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!

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.

Check out her website!

“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

Voice Over in the Studio: Taking Direction

Okay. So you got the audition. You showed up, waited in a crowded room with a bunch of other actors, and it’s finally your turn. You’re in the booth, the engineer signals that he or she’s recording, and the director says, Start. (Each director will, of course have their own way of saying, Start. Only rarely will it be, Action! as that’s more an on-camera thing. Sometimes it’ll be We’re rolling, whenever you’re ready … , and sometimes it’ll just be And … Go!)

First, make sure you’ve read the script you have in front of you – before you come in. Nothing makes you more nervous than feeling unprepared. And once you’ve read the script, hopefully you’ve made some sort of choice about it. For example, if you’re going to audition for a commercial, make sure you know how you feel about the product you’re trying to sell, and decide who it is you’re trying to sell it to. You’re going to talk differently to a forty year-old mother of three than you will to a six year-old boy. Be specific. Make that choice. Or come in with a few choices.

And then – this is where it might get confusing for a second, but stick with us, we’re here for you – don’t get too attached to the choice you’ve made. Having made a choice shows the director that, in addition to having some skill as an actor, you’ve read the material, understand it, and have an opinion. Also, a director can better direct you if you’ve made a choice going into the audition.

The director might like your choice, but often – and this is the job of a director, remember – he or she might ask you to do the scene a completely different way. This does not mean that your take on the character the first time through was not right. The CD may have loved your choice, and now just needs to see if you’re directable.

So sometimes you’ll finish your first read and the CD will say, “That was great! Now gimme something different.” This can be annoying, but it happens; so it pays to have something different to give them. And if you don’t, it pays to be good at improv. Of course, if you are having a hard time making a choice based on the material you’ve received, feel free to ask the CD for more information. But if you do ask, don’t just ignore what the CD tells you: make sure you incorporate that new info into your work.

Listen to what directors have to say. Remember, they’re not there to make a fool out of you. They want you to get the job. They want you to be good. It makes their job easier. If they’ve asked you to do it again, it means they already think that you can do it; they just want to see if you’re willing to try it their way. And that’s your job as an actor. Don’t fight the director on interpretation or try to explain why your idea was better (even if it might have been).

Remember, take the direction. If you don’t understand the notes the director gives you, ask him or her to repeat or clarify so that you do understand. Then take a moment to look over the material with this new direction in mind. The CD should be happy to give you this time. There is nothing worse than a director giving direction and an actor not taking it. All that shows the CD is that you might be difficult to work with and unable to do what the director requests. Neither of those are things you want to be known for; nor will they help you book the job.

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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!

Tips for Creating a Character – the Acting Part of Voice Acting

One of the things you need to know before you start auditioning is the importance of creating a strong character. We’ve noticed that the people who really succeed in this business are generally good actors first, good voice-over actors second. Strangely enough, when juggling all the balls of voice-over, one of the easiest to drop is the acting. Acting is where the most fun is, so who wants to drop that ball?

So, how do you start creating a character? Make clear character choices: The Importance of the W’s: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and hoW

Sure, these questions are important for reporters, but they’re also important for you (assuming you’re not already a reporter). They’re the questions that help you make clear character choices. Luckily, in most cases you’ll have a script to draw from, and it’ll be chock full of answers to these six questions.

In some ways, acting is like being a detective. If you can find enough clues and put them together, things begin to make sense, and you don’t have to do anything special. Thinking about reasons why your character says or does something (as indicated in the script) can often help you make creative choices that will help your work stand out and bring your character to life.

1. Who are you: what kind of a person/creature/thing are you? What is important to you? Who is the character you are you talking to, what is your relationship to him/her/it?

2. What are you doing, what have you done, what do you plan to do, and what’s going on?

3. Where are you physically, where are you usually, where would you like to be, and just where are you in the telling of the story?

4. When is this scene/story/moment taking place and how much time do you have to do whatever it is you’re doing?

5. Why are you doing/saying what you are doing/saying anyway? Why aren’t you saying/doing something else?

6. And finally, how does your character choose to do what he/she/it is doing, and how is that different from how you, yourself, in real life might do it?

