monthly audition contest archive

Edge Studio VO Tip #1

 Follow the direction. This accomplishes several things.  Obviously, it demonstrates your ability to deliver what the client is looking for.  But it also demonstrates your ability to understand what that is.  In this case, the Director’s Notes called for a neighborly approach. But in many cases, what we got was an announcer-y sound. No matter how well done, that’s exactly the opposite of what our simulated client was asking for. Sometimes it felt like we were being yelled at, or assailed by a voice robot.  Given this direction, even if your voice is warm and friendly, if your manner is not, it’s off-target, and casting teams will likely select another voice actor.

Often, it’s hard to “hear” what you’re doing wrong, even though many other people may do exactly the same thing. To develop your ear and understand what makes a read sound fresh, consider our Auditions 101 course, or Advanced Auditions with David Goldberg. 

Edge Studio VO Tip #2

Smooth it out. That is, connect words which belong together. Casting teams – and for that matter, end-listeners – dislike choppy vocal deliveries because they sound unnatural and are hard on the ear – especially when listening on headphones. For example, almost every entrant in this month’s contest was choppy within the first second of their recording, typically inserting an unnecessary pause between the first two words like this, “Take (pause) all the things….”.  Think about it: if you were the script writer, you probably wouldn’t put a comma there because it would look disconnected. Well likewise reading a comma there sounds disconnected.  Hats off to First and Second place winners, as they were among the few voice actors who connected their words. 

Edge Studio VO Tip #3

Lists are another copy element that make pros stand out.  They’re a good exercise for your daily VO practice. (You do practice daily, right?) There are various types of lists, calling for various approaches.  This script was tricky because it has the long list starting with “add in the… .”  Many people delivered that part in a long monotone. Intonation is important when voicing a list, even if it’s a formal bunch of short items. But this series is actual conversation, needing more natural differentiation between its parts. It calls for not just variation in pitch, tone and timing, but also subtle changes in emotion.

Edge Studio VO Tip #4

Pay attention to detail.  Until these details become second nature to you, make yourself a checklist, and go over it before choosing your final take. Your list of details should include:

• Slate (or not) as directed.  In an actual audition, failure to follow slating instruction is usually a disqualification. It’s so simple to get right, that there’s no excuse for getting it wrong.
• Enunciate, and pronounce correctly.  This is not so easy to master, but is also essential. In this script, in particular, we heard variations in “Nissan” and “vehicle.”  Know your listener, in case there are regional variations. For example, in England, “Nissan” is generally pronounced Niss-anne.  And in military circles, you might choose vee-hickle.  But for standard American English (and for that matter, in Japanese), it should be Nee-sahn, and “vehicle” should sound like vee-ickle” (no H).  Also pay attention to ending consonants, so that we hear the K sound in “back” and the T in “report” (so it doesn’t sound like “rapport”).
• Watch your pacing. Some people spoke too slowly, even sounding lethargic.  But as typical, many entrants spoke too rapidly.  Even some of our top candidates ran through the script too quickly. Incorrect pacing is often a sure way to turn-off the casting team. Give your listener time to listen, hear, think and react. To do that, you must do the same.  
• Deliver technical excellence. Overall, we found the audio quality for this month’s submissions much better than we have heard in the past. That being said, many submissions were recorded at a very low volume, to the point where we could barely hear what they were saying.  Why is this so bad? Just turn the volume up, right? Wrong. Put yourself in the audition screener’s ears. One, it’s an annoyance. Two, if they forget to lower the volume after your read, it’s really annoying when the next thing they play is too loud. And third – most of all — it tells them that if they gave you the job, they can’t depend on you to deliver professional-quality audio.  Zap go your chances.

This contest is partly a teaching/learning experience, so if your studio isn’t quite up to par yet, we nevertheless welcome your participation. But volume level is easily adjusted, so, really, there’s no excuse. Recording in stereo (instead of mono) is another avoidable faux pas that we saw in several entries this month. 

If you don’t know how to set up and check these things at every stage in your recording and post-recording process – and to learn what else comprises a professional-grade audio file – consider our Home Studio 101 course.