Voice-Over Voice Actor

A Peek Into The Secret World Of The Voice Actor

Interested in pursuing a career in VO? Curious what goes on behind the scenes in a business where people talk funny for money? This book offers a fun and comprehensive look at what it takes, what goes on and what it’s like behind the mic from two working pros who started from scratch.

Filtering by Category: Tips

Filtering by Tag: exercise

Microphone Technique

The mic can be rather daunting when you first start out in voice-over! Practicing at home with one will help to reduce the newness of it, and the distraction from it. Here are some tips to get you started!

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Take Action #25: Radio Follow-Along

Turn on the radio or TV and try to mimic not only the words, but the accent, the inflection of the speaker and see how close you can get to sounding like them. This is another great (and inexpensive) way to practice is to mimic things you hear. Listen to your favorite radio station and simply mimic the DJ’s, the commercial announcers, even the newscasters. Not only will this clue you in to the types of voices that are booking work, but you’ll often come up with new and exciting voices just by trying to mimic someone else’s.

Take Action # 24 Audition Time

1. This exercise is to help simulate an audition experience for you. Remember to look for all the information on the page to give you clues to your performance.2. Do a trial run with each of the specs and record yourself. Play it back and listen to hear if what you planned in your head was apparent in your recording.

Try out the following Commercial and Animation Audition Copy using the following specs. See how each unique spec changes your performance.

Commercial

Specs: 1. young, cheerful, spunky 2. wants to be everyone’s friend 3. eternally optimistic 4.intelligent, honest, down-to-earth

1. In the summer heat, 2 bucks can go a long way. Now, at The Burger Joint, grab a large drink, large fries and your choice of hamburger or cheeseburger for only $1.99. Come in and fill up for less than 2 bucks.

2. Why choose one of those other companies that might loose your package or handle it with less-than-optimal care? Let BoxYouUp come by your office or home and package, mail and deliver your important items at your convenience. Visit BoxYouUp.com for pricing. Animation

Specs: 1. energetic, sporty, hot shot 2. is always having a good time 3. goofy, crazy, wild 4.nervous and easily excited

1. Hey little monkey, I don’t know what you are doing in there, but you need to come out right now. You hear me?I don’t wanna have to yell. C’mon now. Get out. Get. OUT. Monkeeeeeeeeee! OUT. Now see, that wasn’t so bad, now was it. Ha! Silly monkey.

2. You mean there is more out there than this? Robots even? Wicked! Because I’ve been waiting my whole life for that.I just know I can take them on. Let’s go. What are you waiting for? Let’s do this thing. Woah. Did you see that? I’m awesome.

Fantastic. Hopefully getting the experience of listening to your performance has given you a deeper understanding of the variety of things you will want to consider when working on audition material or even going to an audition. Of course, this exercise can’t exactly duplicate an audition experience, but the more prepared you feel before you go into an audition situation, the more confident and relaxed you will be, and the higher your chances of you doing your best work, and with any luck, booking the job!

Take Action #23: Fight Sounds

1. punch small medium large 2. kick small medium large

3. attack small medium large

4. hit (you’re being hit) small medium large

5. death small medium large

The above is a good example of something you’ll encounter quite a bit in video games because video games are generally chock full of action. Imagine what kind of sounds you’d make in the given situations. Mix it up a little and try a variety of sounds like hy-ah, ki, shah, rah, gar, huh, for example. Try the same sounds with different types of efforts to see how they come out. Experiment with different lengths of efforts. Often in a video game session they will ask for a small, medium and large version of each fight sound. Imagine the difference between getting your earlobe flicked, getting punched in the face and getting decked with a sledgehammer. A good imagination will bring variety and directors really like variety. Give ‘em what they want and they’ll call you again.

Try to make sure you are generating the sound from good diaphragmatic support and not uncomfortably constricting your throat to create the sound. Straining your throat can put a lot of pressure on your vocal cords and could damage your voice.

Another great (and inexpensive) way to practice is to mimic things you hear. Listen to your favorite radio station and simply mimic the DJ’s, the commercial announcers, even the newscasters. Not only will this clue you in to the types of voices that are booking work, but you’ll often come up with new and exciting voices just by trying to mimic someone else’s.





Take Action #22: Complete Body Warm-Up

1.lie down flat on your back somewhere comfortable yet firm 2. hum/sigh in and out

3. practice panting

4. roll over to one side and then slowly get up to a standing position (make sure you’re not holding your breath!)