Often, pondering the differences between how you might do or say something and how the character does or says it will teach you something important about the character.

Between your imagination and the script, you should have more than enough information to flesh out a unique and real character. Actors often try to make choices because they feel an idea will be interesting or cool – regardless of the information they’ve been given. Try, instead, using your yes, and powers to see what makes sense in terms of the story that the writer has given you. Would that Martian speak with a German accent just because it would be kooky and fun for you to do, or because the script indicates that the only interaction Martians have had with Earth has been through German soap opera broadcasts?

And don’t get caught up in thinking, Well, I’ve never been to Mars. How am I supposed to know what a Martian sounds like? Or something closer to home, like, Well, I don’t have a brother, so how am I supposed to know how that feels?

Odds are, if you’re interested in an acting career, you probably have a pretty active imagination. Use it. It’s fun. Your imagination is like your voice or a fingerprint – unique. Using it will automatically make your take on a character different from anyone else’s.

Even when you’re dealing with sterile commercial copy, something as simple as, Come in today for a great deal! it can be easy to just say the words without even thinking about it (which isn’t always bad). But try taking a second to get specific about what you’re saying. Think of a person you know, and deliver the line as if it’s just for that person. Imagine the circumstances under which you could be telling this line to someone. For example, what if you’re telling your little sister who never listens; or what if it’s a secret that you don’t want to be overheard; or what if you’re in a hurry to get the info out because the deal ends in fifteen minutes? Suddenly, this simple, throwaway sentence has taken on a whole life of its own, just in the time it took to ask and answer the W’s.

Specific choices and clear ideas on how you feel about what you’re saying take your work to the next level. Sometimes things aren’t clearly laid out on the page, and you can’t ask the writer what he or she meant. This is where you get to make up some things, get your creative juices flowing, and harness that wild imagination of yours. This is where things really get fun.

Let’s say the scene is between two brothers, and the only lines are the older brother saying, I’m taking you to the zoo, and the younger brother saying, Okay. The writer hasn’t given you much to go on here, but nobody’s keeping you from filling in the blanks on your own. Maybe the last time the younger brother went to the zoo he was attacked by monkeys, and he was left traumatized by the event. You’d better believe that’s going to color how he says, Okay.

Or maybe the older brother’s never done anything nice for his little brother before, so the little brother’s Okay is a suspicious one. In life, we’re rarely indifferent about things. We almost always have an opinion or feeling towards almost everything we encounter, so why wouldn’t our characters have their own opinions and feelings? Humor and drama come directly from our relationship to the things in our environment and from how we react to those things.

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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!

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!

Voice Over: Playing with Speed, Pitch and Volume

There are so many different elements that contribute to how a person sounds, and if you can become aware of them, you can use them to your advantage to help you create some really fun, funky, and fancy voices for your repertoire. Start with the speed which is simply how quickly you’re speaking: slow, medium, or fast. People often joke about Southerners (from the U.S.) speaking in a slow, meandering drawl, while folks from the northeast (U.S. again) are more fast-paced, quick, and to the point. Play around with your speed to find fun patterns, not only of the words, but of the phrases and sentences.

Then move to the pitch. Generally a voice can be pitched high, mid-range, or low. Some examples of a high-pitched voice might be the aforementioned Spongebob Squarepants, or the actress Ellen Greene, or yourself after sucking on a helium balloon. A low-pitched voice calls to mind James Earl Jones, Tom Waits, Ron Perlman, or Lurch from The Addams Family. The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle.

One person’s mid-range pitch may be your low or high depending on how you’re built, and depending on what sex you are: men naturally tend to have a lower register, while women’s voices are usually higher. Play around with your pitch a little and see what happens. It can lead to touching moments, funny moments, and downright scary moments sometimes.

The final basic element is volume: loud, conversational, and soft. Perhaps a male character speaks in a loud booming voice and is always being asked to quiet down (maybe he worked for years in an anvil factory). Or a female character’s voice is shy and whispery, and no one can understand her (too many years as a librarian, perhaps). See how entire characters can develop out of how loud or soft you choose to speak?

