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gary@garymasonvo.com

Training

10,000 hours…

Encouragement, General, Getting Started, Training, Voice Over

Welcome Back!

Thanks for reading, and if you are a new subscriber; Welcome and thanks for joining us!

In keeping with the themes of getting a Late Start and having Persistence, particularly as it applies to a recently begun voice over or acting career, but really as it pertains to just about ANY new endeavor, this week we’re going to talk about what it take to become a master at your craft (whatever it is).  Thanks to Justin Knott for reminding me about this!

We’ve talked about this before…kinda

Now to be sure, I have hinted at this idea in several posts, but I’ve not delved deeply into it at all.  It can be frustrating and intimidating to start something new, whether it is a hobby, a passion, or a business.  Or maybe a hobby or passion TURNED business.  In case you didn’t realize this, when you are just getting started in something, you are typically not very good at it…and certainly not a master.

Not just you, everyone.

I could do that…

I know, hard to believe, isn’t it?  Think of someone you know who is REALLY talented at something. Do you wish you were as good, as experienced, as accomplished at it as they are?  I know I do, and I think that’s pretty normal.  How many people wish they could be a rock star, or a famous actor, a professional sports figure or even an accomplished magician? My guess is, almost everyone at some time in their life looked at someone and thought “Man, they really have it easy.  I wish I were a ______________. (Fill in the blank yourself here.  Use extra paper if you have more than one like me).

We all start somewhere

Here’s the thing: None of the people you aspire to be like started out as a master at what they do.  Every single one of them started out just like you: A novice.

Sure, many, if not most, of them had some innate talent. They could at least DO what they were striving for, even if not very well.  But you know what? YOU have some innate talent too.  I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know if what you are good at is what you want to perfect, but you HAVE some innate talent for something.

An overnight success…later

In previous posts, I’ve said that it takes 20 years to become an overnight success, and while I STILL have no idea who said that first so I can properly attribute it, that doesn’t make it any less true.

What I am trying to say to all of you new voice over artists and aspiring actors is this: Don’t lose hope because you don’t start off booking every gig you audition for, or even most of them ( Any of them?).  Surely it can be discouraging, but if you remember that each and every person whose name you recognize immediately at one point was a “nobody” trying to become the person they are now.

How did they get there?

The answer to that question is easy, although accomplishing it isn’t. Time and hard work.

A LOT of time. A lot of time working hard.

It is said that it takes 10,000 hours to master a craft.  Go back and read that again, and make sure to note the comma.  TEN THOUSAND hours.  For those of you not great at maths, let me break that down for you.

10,000 hours, if you could work at it 24 hours a day, would take you 416 and 2/3 days to reach.  You read that right, if you did NOTHING else but practice and perfect your craft, it would take about 14 months to master it.

No one can work 24 hours a day at something!

Not for more than one day anyway.  So let’s assume you had nothing else to do, but needed to sleep 8 hours a day, how long would it take THEN? Well, assuming you could work on your craft 16 hours a day it would take you 625 days to master it. That’s 1 3/4 years.  Doing nothing but sleeping and practicing.  I suppose it could be done, but you’d be divorced (or never married) and your kids would wonder who you were when you emerged from whatever cave you were working in.

But practically…

Practically speaking, you probably have a lot more demands on your life than working to perfect your craft.  You have family and friends.  You probably need to eat, shower, relax, go to the store…and a myriad of other “life” things that need to be done and that take away from your being able to master a craft.  So, let’s be reasonable and assume that you could work at your craft like a job and devote 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to it.  How long would THAT take to master something?  Hold onto your hats.  If you could devote what amounts to a full-time job to mastering your craft, 40 hours a week, it would take you 4 and 3/4 YEARS to become a master.

But…I don’t have THAT much time!

Right, and frankly neither does anyone else!  Odds are that you ae still working at a “day job” so that you can have a roof over your head and food on the table, you probably have family obligations like taking out the trash, doing the dishes and driving the kids to their soccer games as well.  If you are like MOST people who start out on the road to fame and fortune (HA HA HA) as a voice over artist or actor, you have on average 2-3 hours per day to devote to training and practice.

Realistically…

Realistically, unless you are independently wealthy, single, childless, socially awkward with few to no friends and absolutely dedicated to mastering something, you have at most 2-3 hours (or less) a day.  Let’s assume you are fantastically dedicated and devote 3 hours a day, 7 days a week to this endeavor.  How long till you master it? Did you figure it out yet?  It’s a little over 9 years.  NINE YEARS!  That’s right, pretty much a decade JUST to master the craft.  Then of course you ‘ll need to be discovered by actually DOING it and showing off your mastery.  Apparently, give the “20 years to become an overnight success”, it’ll take another decade to let everyone know you are a master!

