Voiceover Tip: Copy the Vocal Patterns on TV Commercials

Here's a great tip and exercise for voiceover artists: use TV commercials as a source of practice. Really listen to the commercials on your TV or radio. When you find a good commercial you like, try to parrot the VO actor who is speaking the lines.  You'll be repeating the words, of course, but also try to copy, as exactly as you can, the nuances, the tone, the inflections he or she uses, and the musicality.

Then mute or turn off the TV or radio and grab any random bit of text, such as an ad in a piece of mail or magazine. Try to bring the new tone and vocal patterns you've been copying to these new words. You will be using the style you've been mimicking with this new material.

This will really start to train your ear and attune you to what is currently “hot” in the advertising world. And it gets you practicing, reading aloud, and using your voice in new ways.

And it's fun! Enjoy!

Merry March Newsletter with Tara & Yuri

Check out our latest newsletter, below. There's a sign up button over on your right if you'd like to receive it!

Click here to read as a pdf: Merry March newsletter, with Tara and Yuri, March, 2014

I am so very excited that it is March, and not just 'cause that means a Happy Birthday to Sir Yuri, who I am just so happy was born and is in existence. Birthdays in general bring me joy! My own goal this year is to take more time for myself and practice meditation and yoga more frequently (which I am pleased to report I have been implementing). I am doing a personal 365 Project on self love and I even got all woo-woo and did a 10 day International EFT Summit, on energy meridians and moving emotions and limiting beliefs stuck in the body! Hooray for space in life to pursue self-care!

Tara :) (&Yuri)

Yuri Lowenthal & Tara Platt: Raise Your Voice (Acting)!

Click here to read more: Merry March newsletter, with Tara and Yuri, March, 2014

Voice Over Essential Tip: Know Your Voice!

This is something that can’t be said enough: you must know your own voice. No matter how long you’ve been living with your voice and how well you think you know it, you’re about to start doing things with it that you’ve probably never done before. So take the time to get friendly with your beautiful and unique pipes. You’ll learn to recognize your limits and your strengths.

Believe it or not, if you don’t know your voice, sometimes booking the job is the worst thing you could do! For example, let’s say you really push your voice way out of your comfort zone in the audition, and you book the job. Well, that’s great, you got the job! But now you have to do that voice (maybe for 52 episodes!), and if you’ve made a choice that your vocal apparatus can’t keep up with (say, a deep gravelly voice that you can only maintain for a few minutes before you get hoarse or keel over in pain), then you’ll end up embarrassed because you’ll have to back out of the project, and the producers will have to find someone else.

In that case, everyone loses, and no matter how many times you apologize, everyone will remember what a snafu you caused. We’re gonna bet most voice actors have a story like this; and you only need one such experience – where you risk losing your voice (and your pride) – to drive home the importance of knowing your own limits.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t push yourself or that it isn’t possible to expand your range. That’s the fun part! But the key here is staying healthy. Start by becoming conscious of when you are speaking on your voice or off your voice. Just as our fingerprints are unique to each of us, our vocal folds vibrate to create specific vocal patterns which make up our personal and unique vocal signature. Practice creating interesting and specific characters with the voice you have, and not the voice you wish you had.

Sure, it’s possible to imitate someone who has a similar sound or register, but ultimately we are each built differently, and our vocal quality is one more example of this. (You really are unique, just like your mom told you.)

You can expand your healthy voice range just as you would build muscles at the gym – by working out. Taking a singing class or voice class can often provide you with the exercises you need to broaden your range.

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic  includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

 

How can Alexander Technique Help You as a Voice Over Actor?

We Voice Over actors use all kinds of techniques to strengthen our skills and keep ourselves in great health and shape: healthy eating, rest, voice coaching, acting lessons, improv practice, tongue twisters, breathing exercises, warm up exercises, face and mouth exercises - anything we can do to make us the best we can be!

Consider trying The Alexander Technique. Research via clinical studies has shown that it can substantially improve posture, stress, breathing, and reduce chronic pain. Since the voice is an inseparable function of the body, all methods of moving and breathing correctly can help you in the art and skill of voice over.

