Bill Anciaux
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You had me at Caribbean. Seriously, I like the way you delivered the opening phrase, kind of documentary-like to my ears. Made the reveal of Sandals stand out too. The playfulness in the second half is in keeping with the venue and the activities one might engage in there. Nice work!
Thought I would share some practice work. I listened to the actual Silverado commercial and tried to deliver a similar performance. Going for the tough attitude without making it too overblown. My early attempts sounded more like imaging for a rock radio station. Perhaps I should have bought a Silverado myself, because I’ve gotten stuck three times in the past week in my F150 4×4. The snow here in WI is crazy deep this winter. Oh, I added some music and processing to the second clip for a more finished sound. Thanks for any feedback. Bill A.
Moose, I could listen to you narrate books like this. Steady pacing, pleasing intonation, articulate but relaxed. Excellent sound quality and editing. Seemed like you got mixed up in the character dialogue and voiced Dennis as officer Jacobs once. Maybe not. You might be trying too hard to voice the characters differently. I’ve heard some audiobook pros say this is not sustainable over the long haul and not really necessary. The differences can be more subtle than they are in this performance. Now, I’ve only narrated one novel myself, so I don’t know if this is advice worth considering. Regardless, characters make fiction a much more challenging genre, so I’ve focused more on non-fiction auditions and have booked quite a few. Also, not sure why you’d want to pursue long-form narration if you’ve been successful with the more lucrative work. Money must not be the issue? Perhaps you love telling stories. Thanks for sharing. Bill A.
Not having your other pieces as points of comparison, I think you’ve got a contender with this one. Love the tone and think you do come across as a young professional. Consider who she is talking to in this situation and the balance of youthful/girly and serious/professional would change a bit. For example, is she having a water cooler chat with a young man who was hired recently and whom she doesn’t know well OR is she chatting with her mom (or best friend) over coffee and trying to show her how independent/grown up she is becoming. Might be good practice to try each and compare. Anyway, I like your performance here in and of itself. Thanks for sharing. Bill A.
I think you come across as friendly, neighborly, conversational; however, you emphasize the product name too much at the beginning. Ease up on “Ivory” in that line and you’ve got it. Nitpick: your performance ends at :20 but the file continues playing until 2:46. Be sure to delete the extra silence before submitting. Thanks for sharing. Love the accent, by the way. Bill A.
Hey, I love the script choice for your voice. You have such a warm, relaxed, friendly tone which seems like a great fit for long-form documentary. I would suggest you don’t add such long pauses within the sentences. Pauses between are fine but you pause much too often and long within sentences, which I find distracting. I think it makes your performance more noticeable, like you are pushing your interpretation on me, rather than letting me enjoy the phrasing as written by the author. (The producer/editor can add pauses to time your narration with visuals if necessary.) Small thing but in an audition I think it would make a difference. Otherwise, love the tone! Bill A.
Hey, this is a good take but I think it’s missing some of the rousing quality asked for in the audition notes. I hear moments of it here but overall it could be stronger, more confident, more reassuring. You sound slightly unsure or tentative to me. A couple spots where you deliver the requested tone: “to your needs is what we strive for” and “we bring focus” and “put your business in focus.” Needs more of this. Also, be careful with pitch/intonation. I would keep your range even more narrow. It jumps too much in places, such as “the only constant we face…” Control is essential for this one, I think…a narrow range. Listen to the YouTube example and your own to note the difference with regard to this quality. Nitpick: there should be no delay when I click the play button, no silence at the start. Good luck. Bill A.
Hi, Katelyn. The main difference I noticed was a bit more smile in the second version. You wouldn’t need to sustain that for the entire cookbook, really. It’s a great attention-getting tone for the introduction of a new chapter, section, or recipe though. One way to come up with two different reads is to change the emphasis from one key word to a different one. For example, in the first line, you emphasized “intimidating” in both reads. You could keep this emphasis in one read but in the other place the emphasis on “seems.” By emphasizing “seems,” you convey a different meaning: it’s not really intimidating; it only seems to be. You can alter the emphasis in a few other places as well and your second read will be quite different. After all, how can we be completely sure where the emphasis should always fall, unless the script writer underlines such words? More importantly, you want to show that you can, with just a few subtle changes, deliver options to the producer. Perhaps one of you reads, though not what they originally imagined, will be the one they want! Good luck. Bill A.
I noticed the difference and think it’s an improvement. Great example of how voice actors must decide who they are when they perform a script. Is this an entrepreneur? A celebrity? Knowing who you are helps you make choices when preparing a read. I like the grin/wink on “because my private information is my business.” Nice job. Bill A.
I especially like your performance up to “…there must be no failure.” He is in a grave predicament and he’s trying to stay calm as he meticulously builds the fire. You convey this really well. The gravity of the situation becomes more clear as you go on with, “When it is seventy-five below zero, a man must not…to build a fire” but I think your inflection is off on this line. It is the main clause but you deliver it like you would a subordinate clause, and so loses the impact on the reader. If he doesn’t successfully start this fire, he will freeze to death. What could be more sobering than that! You get back to the original tone after this and it’s sooo good. Great pacing, by the way. You allow the images to form in the reader’s mind. Thanks for sharing. Bill A.
