Recommendation for voice over actors: the work of Kirsten Linklater
Voice coaching and training: Kirsten Linklater
For those of you unfamiliar with renowned voice training coach, teacher, and writer Kirstin Linklater, we suggest you read her work and implement her methods.
Ms. Linklater speaks of voice training as a method of freeing the natural voice. Many voice over artists and film and theater actors use her techniques.
This talented women is also a dialect coach and theater director. She is currently at Columbia University as the Head of Acting in the Theater Department.
Also, Linklater's book, Freeing the Natural Voice, is a wonderful tool for the actor. Learning to command your natural voice is a crucial step toward success. We highly recommend reading her work and implementing her techniques.
“The best actors, and perhaps this can be said for the best performing artists in general (musicians, dancers, singers), are relaxed in performance. That is, they have no extraneous tension. Their muscles are ready to receive the impulses necessary to fulfill action and will ripple with energies in the service of particular stimuli…
In order to develop a voice that will create maximum effect with minimum effort and therefore be truthful, actors must exercise the vocal musculature in a way that conditions the voice to respond to imaginative and emotional stimulus.”
Pg. 39, Freeing the Natural Voice, 2006, Kristin Linklater
Relax. It’s Not Just about You
The best way to learn to audition is not by auditioning. That's the second-best way. The best way is by spending some time in casting. Through the process of casting, I learned how stressful and difficult casting can be, and I can relate to and identify with the casting directors and their needs in a much deeper way. As a talent, that awareness gets me out of my own head and my own need, and need is casting director repellent. In addition, I learned how many, and sometimes most, of the determining factors in casting a role have nothing to do with the quality of my audition. I can let go and have fun doing what I do best; and when I let go, I can book.
- Zach Hanks, Actor, Director