As a student for many years of various voice-over and movement techniques, Tara can't recommend enough getting in touch with your voice, breath, and body thru a class and a teacher that you are passionate about. If you are interested in Alexander Technique there is a fabulous database to help you find a certified teacher near you:

www.alexandertechnique.com/teacher/northamerica/

 You can check out The Alexander Technique and read further here as well:

What is the Alexander Technique?
What are the Benefits of Lessons or Classes?

"The Alexander technique is a way of learning how you can get rid of harmful tension in your body." Although certainly not a full definition of the Alexander Technique, this is a good start.*

"The Alexander Technique is a way of learning to move mindfully through life.

"The Alexander Technique is a method that works to change (movement) habits in our everyday activities.

"The Alexander Technique is an intelligent way to solve body problems."
- So begins an excellent article-length introduction to the Technique.
Read this article.
 

Voice Over in the Studio: The Proper Distance from the Mic

 

Microphone technique

VO actors: The Proper Distance from the Mic

The microphone is very sensitive, so where should you stand in relation to it? The engineer might ask you to get a little closer or stand a little farther back, but here's a good place to start: open up your hand, palm up. Now, close just your three middle fingers (the index, middle finger, and ring finger). You're left with only your pinky finger and thumb extended, much like the popular surfing Hang ten sign or, if you hold your hand up to your ear, the international Call me! sign. The distance from the tip of your pinky to the tip of your thumb is about the distance your mouth should be from the mic. You can also put two fists on top of each other to measure roughly the same distance.

An exception to this mic distance rule is when you're working with a loop group doing ADR and walla. In that case, you'll be working in a larger room, moving around a lot with a group of people, and your distance from the mic will be much farther.

Now, obviously, these rules may change depending on the type of sound you're trying to create. For example, if you're going for a whispered, or soft, sultry quality, you may wish to get a little closer in on the mic. For yelling and screaming you will probably want to back off so as not to blow out the engineer and whoever else may be in the studio.

When you speak, the sound comes out in a cone shape; so while a mic will generally pick you up no matter where you are in the booth, you'll always get your best sound if you're standing directly in front of it. And once you're in position, pay attention to where you are and how that feels. It'll be important for you to maintain a pretty consistent position throughout your session so that the recording quality matches from line to line and session to session.

How much freedom do you have to move around? The answer is … some. You shouldn’t be worried about keeping your head stock-still. You have some play: about 15-20° to the right and to the left. The same goes for up and down. There’s a stand in the booth to hold your script, so feel free to tilt your face down to read from it. The mic can take it, and so can the engineer.

You definitely don’t have to memorize each line and then look up to deliver it, although some people might do this, particularly if they’re looking up to sync with mouth movements on a screen. The trick is to do the looking with just your eyes, and not change the relationship of your mouth to the mic in the middle of a take. Moving your head will make a difference to how the recording sounds. So, before you say the line, decide how you want to place your face in relation to the mic.

Movement only begins to cause problems in two cases:

1. when the movement itself gets noisy, either due to your clothing/shoes or your flailing about and knocking into things

2. when your movement carries you too far from the mic or too close to the mic

Either of these cases can cause you to have to do another take of the line because there are limits to what even the engineer can compensate for.

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Check out our VoiceOverVoiceActor website for more tips and exercises. We post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic  includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

Setting up Audio to Record Voice Over at Home

We’d love to share a very helpful article with you . I know many of you have talked of setting up your own equipment for record voice over at home. While we have covered this in our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic, this is a great source to know about, as well: Soundonsound.com .

Thanks to Jason Bermingham of Sound on Sound:

Producing Professional Voiceovers At Home, Part 1

To achieve success as a self‑producing voice-over artist, you need to be much more than a good recording engineer... This article is the first in a two-part series. Read Part 2.

