Voiceover Technique: It’s all in the Timing

Sometimes voice over technique is not about your acting skills, as important as they are.  It’s about your grasp on timing, pacing, the sense of natural flow that comes when you speak conversationally in your own life.  If you can stay PRESENT during your performance, you can and will notice whether your pacing is forced or natural.  If you are super-focused on making those words nice and perfect sounding you will lose your sense of natural timing because you are now caught up in doing something not natural.  If we don’t pay attention to making words sound perfect (whatever that means) in real life, we shouldn’t do it in our voiceover reads, unless called for specifically.  But in training, we do need to pay attention to our pacing, or you will be called out on your “performing.”  So what about “pacing” specifically?…..

                Pacing can entail a few things here.  It can refer to the general speed or lack thereof with which you are going at while reading copy.  This would apply to the whole script.  It can also refer to amount of pause you apply in-between each and every sentence.  How little or how much can greatly affect whether you sound like you are being conversational or whether you sound like you are reading words of a piece of paper.  So what is that “right amount” of pause?  Getting it right is crucial but it often can mean getting a professional to give you feedback.  Take advantage of Voiceover Guru’s Free Consult to hear where you are at with your own timing.  You can also listen to some of the voice over demos at Voicebank to hear how the pros do it.  It really is a “shaving hairs” sort of thing.  If I had to apply some sense of application to it in words it would be this:  The amount of pause you should have between sentences and also for drama between words inside of the sentence is very short.  It should be just enough to convey a break in the idea, AND NOT A DROP MORE.  In voice overs, dead air is dead air, so have a good reason to use that little bit.  You also want to be aware that even though you might be tightening your pace a bit, you MUST give resolution to the ends of each sentence before moving on.  Otherwise, you will sound like you are rushing.  All of this IS a skill, and requires a lot of practice.  If you need help, don’t be afraid to coach with a Voiceover Guru.