A reader of The Magazine of Santa Clarita wrote in with this question about breaking into voiceover and I promised to lay out over the next few months the skill-sets that most people in the areas of stage, film and television, singing, instructing, public speaking and on-air talent possess, and show how they do and don’t apply to voice acting. Last month I talked about television and film actors. This month I’ll talk about singers.
Q: I’m a public speaker, and wonder if I could be successful in voiceovers. I speak in front of large and small audiences, I’m behind a microphone and entertain and deliver my subject matter well. My stage-actress wife and my film actor brother-in-law wonder whether they might be good candidates for voiceover work. Any ideas whether we could be successful? — Jack W., Valencia, CA
A: In addition to your talents, Jack, singers bring a wealth of skill-sets to voice acting. They understand the fundamentals of articulation, projection and interpretation. As performers with a keen sense of musicality, they have a nice range and their intonation is solid, with perfect relative pitch or even perfect pitch. They also have excellent breath control and microphone technique.
What singers quickly realize when they’re working in voiceover is the amount of “music” there is in copy. They hear the keys that voice actors speak in, the fluidity and tempo of notes in the cadence of speech. They realize that there’s the same kind of colorization and interpretation of words and phrasing in lifting words off the page that occurs in singing a song, and that the effort of delivering a great musical performance on stage or in a studio is just as difficult for a narration. But their innate musicality gives them a keen insight into the “music” of copy or text.
Next month I’ll explain why instructors also have a lot of the skill sets necessary for a successful voiceover career.
Cashman Commercials © 2009
Marc Cashman creates and produces copy and music advertising for radio and television. Winner of over 150 advertising awards and named by AudioFile Magazine as “Best Voice of the Year,” he instructs voice acting of all levels through his classes, The Cashman Cache of Voice-Acting Techniques in Los Angeles, CA, and does One-on-One coaching via phone and the Internet. He can be contacted at cashcomm@earthlink.net or his website, www.cashmancommercials.com .