By Jason Bermingham

“… in this short series of articles I’ll set out what you need to know to get started as a home‑studio voice-over artist, and turn it into a paying job. This month, I’ll explain some differences between the voice-over and music industries, and run through the different roles you’ll need to become good at. Next time, I’ll discuss what makes a good voice, the sort of home‑studio setup you need, and how you can start to get the jobs coming in.”   READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

Part Two

Very cool new USB microphone - check it out!

Blue Unveils Nessie, Adaptive USB Microphone

We always rely on SomeAudioGuy to keep us updated on all the latest cool techie stuff for our home recording VO studio. Check out the new USB mic, which he talks about in his blog:

"You can always count on Blue to deliver an attractive microphone.

Nessie is the newest addition to their line up. The goal with Nessie is to take some of the pain out of editing and cleaning up your recordings. Blue calls this "adaptive" recording. While on the show floor I wasn't ale to try this out personally, but a combination old and new tech seems like it will help those looking to record higher quality audio."  READ MORE  

 

 

 

Voice over loop group or walla group: another good VO acting job

Another good voice acting job within the TV/film industry comes in the form of the loop group or walla group (usually a team of five to eight actors hired to record all the extra or background dialogue necessary in film, TV, or games). These groups join the project after a film/TV show has been shot, to fill in the audio soundscape (sounds that make up the environment). That generally means creating crowd or ambient noises that weren’t recorded during filming.

Typically there is little to no scripted dialogue: the walla group actors simply make up lines based on research they’ve done about the location of the scene. But occasionally, a member of the loop group will be asked to match or replace a small character with scripted lines.

You see, in order to get the best quality sound on set when a movie or show is originally shot, the only people who are allowed to actually speak and make noise are the principal actors. This means that everyone you see in the background of any scene (in the coffee shop, hospital, or sports arena) is simply miming speaking and is not actually saying anything. So it is often necessary to have a loop group come in to the recording studio and fill in the voices that are missing.

Sometimes doing loop group or walla group work means adding in efforts (those non-dialogue vocal sounds) and possibly dialogue (ADR) that was somehow missed or perhaps left until later. Or it could involve replacing dialogue that didn’t work out. Say, for example, that the film was shot in Romania, but the story is supposed to be set in New Jersey. Some of the actors who were hired locally may not have sounded Jersey enough, so the loop group may be asked to replace the dialogue with a more authentic accent.

These looping sessions can be some of the most sought-after work in the VO business. The prestige is low, but the pay is high, and the work can be profitable if you become associated with a group that works frequently.

Also, contrary to how we’ve described the workspace for most VO work, if you are working as part of a loop group, you’ll have plenty of room to move around. The microphone is often set up fairly high in a larger-than-average room so that the actors can walk and move around and create different depths of background sound.

These different depths of sound are achieved through a number of techniques that have their own specialized vocabulary. One example is the pass-by, where people in conversation stroll across the pick-up area of the mic to give the illusion of movement. Another technique is the similar donut, where the group circles like a wagon train in front of the mic, and actors converse while continuing to circle. Sometimes it’s just a stationary line-up of the group in front of the mic, with every member taking a turn shouting callouts (shouts) that may be used to break up the walla bed (a continuous layer of background dialogue). The first time we worked with a loop group, it was as if we had traveled to a foreign country and had to learn a whole new language.

As a member of the loop group, you are responsible for doing your own research so that you can bring in terms and vocabulary specific to certain settings or locales that are featured in the film/show. For example, if the movie you’re looping is about the crew of a submarine, you’d better ask the Internet (or your favorite uncle) a lot about submarines before you come in to work. You must be prepared to improvise dialogue realistically and within the specific context of the project. But don’t worry; a good loop group director will go over what you’ll need to know for a specific project enough in advance that there will be time for you to do some research.

 

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Check out the rest of the website for tips and exercises, we post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic  includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

“So How Do I Find My Own Voice?”