The truth?

The truth is, even that 3 hours a day average is probably too much.  There will be vacations, and Holidays, and family visits where you will be expected to be “present” and not working on your craft.  There will be times when you are discouraged and exhausted and feel like you just don’t have anything left to give.  This is normal, this is life, so don’t beat yourself up if you “put it down” for a while to recharge and renew.

Why did I write all of that?

All of that to say – keep going.  Don’t be discouraged if you are not yet where you want to be (well, unless you’ve ALREADY been doing this for 20 years and getting nowhere, which is unlikely, in which case you should pick something else).  Keep at it until ONE day YOU are the master, YOU are the one people look at and wish they had what you have, Keep training, keep practicing, keep improving.

Along the way…

Here’s what you’ll find.  Along the way as you continue to improve and get closer and closer to mastery, you WILL start booking more gigs.  You DON’T have to be a master to be successful and remember there are degrees of success.  It’s overwhelming to think about reaching that 10,000-hour mark without setting goals for intermediate milestones along the way.  Make sure to set goals for yourself…both ultimate goals AND intermediate goals so you can know you are making progress toward reaching mastery.  I can’t tell you what those goals should be because they’ll be different for each person. Just find a way to measure progress toward your ultimate goal of mastery and then track it. Each milestone reached will give you encouragement to head for the next one.

How do you eat an elephant?

Most of you have probably heard this 1000 (not 10,000) times, but how does one eat an elephant?  Desmond Tutu, a South Africa cleric and theologian says, “there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”  Whatever you are trying to master is like eating an elephant.  It can’t be done all at once, and it is going to take time.  What are you waiting for!?  Get started right away, it’s going to take a while!

 

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Preparing the script

General, Training, Uncategorized, Voice Over

Welcome back! 

Thanks for reading!  If you are a new subscriber, thanks for joining us!

This week let’s talk a little bit about script preparation.

OK, I get that voice over is not exactly “The Ten Commandments” or “Gladiator”, but even a quick 15 second spot requires a script, and that script is going to require some kind of preparation before you deliver your lines.  So, how exactly do you prepare a script, didn’t the writers already do that? Get ready for your close up with Mr. Demille!

Actors

Unlike a quick 15 second script for voice over artists, for on-screen and theater actors, script preparation is a long form exercise. One of the first things an actor does when preparing a role is to figure out who their character is.  As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Samuel L Jackson says in his Master Class, your character is a 3-dimensional human being who had a full life before he shows up in the scene.  Just like real humans, everything this character does is flavored by everything that’s happened to him in the past.  When he enters the scene, he is coming from somewhere, and when he exits the scene he is going somewhere.  The actor’s job is to make the audience believe that.

How do they do that?

I’m glad you asked!  One of the best way to figure out who your character is would be to read source material.  If a play, TV Show or movie is based on a book, the fastest way to learn who your character is would be to read the book.  An author has the luxury of however many pages he needs to give the reader all the intricate details that develop characters in his or her book.  Reading the source material let’s you know a LOT more detail than the script ever would, and helps you understand why the character is acting a particular way or saying the things he says.  It ALSO helps you know HOW the character might act in a given situation and how he would say the things he is saying.

What about the other characters in the scene?

If there are other characters in the scene, it is important to know how your character feels about them.  Does he like them?  Love them?  Despise them?  Do they frustrate him?  All of these things (and more!) coupled with the character’s history will inform how a actor portrays a character.

What if there is no source material?

Well, obviously if there is no source material, you can’t go to that to figure it out.  The only real option is to make it up!  That’s right, MAKE IT UP!  Sit down and write a page or two detailing the characters history, physical attributes (does he limp?  Stutter or stammer?).  This is possibly the most fun part of character development because you have full artistic control (well, at least till the director gets ahold of it) over the character. You are fleshing out the details of your character so you can bring him to life!

Choices!

As an actor, you have to make choices.  The choices you make about your character drive who that person is, and how he acts.  As previously mentioned you can draw information from source material if it’s available, or make it up, but either way you are going to have to choose certain experiences and details that you’ll highlight in your performance.  Every actor, whether theater, screen or voice over, needs to make choices about their character and stick with it!

How in the world does this relate to voice over?

