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The Roaring Twenties: April 1, 2022 - April 30, 2022
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The Roaring Twenties
April 1, 2022 - April 30, 2022
Contest
Voice Direction:
This is a simulated audition for an upcoming documentary piece about the Roaring Twenties. Tone should be a bit sharp, almost announcer-style but not going that far. Overall feel should be classy, knowledgeable, clear.
Script:
The Roaring Twenties ushered in a new sense of life... and elaborate celebration. For many, the decade was a period of economic prosperity and social change, and is often recognized as a renaissance of sorts. For the next hour, we will examine why historians believe that the 1920s marked a new era in United States history.
Analysis: Why the Winners Won ...
and Why Others Didn't.
Congratulations to our winners, Suzanne Ellis, Anthony Aroya, and Jennifer Tophoney. Each ushered in a fresh sound in this historical view of the Roaring Twenties. It’s been said that History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does have echoes. Here are tips to help you echo their winning performances, while giving your future auditions a spin of your own.
Edge Studio VO Tip #1
Figure out the Director’s notes. Sometimes Directors give you directions that appear confusing, illogical, or contradictory. But the thing is, in their head, they were clear. And they’ll keep listening to auditions until they find a voice actor who gives them what they want. So it will behoove you to decipher their directions. For example, consider the direction in this contest: “Tone a bit sharp. Almost announcer-style (but not that far). Classy. Knowledgeable. Clear.” How on earth do you do all those at the same time??? Well, to make it easier, employ this terrific audition technique we teach at Edge:
- Step 1: Consider which requests might be very similar or overlapping. For example, “Announcer-style” is “classy, knowledgeable, and clear.”
- Step 2: Re-write the instructions in a way that makes more logical sense to you.
For example, write “Okay, so all they want me to do is speak somewhere between my everyday voice and a classic announcer. And once I do that, I’ll just sharpen my tone a bit. Easy.”
Edge Studio VO Tip #2
Practice daily. Every voice actor should allow at least 15 minutes per day for recorded practice. This has several benefits. (1) If you don’t work or audition daily, it keeps your chops in shape. Both your vocal ability, and your familiarity with your software. (2) It enables you to focus on your art. When you are in the heat of auditioning, it’s all too easy to “knock it out,” and lose track of what you’ve learned. Not that you should allow yourself to treat an audition casually, but “mailing it in” is a habit that’s easy to fall into. Daily practice helps you focus on your technical and emotional technique. (3) Daily practice gives you a chance to grow. Is there a genre you’d like to like to get better at? Do you have a weakness you should work on? Has your coach given you exercises to work on between lessons? Make a to-do list and add it to your agenda. (4) Practice develops your “ear.” Record each practice and listen back. Critically. Over time, you should begin hearing things you do wrong, so you can add correction to your practice routine. Hopefully, you’ll also hear things you do right, and interesting things that you can develop.
Edge Studio VO Tip #3
Listen to excellent examples of the genre. This script is a documentary. The Director’s Notes specify a certain style, but, whatever the style, the Documentary genre has certain characteristics in common. For example, read at a tempo that allows the viewer to take in the visual. That’s where their mind is focused. (If the documentary is audio-only, they’ll need time to imagine the visual.) Pausing at logical points is also typical – it allows the producer to space out the phrases so that audio and video subjects match up. Yet, don’t pause too often; that makes the read sound choppy. So, armed with such insight, record some expert narrations, then practice reading in the same style. Sometimes read simultaneously. Listen back to both, one after the other. You’ll quickly hear if you’re reading too quickly or too slow, or if you’re pausing unnaturally, or if you’re slurring your words, and so on. (See “Practice Daily,” above.)
Winners
1st place winner: Suzanne Ellis
Judge's Comments
She has a wonderful voice, and great articulation without sounding like she’s working at it. She also hit many of the right words – by which we mean she emphasized the most meaningful thoughts – and she correctly hit them by raising her pitch, rather than getting louder on them or overenunciating them. Further, we hear a wonderful smile (especially at points like “a Renaissance of sorts”), but in this simulated audition that’s quite off target, since the Director never requested a happy, smiley voice. Therefore we might not have hired her for this project. But we’d save and bookmark her in our files for future jobs that require “smile.”
But there are some things to improve:
- Tempo is inconsistent and begins too fast. Compare the opening second to the closing second. This will make it easy to hear that she was too fast in the beginning. Her tempo was great at the end … but casting teams are likely to not listen past the first second of an audition if it’s not the voice they’re seeking. Also, her attack on the first word is too hard, sounding like “Duh” rather than “The.” (Memo to all – Listeners often miss the first word of a script, as they are not yet fully attentive. So it’s important to be ultra clear on the first word.) In most of her read, she doesn’t give the listener time to “take in” what’s being said. (Another note to all: Such rapidity may not be evident when listening to this contest, because we see the words, or are familiar with the script, and because we are paying full attention. Also, we hear these clips without sound effects, music, graphics, and visuals – all of which distract the viewer and somewhat obscure the narration.) By the end of her audition, though, she is appropriately paced.
- Glottal stops. A “glottal stop” is momentary closing of the throat, usually before words that begin with a vowel. For example, at 12 seconds, before “as”, and at 21 seconds, before and after the second “era” (although, granted, these are very short). In comparison, listen to how smooth she is in the first 11 seconds.
- Tone is not as directed. She sounds happy, almost excited to tell us. That might be “knowledgeable” but is it “almost announcer-style” in the usual sense of that term? We think not. As for “classy,” well, in the United States her British accent might be heard as “classy” by default, so who knows?? But in other senses of the word, she misses that mark, too.
- Not enough space between portions of the script. The engineer will need clean breaks to add space and synchronize the video, and the viewer will need to take in the video and relate it to the narration. Audio and video engineers don’t need a bigbreak to shift the portions of the script earlier/later, but pausing a bit more at logical points has other functions. The casting team are humans, and need to mentally visualize the eventual production, imagining how her voice will fit. Leaving a bit more time between passages will allow them to better conjure up a mental image of how her voice will work with the visuals. It will also let them imagine the final production as a cohesive whole, combining the visual, sound effects, music, etc.
- The technical quality of her recording is very good.
Recording submitted by Suzanne Ellis
on 27 Apr 2022 - 02:51
2nd place winner: Anthony Aroya
Judge's Comments
A wonderful voice, and he nailed the Director’s requested delivery style. His delivery is also very well-paced throughout. But it is also entirely choppy!
There are many, unnecessary pauses. Here’s what it sounds like to listeners:
The Roaring Twenties. Ushered in a new sense of life. And elaborate celebration.For many, the decade was a period of economic prosperity, and social change. And is often recognized as a renaissance of sorts. For the next hour, we will examine why historians believe that the 1920s. Marked a new era. In United States … history.
If you were the scriptwriter, would you punctuate it like that? He also has a lot of glottal stops, contracted “we will” into “we’ll,” pronounced the “T” in “often, ” has some weak “R”s, and “believe” is a bit over-articulated.
Recording quality is very good.
Recording submitted by Anthony Aroya
on 18 Apr 2022 - 21:16
3rd place winner: Jennifer Tophoney
Judge's Comments
Yet another wonderful voice, with a terrific smile. But as we’ve noted with our First Place winner, although smiling is often a plus, in this case it may be a minus.
Further on the downside, she has glottal stops, is choppy, and pronounced the “T” in “often.” See above for discussion of these characteristics. And yet one more – she said ” twennies” instead of “twenties,” both times.
Recording quality is very good.
Recording submitted by Jennifer Tophoney
on 19 Apr 2022 - 21:38
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