Now look at these three elements: speed, pitch, and volume, and break each of them down into its low, medium, and high grades. The result is nine different qualities to mix and match in three dimensions. Imagine a giant 3-D tic-tac-toe board with each quality represented by its own dimension. It’s kind of like a simplified vocal Rubik’s Cube of choices, with speed represented by height, pitch represented by width, and volume represented by depth (see diagram below). Now pick one of the intersections of these elements (a small cube within the cube) and see what combo you get. Here are quality groupings you’d end up with if you selected each of the numbered cubes in the illustration:

Cube 1: a fast, low-pitched, soft voice

Cube 2: a slow, mid-range, loud voice

Cube 3: a medium-speed, high-pitched, conversational voice

You can come up with a variety of other combinations simply by mixing these three different qualities. This doesn’t even take into account other flair you can add, such as attitude, accent, or age. The possibilities are (nearly) endless!

“I Use My Voice All the Time. How Hard Could It Be?”

When speaking (reading) dialogue in a voice over session, you will obviously be using your voice much like you do in real life. But the difference between normal everyday use of your voice and using your voice to make a career in VO will be noticeable in things like your control, your stamina, and your ability to meet any challenge the job might put in your way. Think of it like the difference between occasionally playing sports with your friends and playing professionally. You will sometimes be recording sounds and non-words (screeches, yells, screams, efforts) that might not be part of your daily routine. Making these sounds requires skill that will take practice to develop and hone.

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!

Be Professional!

 Professionalism

In all the excitement of a voice-over career, professionalism can be the first trait to go. We cannot stress this fact enough: you will stand out from others by being a consummate professional.  And you don’t have to know anything about voice acting to act like a professional.

Do you think the most talented actors always get the job? Not if they’re difficult to work with. You’d be surprised at how often an actor will get the job just by showing up, doing the work, being a decent person to interact with, and then going on his or her merry way. Be one of these people. It doesn’t take a lot of extra effort.

Be someone who is reliable, humble, polite, talented, and available. Being professional means you show up on time (or even a little early), ready to work, and ready to learn. You don’t need to go to charm school for this, and it’ll help get you where you wanna go a lot faster, no matter how many E! Entertainment specials you see about difficult celebrities.

• Be on time

Key to the whole professionalism thing is always arriving on time for appointments, whether they be auditions or work. If you can, show up a little early. Once again, this simple thing will set you apart from a great many actors, and will endear you to directors, producers, clients, and casting people. They have so many other things to worry about; don’t let your being late add to that.

If for some reason you must be late (and it happens to all of us), show the proper courtesy by calling and letting the studio know. Otherwise, not only do you send a poor signal about your work ethic by not showing up on time, but you also indicate that you don’t care about their time or the time they set aside to see you.

Being on time sometimes means being early, since on time might actually make you late by someone else’s clock. If you do get there late, don’t make excuses about why you were late, how traffic sucked, how you forgot to wind your watch, or how you were attacked by ninjas. Just apologize and get down to business. Making excuses will always dig you a deeper hole, and will never get the project completed any sooner.

• Be prepared

This maxim doesn’t apply just to Boy Scouts, and you should put it near the top of your professionalism to-do list. Do your work ahead of time: read the script, warm up your voice, and make sure you’ve thought about whatever it is you’re reading. A big pet peeve among casting people and directors is actors who show up and haven’t read the script.

Sometimes it isn’t possible for you to get the script ahead of time. In that case, do whatever is within your power to take control of the situation and get yourself mentally and physically prepared to walk into the audition, the recording session, or the meeting. Get there a little early to see if the studio has a script or sides you can look at. If something comes up at the last minute and you don’t have much time at all to prepare, give yourself a quick mental checklist, a mantra, or a power pose that’ll help center and focus you at the drop of a hat.