The short answer is, that voice over artists ARE actors and need to develop their character just like theater and screen actors.  Your scripts are shorter, and you have far less time to record and submit an audition, but the process is very similar.

Preparing a VO Script…

With very few exceptions, a script you are going to record is a real person, speaking to one or more other real people.  You may be a manager speaking to an employee, a husband speaking to your wife or a salesman speaking to customers.  No matter what, you are portraying someone, speaking to someone else.

Choices (CONT)…

For voice over, it is important to make choices about your character the same way a theater or screen actor would.  This is actually obvious if you are doing voice over for animated cartoons, or even video games.  Also pretty obvious if you are narrating an audio book.  Maybe not as obvious for that 30 or 60 second radio or TV spot.

The truth is, even on a short advertisement it is important for a voice artist to know at east three things about his character (and you ARE playing a character whether you realize it or not):

  1. Who is he?
  2. Where is he?
  3. Who is he speaking to?

These are the three main things you must know about EVERY character you play.  You can get more nuanced than this to be sure, but at a minimum you must know these things.

Who is he?

How do you figure out who this character is?  The text in the script may give you a clue, and if not, possibly the direction notes.  Sometimes you may be a sales representative for a company, or perhaps the manager at one of their stores.  You MAY be one of their customers, or even perhaps a keynote speaker at a conference.  Maybe you are an instructor teaching an employee how a company runs, or even walking a homeowner through a simple home repair.  In any case, it is imperative that you either know instinctively or make something up to inform your read.

Where is he?

Where the character is at, physically, is going to color how he says the things he is saying in the script.  Is he in the boardroom with the CEO and members of the board?  Maybe he is in his boss’s office?  In a store. Or standing on a stage?  If you consider this, you’ll realize that you carry yourself and speak differently when you are home than when you are at work.  Differently still if you are standing in your boss’s office.  Where you are is going to color your read.

Who is he speaking to?

Just liek a stage or screen actor needs to know how he feels about the people he is speaking to so that he speaks to them in a way that fulfills his character, so too does a VO actor need to determine who he is speaking to in order to inform and color his reading of the text.  If he is speaking to a colleague for example, he is likely to use different inflections and language than if he was speaking to his boss, or a customer.  Who the character is speaking to will also inform and color how he says the words in the script.

Other considerations…

Where is the character from?  Is he from Boston?  Texas? Chicago?  NYC?  Each of these locations are going to bring a different accent and slang as well as emphasis on certain words.  Pahhk you-ah caah in the yaahd.  What is the goal of the script?  What is your character trying to accomplish?  You get the idea, try to make the character a 3-dimensional person.

And then what?

Once you figure out these three things (at a minimum) it is time to decide how that character would say the things he is saying in the script.  Let’s say you have determined that your character is the manager of a store, he is in his office in the store and speaking to a customer who is upset about something. He has no regional accent or dialect and his goal is to calm the customer down and make sure they are satisfied.

Now, imagine yourself sitting in the manager’s office in a local store.  Picture a disgruntled customer standing in the door frame, and he is telling you all about what one of your employees did to upset them.   Keep in mind that your goal is to settle them down and make them a satisfied customer.  Now from sitting at the manager’s desk listening to the customer complain, how would you respond?  Not what would you say, the writers have given you that, but HOW would you say it?  Then say it like that.

MARK UP THE SCRIPT!

Once you know who you are portraying and how you are portraying him, it’s time to mark up the script.  Start by reading through it once or twice, then quietly read it out loud to yourself.  Doing this will give you ideas of pacing and where dramatic pauses are required.  Remember to read it out loud as though you are saying it (like it is just occurring to you in your head like in a real conversation), not as though you are reading it – which means you do NOT need to honor all of the writers punctuation.  We do not read and speak the same  way.  After you’ve done this, and have a good idea of how you want to do it, read through it one more time and physically mark the script to cue yourself where to pause and which words to emphasize.  Make up your own shorthand for this, only YOU need to understand it.  If you need more than one read, just do this step as many times as the number of reads you have.

But they want three different reads!

Yep, this happens all the time.  How do you deal with that?  Simple really…change something about the character.  Maybe you add that this customer is a regular complainer, you’d respond somewhat differently even if your goal is to satisfy them, right?  Maybe you decide your character just found out he won the lottery and is so happy he’d do anything just to get through the rest of the day and get out of there to collect his winnings.  You don’t need to completely change the character, just one or two attributes.  What if the customer ran you down in the parking lot as you were getting ready to leave for the day?  Or maybe you just got off the phone with your spouse and your child is getting sent home from school, so you are in a hurry.  The possibilities are endless, just make sure you are also being true to the copy.

