What's your vocal warmup routine?

A proper warmup is important in voice work the same way it's important in singing or exercising.  I don't want to shred my voice by going from zero to a hundred with screaming or other loud, guttural, and/or stressful sounds coming out of my mouth hole without being ready.  Gotta make sure I'm nice and limber first, and also to build up to the most intense stuff so I don't blow out my voice before all the calmer, more normal stuff has been recorded.  So, what are some example warm ups for voice acting?

Really, the answer is whatever works for you.  Sometimes if I know I'll be recording as soon as I'm out, I'll sing in the car.  Not death metal or anything, obviously, but something more relaxed just to get the air flowing is okay for me.

Since voice acting is something that I have learned works best when I stand up and employ my whole body, some basic stretching and moving of my arms, neck, and torso are a great way for me to get loose.  You can try neck rolls, spaghetti arms, and other things white people do when they dance. 

It's also important to get the lips and tongue warmed up and ready for action, as weirdly phrased as that may have been just now.  Buzzing or blowing through your lips like a horse, WIDELY EXAGGERATED vowel sounds - A, E, I, O, U - and tongue twisters to get ready for whatever the script has to throw at you.  Say them three times fast, then three times fast again and try to get it as close to perfectly coherent as you can. 

There are a ton of tongue twisters online, but here are just a few I use:

• Unique New York
• Red Leather Yellow Leather 
• Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars
• I Wish to Wash my Irish Wristwatch
• Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore
• Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

You can also take a deep breath and go from your lowest to highest register, then back to low so that you sound like a siren going off.  Whatever stretches your vocal chords, your mouth, your neck, your jaw, etc. without hurting you.  

I'll say this because it seems obvious, but common sense isn't always common.  If it hurts, don't do it.  That's the opposite of what you want out of a warmup, and pretty much a standard golden rule for taking care of your voice at all times.

In the comments, I'd love it if any other voiceover folks that happen to come by this blog sound off with what you all do to warm up.  Any tips?  Tricks?  Stuff to avoid?  It'd be great hear from you!

Back On My Bullshit

So, little hiatus over!

I've had some ups and downs for the last few months, and things got pretty crazy, and unfortunately the weekly blog posts slid a bit.  I apologize for that, but I'm learning from all of it and moving past it.

Back in December I recorded for an audio-drama that will hopefully be coming out soon.  Once they make an announcement, I'll make an announcement about my part in it.  Great experience, great director, great bunch of actors.  I can't wait to hear the final result.

After the holidays, things went a little south.  I got in a bit of a car accident on the way to my day job one morning and there were a harrowing few weeks involved where we didn't know if the insurance would cover it and anxiety basically overwhelmed my brain.  Add in that my dog, who I love despite this, knocked over my good microphone and broke it.  Finally salt all that with some good old back pain and some day job/coworker shenanigans and hoboy...it was real fun stuff.  BUT, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

I've come here to say that I'm officially back on my bullshit.  I've signed up for a free improv class on 3/25 just to get myself started back up again, I've been back on schedule with voice practice, and it looks like I might be able to get myself a new audio rig pretty soon.  In the meantime, I've been playing around with short, little ads or movie quotes in the voices of characters from my Dungeons & Dragons game and sharing them with my players for fun.

Here's Sir Theophilus Nightingale, an over-the-hill, quixotic knight with his horse, Reginald, doing a parody of an Old Spice commercial.

In other news, have you seen the Critical Role Kickstarter???  Originally fully funded in just under an hour, they're almost up to $7.5 MILLION DOLLARS at the time of this post.  It's important not just for Critical Role or D&D fans, but for fans of adult-targeted animation and voice acting.  It shows that there is a real interest in animated productions that aren't primarily kids' shows or comedies, and that the animation medium can be so much more than just those two (admittedly great) genres.  Consider throwing them a few dollars if you have them to spare and help them meet those stretch goals!

Hope you're all having a wonderful new year, not letting the crazy world get you down, and creating new things.  See you next time.

Holiday Shenanigans

Aaaand it's already almost X-Mas.  If there's one thing that I'm increasingly learning new ways to deal with it's how to balance things going on from day to day.  It's not work/life that's the problem right now it's work-life/voiceover-creativity.  The holidays are nuts for pretty much everyone, but it is a new experience trying to keep up with my practice, sending out auditions, and doing my "homework" on acting, marketing, industry news.  But I'm not at the point yet where I can simply put my day job aside, so a little bit of feeling like I'm standing on a huge Jenga tower comes with the territory I guess.

