How to Direct a Voice Actor
When you take the time to organise a directed session, either remotely or in person in a studio with a voiceover, then it's important that you use that time as effectively as possible. So in this video, I'm going to give you Twelve tips to ensure that the voiceover and yourself are best prepared to get the most out of the session that 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 yourself. Read it out loud most importantly. Make sure that it sounds as if it makes sense. That 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 practice 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 going to divide the session before you actually get to it. You're going to 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 other alternate takes that you have in mind. Thinking about these things in advance, we'll 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 takes, that usually means that you do a lot more takes as a result. And 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 B2B or B2C, 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 ten, and the audience has status of one to ten, 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 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 a 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 directing 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 welcome. 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 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 Ten, Avoid line reading, unless it's absolutely necessary. Your time is money. So if you need to make a line reading, then ultimately that's absolutely fine. But preface it by saying I want to try some line readings if that's okay, rather than subtly inferring that they're getting it wrong.
Tip Eleven, Ask the voiceover to do one take for them. At the end of a 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 will have had time to bed down in their subconscious. And now they'll be invited to just give it a natural flair. It's essentially a free hit, but you might be pleasantly surprised by the result.
And finally, Tip Twelve, Be very clear about the delivered format. By that, I mean, do you want the whole session? Or do you want editing 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 labeled? 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 confusion further down the line.
Okay, so that's my twelve 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 able to upload every week or two.
Thank you for taking the time to check out this video which I'm sure it's 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.