VO Weekly Workflow – Discarding “Truths”

Where do certain voiceover “Truths” originate? Some may be highly recycled. A salient idea shared in an interview by a knowledgeable VO director or voice actor could get repeated enough until it becomes gospel. And it may continue to be valid. The best coaching advice I received still resonates regularly in my work. It’s important to acknowledge teachings that continue to hold truth.

Those tenets which still work get tested daily in the real world. Good advice continues to provide useful guidance while we navigate auditions, sessions, and self-recorded projects. Viable ideas remain when they are dynamic and robust.

Other “truths” get left in the dust – or at least they should be. For example, using the phrase “pick up!” when making a mistake on a script. When I started taking classes, a few instructors maintained it was essential to clearly state “pick up!” whenever we stumbled or fumbled on a line in a script. However, almost everyone else pointed out that it was an old-school convention no current engineer needed, since they no longer had to physically cut and splice recording tape.

While there was a clear cutoff point for that advice, other ideas can be a bit more tenacious. It’s fair to ask whether some may have gone past their expiration date. Styles continue to evolve and change. Being mindful of the assumptions we hold onto can keep us from getting stale.

For me, physically marking up scripts reached a point where it was no longer helpful. As a new VO, I would always get two copies of a script because the first one often got so completely marked up that it became illegible. It was part of my process. Later, I noticed that those markups and arrows and smiley faces adorning my printed script felt constraining. I started writing less on scripts…until the day I wrote nothing. The tool had become a limitation. The time came to let it go.

Styles change. Genres morph and flip. What sounds good one season can be hopelessly outdated by the next. Vocal fry, “millennial” reads, and the big-voiced announcer all had their day, but now are more likely to be used as caricature rather than as a serious acting choice.

There are all kinds of assumptions we hold regarding the “right” approach to a script or how things “should” sound. They could have been completely viable when we first encountered them, but may be getting in our way now. Whether it’s simplifying recording software, investing in better acoustic treatment so we need less “fixing”, or our process of refining and deciding upon which audition to send, it’s worth taking time to ask whether any “Truth” is continuing to help us.

Have you tested your studio’s audio quality to make sure it meets professional standards? For a free review of your vocal recordings, please use the upload tool on my Audio Review page.

Please share! please feel free to share or link to this resource using one of the buttons below. If you would like to receive these weekly posts directly to your email, you can sign up here