- In this video, I'm going to show you how to
get the best out of a voiceover during a directed session. (commercial introduction chime) Hi, my name's Chris and I'm a voiceover who's
worked in commercials. - [Chris' Voiceover] The all
new BMW X3, on a mission. - In corporate projects. - [Chris' Voiceover] Every
single moment of our lives is powered by energy. Our future depends on its future. - And in video games. - [Chris' Voiceover] It has been amusing watching your sea-wracked
corpses stumble
and dodder as you track for the prey. - When you take the time to
organise a directed session, either remotely or in person
in the studio with a voiceover, then it's important that you use that time as effectively as possible. So in this video, I'm gonna give you 12 tips to ensure that the voiceover and yourself are best prepared to get
the most out of the session as 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 to yourself. Read it out loud, most importantly. Make sure that it sounds
as if it makes sense. So 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 so
rt. A voice actor might need to
practise 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
gonna divide the session before you actually get to it. You're gonna 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 are there alternate
takes that you have in mind? Thinking a
bout these things in advance will 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 o
f text. That usually means that you do
a lot more takes as a result. And do 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 B to B or B to C. 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 10 and the audience a status of one to 10, 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 number 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 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 directed 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 welcomed, 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 that 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 10: Avoid line reading, unless
it's absolutely necessary. Time is money, so if you need to make a line reading, then ultimately that's absolutely fine, but preface it by saying, I wanna try
some line
readings if that's okay, rather than subtly inferring
that they're getting it wrong. Step 11: Ask the voiceover to do one take for them. At the end of the 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 would have had time to bed
down in their subconscious,
and now there'll be invited to
just give it a natural flow. It's essentially a free hit, but you might be pleasantly
surprised by the results. And finally, tip 12: Be very clear about the delivered format. By that I mean, do you want the whole session
or do you want edited 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 labelled, 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 confusions
further down the line. Okay, so that's my 12 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 aiming to upload
every week or two. Thank you for taking the
time to check out this video, which I'm sure is ver
y
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.
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