I am immensely looking forward to the time I get to take off from my survival job around X-Mas and New Year's.  I'll still be working a bit, but it's voiceover work that I'm excited to be a part of.  I'll be heading to San Diego to visit my parents as well as to see friends both new and old in Los Angeles while I'm down there.  But in the couple of weeks I still have until we leave, I am determined not to fall into a rut.  Classes are kind of on hold around the holidays as most acting teachers don't want to start one when everyone is out of town.  So I'm left to be a diligent self-learner for the time being.

I'm also continuing my construction of a decent home recording space.  For the moment it looks a little bit like an empty box, but it's coming together.  I'm finding that the problem with home audio booths isn't the echo off of the drywall or the ventilation but actually preventing sound from getting in -- and when you have a new neighbor that likes blasting music with heavy bass it's a BIG problem.  Unfortunately I don't have $5000 to drop on a prefabricated isolation booth, so heavy blankets on every surface seems to be the way this is going to go.  Especially the floor.  Because killing my downstairs neighbor is generally frowned upon, unfortunately.

One thing I'm thankful for is my continued subscription to Steve Blum's webinar classes.  I can't usually participate live, but they're all recorded so I can generally start one whenever works best for me.  They're a great way to remotivate myself if I'm feeling like I'm dropping into that sort of educational or creative rut, and he always provides interesting homework assignments to give each class a practical side.  Anything that gets me back in front of a microphone when I start to want to procrastinate is fantastic.

Above all, I want to feel like I'm making progress and moving forward.  Plateaus are an awful feeling when you see the next level above you and just can't quite make it.  So every new thing I can learn, every little trick I figure out for my own voice or realization about a certain theoretical lesson put into practice puts me one more step up on this staircase to where I want to be. 

For those of you following along, I realize that sometimes it seems like I'm stating the obvious or restating something I've said before, but remember that this is as much if not more for me than it is for you.  Writing this out helps me put my thoughts into practice, and my brain is a pudding thrown against a wall sometimes.  So the rambling will happen.  I thank you for bearing with me, and checking in with me from time to time on this journey of mine.  Every one of you that cares enough to see what I'm up to is incredibly appreciated. 

Cheers, and Happy Holidays!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy nonspecific harvest festival celebration day, everybody!  I'm pretty much taking today off from the blogging in order to pack for a brief trip out of state to visit my in-laws for the holiday.  So this isn't going to be a full training/info topic. 

I just want to share that I have a couple new projects that I've been cast to take part in.  Unfortunately, I can't give any more details than that, but I'm excited to contribute and I will of course tell you all about them when they are finished and announced by the project creators.

In the meantime, enjoy your holidays if you celebrate, however you celebrate, and I'll be back to posting my particular brand of verbal detritus and scree next week!

Training Update

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!

Self-Care

Hello, readers.  Apologies for the late post this week, but I was sick Wednesday and things tend to snowball.  But it actually leads in to what I wanted to talk about this week: the importance or self-care. 

It's sort of a rare experience for me to work myself into exhaustion so badly that I get physically ill, but I didn't take care to devote enough time to rest and I paid the price.  If you're passionate about something, it's easy to throw yourself into it, and especially if you're depressed, anxious, or ADD/ADHD you tend to feel like you're never doing enough or never going fast enough.  And it screws with you. 

I'm 32, and still just getting into this voiceover thing.  So a lot of the time I struggle with feeling like I'm way behind.  So instead of taking the time to relax my body and mind after already spending nine hours at my survival job, I throw myself into research and practice as soon as I get home, too.  If I'm not careful, my health and my relationships suffer.  Fortunately, my wife is also a creative and she can see the signs.  She watches out for me just like I watch out for her, since we can't always see things right in front of our faces.

I think that setting a bit of an elevated pace is a good thing.  It keeps me from getting lazy and falling into old habits.  I'm always concerned with what's next instead of ruminating on what I've already sent out.  But as much as I love this, it's still work.  I'm not slacking off if I also include time to watch a movie with my wife or take an extra long walk with the dog.  Your mind is a muscle, and when you're working out rest is just as important as activity.  I can't be my best if my brain is wrung out and useless.  The same is true for my voice.  If I over-practice or overuse it, trying to stay ahead of the competition I'm going to hurt myself and fall behind anyway.

Taking a break when you need it is also, strangely enough, a great way to stay motivated.  Killing myself with this is the best way to guarantee that I'm not going to want to keep doing it.  Even the best job in the world can end up being a chore if you're not taking care of yourself in your off time. 

