The Art of Voice Acting: the art and business of performing for voice over (17 page)

Closely related to attitude and subtext is the tone. Occasionally referred to as “tone of voice,” the
tone
of your performance is the sum total of
pacing, volume, range, articulation, diction, tempo, rhythm, phrasing, attitude,
and
subtext
. It is important to be consistent throughout your performance. Do not change your tone mid-copy. If you are doing a soft, intimate delivery with a friendly attitude, maintain that tone from beginning to end. If your copy is fast-paced, aggressive, and hard-sell, keep the attitude and tone throughout.

Tone can also refer to the quality of your performance. If you change tone as you read, you will fall out of character and your levels on the audio console will fluctuate, which will drive the engineer and producer crazy. To maintain a consistent tone, do not drift off-mic. Keep your head in the same position relative to the microphone from start to finish. Working close to the mic gives a warm, soft tone, while backing off as little as a few inches gives a cooler, more open, tone for straighter, more direct reads.

Occasionally a script is written that calls for a complete change of attitude and tone in mid-copy. If there is a logical motivation for your character to change attitude, then it would be out of character to maintain a consistent tone throughout the copy.

Copywriters use
punctuation marks
because a script is originally written grammatically correct for the eye, to be read. However, we don’t use punctuation marks when speaking in conversation. Part of our job as voice talent is to take the words “off the page” and make them real and believable. If you work the punctuation marks, your delivery will usually end up sounding like you’re reading.

One of the best ways to create an illusion of reality in a performance is to remove or change the punctuation marks. Instead of instinctively pausing at a comma, or stopping at a period, try ignoring the punctuation to create a contiguous flow of words.

Removing the punctuation marks doesn’t mean literally going through the script with white-out, although I do know of some voice actors who actually do that. What it does mean is performing the copy in a real, believable, and conversational manner. A real-life conversation is punctuated with pauses, changes of inflection, dynamics (soft, loud), emotional attitude (excitement, sadness, and so on), vocalized sounds (uhhuh, hmmm, etc.), and many other subtleties. To create a sense of reality, voiceover copy should be delivered the same way. Let your delivery dictate the punctuation.

Just because there is a comma in the script, it doesn’t mean you have to pause or take a breath! Just because there is a period, doesn’t mean you can’t deliver the line as a question or as an exclamation. What would your
delivery sound like if you changed a comma to a dash? What if you put a comma at a different place in the script? You have an almost infinite number of possibilities for delivering any line of copy.

Allow the scripted punctuation marks to guide you, but be careful not to take them too literally. Sometimes, a simple change of punctuation can make a big difference in the interpretation, thus improving the performance. Allow the lines of a script to flow into one another as they would if you were telling the story to another person—not reading it. Take the punctuation marks out of your performance and your performance will be on its way to being more believable.

Occasionally, you’ll get a piece of copy that just doesn’t make sense because the grammar or punctuation is wrong or grammatically incorrect. The writer may understand what she wants to say, and even how the words should be spoken, but because it isn’t punctuated properly for the eye, the words are pretty much meaningless. It then becomes your job to figure out what the correct punctuation should be so you can give the words meaning. For example, punctuate the following phrase to give it meaning
¹
:

There is only one correct way to punctuate this line of copy to give it meaning. Most copy will also have one punctuation that works best for the eye, but there may be multiple options from which to choose when those words are spoken. You’ll find the correct punctuation for the above line of text at the end of this chapter.
²

Changing and removing punctuation marks as you perform is a way of making the words your own to truly take them “off the page.” This tool can help you find the inflection, energy, and dynamics you are looking for as you begin to make the critical choices for delivering your copy.

A
pause
is much more than just a beat of silence between words or phrases. It is an aspect of phrasing, and a powerful tool you can use to take a voiceover performance to an entirely new level. A pause in your delivery can be any length from a fraction of a second to a few seconds, depending on the context of a script. You pause instinctively in normal conversation whenever you are thinking about what you’ll say next. It’s almost possible to hear the thought or the intention of importance that takes place during even the shortest pause. A pause implies that something big is coming and builds tension and suspense in the mind of the listener. When you pause, whatever follows is automatically perceived as being more important. And that’s exactly what we want to achieve by using this tool.

Learning how to use a
pause
effectively can take some time, but once understood, the concept can be used to help create humor, drama, tension, suspense, and emotional response.

Another way to look at a pause is in terms of
timing
. Comedic timing requires just the right amount of time—or beat—between the set-up of a joke and its punch line. If the timing is off, the joke isn’t funny. The same is true when using a pause in a voiceover performance. Timing is everything.

Improper use of a pause can result in an uneven or choppy delivery, or in a delivery that sounds as if the script is being read. If there is nothing happening in your mind during the pause, those beats of silence are little more than empty holes in the phrasing. To be effective, there must be something happening that fills those holes. There must be thoughts taking place that are in alignment with the
desires
, or wants and needs, of your character. Those thoughts won’t be verbalized, of course, but their mere existence will be heard in your tone of voice, attitude, and overall delivery.

