This week I'm just going to say how much of a difference actually having a voiceover coach is making for me. Leslie at
Inside Voice is well worth the money I'm investing to improve myself, and every session I have with her brings new insights. We're working mostly on my general skills and commercial voiceover education as that's the area I feel I'm least up to par in. My character acting is improving steadily, aided by more generalized acting classes, and I'm starting improv classes after the holidays. Leslie has been instrumental in bringing me to the next level in just the basic knowledge one needs to enter this profession, however.
It could be something as simple as "don't 'punch' (overemphasize) your pronouns", "why don't you try smiling or smirking a little bit while you're speaking, show me your dimples", or "'season' the client's business name a little more when you say it". Little fixes and tricks that help me be clear, on message, and dynamic in my recording for commercial voiceover. Having internalized these lessons, and after a lot more practice and experience, it will be clear to prospective clients and the people they hire to produce these projects that I know what the hell I'm doing. (Or that I can at least fake it well enough!)
The big thing I learned this session was that the speed and sort of rhythm or
flow of the lines was an essential thing to find. I'm still learning, so I tend to swing to extremes. In acting class, I was told to SLOW DOWN because my natural tendency is to speak very quickly and get it all out there. In a commercial spot, however, taking a slow and measured pace may not work for a twenty second radio spot. Pauses are fine, but sometimes it's quick and clear annunciation that gets the job done instead. It may even behoove me to edit myself a bit in my sound recording software to speed things up, get rid of breaths that aren't intentional, and get a recording to really pop.
For next week, I've realized that very soon I'm going to hit another equipment wall with the way my recording gear is set up at home. So I'm going to take the weekend and try to do some low-cost improvements to my amateur sound booth in order to better employ the things I've learned in voiceover coaching -- including going from being seated at my desk to a standing setup so that I can move my body more. I knew that it made a difference, but that was one more thing that Leslie really pressed in our previous session. I'm a pretty expressive talker sometimes, and if I have to sit still and keep my desk chair from squeaking, my performance suffers. I'm also going to invest in some thick blankets, a PVC pipe frame, and some padded flooring to better prevent recordings from picking up as much ambient sound.
I may have to get a few pieces of equipment shipped in, but we'll see what I can manage by next week's update. My other intention, once I can get a jump in quality, is to start adding more of my practice recording to my
YouTube and
Soundcloud to back up what I've been writing about and prove that I'm not just bloviating about all this.
Lastly, I'd just like to thank anyone who's been reading along here. I'm doing this mostly for myself, to keep me honest, but also to have a record of where I've been because sometimes you need to see how much ground you've covered to keep you motivated. I know my readership so far is likely just a bunch of my mom's friends, but if you're reading this I appreciate any and all of you for checking in with me. Cheers!
