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Take Your Copy to the Woodshed
by
Peter Drew (Acting Magazine
Contributor)
You've booked your first voiceover session, a 60 second
radio ad, at a local production
house. You arrive in a positive
frame of mind, relaxed, and ready to
perform. After exchanging
pleasantries with everyone involved
with the session, the studio
engineer hands you the copy. After
reading through the script,
determining your approach to the
read, and consulting with the
session's director(s), you're ready
to nail the spot on the first take.
Sure, hitting a home run on your first at bat in front
of the mic is possible, but by "woodshedding"
or marking up your copy first, you
establish visual cues that will help
you give the director and client
your best voice-over performance.
Visualing indicating word
inflections, words that need
additional stress, pauses for pacing
and effect, and attitude changes
within the copy, creates a framework
for a consistent performance,
whether you nail the read on the
first take or the tenth one.
So, what system of marks should you use to woodshed a
piece of copy? Well, whatever works
for you. There is, though, a general
set of marks used by many voice
talents
for this purpose.
For indicating up and down inflections, use an angled
arrow: an upward angled arrow over
an up-inflected syllable or word,
and a downward angled arrow over
down-inflected
syllables and words.
Underscore (underline) words that require additional
stress. Put more than one underscore
under a word or syllable to indicate
even greater stress. By the way,
putting stress on a word doesn't
always mean simply saying that word
louder than the other words in the
script. You can stress a word by
simply raising the pitch of your
voice, without necessarily saying
that word louder. To really stress a
word, combine extra loudness with
higher pitch.
Pauses can be used for both pacing and effect, as well
as for giving yourself a place to
breathe. Use a slash to indicate
pauses. For a breathing point, use
one small slash.
To indicate a pause for pacing, try
one larger slash. A pregnant pause
for effect can be indicated by
multiple, two or more, slashes.
If you need to indicate a change of attitude, whether
subtle or broad, then you can use
any visual cue that works for you. A
letter in a circle representing the
change, e.g. an "H" for happier, or
a "C" for calmer, etc. Of course,
you can simply write in the word
that indicates the change where it
happens.
These are just some of the marks you can use to analyze the
copy and create visual cues to
enhance your performance. Create
marks that work for you: circles,
squares, highlighting, squiggles,
dots, brackets--whatever you think
can help you to develop a believable
read.
Naturally, woodshedding a piece of copy is easy when it's
double or even triple spaced.
Unfortunately, you will receive
single-spaced copy sometimes and
you'll just have to make do. Of
course, always make sure to bring a
pencil with a good eraser to
sessions. Besides using it to mark
up copy, you'll also find yourself
using that pencil for writing in
copy changes from the person(s)
directing the spot. The same goes
for voice artists who work in their
own personal studios. Always keep a
few pencils on hand.
Marking up a piece of copy can take a few minutes, but making
it a habit can help solidify the
direction of a read in your mind as
it gives you visual cues for
executing the voiceover.
Make some time to practice and
develop your woodshedding system. It
will pay off each time you step into
the booth and get behind the mic.
© Peter Drew, 2005
Peter Drew, a freelance
voice-over talent and
copywriter/producer with 28 years of
experience, is heard on radio and
television stations, corporate
presentations, web sites, and
messages-on-hold across America and
countries around the world. To send
an email regarding this article,
please visit
Peter Drew Voiceovers.
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