Most professional athletes have rituals or practices that allow them to focus and get psyched up. Come up with your own routine that you can do no matter how much time you have to prepare; or maybe create a short version to use when time is tight, and a longer, more involved routine for when you have more time. It can be as simple as crossing your fingers and saying, I am super cool. I belong here, in your head before you walk in the door. The most important thing is for your routine to be one that energizes you, focuses and grounds you, and puts you in the right headspace to walk in confident, calm, and ready to work.

Now, with all that we’ve said about preparation, don’t obsess over trying to prepare and control every little thing. Remember, there’s no way you can possibly know what’s going to happen in the room; so perhaps the most important trait of all is to be relaxed, open, flexible, and ready to roll with the punches.

• Be a stand-up guy

Yes, being a stand-up guy goes for all you ladies, too. Basically what we’re saying is, don’t be a jerk. Sure, we all have bad days, but when you walk into the work environment for a job, meeting, or audition, keep your doom and gloom to yourself and get down to business. Seriously. We mean it. When you’re snarky and snap at your friends, you can apologize to them later. When you’re on the job, you won’t always have that chance.

You can go home afterwards and punch your pillow if you want. And who knows? If you’re lucky, your session might help you exorcise your demons. A lot of video game recording sessions are really good for that. And sure, it’s fun to gossip; but voice-over is a small town, and you never know who might be friends with whom, so you’re better off not talking trash about anyone.

May we refer you to Aretha Franklin for a moment: respect personal space, respect other people’s efforts and time, and just … R-E-S-P-E-C-T. And don’t be a jerk. Because no one wants to work with a jerk. And sure, you might say, “Well, so-and-so is a blankety-blank-blank and they work all the time,” but go ahead and trust us on this one: being a jerk will never get you anywhere. One more time, say it with us: Don’t be a jerk. Capisce?

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 This blog is an excerpt from Tara and Yuri's highly successful book,Voice Over Voice Actor: What It's Like Behind the Mic.   It's a fun and helpful peek into the secret world of the Voice Actor. 

Are you interested in pursuing a career in VO? Curious what goes on behind the scenes in a business where people talk funny for money? This book offers a fun and comprehensive look at what it takes, what goes on and what it’s like behind the mic from two working pros who started from scratch.

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.

Actors have a pretty cool job. So do voice-over actors!

Actors have a pretty cool job. So do voice-over actors! We get to try on different ... people. We get to create characters that have unique mannerisms or personality quirks that we ourselves might not actually share. For on-camera actors, these characters are limited only by the actor’s imagination and appearance. Imagine how often you see an on-camera actor in an interview and realize that he or she isn’t what you had imagined based on the characters the actor plays.

Now take that one step further: as voice actors, we aren’t constrained by age, gender, race, or even species. If we can create a voice for a character, we can play that character!

Voice-over is an amazingly empowering medium for any actor with an imagination and an inclination to play. There’s no age, sex, or race discrimination (okay, there’s never none of that stuff, but you will find less of it around here). Why keep it a secret?

We wish someone had told us some of this stuff sooner, so that's why we took it on ourselves to share the information with others: we wrote Voice-Over Voice Actor: What It's Like Behind the Mic. 

So if you are considering being a voice actor, check out our book. Hope it helps! We’re throwing you a rope, which may not get you all the way here, and you’re gonna have to grab it yourself, but it’ll be an exciting climb if you decide to make it. That we can promise.

And have fun!!

Expand Your Breath! Some good exercises....

Learn about your breathing, then expand or lengthen it, to really increase your skills in VO!

     1. Begin by lying flat on the ground and placing your hand on your abdomen just below your ribs.
     2. Feel the natural rise and fall as you breathe.
     3. Notice the natural ‘pause’ between inhale and exhale.

This is how your body breathes without you trying to do anything to control it. As you breathe, there should be four sections to each breath: 1. an inhale, 2. a pause, 3. an exhale, 4. a pause. We usually don’t feel the pauses because they’re short and they happen naturally, but they’re there, all right.

