Hello and Happy Dog Day and Burger Day! I couldn’t choose since those are two of my favorites. So give your dog a hamburger to celebrate. They’ll love you for it, trust me…
NEWS AND NOTES!
I am the Voice Talent Productions Featured Talent for August! A big thanks to Erik Sheppard for the honor. Click here to check out my profile.
Last week I was at a studio in New Jersey to record an e-learning project. I was the “grizzled veteran” (is that right?) and two of the other three talents had worked there a few times. This was the other talent’s first time there. Her name escapes me but let’s call her Linda.
While we were waiting to go into the booth, Linda was practicing her copy out loud. She was repeating her lines over and over again to get the inflections just so. Not long after that, the engineer came out to collect some of us. He jokingly said to her, “Was that you reading out loud?” Linda replied, “My voice coach says we should practice copy out loud so we can get it into our muscle memory. Would you like me to shut up?”
Remind you of anyone?
TIP OF THE WEEK: Hoo, boy. Let’s start with the technical aspect, shall we?
Do not practice copy! Scan the script to make sure you know how to pronounce the words and get the gist of the story, then set it aside until you get in the booth. Repeating it like that marries you to one interpretation and makes it that much harder for you to take direction.
On to the interpersonal part of our show. If you want to practice your copy, please do it outside. It’s intrusive and I sure as hell don’t want your cadence getting in my head, you know?
And for the love of Pete, don’t scream “NEWBIE!!!” at the top of your lungs by telling the engineer (of all people) that your voice coach told you to do it that way.
Please forgive my apparent harshness. Understand that I’m not mad at Linda, I’m mad at her coach! What kind of ass-hat would give a student advice like this? How much did she pay for said advice?
The next time an aspiring voice talent asks for help, please point them in the right direction. Have a list of reputable voice coaches and their contact info on hand so you can spare them the crappy situation that people like Linda are in. It’s better for everyone!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
STUFF!: I saw The Grand Budapest Hotel and it was as wonderful as I hoped it would be. I’m a huge Wes Anderson fan so I make it a point to see all of his films. This is the guy who made Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbuams, Moonrise Kingdom, and more.
From Tom Dheere’s apartment, this is Tom Dheere: GKN News…