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Directing The Voice-over Actor: Tips For Better Communication

Directing the Voiceover Actor Tips for Better Communication

By Vicki Amorose

Advice for directors and producers written from the perspective of the voiceover actor. Intended to improve the recording session experience. Use this article as a crash course or to tune up your directing skills. These tips apply to voice acting of all types. The terms voiceover actor/voiceover talent/talent/actor are used here interchangeably.

When you are in the director’s chair at a voiceover session the process can sometimes become a struggle for both you and the talent. You have a vision you need to share with the voice actor a person who knows far less than you do about the product message or concept. At the same time you hired that actor to bring his or her own unique skills to the project. Unlike the making of a film or a stage production you do not have weeks to rehearse and analyze the script. The studio clock is ticking and that alone adds an element of anxiety to the recording session.

The following tips apply well to both inperson and long distance sessions. Because I want to bring you more than just my own opinion as a voice actor I have enlisted the help of some of my talented voiceover friends. The opinions of Diane Havens JS Gilbert Bill Painter and Kevin Cooke are included here. As artists we may not reach consensus but I am including the areas where we find agreement.

THREE QUESTIONS YOU MUST ANSWER FOR THE ACTOR

For the actor’s sake always supply this information: Who is speaking? To whom are they speaking? How are they speaking? When you answer these three simple questions for the talent communication is well underway and confusion is reduced drastically.

1 Who is Speaking? Diane Havens: “The first thing I expect to hear from a director is the role the voice will have in achieving the intended impact. Make everything into a role because that’s what it is who is speaking? Neutral bystander? Impassioned preacher? Wry humorist? Helpful teacher? Caring nurse? Smiling enthusiast?

If you are not getting the performance you want it is sometimes helpful to imagine and suggest an alternate idea. For example the script may call for the role of the fairy queen attempting to calm her warriors. If that’s not working suggest the actor play a life coach teaching mediation to stressedout execs. Any number of roles may produce the voice you need.

2 To Whom are they Speaking? The age gender geographic region and socioeconomic group of your intended audience all factor into an effective performance. I would be a very poor voice actor if I used the same voice delivery for an arthritis medication and the National Football League. Communication is everyone’s goal so help the talent develop an accurate mental picture of the audience.

3 How are they Speaking? Provide clear descriptive words like “excited surprised reluctant certain exasperated.” The greater variety of words you can provide the better you will be able to communicate the ideal you are hearing in your head.

Bill Painter: “I’d recommend hitting the books. Keep a good dictionary or thesaurus at hand and use it. The more accurate your description the more likely an actor will be able to understand and deliver exactly the tone you’re after. Use colorful terse meaningful adjectives.

Descriptive words will tell the actor how they feel but not WHY they feel that way. This is important because actors like to dig up their own emotions to apply to the scene. “Backstory” is an acting term referring to who the character is how they feel and why they feel that way. Backstory provided by the director in voice acting can sometimes serve to confuse rather than to clarify.

JS Gilbert: “Often the director will provide way too much backstory to the actor. Backstory doesn’t often work because I have analyzed the copy on my own and determined my own set of ‘who and why and what and where’ which may not process well with the backstory a director may give. For example I may have determined that I am an avid user of a frozen enchilada dinner and the commercial calls for me to extol the virtues of the product. I create a backstory that has me speaking to my friend Charlie who occasionally has to fend for himself at dinner time. The director starts giving me direction like ‘Pretend that you work in the supermarket and you’re telling a shopper about the great things you’ve heard.’ This breaks up my organic process but more importantly it does little to relate what in fact the director is hoping to get from my read. This often can happen when recording video games and animation to the point where instead of direction the talent is simply getting fed the entire storyline and plot.

So allow the voice actor to arrive at his or her own authentic emotion. It does not really matter what excites him or why. What matters is that genuine excitement is expressed in the voice.

