Comedy, career opportunities, relationships, sex, advertising copy. What do all of these things have in common? Well, they’re all about timing. Or so I’ve heard. Hi, this is David Rosenthal and this week I want to talk to you about learning how to deal with timing specifications that come with most pieces of commercial copy.

Commercial copy is written for specific advertisement slots. :15 seconds, :30 seconds or :60 seconds. Often, this will be displayed in the upper left hand corner of a piece of copy. Obviously, you need to pay attention to this essential piece of information. It’s free advice, and an important clue in finding the proper pacing for your read. The right pace will really make that copy come alive. The wrong pacing can do just the opposite. If you come in at :40 seconds for a :60 second spot or for that matter a :30 second spot, something is definitely wrong. You could be failing to grasp the natural, inner pacing of that script that the ad writers have painstakingly created with just the right number of words and pauses to fill the exact time slot.

Or maybe not. Maybe the ad writers have written too many words for you to possibly read comfortably in 60 seconds. Believe me, this does happen. What do you do then? A lot of people resort to editing their audition like they’ve just finished barber school. Snip, snip, chop , chop, cutting out the natural spaces between words, cutting out breath altogether, so that, yes , maybe they finally manage to create a file that is 60 seconds long but at the same time has lost all of its unique style and natural appeal. In other words, it sounds artificial.

Don’t do this! Read your audition with the proper pacing! No matter what. Leave the natural spaces in. Leave some breath in. Leave in whatever made your read so uniquely right to begin with. If they specify a 30 second spot and, read after read, you come in at 34 seconds, because that’s what works, because you are remaining true to the attitude and feel of the script, then it’s up to the ad writers to notice this and change the script accordingly.

Alternatively, If there are very few words on the page and they’re asking for a 30 second read, to me this signifies a very thoughtful read with deliberate pauses, one in which the words or phrases are to be mulled over with consideration for their innate humor or sarcasm or gravitas. Sometimes, however, a read can get so slow as to lose all meaning, just to hit that 30 second mark. Again, stick to a pacing that makes the script have meaning, purpose and direction. In both cases, use the time restriction on a piece of copy as a significant guideline, but do not be a slave to it.

The last scenario you will come up against is one in which no time specification is given, but because you know it’s a commercial and not narration or a point-of-purchase spot, there has to be an inherent time spec attached to it. Now, what do you do? Easy, just read it with the pacing you think makes sense for the script and I’ll bet you’ll be in the ballpark, if not right on the money, with the spec they were thinking about in the first place but, for whatever reason, forgot to mention on the actual script.

Understand, usually script writers are very good at getting the timing right. If you are coming in at 61 seconds for a 60 second spec, rather than cutting and deleting, just redo your read with a little bit more energy. This will more than likely take care of that pesky second right there. Your audition will still be of a piece, and you won’t have had to resort to your Dr. Frankenstein routine, cobbling together a synthetic monster that’s attempting to walk and talk like the real deal.

Oh geez, that’s it for this week. I’m outta time!

I had a professor who screamed at me because I asked for advice, then argued with him when he gave it to me. What did I learn from that? Advice is a precious gift…even if you decide it won’t work for you, it’s not necessary to reveal that.

There are others who say free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Before you start needle pointing all of this advice onto pillows…here’s my advice about taking advice…especially when it comes to your voice/over career. I’m Mary Windishar.

Zero: When you’re a beginner, take it all in and try it all out!