This next exercise focuses on lengthening, or expanding, your breath:
      Begin by inhaling for a three-count, holding for a three-count, exhaling for a three-count and holding for a three-count.
      Do this until it’s comfortable and then start to increase your count, four-count, five-count, etc. If you start to feel lig ht-headed or dizzy, stop immediately and take a break.
     See if you can comfortably work up to 5, 6, 7 or even 8, 9, 10.

(Tara once had a voice teacher who could breathe in and out on a thirty-count, which comes with a lot of practice. Being able to hold your breath and control your breathing allows you to play with your voice more, giving you more range and stamina, which could come in handy for things such as recording long passages for audiobooks or characters who really ramble on.)

Vocal Warm Ups: The 1-2-3-4 of warming up!

How do you start your warm up? And is there a correct order for warm up exercises? Here are our recommendations:

 1)      WARM UP YOUR VOCAL CORDS:  Begin by gentle warm ups - you may notice when you first wake up that your voice sounds sleepy. Humming and feeling the resonance in your chest is great for getting the voice gently moving.

• Hmmm
• Mmmm

2)      ENUNCIATION:  After your voice starts to feel a little less groggy, begin to focus on enunciation, or the art of speaking clearly. Pay attention to the different ways the mouth must move in order to create the following sounds:

• PTKT pronounced puh-tuh-kuh-tuh
• BDGD pronounced buh-duh-guh-duh
• Wewa pronounced wee-wah
• Trills created by rolling your tongue on the roof of your mouth while saying TR: trrrrr or R: rrrrrr
• Rapid fire succession ptkt-bdgd-ptkt-bdgd

3)      ARTICULATION:  Similar to enunciating, articulation relates to speaking distinctly. Let’s call the moving and non-moving parts of your face and mouth that help you articulate words (lips, teeth, tongue, roof of the mouth) the vocal creators. Articulation is a function of how these vocal creators work together to make sounds. After practicing the enunciation exercises ptkt, bdgd, wewa, try to pull everything together for articulation by saying these rhymes and tongue twisters:

• “What a todo to die today, at a minute or two ‘til two, a thing distinctly hard to say, but harder still to do; for they’ll beat a tattoo at a twenty ‘til two, a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-too, and the dragon will come when he hears the drum, at a minute or two ‘til two today, at a minute or two ‘til two”
• “Unique New York, Unique New York”
• “Red leather, yellow leather, blue blood, black blood’
• “Brrrrr” made by blowing out with your lips closed to create a motorboat sound, sort of like a raspberry without sticking your tongue out (this can get a little spitty, so watch out)

4)      WORK YOUR RANGE:  And finally, you’ll want to work on your range (the high–to-low pitches that you can take your voice to). Here’s an exercise for expanding your range:

• Sirens (sort of like the sound of a fire truck): eeeeeeeee up and down in range, starting from low to high, and then high to low

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.

Can you Step Out of Your Natural Voice? Stretch Yourself!

REMINDER:

Stepping outside of your natural voice can be a lot of fun! Once you understand what your natural vocal qualities and “sound” are, you can begin to play outside the box and expand the range of characters and qualities you can offer.

This exercise helps you play with a range of emotions. As you read the following phrases, you’ll notice that we have removed all punctuation, which can often be a clue to a phrase’s tone. But in order to expand your range, let’s play around with the many different ways the same phrase can be said. First, see what your natural inclination is when you read the phrase. Copy and paste this blog to a Word Doc, and after each one, write down the adjective that you feel most fits the phrase/sentence. For example, a sentence such as “stop,” might be angry. As you read the phrases, see how you naturally interpret the emotion associated with saying the words.

Exercise: Phrases

• Over here                                          
• I need that                                         
• Let go                                                   
• What are you talking about       
• Don’t do that                                    
• I don’t think that’s a good idea 
• Give me the new one                   
• No                                                         
• Try it again                                         
• Listen to me                                      
• Alright                                                 
• Stop right there                               
• Wow that’s huge                            

Now, review your phrase list and see how you naturally ‘heard’ the specific words. Perhaps your “no,” was “frustrated,” because you assumed that if you are telling someone “no,” it’s because you’re frustrated about something.