THREE THINGS THE VOICE ACTOR HATES

1 Line Reads: A ‘line read’ is when the director says the line and instructs the actor to repeat it exactly as a parrot would. “No no no instead of I LOVE the way YOU smell baby say it like this I love the WAY you SMELL baby.” You may have a very legitimate reason to phrase something precisely. In that case explain this to the talent before they start recording. You are the boss and we will gladly give you what you ask for. But you could ask for a line read and then ask for a different interpretation. You might be pleasantly surprised by a new twist. The problem arises when you feed a voice actor your delivery line by line and we can’t help but wonder why we were hired in the first place.

2 Vague and overused phrases: As the best example the word “conversational” is overused to the point where it has lost meaning. Instead of saying “Make it more conversational” it would be helpful to say something like “Toss off that last phrase like it’s something you’ve discussed a million times” or “I don’t feel like you are speaking directly to me.

3 Too many cooks in the kitchen: Directorial input from several people is confusing and very hard to follow. A strain is added when we must interpret the meaning and weigh the reactions of different personalities. We appreciate the director who remains the spokesperson for the group summing up the input from the agency and the clients and whoever else might be involved. We prefer to take direction from just one person.

THREE THINGS THE VOICE ACTOR LOVES

1 Specificity: We love it when you are specific. Kevin Cooke: “Things I love? Producers who tell me why they want another read. I’ll read all day to get it right but if they don’t provide even a nugget of information as to what they want different from the last read we’re stuck. Like saying “That was good let’s do it a couple more times.” I’m going to pretty much do it the same way thinking they liked it but want a few more similar reads in order to hit gold. I find myself rereading it more than 3 or 4 times and then I realize the “That was good” comment really wasn’t true! Flattery will get you nowhere quite literally! What specifically do you want to hear that you’re not hearing?” The voice actor will also appreciate specific audio references like a voice clip you might provide. A reference to the talent’s demo or to their audition is always very helpful.

2 Context before we record: If you are able to provide any context to the project before we begin the recording session please do. A draft of the script a character description an answer to any of “The Three Questions”all of this is useful nerve calming and welcomed by the actor.

3 Receptivity: Actors are trained to be open receptive and present in the moment. Remaining “open” means you might surprise yourself and everyone else with something unplanned and perfect. We adore the director who is also open and receptive who lets us play and allows the unexpected to enhance the process. Bill Painter: referencing a favorite director “His genius was his absolute lack of what I call pride of authorship. He didn’t care if the words weren’t exactly what he’d written; he was committed to the best possible message and if it was the result of an actor’s input so be it.” Remember that creative gems are forged in an environment of receptivity so keep an open mind!

And of course mutual respect will result in the best communication between those striving to do their jobs well. Best of luck on your audio projects. Find me at www.voiceofvicki.com

My thanks to JS Gilbert Kevin Cooke Diane Havens and Bill Painter. Find these voice actors with a quick Google search.

Copyright 2009

About the writer:  Vicki Amorose is an award winning voiceover talent and copywriter. Listen to her demos or ask questions at www.voiceofvicki.com

5 Low Costno Cost Ways For Aesthetic Physicians To Prosper

5 Low Cost/No Cost Ways for

Aesthetic Physicians to Prosper During a Down Economy

You may be feeling the pinch of the downturn in the economy. Thanks to the medias frenzied reporting on higher gas prices foreclosures and unemployment the public is more apprehensive about spending their disposable income as freely as they were in the past. That means your aesthetic patients may need a bit more prodding from you to continue to look as good they feel.

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The secret in succeeding during this shaky time is to concentrate on those aesthetic patients you already know. They are your lowhanging fruit. You have already spent the time money and effort to attract them to your practice so with minimal effort you can keep them loyal to you and coming back for more while bringing their friends with them.

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Here are five strategies that will work for you:

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Strategy 1: Incentivize; Your Staff to be Rock Stars

Dont look at this idea as losing money. You are losing money now or getting 100 of nothing when your staff doesnt do their best. Its human nature to perform better when there is a carrot; at the end of the stick. The easiest way to get your staff to be at their best when they are on the job is to reward them for a job well done and then reward them even more for going the extra mile.