1. Listen carefully. Like I said…the person sharing the advice feels they’re giving you something valuable. It’s good manners to hear, and remember what they’re saying.
2. Later, ask yourself…what didn’t the person tell me? For example, someone recently advised an IVC member, “When you audition, always find a way to stand out. Even if it might not make sense…they’ll remember you.” She went on to say she’d auditioned using an Irish accent when the part didn’t call for that. What the actor might have left out is that she’s an accomplished artist, experienced and well known. She may also have prepared extensively for that audition — researching and rehearsing for weeks. The bottom line is, what makes the advice-giver’s circumstance different from yours? If the differences are great…you may not be ready to take that advice.
3. Also ask yourself, “how does this advice apply to my strengths and weaknesses?” I think the best way to differentiate yourself is by being the best. So if they’re looking for a young mom, don’t channel Kathryn Hepburn during the read. Yes, it would be different…and you’d stand out all right. But, it might not be genuine. It might not be something you can sustain during the job.
4. And finally, be alert for the way this advice might be just the thing to break you out of a habit, or belief that’s holding you back. I once felt furious because I was following all the rules, yet still not getting cast. I showed up on time, my handwriting was perfect, I delivered exactly what the specs asked for. Yes, I was so tight-assed that I could wear jeans from the boys department.When I got the advice “you could be holding your goals too dear,” I was angry, hurt and didn’t even know what the hell that meant! What it meant was…take it easy! Do what David says…find the fun in all this. When I did, it was a miracle — I started winning auditions.

So, here’s the bottom line about taking advice. Because all advice comes from another person’s experience, you must customize it to your needs, and your reality. The bad news is that you won’t be able to mass produce a line of pithy needle pointed pillows. The good news is that if you process another person’s wisdom to meet your needs, you’ll always benefit from their good intentions. I’m Mary Windishar.

Conquering Acronyms

Hello…this is MLW, with your TOW on voice over challenges like: MSRP, VAR, WiFi, VOIP, and (have you glazed over yet?) WishFi. That’s right…you’ve entered the wonderful world of acronyms. BTW, (which is not an acronym, it’s an abbreviation for use in texting) an acronym is: a pronounceable name made up of a series of initial letters or parts of words. In voice over, it also means a series of letters that may not make a word, but are still used as a name for something.

You may think this TOW, or tip of the week, will go over every single acronym known to mankind, and ask you to memorize them. But what fun would that be? No, instead, I’ll give you the secrets to sounding like you know them.

Secret #1: When you run into letters that look like a word, they’re usually pronounced as a word. VAR is a good one. It stands for “Value Added Reseller,” and is used in computer sales and services all the time. Voip is another one…it stands for “Voice Over Internet Protocol.” The exception to this seems to be when the acronym is only 2 letters…for example IT (which stands for Information Technology) isn’t pronounced “it.” And, if you can make a word out of part of the combination of letters, that’s usually how it’s done as well. As in the word: IScusi. Don’t ask me what ISCUSI stands for…because when it comes to computer terminology, I am DUMB.

Secret #2: If you are saying the letters, as in MSRP (which stands for Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) you’ll sound more credible if you emphasize the last letter instead of clearly and evenly emphasizing each letter. So, MSRP instead of M.S.R.P. Here’s another acronym used all the time: SMB. It stands for Small and Medium-sized businesses. How should you say it? That’s right…SMB. Think of this as giving the acronym a sort of nickname…emphasizing each letter distinctly is too formal.

Secret #3: If you don’t know, ask! One way I ask, in order to put them off their guard, is to ask what the acronym stands for. Or, I just give them both options. Like this…would you like me to say Business Intelligence or “BI” as you have it abbreviated here? (Once again, my instincts say it’s not pronounced “bye” in the same way that I know IT isn’t pronounced IT.)

Now, let’s put it all together. Here’s a script I read recently:

Les Mar is an SAP Solution Advisor, supporting both SME and large enterprise organizations. Les also provides expertise on BI strategy, best practices, and migrations for the SAP/Business Objects line of products.

Give it a try yourself! If you can read acronyms and make them fit into your read comfortably…you’ll be doing A-ok! See you next time…and by the way…MLW stands for…oh no you don’t! This is Mary, and I’ll see you next time.

Hello, I’m here to talk to you about greetings. You know, like “Hello,” or “Welcome,” or “Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening, depending on where you are in the world.” Yes, it’s the thing that comes at the beginning of commercial or industrial films that they want you to say naturally. But it’s really hard to do well.