Becoming familiar with your instincts can be very helpful because it’ll allow you to make a choice outside of your natural inclination, which can yield very interesting results.

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“Breathing with your diaphragm” What does that mean?

From Wiki: Thoracic diaphragm: “In the anatomy of mammals, the thoracic diaphragm, or simply the diaphragm, (Ancient Greek: διάφραγμα  diáphragma "partition"), is a sheet of internal skeletal muscle that extends across the bottom of the rib cage. The diaphragm separates the thoracic cavity (heart, lungs & ribs) from the abdominal cavity and performs an important function in respiration.”

As a VO artist you need to know about and use your diaphragm!  It is our big breathing muscle, a dome-shaped muscle at the base of your lungs. This shelf of muscle is controlled by the nervous system; it contracts when we inhale, so that a vacuum is created in our  lungs and air rushes in to fill it. The opposite happens when we exhale; the diaphragm relaxes  and the air in the lungs rushes out.

Breath is the fuel of the voice, whether it is for singing or for voice over work. The stronger the diaphragmatic muscles, the better you can regulate the amount of breath that is pushed over your vocal cords, so improving the control you have over your voice in your sessions.  When the diaphragm is strong you can ensure a steady stream of air for your needs, you can speak longer without needing a breath, and you have more power for volume or attack in your speaking. And the stronger the diaphragm, the less effort all of this is for you!

Here is an exercise to help build the strength of your diaphragm, from our book, Voice Over Voice Actor: What It’s Like Behind the Mic!

1. Place your hand on your diaphragm.
2. Open your mouth and allow the tongue to relax and hang out of your mouth.
3. As quickly as possible, inhale and exhale, like you’re a dog panting.
(of course, if you feel dizzy or lightheaded, stop immediately)

We’ve been focusing on strengthening your diaphragm, but that won’t be the only thing you’ll be using. Your diaphragm will be working in conjunction with your mouth, tongue and mind so they must be ready to go as well. Articulation, or the ability to speak clearly, is a crucial element to a voice actor’s repertoire. Not every character you play will need good articulation (and sometimes you may even be told to articulate less), but it is always better to have it up your sleeve, so that if you’re slurring your speech, it’s a choice rather than an issue.

Simulate an audition; it's great voice over practice!

1. This exercise is to help simulate an audition experience for you. Remember to look for all the information on the page to give you clues to your performance.
2. Do a trial run with each of the specs and record yourself. Play it back and listen to hear if what you planned in your head was apparent in your recording.

Try out the following Commercial and Animation Audition Copy using the following specs. See how each unique spec changes your performance.

Commercial –

Specs:
1. young, cheerful, spunky 2. wants to be everyone’s friend
3. eternally optimistic 4.intelligent, honest, down-to-earth

1. In the summer heat, 2 bucks can go a long way.
Now, at The Burger Joint, grab a large drink, large fries
and your choice of hamburger or cheeseburger for only $1.99.
Come in and fill up for less than 2 bucks.

2. Why choose one of those other companies that might loose your package or handle it with less-than-optimal care?
Let BoxYouUp come by your office or home and package,
mail and deliver your important items at your convenience.
Visit BoxYouUp.com for pricing.

Animation –

Specs:
1. energetic, sporty, hot shot 2. is always having a good time
3. goofy, crazy, wild 4.nervous and easily excited

1. Hey little monkey, I don’t know what you are doing in there, but you need to come out right now. You hear me?I don’t wanna have to yell. C’mon now. Get out. Get. OUT. Monkeeeeeeeeee! OUT. Now see, that wasn’t so bad, now was it. Ha! Silly monkey.

2. You mean there is more out there than this? Robots even? Wicked!
Because I’ve been waiting my whole life for that.I just know I can take them on.
Let’s go.
What are you waiting for? Let’s do this thing.
Woah. Did you see that? I’m awesome.