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Incentives keep your staff motivated and on top of their game. They also help to self police; when you are not there because now they are not just working for you ndash; they have skin in the game and are working for themselves.

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Your staff will perform better when they have quantifiable numbers to strive for. Its important these be individual goals with numbers and time lines attached to them so the staff person knows what is expected of them and when. The more specific the goal the better able they are to obtain it. Examples of Goals:

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Book 10 aesthetic appointments per week

Covert 80 of all new callers to a consultation

Sell 3000 of aesthetic services per day

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Since each staff person plays a different role in your practice meet with each of them individually to discuss their particular role in promoting you and your aesthetic services. Tell them the minimum you expect from them for the salary you pay them and then give them an incentive for going above and beyond. By the way the incentive may be money or time off or a shopping spree etc. Let them tell you what works for them. Take the above examples and add incentives:

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Book 10 aesthetic appointments per week by Friday and get

a 50 gift card to spent that weekend

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Receive 510 for every new caller converted to a consultation

paid out every Friday

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10 commission on all retail products sold to be paid out weekly

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The reason you are paying them so often is so they stay motivated. If they see the quick payoff they will understand the connection between a good job and the payoff so they will keep up the good work.

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And be sure your staff knows you appreciate them. Thank them often. Hold regular staff meetings. Discuss whats going on and whats new.

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Get your staffs input on whats working and what needs to change so they feel they are part of the team. They will be more receptive to helping you reach your goals when the feel respected and valued by you.

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Also give them the scripting http://www.cosmeticimagemarketing.com/scripting.php they need to succeed and close appointments and procedures.

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Strategy 2: VIP Very Important Patient Promotion

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We all know your best patient is the referred patient. They are not as price conscious and are already presold on you. You do not want to take these referrals lightly. Every practice has their group of cheerleaders and you do too.

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Go through your database and pick out any patient who referred someone to you in the past year. Now send them a personal letter telling them how much you appreciate them and how much you would like more patients just like them. Handwrite your signature and add a personal note such as Thanks for all your support Patty. These cards are for you and a friend;. Include 2 VIP cards. One for them that gives them 50 Off their next visit when they refer a friend and the other goes to the friend with the same offer. You can even give them multiple cards for multiple referrals since the value of the referral is far greater than 50. see your own bylaws for rules on referrals.

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While youre at it be sure to include Bring a Friend; on your invitations Send this to a friend; on your website announce on your onhold messaging and mention in your newsletter. Spread the word to your patients so they will spread the word to their friends family and colleagues.

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Strategy 3: Email Marketing Campaign

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Email marketing is by far the cheapest and fastest way to communicate with your patients today. Thanks to advanced technology and streamlined processes you can literally send out a message and within minutes get your telephone ringing with eager patients.

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Email marketing is not a nice; thing to offer your patients. Its becoming mandatory if you want your patients to remember you when they are ready for aesthetic enhancement. In todays competitive environment its vital to keep in touch with patients on a regular basis. This will help ensure their loyalty to you and keep them coming back throughout the year. You also want to market through education; since a true aesthetic patient wants to know whats new in the world of cosmetic enhancement.

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Be sure you are asking your patients for their email address so they can receive your very exclusive web offers and event announcements. And your email messages must be brief eyecatching and include very special promotions so they continue to want to receive communications from you.

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Strategy 4: Promotions at the Right Time of Year

There are certain times of the year that are more emotional than others for the aesthetic patient and you want to capitalize on that. Since aesthetic medicine is based on emotion and perceived need develop a marketing plan around holidays. You will get a much better response when you promote your services around these themes:

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New Year ndash; New You

Valentines Day Love Your Looks

Spring is Coming Rejuvenate

Mothers Day ndash; Do Something Special Just for You

Summer is Coming ndash; Are You Ready?