5. do some neck rolls - very gently roll your head around in small circles both clockwise and counterclockwise to warm up your neck and throat

6. do some shoulder rolls - gently roll your shoulders forward and backward to loosen and warm up your back and neck

7. shake out your feet/hands - gently get your circulation going by shaking your hands and feet out

8. jump 1-10

9. massage your face - rub your hands together until they’re warm, then massage your face to relax all the bones and muscles there

10. lion/mouse – this is a fun one, which you can do in front of a mirror if it makes you happy. As the lion, stretch and open all the muscles in your face, your eyes your mouth so you look like a scary lion getting ready to bite your head off, then immediately switch to mouse face, where you twist and tighten all the muscles in your face, eyes and mouth so that you are as small and pressed as possible, switch between the two to send blood to those areas and wake them up.

11. tongue extension - stick your tongue out as far as it will stretch, then pull it back in. do this several times. Also try and touch your nose with your tongue. Now your chin. Now your right ear, and now your left (if you have to towel your face off after this one, you’re doing it right).

12. sirens

13. trills

14.P-T-K-T, B-D-G-D

15. tongue twisters (find some of your favorite tongue twisters and practice saying them as quickly as possible) search “tongue twisters” on the Internet and see what comes up (“Peter Piper…” What a to do…” “Unique New York,” “Red leather, Yellow Leather…”).

Now, hopefully, you feel awake, alive and ready to play. You can take as long as you’d like with this warm-up or you can time yourself. For example, if you’re short on time, see if you can get thru the entire warm-up in only 5 minutes. If you have more time, allow your body to warm up a little more slowly, maybe giving yourself a half hour to get through all the exercises. Adjust the warm–up to your specific needs.

Fight sounds, efforts and reactions can be a tricky part of voice-over especially if your voice isn’t warmed up. They’ll turn up almost no matter what type of VO you’re doing, from animation to video games to sometimes even commercials. Take the time to make sure your voice is fully warmed-up and awake before trying this next exercise so that you don’t hurt your vocal cords.

Want to feel ready to tackle auditions, VO sessions or expand your breath control and range? The Warm-Up MP3 or CD - both are available here





Take Action #17: The Count

1-2-3 inhale 1-2-3 hold 1-2-3 exhale 1-2-3 hold 1-2-3-4 inhale 1-2-3-4 hold 1-2-3-4 exhale 1-2-3-4 hold 1-2-3-4-5 inhale 1-2-3-4-5 hold 1-2-3-4-5 exhale 1-2-3-4-5 hold

Having a strong diaphragm will not only help you maintain your breath for longer periods of time, it can also help you yell, scream, shout and make fighting and reaction noises, all of which are likely to come into play in voice acting. Continue exercising and strengthening your diaphragm so that no matter what type of VO job you jump into next, you’ll be that much more ahead of the game.

Certain sounds (“s” and “z”) will naturally help you ‘hold on’ to your voice and increase the amount of time you can breathe in or out. The next exercise will help you to strengthen this ‘muscle.’ Using the “s” or “z” sound, (rather like a snake hissing) try to slow the air down as much as you can while pushing it out. Start by counting to a lower number (say, three) while inhaling, then exhale on the hiss for three as well and up the count as you feel comfortable doing so. Try also adding a count between breathing in and out, so you’re breathing in, holding, then breathing out, holding, then breathing in again, and so on.

Take Action #15: Front-Mid-Back Sounds

1. Using a “nee, nee, nee, nee” sound, try squinting your eyes or scrunching your face muscles between the sounds and on some of the sounds to create a more nasal resonance2. Switch to humming to feel a very mid mouth placement 3. Now move the sound to the back of the mouth and throat by making a “guh, guh, guh guh” sound. 4. Try switching between the “nee”, the hum and the “guh” tofeel how your voice resonates in different areas of your body.

It can be very fun to learn to control your voice and be able to switch between a voice that is more frontal and a voice that is further back. Try reading this paragraph out loud in your natural voice and while doing so, move the sound toward your nose for a bit, and then reverse it and move it toward your throat and belly. Pay attention to where your voice is most comfortable as well as where it’s beginning to expand to offer you new and exciting options.

Take Action #14: Chewing Hum

1. Keep your mouth and lips closed and begin to hum.2. Start chewing, as if you were eating something tasty, as you keep humming. 3. Now use your hands to feel the vibration in the front of your face, your nose, your cheeks, and gently allow your hands to move to your neck and throat, and perhaps even onto your belly so that you can feel how your voice resonates in different areas of your body.

Using the chewing hum can warm up the different areas where your voice will resonate. Once again, when your voice resonates, it bounces around a certain area of your body, whether that’s up in your face, nose or head area, your throat, or your chest or belly.

