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We all know how important it is to practice your VO, but are you practicing correctly? How can you make sure you're practicing efficiently and effectively? Today, Anne breaks down her best practices for practicing.
Best practices for practicing.
Today, I'm going to talk to you about best practices for practicing voiceover.
So it's been said by Malcolm Gladwell, that it takes 10,000 hours to be successful in an endeavor. So for voiceover, that's no different, it's very important for us as voice actors to improve our skillset and to practice daily. I think it will help you to audition better, do your jobs better, and it will get you into a routine that will continually progress your business forward.
So the first thing I want you to do is to set a goal, figure out what it is that you want to practice, and set aside a specific amount of time each day, to do that. It could be for vocal warmups. It could be for improving your cold reading skills, improving your auditioning skills, or improving your acting skills. So figure out what it is that you want to work on. Every day and set aside a certain amount of time to do just that.
Now, if you want to practice your cold reading skills, go ahead and get some scripts. There are lots of free scripts out there. I know edge studio has a bunch of free scripts, or even if you just want to go to a website or take a book and just start reading aloud, you can do that for a certain amount of time each day, and it will improve your cold reading skills. Also, if you have a bunch of scripts and you read them out loud quickly that will also help to improve your cold reading skills. It's something that I have my students do before they actually read the script or record a script because it really does a lot for helping you to become familiar with the script and understand the story. And if you know the story, you can tell the story, which is what we are we're storytellers.
If you want to practice acting, think about practicing and taking the time to figure out what the moment before, what is the moment before that that script starts? And why is it that you're saying what you're saying at the beginning of that script that will help you to place you into the scene? And when you're putting yourself into the scene and you're responding to the events that are unfolding on the screen, that's going to make your read a whole lot more believable.
You could also practice ABC reads. Now ABC reads would be three different reads of the same line. A lot of times when you're live directed, they will ask you for an ABC read. Now, a lot of times people will do ABC reads. They'll just change their pitch. I want you to take those ABC reads. And I want you to think about not a different pitch, but think about a different scene or something happening. Unfolding where you are reacting with a different emotion. And if you can do that, that's going to give you three completely different reads. It's going to help you in a lot of ways. It's going to help you to become quicker on your feet. When a director asks you for an ABC read, it will also help you to give a great, take two on your audition for auditioning skills and want you to limit yourself to three takes. Only see if you can get that final take that you're going to submit for the audition in three takes.
So many of my students, I know when they just begin, they second guess themselves over and over and over again. And they do maybe 15 takes 20 takes and they keep going back and redoing it. I want you to try to limit yourself to three, edit it and submit it and forget it. And if you do that enough times, you're going to get well-versed in trying to assess what the story is quicker. You're going to be able to record and also edit quicker. And also it will allow you to do a whole lot more auditions.
Finally, you can join a workout group, but I want you to be careful when you join workout groups because workout groups should ultimately ideally have a coach in that workout group that can help to direct your read so that it can be improved or some voice talent that has had an experience in the field for a number of years. Rather than joining a group of people that are all new to the industry, you may not be able to provide the best feedback to one another because you don't have the experience. So workout groups are also amazing and you can listen as much as you participate because you can learn a lot by someone being directed.
As a matter of fact, that's one of the reasons why I created the VOPeeps group was so that we could have community workouts and you could work out with each other and learn from each other. So those are my best practices for practicing.
Thanks so much. Have a great week and I'll see you next week.
Thanks for reading!
Keep on rocking your business like a #VOBOSS
About Anne:
Anne Ganguzza is a professional voice actor and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voiceover and business skills - including voice over Coaching and Genre-based Demo Production. She specializes in conversational Commercial & Narration styles, including Corporate, eLearning, Technology, and On-Hold Messaging. Located in Orange County, California, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students via ipDTL and Zoom.
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