Fantastic. Hopefully getting the experience of listening to your performance has given you a deeper understanding of the variety of things you will want to consider when working on audition material or even going to an audition. Of course, this exercise can’t exactly duplicate an audition experience, but the more prepared you feel before you go into an audition situation, the more confident and relaxed you will be, and the higher your chances of you doing your best work, and with any luck, booking the job!

Hum while chewing - it's a great exercise!

We hear good feedback from folks about this exercise, and we find it very helpful.

Give it a try!

1. With your lips closed, start to hum.
2. Then make chewing movements, as if you were eating, and keep humming the  whole time.
3. Now use your hands to feel the vibration in the front of your face, your nose, your cheeks, and gently allow your hands to move to your neck and throat, and perhaps even onto your belly so that you can feel how your voice resonates in different areas of your body.

Using the chewing hum can warm up the different areas where your voice will resonate. Once again, when your voice resonates, it bounces around a certain area of your body, whether that’s up in your face, nose or head area, your throat, or your chest or belly.

Now to begin to identify where your voice is resonating, let’s concentrate on specific sounds that tend to resonate in different areas. Certain sounds we create generally vibrate more toward the head, while others, because we use different muscles to make them, may vibrate lower, toward the belly. If you can learn to control where you choose to place your voice, you can begin to use it in more powerful and interesting ways.

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Great VO Exercise: Raspberries, Sirens, and Lip Trills

1. Keeping your lips together, like you were making imaginary car (or motorboat, if you prefer) “brrrm, brrrrm” noises, and allow your lips to make a “raspberry” type sound (like a good old-fashioned Bronx cheer without sticking your tongue out), or lip trill. Begin at the bottom of your possible range and while continuing the lip trills gradually raise your pitch until you hit your highest note possible.

2. Now reverse direction. Start at the top of your range and move downward thru your natural pitch to your lowest note.

3. Continue your lip trills while going from low to high and back to low again. It’ll sound a little like a siren.

4. Repeat the sirens 3-5 times until you feel like your voice is beginning to get warmed up.

5. This can be hard to describe on paper. Feel free to visit this link ( ) to see an example.

Lip trills are a great way not only to warm up your face and resonators in your sinus cavities, but also helps keep your vocal cords and neck muscles from tensing up while you’re warming up your voice. Don’t worry if your voice cracks during the sirens. That’s just a natural part of expanding your range. We all have “head tones” (high) as well as “chest tones” (low) in our range, and in order to move back and forth continuously from one to the other, you have to move through your natural “break,” which is the sound that often people associate with a teen boy going through puberty. One of the reasons for this is that the vocal cords are actually growing and stretching and sounds that used to be easily within one range move to a different register, and the voice “cracks” as it pushes through unfamiliar territory. So in addition to warming up your voice, this exercise can also help you widen your vocal range.

Sirens w/out Lip Trill

1. Allow your mouth to hang slightly open, and begin an “ee” sound at the bottom of your range. As you exhale, slide your pitch higher and higher until you hit your highest note possible.

2. Now reverse direction. Start at the top of your range and slide your pitch downward until you hit your lowest note.

3. Make sure your face and jaw are relaxed and comfortably open while making the siren sound.

4. Repeat the sirens 3-5 times until you feel like your voice is warming up.
Practicing sirens can really begin to stretch your range and gently allow the musculature in your face and neck (as well as your vocal cords) to begin to become accustomed to the sounds you’ll be making while acting.

Whether you have a high or low-pitched voice you can also begin to think about the placement of the sound you’re making. This is separate from the pitch. Placement relates to the physical location in your body where your voice is resonating. For example, if you have a head cold and are all stuffed up, you might sound very frontal, or nasal, since your sinuses are blocked and thus blocking the sound from escaping completely, therefore creating a very frontal resonant sound. If you drop the sound way back to the back of your throat, then you would almost sound like you were swallowing the sounds, creating a very different quality altogether.

Begin to play around with extremely frontal, a mid-range placement as well as a back placed sound. This is something that you can bring into your work and begin to pick and choose where certain voices you create will be placed and where others will lie instead. [Should this be a new exercise to help develop awareness of where you’re placing your voice?]

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