Do you hate lead-in lines? If so, you’re not alone. In the 11-plus years I’ve been coaching and producing demos for Such A Voice, I’ve never once run into a student who likes them. In fact, asking folks to do lead-in lines seems more like asking them if they want a root canal. I hear things like, “I hate doing these”, “I’m no good at these”, and “I just can’t think of anything to say”.
The resistance to doing lead-in lines is real, but why? One reason is a general lack of understanding about why lead-in lines are so important. Lead-in lines transform you from announcer, to a voice-actor, and can take your performance from boring to bookable.
Society’s tastes have evolved away from big, over-the-top deliveries. Today’s audiences want to hear someone they can relate to. Successful voice-actors use lead-in lines (or backstories as I like to call them) to create truthful, relatable moments in the script that pull the audience in – even if you’re talking about deodorant!
Developing a lead-in line for your copy is a three-pronged process.
First: Understand the copy.
You have to dig deep into the words of the script to understand what the message really is. This is sometimes calledserving the text. Acting coach Stella Adler had her students do a process called “nut shelling”, where they would tell the story of the script in their own words. This process helps you internalize and fully comprehend the message, which leads to a confident and believable delivery.
Second: Create a backstory/lead-in line.
One of the reasons students seem apprehensive of creating backstories and lead-in lines is that their imaginations haven’t been exercised in a while! We all have the ability to create limitless life scenarios. Remember when we were kids on the playground?
Give yourself permission to let your imagination run wild with the script and eventually you will settle upon a specific storyline. From there, you can formulate your lead-in line. Remember: it’s in these moments of discovery that the best performances happen!
Third: Make choices and justify them.
Stella Adler believed that actors need to do their own thinking and bring their point of view to their performances. She said, we must “relate to what lies behind the text.” By coming up with our own reason for what we are about to say, we are putting our unique fingerprint on our work. This creates authenticity, the number one thing casting is looking for today!
One of the easiest ways to justify what you are about to say is by asking yourself: do I care about what I am about to say? We can’t be ambivalent about the copy. This exercise forces us to find ways to get personally and specifically connected to the words on the page.
I recently sat in on an hour and a half zoom call with casting director Risa Bramon Garcia. There were over three hundred actors in attendance, wanting to know the secret to booking more auditions. Perhaps surprisingly, Garcia did not stress perfection in our performances; instead she emphasized authenticity, and the need for us to portray humanity in its truest form. The highlight of her talk for me was when she asked, “Is there a human being in there?”
I’ve discovered that when students, no matter what their level, do backstory work before voicing their copy, the transformation of their performance is astounding.
Great performances don’t just belong to a certain class of people; by doing the backstory work you can create a compelling, believable and entertaining performance that will book jobs!
Check out our free PDF with pro-tips from real working voice-over actors here!
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