- In this video,
I'm going to show you how to get the best out of a voiceover
during a directed session.
(commercial introduction chime)
Hi, my name's Chris
and I'm a voiceover who's worked in commercials.
- [Chris' Voiceover] The all new BMW X3, on a mission.
- In corporate projects.
- [Chris' Voiceover] Every single moment of our lives
is powered by energy.
Our future depends on its future.
- And in video games.
- [Chris' Voiceover] It has been amusing
watching your sea-wracked corpses stumble and dodder
as you track for the prey.
- When you take the time to organise a directed session,
either remotely or in person in the studio with a voiceover,
then it's important that you use that time
as effectively as possible.
So in this video,
I'm gonna give you 12 tips
to ensure that the voiceover and yourself
are best prepared to get the most out of the session
as you possibly can.
And by the way, this video will be mainly dealing with
corporate, narration and commercial direction,
but a lot of it also applies to video games,
but I will be doing a separate video
about directing a video game session as well,
so look out for that.
So let's get started with my 12 tips
on how to best direct a voiceover in a live session.
Tip number one:
Read the script to yourself.
Read it out loud, most importantly.
Make sure that it sounds as if it makes sense.
So the grammar is all absolutely correct.
And obviously, that it fits the timings
of whatever spot it's supposed to.
Be sure to have a clear idea about
how certain words might be pronounced.
For example, if you say our company,
as opposed to our company,
then it's a lot more formal as a result.
And these are decisions that really should be made
prior to a session rather than during it,
or at least you're aware,
and then you can record an alternate.
Tip two: Clarify pronunciations.
Whether or not that's a person's name,
whether it's a company name,
which is always very, very important,
or whether or not it's an abbreviation of some sort.
A voice actor might need to practise these pronunciations
again and again in their own time prior to a session.
So the sooner that they get all of that information,
the better.
Tip three:
Think about how you're gonna divide the session
before you actually get to it.
You're gonna spend 10 to 15 minutes chatting about
the approach that you want to take with the script
before you actually record.
How many takes do you ideally want,
and are there alternate takes that you have in mind?
Thinking about these things in advance
will ensure that there's a good balance
between productivity and creativity,
in terms of different alternate takes you can make.
And if you've never directed a voice session before,
then why not ask the voice actor themselves,
how they would normally conduct a session
and take their lead?
Tip four:
Have an agreed way of marking takes,
either verbally or technically in some way,
in commercial sessions especially,
where you've got a lot more time
to do a small amount of text.
That usually means that you do a lot more takes as a result.
And do you need to have a system in place
to ensure that you don't get lost.
So if it's marking takes verbally before you do each take,
or whether it's actually putting it down
on a piece of paper,
make sure that something is in place
so that you don't get lost in the edit.
Tip five:
What is the status?
By that I mean,
whether it's B to B or B to C.
What is the actual status of the person speaking
and the audience that they're speaking to?
It's really good to have some very clear variables,
which you can play through throughout different takes.
So if you give the speaker a status of one to 10
and the audience a status of one to 10,
then you've got some clear things to play with.
Tip six:
Give the voiceover a clear role.
Are they the educator?
Are they the parent?
Are they the best friend or the next door neighbour?
If you talk to a voiceover in terms of their role,
as opposed to how they should sound,
then they've got something a lot more tangible
to be able to creatively respond to.
Tip number seven:
Share reference materials,
whether it's a soundtrack,
whether or not it's a particular read
from another commercial or corporate project.
These are fantastic shorthand to make sure that
you and the voiceover are on the same page.
Tip eight:
Be clear about who is giving the direction.
In a directed session,
it might be one on one,
you might have an audio engineer,
or you might have an end client or multiple end clients
on the line as well.
If this is the case,
though multiple inputs are always welcomed,
ensure that you operate as the filter to the voiceover,
otherwise they might get conflicting direction
and become confused.
Obviously, people in the creative team
might have very different takes
on how a particular word or sentence is said,
but you need to be the arbitrator in the process,
so that the voiceover isn't put on the spot having to choose
between one or another direction to do next.
Tip nine:
Be specific as possible in your direction.
Terms like conversational are both incredibly popular,
but also extremely vague.
If you can talk in terms of the voiceovers perspective
and their emotional state
and the audience's emotional state,
then that gives us a lot more stimulus
to be able to work from.
Tip 10:
Avoid line reading, unless it's absolutely necessary.
Time is money,
so if you need to make a line reading,
then ultimately that's absolutely fine,
but preface it by saying,
I wanna try some line readings if that's okay,
rather than subtly inferring that they're getting it wrong.
Step 11:
Ask the voiceover to do one take for them.
At the end of the session, hopefully,
you have everything that you need,
but if you do have the time,
then it's useful to invite the voiceover
to just read the whole script straight through
from start to finish.
The benefit of this approach
is that the notes that they got at the start of a session
would have had time to bed down in their subconscious,
and now there'll be invited to just give it a natural flow.
It's essentially a free hit,
but you might be pleasantly surprised by the results.
And finally, tip 12:
Be very clear about the delivered format.
By that I mean,
do you want the whole session or do you want edited takes?
Do you want it raw or do you want the audio processed
in some kind of way?
How do you want the different files labelled,
and what kind of file do you actually need?
If you have an audio engineer present,
then they may already be able to supply all the answers,
but if not,
make sure that the voiceover knows
exactly what it is that you need
so that there's no confusions further down the line.
Okay, so that's my 12 tips to get the most
out of a directed session with a voiceover.
If you found this video useful
and you're interested in more content like this,
then by all means, please subscribe.
I'll be aiming to upload every week or two.
Thank you for taking the time to check out this video,
which I'm sure is very rough around the edges,
and also to honey, my cat,
who has been asleep all this time.
Have a great day and see you soon.