The key..

Because you are a voice actor, and not a screen or stage actor (well, maybe you are both, but we are talking about voice over here), you don’t have the luxury of showing the audience through facial expression or body language how you are feeling and what you are thinking.  You have only your voice to do the work.

But here’s the thing…body language and facial expressions DO affect the way we speak.  Even though your audience can’t see you, if you’ll just affect the attitude and expression you are trying to portray, the audience will “hear” that in your voice.  Smile when it is called for, frown, squint, scrunch up your face and gesture with your hands (just try not to make any stray noises when you do it).  ALL of these things will come through in your audio.

At the end of the day…

At the end of the day what is important is that you know your character and then become him for the read!  Good luck!  Break a lip!

 

 

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!

If you haven’t already, please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

 

Ah, the doldrums…

Encouragement, General, Training, Voice Over

Welcome back! 

So, have you ever heard anyone say they are in “The Doldrums”?    It seems that January and February are the doldrums for both Voice over AND acting, at least my agent tells me that these first two months of the year are traditionally, agonizingly slow.  And then there’s COVID…but let’s not talk about what’s happening “in these unprecedented times” (Aren’t you tired of THAT one now?)  And to be honest, that has definitely been true for me.

Not saying I haven’t been working…I certainly have.  I’ve managed to land a role in a feature length independent film, I’ve finalized and published a book and produced two audiobooks to boot.  I’m also working on a production for a ZOOM play. But man, I’ll tell you, for me anyway, the opportunities sure have been sparse!

SHAMELESS PLUG

If you’re interested in my book, you can get it here.

If you’d RATHER have that book for free (A $4.99 value!), go here and subscribe to my blog.

If you’re interested in listening to either of the Audio Books, you can find them here:

Alpha Squad: The Sixth Martyr

CBD: The In Depth Guide To Medicinal Cannabis Transform Your Health Without The High

OK Marketing over…for now anyway.

So, what ARE the doldrums exactly?

If you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ve probably heard people talking about “The Doldrums”.  At least I did.  I never really knew what that meant, except that it was bad.  Later, after joining the Navy and traveling by sea for a while, I learned that old sailors (those wooden ships and iron men types) referred to the doldrums as periods when there were no winds to move the ships through the water, so progress slowed to a crawl.

Both of those ideas are true to a degree, but I wanted to know for SURE what it meant, so I looked it up and here’s what I found:

noun (used with a plural verb)

a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art: August is a time of doldrums for many enterprises.

the doldrums,

            1. a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
            2. the weather prevailing in this area.

a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits.

What surprised me most about this definition is that the term “doldrums” actually refers to prevailing weather in a particular part of the world.  Which is interesting, but not what I’m talking about when I mention doldrums in this context.  What I am discussing here today is that “a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art”.  I suppose, if it lasted long enough, it could also describe “a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits”, but we are not there yet!

Not everyone is in the doldrums…

Maybe it’s a localized phenomenon, or maybe it’s just me (Please God, not just me…that would crush my fragile ego) (Can you see my virtual eye roll?) because several of my fellow narrators are definitely NOT experiencing a slowdown in the last couple months.  My friend Joshua Alexander is reporting some pretty stellar, record breaking, sales in the last couple months.  Envy much?  (Yep).

Now a shameless plug for Josh!

Listen, if you are in Voice Over, Josh is a fantastic resource to learn all about self-promotion and direct marketing.  He is always willing to help a fellow VOA, and he administers a great FaceBook group to boot!  If you are IN the doldrums, head over and sign up for Josh’s blog and receive not zero, not one, but TWO free e-books that will help you learn how to effectively market yourself!  On top of that his blog is always informative, relative and humorous to boot.  You’ll enjoy it, I know I do!

OK, back to the doldrums

While the methods Josh preaches work wonderfully (and implementing them has been fruitful), what I need is to be more consistent. All of my failings in consistently marketing myself aside, it’s not to say I haven’t been busy.

What follows are some things to help you keep busy during slow periods and avoid the doldrums.  At least, these are some ways I’ve found to keep busy, and keep moving my business forward, during the “doldrums”.  After all, the last thing we need is a bunch of VOA’s who are dull, listless and depressed!

Training, Training, Training!

