Breath and breathing are key in VO
It's important to know where to breathe. When you're setting up your copy and marking up your script, you should mark where you're going to breathe. First of all, it's important to maybe breathe before you even start. I always like to take some deep diaphragmatic breaths before I start reading. I like to do that because number one it helps set the pacing and helps set the tone. It set's a relaxed start to the copy. We often want to run into our booth and just read the copy immediately, and so having a little time to just decompress before you begin and get some good diaphragmatic breaths helps. A deep breath helps us to really have a lot of power when we read.
We all breathe, but are you breathing in a way that supports your voice? It’s no fun when you are in the middle of a sentence and run out of breath before you reach the end. Understanding how to mark up a script and where to take breaths, will help you tell the story for the client, and make it to the end of those long sentences without running out of air.