Holidays ndash; Sparkle This Season

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Either through your inhouse signage your newsletter postcard http://www.cosmeticimagemarketing.com/onlinestore/patientpostcards.php special invitation or email marketing campaign educate your patients on how you can help them during these special times of the year. And you can have a special themed; offer for a very limited time so they understand why you are offering a special discount as opposed to always having offers any day of the year.

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Strategy 5: Birthday Cards

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There is something about a looming birthday that will send the aesthetic patient into a tales spin. And that makes sense. The aesthetic patient who cares about their looks will really care when their birthday is approaching.

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To take advantage of this special time in the year for them send them a fun birthday card that says Come Celebrate with Us; and offer 50 Off any rejuvenation procedure listed. This is important ndash; handwrite your signature and the address on the outside envelope. Use a stamp on a plain white envelope with no return address. You want this to look like very personal mail so it is well received and opened.

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And be sure to send the upcoming birthday month on the 15th of the previous month and have it expire two weeks after their birthday to add a sense of urgency so they pick up the telephone the minute they receive it.

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Conclusion

My above strategies are geared to setting up a winning team and bonding with your patients so they think of only you when they think of aesthetic enhancement. I promise you success if you implement these proven strategies.

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For more free aesthetic marketing tips and strategies call Catherine Maley MBA Author Your Aesthetic Practice/What Your Patients Are Saying; at 877 3398833 or visit her online at www.CosmeticImageMarketing.com.

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About the writer:  nbsp;

Scary Web Site Mistakes – And How To Correct Them

You’ve built a Web site youre getting a decent amount of traffic but you arent getting the kind of response that you had anticipated. Perhaps youve reviewed your Web site statistics and have found that nearly all of your visitors leave after viewing your home page. Asking your nephew to design your company Web site may have seemed like a good idea at the time but there are several simple mistakes that many inexperienced developers make that can drive visitors away in droves ultimately defeating the purpose of your Web site.

The scary news is that these problems are currently running rampant on many smalltomediumsized companies’ Web sites but the good news is that these can all be solved quite easily and inexpensively.
1. Problem: Multimedia Abuse

Multimedia abuse occurs when animation video or audio hampers the ability of visitors to properly view your Web site. Theres no doubting the fact that the use of multimedia can engage visitors in a way that plain text and images cannot however poor design or improper implementation of good design can place a virtual No Trespassing sign on your Web sites front door.

Your audience is vast and diverse. Not everyone has the same browser plugins connection speed and screen resolution that you have in your office. What does this mean? Your Web site needs to address the lowest common denominator for all four requirements. Your main Web site navigation should be presented in text or simple images not in a Flash animated movie. Imagine visiting your Web site and seeing nothing but red Xs all over the screen with no navigation provided. Sure downloading Flash is easy and fast but its even easier to find your competitors Web site.

Even if the plugins dont present a problem connection speed may. Its very easy to turn a small animated image into a 4 or 5 MB file meaning that anyone on a dialup connection will have to wait 2040 minutes for your page to completely download.

Also make no mistake about it video introductions when a video is presented before your home page with nothing else on the screen are not a good idea. Even with a small skip intro button at the bottom of the page these videos are better placed elsewhere so that your message is presented clearly on your home page to your visitors in the shortest amount of time possible.

Solution

If you have a Web site that uses a lot of animation allow the user to choose whether or not they see it. If your main navigation is placed in a Flash movie or inside of any other element that requires a plugin either present a redundant textbased navigational area or redo the navigational area in a more friendly manner.

An alternative solution would be to devise a method of detecting whether or not someone has the requirements for viewing the multimediarich Web site and diverting them to a second nonmultimedia Web site if they do not. This isnt the best solution because unless youre using a system that shares content it means maintaining two separate Web sites.

If you do not yet have a Web site but want to include multimedia consider designing it in a way that uses multimedia gracefully. One site that NuRelm developed http://www.harrisassoc.com offers a good example. Notice how the video is placed in a prominent area but does not contain main navigation nor does it contain any of the key text on the home page. So if someone doesnt have Flash the site is still functional and engaging.

