Voiceover Tip: Throw it off a Cliff

Huh?  Well, we voice over casting directors and coaches often get a bit tired of our direction after a while, of our voiceover tip vocabulary toolbox, so we like to shake things up.  “Throwing it off a cliff” simply means to make certain words or phrases less important by the way you deliver them.  What this does, more importantly, is give the power over to the words right before and/or after that.  This is the main reason you throw those words away.  Let’s try it, and also examine exactly what it does to the other parts of your sentence that are truly important.

Let’s take this line here to break down and play with:

“Sometimes you just want a great latte.”

The first thing I would ask a student is, what about this line in this script is important?  What is the point of this line?  More specifically, if forced to pick only one or two words in the sentence that truly speak to the message here, what are they?  You  might be surprised to learn that many people said “sometimes” or even “want.”  Are we selling sometimes?  Are we selling want?  We  might be selling want, sure – but in that case, you’ve left the listener with the impression of “want” as the focus.  Ok, but what do they “sometimes want??” – a latte.  Right.  Now you’re on board.  The point of this sentence is to get us thinking about a latte.  What kind of latte are we talking about here specifically?  A great one.  To give power to the importance of what’s being offered here, you would need to “punch” or emphasize the words “great latte.”  Now the throw it off  cliff part comes with making sure you DON’T emphasize any other words before it.  It will confuse the listener as to the true heart of the message, and it will lessen the impact when you punch “great latte.”  Try reading it with sometimes or want as the only focus.  Then try reading it with the downplay of all the words except “great latte.” And hear the difference.  You can only make great latte more powerful by making sure you make all the other words less so.  It’s word-suppression, word-control, and it takes time.  But it makes all the difference.  For more great voiceover tips, I found this old but random article reviewing advice from a well respected Casting Director.  Enjoy.