Now to begin to identify where your voice is resonating, let’s concentrate on specific sounds that tend to resonate in different areas. Certain sounds we create generally vibrate more toward the head, while others, because we use different muscles to make them, may vibrate lower, toward the belly. If you can learn to control where you choose to place your voice, you can begin to use it in more powerful and interesting ways.

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Take Action #13: Sirens with and without Lip Trill

1. Keeping your lips together, like you were making imaginary car (or motorboat, if you prefer) “brrrm, brrrrm” noises, and allow your lips to make a “raspberry” type sound (like a good old-fashioned Bronx cheer without sticking your tongue out), or lip trill. Begin at the bottom of your possible range and while continuing the lip trills gradually raise your pitch until you hit your highest note possible.2. Now reverse direction. Start at the top of your range and move downward thru your natural pitch to your lowest note. 3. Continue your lip trills while going from low to high and back to low again. It’ll sound a little like a siren. 4. Repeat the sirens 3-5 times until you feel like your voice is beginning to get warmed up. 5. This can be hard to describe on paper. Feel free to visit this link ( ) to see an example.

Lip trills are a great way not only to warm up your face and resonators in your sinus cavities, but also helps keep your vocal cords and neck muscles from tensing up while you’re warming up your voice. Don’t worry if your voice cracks during the sirens. That’s just a natural part of expanding your range. We all have “head tones” (high) as well as “chest tones” (low) in our range, and in order to move back and forth continuously from one to the other, you have to move through your natural “break,” which is the sound that often people associate with a teen boy going through puberty. One of the reasons for this is that the vocal cords are actually growing and stretching and sounds that used to be easily within one range move to a different register, and the voice “cracks” as it pushes through unfamiliar territory. So in addition to warming up your voice, this exercise can also help you widen your vocal range.

Sirens w/out Lip Trill

1. Allow your mouth to hang slightly open, and begin an “ee” sound at the bottom of your range. As you exhale, slide your pitch higher and higher until you hit your highest note possible. 2. Now reverse direction. Start at the top of your range and slide your pitch downward until you hit your lowest note. 3. Make sure your face and jaw are relaxed and comfortably open while making the siren sound. 4. Repeat the sirens 3-5 times until you feel like your voice is warming up. Practicing sirens can really begin to stretch your range and gently allow the musculature in your face and neck (as well as your vocal cords) to begin to become accustomed to the sounds you’ll be making while acting.

Whether you have a high or low-pitched voice you can also begin to think about the placement of the sound you’re making. This is separate from the pitch. Placement relates to the physical location in your body where your voice is resonating. For example, if you have a head cold and are all stuffed up, you might sound very frontal, or nasal, since your sinuses are blocked and thus blocking the sound from escaping completely, therefore creating a very frontal resonant sound. If you drop the sound way back to the back of your throat, then you would almost sound like you were swallowing the sounds, creating a very different quality altogether.

Begin to play around with extremely frontal, a mid-range placement as well as a back placed sound. This is something that you can bring into your work and begin to pick and choose where certain voices you create will be placed and where others will lie instead. [Should this be a new exercise to help develop awareness of where you’re placing your voice?]

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Take Action #11 - Can You Shake Up Your Rhythms?

Our last blog exercise hopefully got you going, stepping out of your natural voice. Now, use the following exercise, which we like to call “The Phrasinator,” to shake up your own rhythms. Read each phrase on the left with the emotional intention on the right.

Exercise: The Phrasinator

  • Over here.........................................Uncomfortable
  • I need that........................................ Scared
  • Let go...............................................Frightened
  • What are you talking about..................Awe
  • Don’t do that......................................Sleepy
  • I don’t think that’s a good idea..............Happy
  • Give me the new one..........................Overjoyed
  • No....................................................Annoyed
  • Try it again........................................Uncomfortable
  • Listen to me......................................Angry
  • Alright..............................................Secretive
  • Stop right there..................................Frustrated
  • Wow that’s huge................................Excited

Was the word on the right not always the word you might have naturally associated with the phrase on the left? Did you discover some fun things simply by shaking things up a bit in this way?

Now, let’s take it one step further, and crank up the phrasinator. Try reading the first phrase with each of the thirteen words in the right-hand column, one at a time. Then move to the second phrase and do the same thing. Then the third, and so on, until you’ve gone through all the phrases and all the descriptive words. Do you begin to feel your old boundaries melting away as you expand your vocal tool box? Are you beginning to see the potential in this exercise for setting your audition apart from how another actor might automatically read a line?

If you want to continue playing with these phrases, take it one step further by adding punctuation (? . ! …) and see how that might change the way you say the lines as well.

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