Can you ever be so good at your craft that you don’t need to continue training?  If you are struggling to find the answer to that question, I’ll just give it to you here to make it easy for you to keep reading.  No.  The answer is NO.  You are never so proficient that you won’t benefit from more training.  Using my above example, I happen to know that Josh continues to train with a coach he introduced me to (THANKS JOSH!) Scott Burns.  Josh introduced me several months ago.  He still thinks Scott is HIS coach…HA HA HA – He’s MINE!

Sorry, I got a little carried away…where were we…Oh yeah, training.

Book some sessions with your coach

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll have already found yourself a coach for your VO work, now, while things are slow, may be a good time to book some sessions.  Maybe you need to refresh your demos or produce a new demo in a new genre.  This is a PERFECT time to work on that until work picks up.  If you don’t already HAVE a coach, now is a great time to FIND one.  Reach out to Scott if you like (just remember he is MY coach, Josh!) although I have no real idea if he has availability for any more students.  Or spend a few mijutes reading my post on training here.

Start Blogging

You don’t have to be an expert or a polished author to write a blog.  This post is living proof of THAT.  Everyone has something to say, and that includes you.  Take a few minutes to sit down and brainstorm a dozen or so blog topics.  Do some research if you have to, and then think about what you’d like to say about them. You may feel like you are not a writer, like you’ll never figure out how to write something every week – just like I did – but if you spend a little time (30 minutes?) just thinking about what you’d like to write about, you are SURE to come up with some great ideas.

You MAY think no one is really interested in what you have to say, and at the start, that may be right, but eventually you will attract some followers who DO care about what you have to say.  Like I tell my kds, you NEVER KNOW how something you say may impact someone.

A story about impacting people

Let me give you an example from my own life of how things you say may impact people around you.  I recently reconnected with an old friend from my days being stationed in Naples, Italy (yeah, lucky me, I know), Phil.  (HI PHIL!) Anyway, as we were catching up over email Phil told me a story about something I had said that has stuck with him.  Now, I want to tell you I have no real recollection of the actual conversation he was recounting, nor do I remember saying what he remembers me saying – it was a throw away comment to me – but to Phil it had meaning, and it has stuck with him for more than 20 years.

Rather than write it all out, I’ll just paste what he wrote to me here below:

“Back in Naples, Italy, I had that small business fixing VCR players for my friend in the PX, who rented them out. I would troubleshoot the machines, order the parts, and wait weeks for the parts to arrive before I could fix the machines.

I really couldn’t keep up with the work, due to extensive travel. I gladly relinquished the jobs to you.

When I returned from my next trip, I asked, “Hey, Gary, how are the repairs going? Do you need any help?”

You responded, “No, Phil. I took all the parts I needed from the worst of the lot and fixed four VCRs for the PX. They agreed that the trashed machines weren’t worth fixing, so they are going to order new ones.”

“And they’re happy trashing the old machines?”

“Oh, yeah. They’re only interested in the rental income. The VCRs are worthless sitting on the shelf, waiting for parts.”

That was when I realized that you understood the value of time much better than me.”

All I was doing was explaining how I was handling the business he had bequeathed me, nowhere in my mind was ANYTHING about time management or the value of time.  I’m sure Phil fully understands the value of time, and in this instance, apparently, I got lucky and made a good decision, the point is that you never know how something you say may impact someone.  So SAY IT.  Write that blog!

Perfect your setup…

Another good use of your time during a slow period is reaching out to an engineer and tweaking your audio setup to make it better.  Especially if you are a new narrator or have limited audio engineering experience (like me) it is possible your audio setup or editing/mastering chain could use some optimization.  Best case, it makes you audition submissions sound better (when you get them) and worst case you find out that everything is tuned properly for you.  More likely, somewhere between the best case and worst case, you’ll streamline your processing and make recording/editing/mastering quicker.  In this business it is WAY better to be first in than last.

Add a complimentary skill to your portfolio…

There are a number of ways you can add to your VO business, or even start a secondary part of your business.  If you are accomplished, experienced and have been IN the business for some time, become a VO coach.  If coaching is just too much for you, become a mentor to someone with less experience than you.  Maybe you are an AWESOME sound engineer, pick up a sideline to work for less skilled narrators editing and mastering their audio.  Maybe you always wanted to be a Hollywood star and you can start looking at stage or screen acting as a sideline.  Acting proficiency can ONLY help your VO abilities and could land you a couple paying gigs to boot.

But don’t just do what I suggest…

There are a LOT of ways to not only stay busy, but stay busy building your business, when times are slow.  Think about some of those “Quadrant 4” (for all you Steven Covey fans out there) items you’ve been putting off that could probably use some attention.  If you spend just a few minutes a day thinking about all the peripheral things that need to get done, I’m sure you can come up with a pretty long list.  Then, when the work starts to pick up you have fewer things to worry about, and can dig in and give the performance of your life!