2. Problem: Adobe Acrobat Overuse

If most of the content on your Web site is contained in Adobe Acrobat PDF documents your message is likely not getting out as efficiently as it could be. Even with a cable or DSL connection launching Acrobat Reader and downloading an enormous file will take precious seconds. Then if you do not have the proper version of Acrobat Reader it will take even longer.

Some documents will need to be in PDF such as anything that needs to be printed out and mailed in but most do not. If it can be placed on a regular Web page it should be for speed and searchability. Yes its true anything placed in a PDF on your Web site will not be searchable by search engines.

Solution:

Move as much content from PDF documents to plain Web pages as you possibly can. If you absolutely must have most of your content inside of PDFs provide summaries of the documents along with the links to them.

3. Problem: BrowserSpecific Issues

A good Web design and development firm will make sure that your Web site looks and feels the same way on the most popular Web browsers on both a PC and a Mac. This may be something that you never think about but should. If visitors who are using Mozilla Firefox or anything on a Mac visit your site and cant make out what is on your Web site theyre going to go elsewhere and they wont take the time to tell you.

Yes over 90 percent of Internet users are using Internet Explorer IE currently but that is changing due to critical security flaws in Active X and other components of the browser that make IE users susceptible to viruses and spyware. Instead of buying more virus protection and spyware removal products consumers are turning to alternative browsers which employ different technology that is immune to many delivery methods of viruses and spyware. For example at NuRelm most of us use Mozilla Firefox.

If your Web site does not function properly or worse yet looks completely garbled on one of these alternative browsers youre turning away approximately 1015 of your visitors.

Solution:

Download some of the more popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and take a look at your Web site. If you dont have a Mac find a friend or colleague who does and ask him/her to review your Web site. If problems exist theyre likely easily fixed.

4. Problem: A Home Page with Little or No Content

Your home page may be the only page that a visitor sees on your Web site before moving on so you need to try to capture their attention as quickly as possible. If your home page only presents your logo and links to other parts of your Web site youre likely losing visitors who do not immediately see exactly what they want. This falls under the category of you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Solution:

Find ways to add elements of each main section of your Web site to your home page. You can even get software that will share text from other sections of your Web site with your home page so you will only have to update information on the subpage and the home page will take care of itself.

5. Problem: Stale Content

The text and images on your Web site dont change often enough to keep repeat visitors pleased. Most visitors wont continue to frequent a Web site that offers the same information time and time again. With a Web site youre not locked into the same text and images as you are with print you CAN and SHOULD make updates often.

Solution:

Find two or three sections that you can regularly write about and publish at least one or two major changes per quarter such as an events calendar an industry news section or an articles section. The rate of change may be more or less depending on your industry your audience and/or the purpose of your Web site. Software that can help you make the updates to your Web site without having to pay for consulting hours with your Web developer is now extremely affordable and easy to use such as NuRelm’s NuContent.

NuContent can be delivered as part of your hosting package for a small monthly fee that is rolled into your hosting payment. This is called content managed hosting and NuRelm was one of the first in the country to offer this highly affordable convenient service to our hosting clients. For NuContent no technical skills are needed. You can be up and running and changing your own Web site text/images in a matter of minutes. Since NuContent is delivered over the Web no special software is needed and you can use any Internet connection whether at work at home or on the road.

If youve read through this list and none of these problems seem to fit there may be some other hidden issues with your Web site that are very specific to you. As a free service NuRelm provides Web site assessments to anyone who would like a critique. Our team of seasoned professionals will investigate your Web site and identify potential problems providing helpful suggestions based on years of expertise.

About the writer:  Heather Jewell is the Manager of Planning and Administration of NuRelm. NuRelm is a Web software and services firm that focuses on helping nontechnical professionals utilize on the Web to build business. For more information please visit www.NuRelm.com.