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Rising Star
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Rising Star
Apologies in advance for the lengthy response.
Try to go into the session with a strong idea of how the read should sound. Too often, I find that less experienced writers come in not knowing what they want. They hope they’ll know it when they hear it, and their direction doesn’t go past “do it again.”
VO actors respond well to general directions like faster, slower, brighter, happier, friendlier, more serious…but pointing out specific words or phrases to focus on is also good: hit the product name a little harder, emphasize “and” in the third sentence. Please inflect down rather than up on the last word, so that it’s more of a statement than a question. “Throw it away” is VO speak for a more casual, offhand read.
If you don’t know what to say, ask your producer or engineer for suggestions. They’ve both been in more sessions than you, and they’ve helped out scores of young creatives with this exact thing.
If there’s time at the end of the session, ask the actor to read it once the way they would do it, ignoring all your previous direction. This gives the actor some freedom to play, and they’re not _really_ ignoring your direction, of course. They’re relaxing into it. It’s surprising how often this final read becomes the hero.
A note about engineers: we want you to succeed, but we also don’t want to step on your toes. It’s your spot, and it’s our job to help it be as good as it can be. We don’t want to sit there and let you fail. Some of us will offer help, but some will wait to be asked. It just depends on the individual and the protocol they adhere to. It’s a good idea to say to them at the start of the session, hey, I’m a little unsure about directing talent, please chime in.
The best thing you can do is just cast well. A really good, experienced VO actor will get you 90% of the way there just by being good at their job. The best sessions I’ve ever been part of involved writers who trusted the solid actors they’d hired, and we had everything we needed in under five takes.
As far as your concern about whether we “got it,” there’s another time to lean on the more experienced people in the room. Check in with them and they’ll tell you.
GREAT advice!
before I start a session, I always like to read the script to myself a few times through and take notes on it. Where does the pace change? Where does the character change? Is there a break of some kind tonally? What are the nuances of the performance in your head? And then explain those things to the talent before they begin reading so you both know what to listen for.
Then tweak and play around and try new ideas and different speeds or intonations. Ask the engineer and your producer for their input too. They’ve also done this a lot.
Ask your mentors and peers for training or sit in on their sessions to learn what to do.
Pro
Some great advice in here already. Adding on that I always try to pretend like I’m hearing it for the first time ever with each read. Put yourself in a first time listeners shoes and see what feels off or what feels good with the read. What inflections sound weird, or if anything is funny with the pacing or tone. It can be hard to “reset” after hearing the same read 15 times but fresh ears are so helpful if you can do it.
Great advice - thanks all
This might be a more involved suggestion, but I think taking improv classes changed the game for me in presenting, writing, concepting, directing talent, all the things. So much acting has to happen in our heads before it makes it onto a page so I've found that the more I'm able to be open to acting them out myself the way I would want them performed (or far, far worse than I'd want them performed realistically), the better I am at knowing how I want the VO to ideally sound and be able to help coach the talent to get there. And when I'm really stuck on how a voice should sound like sometimes it helps me to find a movie or tv reference with an actor who's intonation I like - then you can reference or show that to your actor even if it's more helpful than trying to describe.
Rising Star
I’m not sure why my response got deleted, but I hope OP got something positive out of it.
Rising Star
I’m glad to hear it!
This is one of the coolest things ever in this job!
remember: you’re not trying to make it sound like advertising
One rule I have for myself is to always have options. Even if there’s a take I really like, if I still have time in the session I’ll ask them to do it a different way just to see. If they read it fast, to try slow. If they did with energy, try relaxed, etc.
100%. It also helps to have sound engs at the console who knows what they’re doing.
Ai all the way
Ew gross