If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment below to let me know.  If you DIDN’T enjoy it, well, I’d like to hear from you too!

Please feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss anything!

Training- Acting Classes

General, Getting Started, Training

Welcome back! 

This week, Let’s talk a little bit about honing your trade through training in acting classes.

For those of you that have been reading this blog regularly for the last twelve (TWELVE! – who knew I had THAT much to say!) weeks, you will have heard me harping on something over and over: Training.  Like any other profession, success is determined by a couple of factors, one you can control and a couple you really can’t:  Training, experience and, well, luck.  The only thing you, as the talent, can really control is the training.  Experience, as my dad used to say, is what you get just AFTER you needed it (he could be a pretty funny guy), and luck is completely at the mercy of the universe.

What do you really control?

To be fair, you have SOME control over your experience, after all auditioning can be counted as experience, but since we rarely, if ever, get constructive feedback on our auditions, that experience is hardly useful.  Sure, you learn how to submit auditions, but the experience I am talking about is actually working on projects and learning how to take direction, or self-direct, so you book MORE jobs.   THAT kind of experience only comes from working, not auditioning.  So that leaves the one thing you have absolute control over and that’s training.

There are probably a million different ways for a voice actor to receive training, some good, some bad.  Well, maybe not “bad” per se, but there are definitely degrees of good when it comes to training.  I’ll talk some more about voice over specific training and coaching in another blog post, but for this one I’d like to concentrate on acting training.

What does a voice actor really do?

As a voice ACTOR, you are charged with bringing a character to life, to make them “real” a whole person – even in a 30 second radio spot.  How do you do that? It’s definitely a skill that can be developed and honed through training.  True, if you have natural talent, that makes the job easier, but even if you have ZERO natural talent (and let’s face it, there are some who have none), even though it may take longer, it can be developed.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about voice acting: this is not as easy as it seems.   Sure, you sit behind a mic in a small room all by yourself so you never have to appear “in front” of your audience.  But make no mistake, there IS an audience, they are just not sitting in front of you when you are on the stage.  You are performing for people.  At first the director or client, but then the masses who will hear your voice over the airwaves or through the internet.  And you are delivering a performance that does not benefit from things like your body language or facial expression.  In many ways, voice acting is MORE difficult than stage or film acting.

You may be thinking; So how do I learn to do this, to bring a character to life when the audience can’t see my face or my actions?  I’m glad you asked!

How do I learn how to bring a character to life?

If you’ve done some training or coaching (and let’s face it coaching is just a form of training) with a voice over coach, they’ll have talked to you about trying to figure out from a script a couple of things; What is the point of the text?  Are there any underlying themes?  Who are you in the script?  Who are you speaking to?  WHY are you saying the things you are saying (and many scripts have you saying things most normal people would never say out loud were it not for the script)?

Essentially, what your coach is telling you to do is to develop a character.  Most of the time in voice acting, you have only a short window of time to do that and get your audition submitted before the casting director is overwhelmed with submissions, so you have to learn to get good at this part.  This is where acting classes come in handy.

What IS acting?

Acting for stage or screen requires you to “become” your character long enough for the audience to “suspend disbelief” and to see you as a whole person.  In a play, TV show or movie, the audience only gets a very small segment of a characters life to actually see, but that character has had a full life up to the moment you first see him, and will continue to have a life after he (or she, I’ll use he because I am a he, but it applies to anyone’s pronoun of choice) walks off stage.  That full life dictates how the character speaks, acts and interacts with other characters in the piece.  It is that full life that determines WHO the character IS.

Think about the people you know, or even get introspective and think about yourself.  Family members, friends, colleagues at work, acquaintances.  Every one of them has a history, and in interacting with them you can almost predict (assuming you know them pretty well) how they will react in a given situation.  I assume that like me you have met new people who you were shocked acted in a particular way only to find out there was some event in their past that made you say “OHHHHH, I get it now…that’s why he is such a…”(fill in the blank for yourself).

What makes you (and others) act the way they do?

And think about this too: YOU act somewhat (if not completely) differently around some people than you do others?  Why?  Because you know about them and how they act.  You have particular feelings about people, or even sometimes groups of people, that cause you to interact with them in a particular way.