So this time, you be the teacher. Tell me why the way I’m about to read this is so wrong. I’ll read it; you have five seconds to figure it out and well, we see what you come up with.

“Hello, this video is all about doing greetings at the beginning of industrial films.” —– Ouch! You’re right! At best, I sound uncomfortable, at worst I sound fake. Not something I’m proud of. But I’ll tell you what…I figured out a way around it.

So what’s the trick? First I’m going to tell you how I learned the trick. I learned what to do by listening to friends’ good outgoing voicemail messages. The good ones didn’t linger on the greetings. They said it; let the word itself do its work and moved on. Like this: “Hello, this video is all about doing greetings at the beginnings of industrial films.” So you just throw the word away. “Welcome, this video is all about doing greetings at the beginning of industrial films.” And when I have a super long greeting such as “Good Morning, Good Afternoon or Good Evening,” I find a way to add personality into it that has nothing to do with what it is I’m saying.

Listen to this one.

“Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are in the world. This video is all about doing greetings at the beginnings of industrial films.”

As I’m saying “Good morning, good afternoon or good evening” I’m sort of admitting what I’m doing is silly. Once again, the key here is to just let the word “hello” do the greeting…without you acting out “hello” or “welcome.” Just move on, and get into the material that the person is there to listen to.

This has been Mary Windishar, your Internet Voice Coach, and guess what? Next time we’re going to talk about how to say “goodbye”, or “thank you,” or…well, why give it away? Until next time, goodbye and thank you!

We had a couple of requests for a “Volume” Tip of the Week, Part 2. So this one’s going out to Rebecca and Rachel and Jim, and all of you who didn’t write in but are, nevertheless, chomping at the bit to learn more. How do I work with my voice so I know what it’s going to sound like when I play it back? Or even more importantly when that potential employer plays it. The unbelievably simple and Zen like answer is practice practice practice. Play with the distance between the microphone and your mouth. There is an optimal distance for everyone. For each of you, it will depend on your microphone and the sound level of your normal speaking voice. Once you have found that optimal distance, other things follow suit. For instance, if you know you are going to get louder, try moving back an inch or two. If you are going to whisper see what’s it’s like moving forward. What happens is that you start to create a little dance in front of your Microphone. It’s really quite fun. It will keep you alert and engaged in your copy by doing this. In a recent audition at my agency, I was able to voice a character whispering, screaming with anger, laughing and dying, all by playing with my distance from the mic. The engineer didn’t have to change the volume on her end at all.

The other less exciting option, for me, is to mess around with the volume controls on your recording software. If you know you’re coming up to a louder section of copy (say if a game character is angry or dying) you can always pause your recording, adjust the volume and then continue on. In this manner you can remain the same distance from the mic and let the software do the work. However I have found this method more time consuming and much less rewarding for me as a creative artist. Also Editing with this method is more cumbersome, though quite doable. Stopping and resuming your recording ultimately becomes a head game, it becomes intellectual and we all know where that leads. You might be surprised, once you find your optimal distance level, how subtle shifts in mic to mouth distance allow you to maintain a single dramatic read, even if you are modulating from loud to soft. It’s also more fun.

Lastly, and this is only for brand newbies, if you just can’t figure out how to make your voice loud enough, or to stop it from peaking out and causing distortion, there is a normalization tool that comes with your recording software, which boosts the lows and takes the edge off the highs so you end up with a recording that sounds all of a piece, basically everything ends up in the same decibel range. Yes they will hear your audition now, and if it is the case that you are sending out your first auditions from a home studio this is a much better alternative than not being heard or blasting out your potential employer’s eardrums. Still, I’m not quite sure why they call it normalization, because it doesn’t really sound all that normal. A quick side note. Normalization is good if you are recording phone interviews with another person and need to level out the differentiation between your voice and theirs.

So let’s review shall we?

Normalization only if you are a newbie and don’t know the ropes quite yet, or if you have a crappy mic.

