When you're listening to the radio while driving your car, do you keep it on one station, or do you flip through different channels? What makes you stop -- a favorite song, the latest breaking news, or perhaps a commercial that really grabs your attention? If the voiceover talent reading the script is doing a great job in acting the part, then you may stop because the topic sounds exciting or relate-able. A good voiceover actor really brings a script to life!
Voiceovers can be a fun, flexible and an incredibly lucrative career! Last year, the industry grew 7% to $11.7 billion! Having a "marketable voice" is definitely important in voiceovers but there's a lot more to it than that. Voiceovers are voice acting. You need to do more than just read the words on the page. Before you read a script, you want to ask yourself a few basic questions that will help you analyze the product, as well as understand your listener.
1) What demographic is the script geared toward? Who is the audience that you're speaking to?
2) What is your personal connection with the product? Remember that voiceovers are voice ACTING! So if you can't connect with the product from your personal experiences, how can you (as the actor in this situation) connect with the product?
3) Understanding the emotion of the script is very important to be able to bring it to life. Ask yourself what the emotion will convey the message of the script.
4) Visualize the person who would be interested in listening to the script. Imagine you're having a conversation with this person as you read the script. Make the words sound like they are coming out of your head, not off the page.
There is always a big-picture reason for reading the script, other than being hired by a client for the voice over job! You can have the best voice in the world, but if you sound like you're reading, you're probably not going to book the job.
Analyzing copy, which is another name for a voiceover script, is very important in voiceovers. Another important skill to master is breathing! Using proper breathing techniques as a voice actor is critical in helping you sound natural and conversational. When you're reading a script, you should never sound like you're running out of air. When we start running out of air while we're talking, we just take a breath before the lack of air is even noticeable. Therefore, when you're doing voiceovers, breathing properly and breathing in the correct places within your script are essential skills to hone.
In order to breathe properly as a voice talent you need to intentionally engage your diaphragm. This will help you control your breath, help with your phrasing, and give you stamina for longer reads.
How to take a diaphragm breath:
1. Raise your arms up over your head and lower them gently while keeping your ribs raised. This isn't needed to take a diaphragm breath but helps pre-set your body when you're learning how to do it properly.
2. Place your hands above your waist with your finger tips touching your belly button and your thumbs on your back. Again, not needed, but a great indicator to feel if you're moving correctly.
3. Once your hands are in place and your ribs are raised, then focus on taking a low, deep breath. This will feel more like a "filling up like a balloon" sensation, or a downward motion, instead of filling your lungs up with air. When you take this breath, make sure that your shoulders do not move up. In actuality, your stomach should move OUT when you INHALE and move IN when you EXHALE. This is very similar to how a baby's stomach moves while it is sleeping.
4. When you take a proper diaphragm breath not only will you feel your finger tips and thumbs move, but you should also notice movement in the palms of your hands. Your entire lower torso should "fill up" when you take a diaphragm breath.
5. Here are some exercises that you can practice to help learn how to breathe with your diaphragm:
a) While sitting, place your legs together in front of you and bend over on top of yourself so that you're basically reaching down to touch the floor. Place your arms at your side so they're not really involved. When you take in a low, deep breath you should feel your stomach moving against your legs.
b) Lay down flat on your back with your hands placed on your stomach. Then relax and take a low, deep breath. You should see your stomach moving UP when you INHALE and DOWN when you EXHALE. You should also feel the movement in your hands, which is a great indicator if you're doing this correctly.
c) You can also try lying face down on a large yoga ball (or something similar) with your body curled over it and your arms hanging outward over the ball as well. Focus on feeling your stomach pushing against the ball as you breathe in.
As discussed above, having a correct diaphragm breath is very important in voiceovers, but so is knowing where to breathe in the script so that you sound natural. You should mark up your script before you record to make sure you're breathing in appropriate places and not running out of air. A lot of things can be edited out in digital recording; however, running out of air isn't one of them! When you're notating the breaths in your script, don't forget about natural phrasing and conversational pauses.
To mark your script in notating a breath, you can use a mid-air comma (like a musical breath notation), a dash like this | between the words you want to breathe or a / mark, or you can even draw phrase marks over the words you want to make sure NOT to break the flow with so that you don't accidentally breathe in between them. As far as notations go, do whatever works best for you!
So there you have it -- a few key points to remember when reading a voiceover script. Analyze your copy, use a low, diaphragm breath and notate your script to show exactly where to breathe to sound natural. Have fun!
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categories: voiceover,voice,acting