The tools we use for voiceover success all come from what we ALREADY DO.\u00a0 That\u2019s right; you already have what it takes to book more voice over jobs!\u00a0 This is because getting voice over work mostly comes from being BELIEVABLE.\u00a0 There are of course many nuances that also win you jobs on top of this, such as sounding confident, engaged, empathetic, personal, interested, etc\u2026.but even all of those have no foundation unless we believe you.\u00a0 So, how to be believable?\u00a0 Use what you already use in real life, where you are unequivocally believable because you\u2019re the author of those words.\u00a0 Unless, of course, you\u2019re a liar J<\/p>\n
To be clear, when we use the word \u201crules\u201d, we are speaking in very general terms.\u00a0 There are general ways that the majority of us express ourselves.\u00a0 We do deviate from this all the time as we are complex creatures with micro-expressions that identify us as individuals.\u00a0 However, in the beginning stages of learning voice acting, you will want these general rules to lean on until you\u2019re confident that your own instinct can run the show.\u00a0 These rules can be broken down into many categories such as timbre, pitch, inflection, volume, pacing, etc\u2026.and for all you music geeks out there who will certainly find the flaws in my definitions, just know that this is for the layperson only.\u00a0 Here goes:<\/p>\n
First up is PITCH, which gets confused with all sorts of things such as intonation, inflection, timbre etc.\u00a0 For our purposes of simplification (layperson!) we\u2019ll just discuss it as how high or low our voice goes.\u00a0 Another way of saying this is the difference between speaking with the deepest sound your voice can make or the squeakiest brightest most \u201cup\u201d place.\u00a0 In general, even though it\u2019s not necessarily pitch they\u2019re using to make this sound, when we think of deeper pitch it\u2019s similar to James Earl Jones, and a higher pitch would be someone like Sally Struthers, Jennifer Garner, or Anna Camp.\u00a0 But back to how you can use it as your tool in adding authenticity to your voiceover audition.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the general list of intentions\/emotions that has us using a DEEPER, LOWER pitch more often than not:\u00a0 confident, authoritative, powerful, sincere, honest, certain, serious.\u00a0 There are probably many more words.\u00a0 For our HIGHER, LIGHTER pitch, we are often expressing excitement, enthusiasm, positivity, friendliness.\u00a0 Again, you will break these rules based on context and character and other things, but they\u2019re good to have in your back pocket when you\u2019re just not sure where to go.<\/p>\n
Now, we utilize pitch as well when we are speaking in terms of INFLECTION or INTONATION.\u00a0 I spent way too much time researching the difference between the two, and I\u2019m sure someone will chime in eventually, but anyway\u2026.they\u2019re often used interchangeably by many \u201cexperts.\u201d\u00a0 The best example of how we use the two and what it sounds like is to imagine how you sound at the end of a sentence.\u00a0 If you\u2019re asking a question you will usually go up at the end of the last word.\u00a0 I say this precisely because if it\u2019s a multi-syllabic word, you need to really remember not to shoot up at one of the earlier syllables because your voice will naturally want to go down towards the end of the word, having it sound like you just made a statement.\u00a0 To prove this to yourself, imagine a question you would ask someone, and make sure the last word contains more than one syllable.\u00a0 Note how you go up mostly on the last syllable of that last word, which leaves the ending of the entire sentence sounding like a question.\u00a0 Similarly, if you\u2019re making a statement you will point your inflection downwards at the end of that last word.\u00a0 Imagine simply closing up a storybook and saying \u201cThe end.\u201d\u00a0 You\u2019ll probably go down on the word \u201cend\u201d, but just as important is recognizing that you\u2019ll go UP on the word \u201cthe\u201d to avoid sounding monotone.\u00a0 This is real life.<\/p>\n
Our volume levels also reflect real life, as we vary its levels based on the situation, emotional undertones, background noise, amount of people we\u2019re addressing, and even how close or far we are from the person(s) we are speaking to.\u00a0 Let\u2019s address emotion first: If we are being thoughtful, introspective, sincere, reflective, or empathetic we will most likely speak at a slightly quieter volume level than we normally do.\u00a0 On the other hand if we\u2019re excited, angry, or confident we often bump up our level of volume and get noticeably louder.\u00a0 It goes without saying that the closer we are to someone the less volume we need, and vice versa with persons further away from us.\u00a0 When you\u2019re not sure what the script set-up is for that scenario, go with averages (speaking to one person who is about a yard or two away from you) and rely on the normal amount of volume you use for everyday situations.<\/p>\n
Pacing follows a similar predictable pattern.\u00a0 When we\u2019re excited we talk a bit faster, when we\u2019re in a more thoughtful place we slow down.\u00a0 Another more nuanced aspect of pacing is our use of pauses.\u00a0 In real life we don\u2019t pause that much, and when we do it\u2019s usually very very briefly and for either only grammatical or dramatic reasons.\u00a0 Overdoing pauses either in frequency or length of time results in an everyday commercial or elearning video sounding like a Shakespeare performance.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is to use what you use in real life.\u00a0 Go listen to an interview of\u2026.anything.\u00a0 Listen to how this person, who is authoring their own words, naturally uses their inflection, pacing, volume, etc\u2026.Listen to how they emphasize certain words over others.\u00a0 Listen.\u00a0 Observe.\u00a0 Repeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The tools we use for voiceover success all come from what we ALREADY DO.\u00a0 That\u2019s right; you already have what it takes to book more voice over jobs!\u00a0 This is because getting voice over work mostly comes from being BELIEVABLE.\u00a0 There are of course many nuances that also win you jobs on top of this, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-voice-over-gurus-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceovergurus.com\/guru_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}