Messing with the volume controls on your recording software: only if you are as much of an engineer as you are a voice artist and like to fiddle.

Creating a fun little dance between you and the mic? Ah, now we’re talking! Just keep Playing with the distance between the mic and your mouth. For most commercial recordings you won’t hardly need to move at all once you have found your optimal range. For character work, though, and for those pieces of copy with large volume swings: bob and weave, my friends, bob and weave.

Let’s talk about volume, shall we? When you are slating, when you are auditioning the volume with which you record and speak your copy will say volumes about you. If you record something too quietly no one will be able to hear you. A prospective employer will become frustrated, irritated or worse, angry with you. You do not want this to happen. If you record too quietly it also allows other extraneous noise and hiss to become a part of your audition. Again, a major no-no in the VO business. Make no mistake, the agents, directors and producers you submit such an audition to will remember you and even if you fix this problem at a later date, those director’s for whom you have already sinned will pass you by. So make sure that when you submit an audition on your own, without an agent, you have the volume recorded at a level that is comfortable to the ear, clear and free of hiss, and without that airplane going by overhead that you decided to keep in because, damnit, it was your best take.

Now let’s take a look at the other side of the coin: those who record everything too loudly, often because they love the sound of their voice and think that the louder they are the more they will stand out from the crowd. This is true but for all the wrong reasons. Such behavior may be called bold by some, but more likely, a casting director will simply call it obnoxious. This goes back to the days when ANNOUNCER’s roamed the earth. Full throated carnivores who had no idea what the words subtlety and nuance meant. Back then everyone spoke loudly. But today, a normal conversational tone is the new loud. Today, most directors request this tone and volume because MOST talent like to deliver their copy in a volume beyond what one would consider comfortable for the discerning ear. Please review the previous comments about frustration, irritation and anger, replacing too loud with too soft. Then there are those VO actors who use volume for emphasis, volume for energy, volume for tempo. When in doubt they always increase the volume. Why, because they don’t have a clue as to how pitch, tempo, and tone add to the variety of a read. The BIGGEST mistake a voice actor can make is NOT developing a true vocal standard a point of reference in which they KNOW how loud they’ll sound upon playback, whenever they’re in front of a microphone. If you don’t know how to maintain a consistent volume then you are in trouble. Work with your mic, your software and your environment until you achieve this standard. Do not pass go and do not collect $200 until you do.

Before I begin this week’s tip, a quick shout out to my SF Giants who finally brought the World Series trophy home after a half-century. I have been a happy if long suffering fan for 30 years, so today, my elation knows no bounds.

Let’s say you’ve decided you want to get into voiceover or use your voice in some capacity to earn a living for yourself. What do you do? You put your best foot forward. You read up on it. Maybe you join InternetVoiceCoach. You start taking live classes or begin working with a coach. If you have talent, guess what? Coaches, teachers, they start getting excited about you. They ask you to practice everyday. They ask your commitment to coming weekly. They ask you to absorb a lot of information and to make it your own. What you do at that point says a lot about you and how much you care about succeeding.

Watching the World Series this past week, the word “momentum” came up a lot. It got me to thinking how important and sometimes elusive this thing called momentum is. So many of our successes in life happen because of our ability to tap into it And yet momentum is one of those intangibles that can literally pass you by if you aren’t ready for it. It’s like an express train. If you miss it, there may not be another one for awhile. Then you end up having to take the local train, stopping at every station along the way.