Are you the same person with your parents that you are with your wife?  Your kids?  Do you talk to your boss the same way you talk to your golfing buddies? Do you act the same way around your crazy uncle (every family has one, of you don’t know who yours is, it MAY be you!) as you do around your grandmother?  Odds are: no. This in my mind, is the essence of acting, and by extension voice acting.

They key to good acting is to figure out who the character you are portraying IS, and who the other characters you are playing alongside are as well.

How do you BECOME a character?

Pretty sure everyone reading this has seen Samuel L. Jackson portray a character, and he is REALLY good at it.  In his master class, Samuel L. Jackson (I’ll leave out all of his colorful language here, this IS a family friendly blog after all) talks about how he develops a character.  I’ll summarize briefly so I don’t take away any revenue from him selling his master class, but in essence he tries to figure out those things I mentioned previously.  How does he do that?  He reads source material: If the play or movie is based on a book, he reads the book. An author can give you much more detail about the character in 300-500 pages than you can get in a 90-minute movie or a 1-hour show.   He tells us that a given character, even if only appearing briefly, has “come from somewhere” and is “going somewhere”.  There are motivations for what he is doing, and there are goals he is trying to achieve.

As an actor, even a voice actor, you are charged with portraying the WHOLE person.  As Mr. Jackson says, every character is an entire person who came from somewhere and is going somewhere.

But what if there is NO source material?  30 or 60 second voice over scripts hardly come from some sort of source material like a novel or auto biography.  What do you do THEN?

Simple.  You MAKE IT UP.  Yep, that’s right…you make it up.  And here is a little trade secret that might help:  You MAY get it wrong.  Ever wonder why a particular person is or is not cast in a movie?  That’s probably why.  The character they are portraying is not what the director and producer(s) had in mind when they watched the audition.  Even WITH source material, an actor still has to make choices about and interpret certain aspects about the character and that may or nay not be how the people making casting decisions interpreted the character.

A little perspective…

Which brings up another salient point, that may help your ego if you are not cast when you think you’ve nailed a performance: It is a process of selection, not rejection.   They are not likely thinking you suck as an actor, they just liked how someone else developed the character better. So don’t get discouraged by rejection – it’s not real.  They are not rejecting you, they are selecting someone else.  OK, pep talk over.

All of that to say this:  Acting classes are how you learn to do these things.  When I first got started in acting classes (which admittedly is not very long ago) I thought “Hey, this will be pretty easy.  I meet with my teacher and act out a few lines and BINGO!  Trained!”.  Yeah, no. Actually ACTING in my class is the least part of the class.  Character development, both in class and between classes, is the order of the day. I am generally given a monologue from some play or movie, just a piece of it, with little or no directional instructions and asked to develop the character and break down the script.

Where does the character come FROM?

That means I am charged with coming up with a back story for whoever I am set to portray, and then to identify within the script how the character is feeling when delivering a particular line or set of lines (and for class, explaining WHY he feels that way).  How they feel may be different from line to line, so I need to identify transitions as well.  It’s a relatively simple exercise if I am unfamiliar with the piece, but MUCH more difficult if it is something familiar especially if it is from something well known or popular – it’s tough not to just mimic how the actor already portrayed this character.  Try it, take the “You can’t handle the truth” monologue from A Few Good Men portrayed by Jack Nicholson and try NOT to do it the way he did.  Go ahead, Ill wait.

Not so easy, right?  I didn’t think so.  It’s fairly straight forward to come up with a back story, at least for the bits we see IN the movie, but what about the person who existed before he shows up in the movie?  What makes him act the way he does?  Why is he even THERE at that particular point in time in the movie?  What gives him his disdain for the Navy?  How about the arrogance?  There are reasons, in a real person’s life, why they act the way Nicholson’s portrayal of Colonel Jessup acted.  Suffice it to say that the character you are portraying can’t just show up as a two-dimensional entity that miraculously popped onto the scene and popped back off again once his lines were delivered.  They have to be a complete person with reasons for how they act, and why they are trying to achieve whatever goal they are trying to achieve.

OK, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get to the bit about how to find ways to train as an actor and what exactly it has to do with voice acting, right?  Soo, patience grasshopper (and props to you if you get THAT reference!).  All of the foregoing pontification is designed to convince you that acting classes actually ARE beneficial to a voice actor.  In summary: They are.

Where do I find training?

One quick diversion before I go on, though.  While acting classes, or IMPROV workshops, ARE beneficial to a voice actor, voice acting is different than stage or film acting.  As a voice actor, the only arrow in your quiver is your voice (although actions and facial expressions surely come through in your voice!).  You don’t have the luxury of using body language or movement or facial expressions to show your audience how you are feeling or why you are saying the things you say.  While acting classes are helpful, they do not REPLACE the need for a good voice over coach or classes.  I just don’t want to give the impression that taking classes for acting is the end-all-be-all for your career.