So set a healthy pace.  If you deal with mental issues like ADHD, take steps not to hyperfocus.  Have a varied set of hobbies and interests outside of voiceover that can refresh you.  Try to live a healthy social life, because your friends and experiences out there are going to make your performances in the booth much better!  And well...you know what else I'm going to say.  Eat your vegetables, take your meds, and stay in school. 

Mostly what I'm saying here to myself and to you is, you have permission to rest.  You're still going to be great. 

Happy Halloween! Kumoricon Voice Panel Recap

Happy Spoopy Day, everybody!

If you got such a gorgeous torrential downpour of rain like we did here in Portland, I hope you're enjoying it.  It's been like this most of the week and after the several months of bone dry weather we experienced it's giving a pluviophile (someone who loves rain and finds peace in rainy days) like me life.

Last weekend I hit Kumoricon, mostly for the voice panels.  In attendance were Monica Rial, Keith Silverstein, Justin Briner, Erica Mendez, Lucien Dodge, Jād (jade) Saxton, Lauren Landa, and most likely more I have forgotten -- but these were the voice actors, directors, and ADR scriptwriters in the panels I was able to attend. And I'm just going to talk about a few points from the most interesting ones -- the ADR Scriptwriting Panel, the From Fan to Professional panel, and Justin Briner's Q&A panel.

ADR, or Automated Dialog Replacement, is the process of taking a foreign language script, translating it, and rewriting it so that the English matches the mouth flaps of the animated characters on screen -- mostly used for anime shows. Monica Rial, Lucien Dodge, and Erica Mendez were there to give us a rundown on the process as well as answer some questions. One thing I hadn't considered about ADR was that they're not just doing a straight translation, or even trying to adhere 100% to what the literal translation from Japanese would be. They're sticking to the intent more than the actual words, because a straight translation into English doesn't often make a whole lot of sense. They're also adjusting it by characterization in order to translate a specific character's personality into English as well as the dialogue. An ADR script adapter has to deal with things like long pauses ("Shatnerisms"), lengthening or shortening a line to fit the time frame and mouth movements, the Japanese switchup with the letters "L" and "R" that sometimes happens, and especially any time there is a sign written in English or a person speaking English in the Japanese version which they'll either have to go with, adjust slightly, or ignore depending on how bad it looks or sounds.

The "From Fan to Professional" panel was interesting because Erica Mendez and Lucien Dodge were basically telling their own story about how they got into the industry. Erica especially was a fan first, no classic theater training, went to school for something else, but was able to get into it with sheer hard work and passion for the craft. It's honestly very inspiring because in a whole lot of those ways I'm in the same starting position, only she was able to figure it out when she was five or ten years younger than me. What it boils down to, basically, is be tenacious and driven but don't be a dick. The more friends you make, the more people have your back, the more people will see you helping yourself and want to help you. I like that. It's still really, really, really, really hard work but it's nice to have a hand to help pull you back up off the ground when you fail. You'll also burn fewer bridges if you're just a nice person. It seems very obvious, probably, but a lot of people conflate being driven with being ruthless in the entertainment industry. Don't.

Strangely enough, I got my most useful answer to a question from Justin Briner's open Question & Answer panel. As usual, I was the guy in the front row taking notes, probably making him wonder if I was part of the press or just an obsessed fan, but he answered my question about getting into the character's headspace on a short time frame really well. I'd love to have just let him talk about it for the entire hour and a half, but I wasn't the only one with a question, so I'm glad he went on about it for as long as he did. The question, basically, was "How do you find the character when you're given a script a day, or hours before having to audition?" Voice actors often don't get a lot of time to prepare, so I wanted to know what Justin's process was when he was handed a new character.

• Theater training really helps here -- helping you make a strong choice, especially in the audition; vocal control and technique; cold reading and quick decisions; physical movement and projection. 
• A healthy back and forth with the Director can help you tweak your performance to help you give them what they want. 
• A focus on what your character wants in that moment. What is the purpose of the scene? Keeping that always in the back of your mind in order to serve the flow of the story. 
• Experience and practice, practice, practice. Having read enough scripts and done enough acting that you can recognize the cues in what you read nearly instantly. The character is all there -- the delay comes in the speed at which you process it from the reading. 

Once again, I'm reminded that a lot of what getting better as an actor boils down to is just doing it. Act, read, go through the exercises you learned, practice your skills over and over again until you don't have to think about doing it.