Tuesday 19 June 2018

How Should I behave in a Voiceover session?



With our fantastic voiceovers as well as our great clients we school of fish here at Big Fish Media, pride ourselves on running effective, targeted and quick voiceover recording sessions.

We are lucky that our voices are experienced and know how to take on every challenge from verbose direction to even power cuts – we’ve seen it all.  


What should a voice do during a session?
When you are in a recording session in person or down the line from another studio there are several golden rules.

1.       Be prepared – sleep well the night before, do vocal warms ups, drink water and eat well. As you know you have a session that day, avoid going out the night before (we can always tell), avoid milk and dairy produce, avoid chocolate and avoid caffeine.
2.       Be prompt – goes without saying but if you are going to be late call or text or send a carrier pigeon to let us know. Arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed.
3.       Read the script – if you can and you have got the script (which sometimes isn’t the case – we know this happens) then please read it out loud at least twice to get your chops around the words. If you receive the script there and then before the session, get there early and read out loud as a level check for both the engineer and you.
4.       Listen – yes our voices can read out loud but what they do most impressively is actually listen, assimilate direction and then speak. Stop, think, speak. From directions in a session to directions to a studio, stop and think and then act.
5.       Be nice – Nice? Yes, you are more likely to get repeat work by being both nice and professional. This also means avoiding touching the microphone. Just. Don’t. Touch. It!


And one last thing, if you are sick or other wise indisposed please let the clients know asap. We encountered an incident where the voice was sick and couldn’t make the session. It took over 5 different companies and over 10 people to sort out another voice for the end client. We have amazing relationships to pull off such a feat but it could have been more easily avoided if the original voice had let us know the day before instead of being late to their session.

What should a client do during a session?

Many of our clients are experienced and know how to direct. With others, we guide them as they may be inexperienced and not know how to direct the voice.
1.       Be prepared – ensure that you have read the script or written it properly, we have had many a session interrupted when the client reads the script or rather hears it read by our voices and then realises it makes little sense.
2.       Listen – what should you listen for? Pace/style/overall melody. The voice should match the tone of your brand and service.
3.       Direct – if you need to make a note for the voice then try and put yourself in their shoes, how would you convey a change of pace/style? What words or images would you use? How would you suggest picking up the pace but without it sounding too fast?
4.       Be nice – being a good client ensures that the voice your use will want to do a good job. They will do a professional job but being nice ensures they enjoy the job and that will be heard on the recording session.
5.       Use the time wisely – you have an hour but how many takes are you after that you can realistically work with? How many final Call to actions do you want in different styles?


If you need one of our voiceovers and you think we can help then just call us.