Anyway, how do you get the acting training you need?  The best place to start is Google.  Search for local theater groups in your area that offer acting classes, or for nearby schools that offer acting as a discipline or even degree or certificate programs.  Where you get your training and how is determined largely by what is available locally and what your budget for training is.  You can also get some training AND experience by volunteering in a local community theater group.

What if I am just getting started and don’t have a lot of cash?

Sure, there are some very inexpensive (sometimes free!) ways to get started in learning this trade, but the real meat of the training is going to come from a training program that you’ll have to pay for.  If you just want to dip your toes in the water to get an idea what you’re in for, check out some of these resources:

  1. Acting School Stop
  2. Skill Share
  3. Free Drama

These are just a few, and don’t mistake their inclusion here as an endorsement, just an example of what is available for free.  Do your own Google search for “Free Online Acting Classes” and click around till you find one you like.  Do a class or two and decide if this is something for you and then maybe move on to something a little more beneficial.

And where do I go if I have a little bit of money to invest?

Here are a few places I’ve gotten training I enjoyed that were not very expensive:

  1. Udemy
  2. Master Class
  3. Just Be Acting (I haven’t used this one, but I considered it and it is reasonably priced)

I started my online acting lessons through Udemy (very reasonably priced – cheap even) and have now moved on to Master Class, which is a little more expensive, but the lessons are from recognizable actors (such as Samuel L. Jackson) and they are presently having a 2-for-1 special so I was able to gift an account to my daughter who is interested in investigating an acting career.  But the issue with online video training such as these is they lack direct feedback on YOUR ability.  They’re good, don’t get me wrong, but they can’t replace a real human who is able to give you feedback directly to YOU.  I mean you don’t think Mr. Jackson has time for YOU individually!

Training is WAY better with feedback!

So the second BEST method of training is to find a class or a one on one acting teacher in your area.  Personally, I found my acting teacher through Lessons.com where you can search for independent instructors in your area.  Lessons are available in many areas, and acting is just one of them, but you have an opportunity to interact with prospective instructors before deciding who to hire.  This route is going to wind up being more expensive than others, but the feedback and individual training you receive is invaluable and well worth the extra cost.

In the same vein as one-on-one training are group classes.  There is SURE to be available acting classes and workshops available in your area, and with the current pandemic most are now offering these classes virtually, so you are not limited to local classes.  These are good, as you get to interact with not only an instructor, but other students as well.  This is not MY preferred method, but it may be yours.  You should definitely investigate local acting classes and workshops if learning in a group environment works well for you.  I’d provide a link here, but honestly unless you live where I live it wouldn’t be helpful.  Just Google “Acting Training Near Me” and look around.

What if time and money is not really an object?

Of course, the VERY best way to get trained is through an accredited college or University.  This one is clearly going to be the most expensive and will require 2-4 years of commitment from you as the student.  In a university setting, you will get not ONLY acting training but well-rounded training across the entertainment industry.  Having a diploma or certificate will be a welcome and helpful addition to your resume or CV.  For those of us getting started later in life, even though we may be able to afford it, this may not be the preferred method of getting trained.  If you are younger and just getting started, you should definitely consider a school that offers degrees or certificates in the entertainment industry.

But how does this relate to VOICE acting?

OK, so lastly, how does this relate to those voice actors who are auditioning for a 30 or 60 second radio or TV commercial?  You won’t have the luxury of time to fully develop a character through source material or even sitting down to really think about where that character is coming from or going to.  But it WILL help you decide WHO it is you are portraying in the commercial.  Looking at a script, even a short one, requires you to decide WHO the person talking is, WHERE they are, who they’re talking TO, what MOTIVATES them, and what their GOALS are.  All of these things, which you’ll need to decide before recording your audition on are needed for you to make decisions about how the script is voiced.  Putting yourself into that character’s life, even briefly, will define your attitude and HOW you say what you have to say.  You may get it wrong (according to the people making casting decisions) but you MUST get it.

Even after all of this, I will repeat that nothing can replace your own personal coach for voice over.  A coach is someone who is working in the industry, who follows and understand industry trends and can help guide you in making good decisions about any given read.  A coach essentially helps you become better at self-directing, which for most auditions is critical for success in the voice over industry.

Now go get some acting training!

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