 

You can start identifying your own voice by making a list of adjectives that you feel describe your voice and your way of speaking. Then, because we often have trouble being objective, pick five people who know you well, and five people who know you less well, and ask each of them to come up with five adjectives to describe your voice. Remind them that they’re not trying to describe you or the way you look, but specifically your voice. If they have trouble coming up with descriptive words, maybe you could compile a long list of adjectives to make it easier on them. Here are a few adjectives you might choose (also see our suggestions in “Play to Your Strengths” in Chapter 10 of our book, The Demo):

abrupt             energetic               sincere           curt         fun-loving       

smooth            confident             guarded        upbeat    warm                 

See which of the words suggested by your friends resonate with you, especially if a certain adjective comes up more than once. That means there’s usually something to that suggestion.

As you become more familiar and comfortable with your voice, you may find that you can start to identify the attributes that are specific to you. Your voice might be raspy or it might be crisp and clear. Maybe you have a slight drawl from living in the South, or a particular vocal pattern that people identify with you. Identifying your vocal characteristics is a good way to start honing in on what types of characters and qualities you might be able to bring to the table.

Some people call this description of your voice and delivery a vocal signature or style; others simply call it your sound. As soon as you zero in on your sound, you’ve got a strong place to start and to build outward from. It’ll be your safe place that you can always fall back on, and probably the place from which you’ll do most of your work.

Vocal signature comes up a lot in commercial VO. You might get hired because of your specific sound and attitude – which the client feels perfectly represent the product, and suddenly you’re the spokesvoice for that brand.

Remember, the most important thing here is that you are discovering for yourself your own personal and particular vocal quality and sound. There are so many opportunities in the field of voice-over that there’s no reason for you to feel the need to alter your own sound. Simply learn to market what you have and who you are, and that’s when things will really start popping!

Check out the rest of the website for tips and exercises, we post daily VO tips on Facebook and Twitter, and our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What it’s like behind the mic  includes a wealth of exercises to build your voice and keep it ready for a successful voice over career!

Great exercise: make like a snake!

Imitating a snake can be a great exercise to increase your breath control and expand your lungs.

Try this:

1. Inhale deeply and then, holding your palm an inch in front of your mouth so you can feel the air, let out a hiss.
2. Hiss for as long as you are comfortable and then take a deep breath.
3. Repeat this 5 times alternating between an “s” hiss and a “z” hiss (which we guess might be called a ‘hizz’).

4. Begin to gradually increase the length of your hiss (or hizz) as you are comfortable.
Hissing can strengthen your abdominal muscles and your diaphragm because they are working to maintain one strong continuous flow of air. Another exercise that’ll work your abs is to pant, rapidly, like a dog when it is hot. This exercise will force your diaphragm to rapidly push and pull, which will strengthen it over time, but might tire you out pretty quickly. The benefits are many, though, not the least of which being to help protect your voice when you have to do any shouting or yelling.

Newsletter: Sweet September!

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Click Here To Read: Sweet September! Newsletter Sept. 2012

Holy Wow! It's September already. I love the fall so much. The baking, the leaves, the glow of lights (since the days are shorter) and the hunkering down. Yuri and I have finally taken some much needed rest and went to Desert Hot Springs for a long weekend! Whew! It is amazing how rejuvenating even a weekend of R&R can be.  And now we are hunkering down. Our second feature film Con Artists is a hairsbreadth away from finishing post-production and we will be screening it this fall. Plus, there are two films out now I think you shouldn't miss. Sweet September!

Tara :) (&Yuri)

 READ MORE: Sweet September!: Newsletter Sept 2012

Click Here To Read: Sweet September! Newsletter Sept. 2012

Here's a VO Tip: Remember, Mimic the Actors in Commercials

(Exercises re-published with permission from VoiceOverVoiceActor.com)

Flip channels on your television or radio for 5 minutes to listen to commercials. Each time you find a commercial, try parroting the voice actor who is speaking. Try to repeat not only the words, but the musicality, the nuances, the tone, and the inflections.

Then turn off the radio or TV and pick up a random piece of text (it can be an advertisement in a magazine, a book, a piece of mail, etc). Try to use the same vocal patterns, tonality and style you were just mimicking as you read this new material.

Practicing this will begin to train your ear, attune you to what is currently "hot" in the advertising world, and get you reading and speaking aloud, which is important in and of itself.