VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

I'll try to sing the copy like I'm Tony Clifton or say it in a silly cartoonish voice. Then I'm good to get back into it a bit less forced. Smile

_________________
Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

Dayo · Cinquecento Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 544 Location: UK

ConnieTerwilliger · Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 9:10 am Post subject:

Distracting your conscious intellectual brain with the ideas so far is very helpful. Listening to KNOW what is meh, OK, better, better than better and outta the park is helpful. (However, what is best is still subjective and the in the ear of the person paying the bill.)

I find that I don't have to do any of these things when I am in a directed session - phone patch or face-to-face - my subconscious brain just knows that I have a real person listening and reacting to the words.

My years of stage performing and some acting classes kick in when I know there is an audience...so I use many of the techniques mentioned when auditioning or self-directing.

But one thing I want to address is the idea of the read that comes out of your mouth when you take your first look at a script. (Possible thread jack)

I check all my mail at my desk where I edit - sitting. I record in a booth behind me - standing. What I have noticed is that the first read out of my mouth is usually when I am sitting at my desk opening the mail. The read sounds natural, unaffected.

I get up and go into the booth, open the recording software, located the script, and hit record. When that happens, the natural delivery I had when just sitting at my desk with poor posture is very hard to find.

So, I did an experiment. I hooked up a mic at my desk. My office is very acoustically treated - the noise floor was -57 - and tried some auditions just sitting there. I did 3 or so and landed one of them.

It was frustrating though because I had a lot of stuttering in the recording and have only been able to stop some of that with software settings. So I don't have the mic hooked up at the moment. If I have some more time, I might try to troubleshoot that latency delay issue a bit more, but it made me think about the standing vs sitting question again.
_________________
Playing for a living...
www.voiceover-talent.com
YouTube Channel: http://youtube.com/connieterwilliger

Gregory Best · Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 9:33 am Post subject:

Connie,

That is an interesting observation.
_________________
Gregory Best

greg@gregorybest.com

Jack Daniel · Cinquecento Joined: 23 Jun 2016 Posts: 585 Location: SoCal

All this lovely golden magnanimous stuff... Because that's how VO peeps do it.

Beautiful.
_________________
Jack Daniel
Narrator / Man About Town

Dayo · Cinquecento Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 544 Location: UK

Does this thread remind anyone why we all missed v/o bb so much?
_________________
Colin Day - UK Voiceover
www.thurstonday.co.uk

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

^^Aye, it does. Smile

_________________
Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

JohnV · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2016 5:58 am Post subject:

So many good things from so many good people.

Mr Bergen's ultra-structured approach ('approach'? hell it was a Strategic 5-Year-Plan!) reminds me of an artist I had no knowledge of until I was fortunate enough to be hired as sixth-audio-guy in the record/mix truck on an absolutely top end live music-broadcast show (5th is dandy when the other 6 are That Good!). Kenny Chesney is at the top of his biz and the more I watched him work and learned his background the more I was humbled. He did the same thing Bob described... looked at where he wanted to go, then did every bit of prep methodically. over time... skill, talent and business, until he knew he was starting with EVERYTHING in place except a reputation/track-record. That's daunting, and as has been mentioned, NOT the way most folks manage it! Certainly not moi. Many paths.

Connie & The Cold Read (I think it's a damned fine band name...) hit me especially, My live performance work, both on mic and stage, has shown me that I really love a cold read... something that seems to scare most performers. This goes for musical performance as well where the first or second take Gets It, regardless of any minor flaws, and you live for that. Good to know I'm not alone there. As a tech AND performer, where the two tasks seem to inhabit competing parts of the brain, I ABSOLUTELY get the "where did the muse go?" between the first try and then the brainfart that happens when you take a seemingly innocuous 90seconds to move/carry/push-buttons/change-a-knob/breathe and ... "??".
Do whatever it takes to get the desk-mic thing working and capture the moment. It makes for inspirational surprises. I have the stand-and-work Proper Rig ready, but there's a serviceble mic sitting right at my nose at the main computer edit desk at all times...

thanks all.
_________________
SoundscenesDC, main talent and production offices just 385k km up the gravity well in LuNoHoCo Center, old satellite studios still bookable at the future site of Johnson City!

Jack Daniel · Cinquecento Joined: 23 Jun 2016 Posts: 585 Location: SoCal

Something I've learned from the amazing Dave Walsh is that when you're not connecting despite having your situation and imagined interlocutor in place, talk to yourself out loud about why you are talking to this person, what qualities or longings about that person are the reason for that choice, and then--as you're cresting with this sketch of the person--dive right in or, as Dave would say: "NOW read it."

FYI, if you want a great coach and terrific person, contact Dave--he's aces. He just did an interview with Kiff VanderHeuvel and it's most revealing (http://www.allovervoiceover.com/).
_________________
Jack Daniel
Narrator / Man About Town