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One of the most important and most difficult elements of voice acting is learning how to react instead of act. Most of the time we sit alone in our booths, and there isn't any other actor that we can play off of. But, there is a technique you can use to make sure you are reacting when you read.
Hi everyone, in today's video we're going to talk about why it's so much more powerful to act and react to a question or to your listener rather than just going off and launching into a monologue when you perform your copy.
So today I wanna talk to you about why it's so important for you to always think about answering the question or reacting to your listener when you are in performance mode. When you first start reading a script you don't want to just start off reading a monologue. A lot of times a monologue is really all about you. If we want to be engaging and we want to connect with our listeners, we want to make sure that we are listening to them or were reacting to or we're providing them with information that they need.
When you start your script from word one think about what question your listener is asking or think about what they're doing prior to you coming into voicing that copy. Then I want you to either answer that question or react, because when you do that it's going to feel like you've already been in the scene and you're already helping and engaging with your listener. That is a whole lot more fun to listen to and it's a whole lot more interesting to listen to than if you're just out there spouting off some monologue about this great product.
If you don't care about your listener then they don't care about you.
Let's say you're going to do an e-learning example and you're going to be training someone. I want you to envision that you are in the classroom, people are entering into the classroom and one person sits down and they say "OK so I'm here in this class. I don't want you to bore me. What are you gonna do for me today? What are we gonna learn today?" Once you listen to that question you can come right in and engage with the listener and answer those questions. Well, you know what today we're going to do this, and then we're going to do that, and so what really makes a listener feel as if they're a part of the conversation. They're involved in the voiceover and the story.
I want to make sure also when you set that scene that you don't forget about that scene. I know a lot of times we do all this work in the beginning of the script and we set the scene, and then we start talking to our listener but then we just kind of go on automatic pilot. We forget that we still need to respond to that listener we need to make sure that they're OK. We need to make sure that there you know still awake and they're not falling asleep and that they're understanding what we're saying. So you always have to keep yourself immersed in that scene
The other thing that you can do that will help give you a great ABC read if you need it, is to think about reacting differently to the question or reacting differently to the situation and that will give you an emotion to play off of. As opposed to just doing an ABC based on a pitch. That again sounds like you're not necessarily thinking about your listener. If you really go at it with a reaction, with emotion with a different scene you can react differently to it. Your listeners going to feel like they're there with you and that's the important thing. You want them to feel engaged and a part of the scene.
Much love and Keep on rockin' your biz!
XOXO,
Anne
About the Author: Anne Ganguzza is a full-time voice talent and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voice over and business skills - including VO demo training and production. She specializes in Conversational Commercial and Narration styles, including Corporate, E-Learning, Technology, Healthcare - Medical, Telephony, and On-Hold. Located in Orange County, CA, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students in person and via Skype, ipDTL or Zoom.