The following phrase will give you an idea of how you can use a pause to create value and importance. Begin by just reading the line once to get an understanding of its meaning and to come up with some initial delivery choices. Now deliver the line out loud as one continuous thought—no pauses.

Since there are no commas or other punctuation to give you hints as to the delivery, you’re on your own to find the most effective way to say the phrase. Delivering the line as one continuous stream of words is certainly a valid choice, but it may not be the strongest. Now, deliver the same phrase, this time experimenting with placing a pause or two in your delivery. Use each hyphen in the lines below as a cue for a beat or brief pause in your delivery. Notice that no matter where you place a pause, you will instinctively give the words that immediately follow greater value (in
bold
).

The only way you’ll find the most effective delivery when using the
pause
will be to experiment with the many possibilities in every script.

Interruptions are a way of life. You experience them every day. You might be in the middle of saying something really interesting… and then someone breaks in or cuts you off before you finish what you are saying.
This also happens in voiceover, especially in dialogue, but it also often occurs in single voice copy. The challenge for the voice actor is to make the interruption sound real and believable.

In a voiceover script, an interruption is usually indicated by the ellipsis, or 3 dots ( … ). The ellipsis can also indicate a
pause
in the delivery, occasionally replacing a comma or other punctuation.

For example:

The trick to making an interruption sound real is to continue the thought beyond the last word to be spoken. Much like a pause, if the line is simply read as written, the performance can easily sound like the words are being read, or the interaction between characters may sound “off” or artificial. However, if the thought is carried beyond the last word, the interruption becomes real and natural.

To continue the thought, all you need to do is make up something your character might say that is appropriate to the context of the script. Write it on the script, if you like, but at the very least, keep the complete thought in your mind as you deliver the line, and be prepared to speak the words. Completing a thought will enable you to create a believable delivery of the words. This concept works well in a variety of situations.

In the following script, Peterson continues the thought until interrupted. By completing the thought “Well, sir…” you will set the tone, attitude, and pace for your delivery of the line.

When the moment of the interruption occurs, simply hold the thought and let the interruption happen naturally. The continuation of the thought is often more realistic if verbalized, especially in a dialogue performance. If the other actor is a bit late with the interruption, no one will ever know, because you kept the thought going. If you are the actor who is interrupting, you need to make sure you deliver your line with the appropriate energy and attitude, and that you are cutting off the other person in a way that sounds like a real conversation.

Thought pacing
is a another tool that makes your character real! When you see ellipses in a script, you have an ideal opportunity to reveal the thoughts of your character. Not only can you keep the initial thought going until you are interrupted, but you can also make your character more real by vocalizing sounds during the ellipses. For example, in the above script, Peterson might interject unscripted responses during the ellipses, and the Boss might even put in some “umms,” or “uhhs” to add believability.

Another aspect of
thought pacing
is to ad-lib natural, conversational, responses while delivering a script. This will most often occur in a dialogue script, but ad-libbed human sounds can also be quite effective in the delivery of a single voice script. The proper use of thought pacing can literally bring a script—and your character—to life.

Occasionally, it can be challenging to find the best way to deliver a line of copy. Usually when this happens, it’s because the copywriter wrote the script for the eye and not for the ear. Sentence structure for the written word is often quite different than for the spoken word. A trick I call
text reversal
can often help. The basic idea is to simply reverse the sentence structure to discover a different way of inflecting the words. Once found, put the sentence back as written, and deliver with the newly discovered inflection and energy. It works just about every time! Here’s an example:

By reversing the two parts of the sentence, you may discover a better way to inflect the words.

Once you’ve found an inflection you like, deliver as written, but keep the new inflection.

Commercial scripts are often written with too little, or too much copy. It’s just a fact of life. Also, we may discover that the choices we make for our character result in a delivery that is too slow or too fast. We need to be able to adjust our delivery so that we complete the copy within the specified period of time. Sometimes this challenge can only be resolved through script revisions. But, more often than not, we can easily adjust the tempo of our delivery without affecting the meaning or intentions of our delivery.

The common way to think of this adjustment is to simply speed up or slow down the delivery. But thinking in these terms can have an adverse effect in that the words may sound rushed or unnaturally slow. A better, and much more practical, way to think of adjusting speed is to imagine that you are riding in an elevator. To speed up your delivery, simply imagine that you and the person you are speaking to get on at the same time, and that they are getting off at the next floor. You must tell them what you have to say by the time the elevator doors open. When you need to slow your pace, give yourself an extra floor or two for telling your story.

Changing the way you think about how you speak the words in a script can completely change the believability of your voiceover performance.