2022.09.17 - 0625 – Line-Reading For Voice Training
VOICE BOX
Line reading
A director may read your script to you, in the style they want you to emulate: a line-reading. This is slightly different from a line-by-line read mentioned above, as it’s when a director speaks a phrase or sentence exactly how they want it (regarding intonation, accent, pace and so on) and they record you repeating it back them exactly. Professional voice-over artists (or VT- voice talent) should rarely need this direction, certainly not for an entire script, but very often ‘celebrities’ who’ve been booked to lend their name and voice to a project, often do.[1]
Don’t take it personally as an affront to your skills. It may be that they are not explaining very well the style or tone that they want – they may not have the terminology or you may not understand the nuance that they need - and it’s easier to show you ‘with their voice’.
So why may it be that you don’t understand what they want? Well, because we are all different. The subtlety of a word they are using, may be different from your understanding of that word, perhaps because of each of your ages, backgrounds, cultures and so on. But a good director should have more in their exclamational arsenal before they resort to a lazy line-reading: they can use images to explain the sound and feel that they want “OK, imagine you’re alone in your house and you hear a weird noise outside…”), synonyms (“let’s try a read with a voice that sounds easy, simple, effortless, straightforward “), similes (“I want you to sound as cool as a cucumber…”, “like you are oozing sweet and sticky honey…” ), adjectives (“imagine biting into a crisp, sweet, juicy, red apple…”), adverbs (“it’d be great if you can attack that line a little more greedily…”)
But if a line reading is suggested, just go with it: you need to be malleable and affable. Oh and directors: if you’re doing this, tread carefully around a voice-actor’s ego, and apologise for using this last-ditch technique!
And it certainly is a last resort. The actor is a professional, not a parrot. And a professional voice-reader, not a robot.
That’s because first, someone telling you the actor how to read a line (just to copy them), doesn’t help you connect with the character and the reason or the thinking behind the line. It can make you sound false, as it affects the fluency, the storytelling and the conversationality.
[1] Sometimes it may be that the reader may ask for a line read, if for example, they have trouble following perhaps not very clear help from the director.
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