Momentum is something of an enigma. You create it, but it also happens to you. Have you ever noticed that when you put energy into the world it often comes back at you, as if to say, “Okay let’s play.” At that point, it’s your job to take up the challenge and keep the game going. This playful give and take is what creates momentum, but so many people, after that initial spurt of energy, expect it to all just keep coming to them. Hey, they say, I’m a good person; I showed the world my good intent. Now it’s my turn to receive. But what if what you receive is simply an invitation to play some more, to give more and more of your energy. Are you ready to give it? A lot of people would say, Wow this is a lot more than I bargained for. And they stop putting in that energy. At that moment, the doors to that express train that you’ve been on momentarily open up, and you get thrown out onto the tracks. You get up dust yourself off, maybe wait for that local or start that long walk home. Maybe you’re disillusioned. Maybe you’re angry. Maybe you want to blame it on anyone except yourself. The fact is momentum is like a shot of adrenalin. It’s exciting but also scary. Because it brings you very close to your true nature and we’re not always ready to see that, to live up to our potential.

What I want you to do is take a good look at where you are, right now, the reasons for you wanting to use your voice, and the tremendous amount of momentum it will take to get you to where you want to be. Are you willing to say yes to making it happen. If there’s any doubt in your mind, walk away now. You’ll save yourself time and money. If you’re one of those who is willing to put their heart on the line, get cracking! Do something today to keep that momentum going. And don’t stop.

I don’t care how great your voice is, if you can’t focus during a session, or an audition, or even the practicing you do to become a voice over pro, you probably won’t work long in voice over. Hi, I’m Mary Windishar and here is your tip of the week.

So, how do you solve the problem of not being able to focus? The first thing to know is when you’re notfocusing! So if you get distracted by thoughts like, “I’ll never make it as a voice over person,” or, “Oh my God I’m on take number thirteen, this is bad luck for me, I’m not going to be able to do this take,” or coming up with excuses about why you can’t do what you’re being asked to do, instead of just listening…maybe you’re having trouble focusing! I think the first thing to do to overcome the problem is know what that problem is.

So if you’re having trouble focusing, one of the easiest things to do is keep your eyes on the word you’re saying — the word you’re reading right now. Don’t read ahead, don’t think ahead, just concentrate on what you’re reading right now.

The second trick for focusing better is to devote yourself in the session to listening. Not to anticipating what’s needed, not trying to match a former performance..just listen to the direction that you’re being given! When you’re learning voice over, something that will really help you to focus is to prioritize what you’re trying to master. So, if you’ve been told that you talk too fast, your articulation needs improvement, oh and let’s throw another one in there, you mispronounce some words, choose one thing at a time to work on. It’s almost impossible to work on something and remain focused, if you’re trying to work on twenty five other things.

Something I do to keep myself focused if I’m having trouble, is to tell myself these three words: “it doesn’t matter.” Those three words are magic for me! And finally, if all else fails, there might be a medical or a physical problem, that’s preventing you from focusing. For example, I remember thinking, “Gee, I’m not sure if I even want to do voiceover, this is really hard!” Then, I had to admit, I wasn’t able to see the script as well as I should, and maybe I needed to get some glasses. I’ve also coached people who have had problems reading. They might have had some kind of dyslexia or other learning impairment.

It’s also worth considering whether or not you have something, that I also have, and that’s Attention Deficit Disorder. The minute I realized that I had trouble focusing because of a medical issue, I started taking medicine, and that’s when my career turned around.

Thank you so much for focusing on this tip of the week, and I’ll see you next time.

Here’s a tip to get you into the right mindset for auditioning, especially if your day has been stressful or full of chores and errands. The last thing you want to do is come to an audition as if it’s just one more thing that needs to get checked off your to-do list. So before you voice an audition, wherever that may be: in your own studio, on the road or at your agency, do yourself a favor, and take a moment to listen to your voice demo. And if you don’t have one then you shouldn’t be auditioning yet. What is your voice demo if not you sounding your best. If it’s the kind of demo that’s getting you work, then it has the right energy and spirit for an audition right?, it’s the right sound world for you to be paying attention to, and it’s a reminder of what you are capable of producing in terms of tone, range, character and excitement. It only takes a minute and it can focus you away from any distractions that could be a detriment to your read. You want to be in that creative, playful state of mind before you audition. Otherwise it’ll most likely be a wasted one. So make sure your demo is with you wherever you are to remind you of how you can shine.