It\u2019s rare that a prospective voiceover student calls me saying, \u201cI want to use my regular old speaking voice in commercials\u2026.can i can i?\u201d It\u2019s not a crazy request, but when we are talking hopes and dreams here, most people want to use the craziest and most repressed parts of their personalities and channel it through a cartoon character in some sort of animation project. I don\u2019t blame them. Who doesn\u2019t want to \u201cplay\u201d in some way? It\u2019s the human condition. Our soul needs to be fully expressed or it gets itchy or moldy or something inside, right?<\/p>\n
I was reading a Voices.com blog featuring voice over experts<\/a> which put the focus on this as they interviewed voice coach Sunday Muse. Sunday had some great points about teaching kids (or anyone, really) how to bring a character to life. She makes a point about \u201cbecoming the character\u201d which is really the essence of success here. If you are just \u201cdoing\u201d a voice it is empty, no different from \u201creading\u201d any script. To truly bring it to life means to start imagining yourself AS this character, not \u201cvoicing\u201d it. Sunday refers to an expression the character has on its face at some point. She asks the student what it feels like on their own face, telling them to imitate it. As we all know, your physical expressions always manifest into the sounds your voice makes. It is all connected. Sunday acknowledges this by bringing it into the body as well. She asks the student directly, \u201cwhat is the character doing right now?\u201d They are shoveling? Do it then, she requests of them. This \u201cactive\u201d talking brings them into the moment in a concrete way and instantly gives energy and authenticity to the actual voice over. Think about it, if you are going for an energetic read, your hands in your pockets is not really going to let that energy out very well. Simultaneously, if you are going for a warm and sincere read, your arms flailing around in front of you will distract from the soothing tone. It all connects. Your voice lives inside your body and they can\u2019t really tell two different stories at once. One last thing I\u2019d like to point out about Sunday\u2019s perspective is regarding script analysis. This is something I talk about till I\u2019m blue in the face. If you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about you are reading lines and nothing more. The way Sunday poses it is similar, but it\u2019s always nice to hear someone else beat the same dead horse with different words from your own! She notices kids reading, just reading, going line by line by line. She hears it as flat, like a song with one note. No one likes a song with one note, as they are pretty boring. For a character voice over who is telling a story, or for any story at all to be of interest, it needs variation, all kinds of notes, crescendos, and emotional weight.<\/p>\n