and unleash the covert actor in you, and may you find your hidden De Niro or your inner Streep on many VO projects to come!
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