Ready to Demo and Audition
It has been a wild ride so far learning about Voice Over and preparing my music for release. The time of waiting is over! This Tuesday – or Monday depending on your time zone – the lead single of the EP will be available for streaming! It’s a Lie by Sammi Chelle. Think Chappel Roan with horns. The track heavily features trumpet, synths, and a dance beat. I am so excited to share this with you all!
This week expect a higher number of short form videos focusing on the song. I must promote my hard work, after all! As much as us musicians hate this fact, it is true that if we don’t care enough to share our art with as many people as possible, people won’t care about our art. That, sadly, goes for all art forms. For all we know the best film in existence is sitting on a hobbyist’s laptop long forgotten. There are centuries of lost media we’ll never get the chance to experience! Perhaps that is a topic for another day.
On to voice over – I also have exciting news there! I’ve been given the go-ahead to work on my first character demo with my coach. Before getting the green light, we had a session all about working through an audition spec to make sure I was ready. In addition to the private session, I also attended a great group session on the same topic.
Auditioning for Character Voice Over Work
The process of building a good audition is a little more time consuming for character work than other types of voice over – perhaps excluding audiobooks. You don’t want to give a dull, lifeless performance. To give life to the character you need to be the character. So, what steps did I learn about during the two sessions?
Read the specs. Look at the Design.
The design can tell you a lot about a character, from how they hold themselves to how their mouth may move. The eyes can tell us their emotional state. The body where their tension is. The mouth how they may pronounce words. Once you find the physicality of the character, the voice will follow naturally.
Review the description to find the playable parts.
Sometimes you’ll get pages worth of descriptions, other times a single sentence. It is our job as actors to find the tangible, playable piece from that description. Try to find 3 to work from.
Read through the lines in your head to get an idea of what the script is.
Run through the lines out loud with the physicality you picture for the character.
Play it big and exaggerated – this is the time when we can explore the character to find where they sit comfortably physically and vocally. We’re not trying to get it right. We’re trying to feel things out without thinking too hard.
Find the levels of the lines in relation to one another.
Which is the biggest? The smallest? Most intimate? Ideally, each line should be delivered in different circumstances to give the character contrast. Mentally place them in different rooms and scenarios. Make sure the same scenario and feel isn’t used for back-to-back lines.
Find the beats.
In acting, you may have heard the term ‘beat’ before – especially if you’ve worked in theatre. This is a single moment of change in the scene. A reaction or action. An emotion or thought. It controls the pacing of the scene. You want to understand each line and what your intention is towards other characters. This is essential to bringing the line to life.
Following this basic flow before doing any recording can save time on editing and re-doing lines. Personally, I’d rather have the feeling before throwing things at the wall and wasting my voice; after all, spending too long at the mic can lead to vocal fatigue. No voice actor wants that as it means we can’t work until we heal.
Conclusion
I’m sharing everything I learn in hopes of building community and maybe even hearing other’s thoughts on the same topics. Not everyone works the same way! If you’re not already following me on TikTok or YouTube and enjoy video content, be sure to check out those accounts! I’d love to grow my network with other creatives and find the audience who resonates with my stories.
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