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VOICE ACTING Don't Jump Into A Voice-Over Script Cold: Warm Up With A Back Story November 18, 2018  On Tuesday, November 20, the author leads a new 2-1/2 hour VoiceOverXtra webinar, Commercial Voice-Over Delivery Secrets That Will Make Your Head Explode! A part of the training will be how to create a "back story" to the script, and reprinted below with permission, is an excerpt about that from the author's best-selling book, V-Oh! Tips, Tricks, Tools and Techniques To Start And Sustain Your Voiceover Career. By Marc Cashman Voice Actor, Coach & Author One
of the most important - and easiest - things you can do to sound conversational
in your voice-over read is to start the conversation beforehand - establishing a back story.
I
do this almost every time I get behind the mic to perform a commercial spot,
particularly when I have to read copy that's awkwardly written or full of
advertising-ese: ad copy that's chock full of ad buzzwords and phrases that
we'd never say when talking to each other on a day-to-day basis. HERE'S AN EXAMPLE Let me give you an example with this spot for
Albertson's:
Look
at all the ad phrases and copy points:
They're not particularly conversational, yet
that's what the spot calls for. HERE'S WHAT TO DO ... So how
do we put a conversational tone on this kind of copy? Set up a back story by asking yourself three simple
questions:
1. Who am I? You can tell who you are by reading the copy:
The
word "we" tells you that you work for the company. If you ever see "we" in copy, as well as
"our" or "us," you know you're the spokesman for the company.
So where are you in the
company? In the corporate offices or in
one of their stores? Chances are you're
in the store. And if you're in the store, what's your job title? Cashier?
Stock boy? Produce clerk? No!
These people are too busy with their department. There's only one person who's got the big
picture of what the store offers, and that's the manager! Which leads us to the next question ... 2. Who are you talking to? Well, if you're in the store, who else would
you be talking to? A customer, of
course! Possibly a new customer, maybe a
local customer who takes advantage of Albertson's savings. Which leads us to …
3. Where are you? Another no-brainer: in the store!
NOW CREATE YOUR BACK STORY ... Okay, so now that you've
established who you are, who you're talking to, and where you are, you've got a
good sense of place and purpose to establish a simple, credible back
story. Now this is a story that you'll
say out loud. You're in essence going to
create a make-believe mini-conversation before the copy starts - take a
beat - and then launch into the copy.
And the story's got to
make sense. You can't be setting up the
copy with a non-sequitur, like,
It's got to be a
realistic setup. Something simple, but
something that leads up to the first line. So if you're the manager talking to a customer in the store, you might invent
a mini-story like this:
WARM UP BEFORE YOU JUMP COLD By coming up with a mini back story, you've
established the conversational tone that'll carry over into the stilted copy
you've got to impart. In fact, whenever
we have to make awkward copy sound good, I call it "polishing a turd." The whole point here is warming up before you
jump into copy cold.
There's a simple analogy here. Have you ever stayed in a cabin on a lake
during the summer? If you have, the lake
usually had a pier jutting out from one of it's shores, and sometimes there'd
be a little floating island not far from the edge of the pier that you could
swim to.
Now imagine it's very
early in the morning, and you're standing at the very edge of the pier, with
your toes curled around the edge, your knees slightly bent, ready to jump in
the water. The water's smooth as
glass-and very cold! But you jump in
anyway, and when you come up … you're freezing! The water's cold, cold, cold! Why? Because you didn't warm up
before you jumped in!
NOW IT FEELS GREAT! Now, let's rewind this
scene. This time, you're in the cabin,
it's early in the morning, but you tiptoe past your cabin-mates, slowly open
the front door, slowly close it, and look at the lake with anticipation. Then … you run across the porch, run down the
stairs, run down the lawn, run across the beach, run down to the end of the
pier … and then jump into the water! You
come up and … Ahhh! The water feels great! Why? Because you warmed up before
you jumped in!!
You can do this with lots
of copy:
Whatever the direction calls for, establish the tone before you start
reading, and you won't be halfway through the copy before you're warmed up.
------------------- ABOUT MARC Marc Cashman is a voice acting instructor who knows "both sides of the glass" - as a Clio-winning radio and TV commercial copywriter, producer and casting director, and as a working voice actor. As Creative Director of Cashman Commercials, he creates, casts and produces copy and music advertising for brand name radio and TV clients. Voted one of 'The Best Voices of the Year' three times by AudioFile Magazine, he is also heard voicing radio and TV commercials, documentaries, animated series, video games, e-Learning modules and has narrated over 100 audiobooks. And through his Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques classes in L.A. and online coaching, he instructs voice acting at all levels. Email: marc@cashmancommercials.com Nov. 20 Webinar: Commercial VO Delivery Secrets That Will Make Your Head Explode! |
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Comments (4)
Steve Singer
12/10/2018 at 7:40 PM
I love listening to your advice. Always helps me. Thank you.
Noel 'Noah' Cortez
11/30/2018 at 6:59 PM
Good, we will see how much I benefit from your tip.
Tiffany Copeland
11/30/2018 at 8:10 AM
Marc, this article was like a free one-on-one VO workout! Thank you. You made the concept of interpreting copy relative to life, digestible, and...regular. No pushing necessary. ;-)
Bill Nevitt
11/18/2018 at 3:39 PM
Great advice, Marc!
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