Show notes
To create a successful voiceover performance, authenticity is key. This can involve using props, physicalizing the script, and infusing in personal experiences to deliver a realistic & engaging read. Anne & Lau emphasize the importance of intention, nuance, and understanding the corporate story & mission. Just as a chef must gather and prepare ingredients before cooking a delicious meal, hard work and effort are necessary before reaping the rewards.Want to improve your performance? Try taking notes, emphasizing key words, and using aids like pictures & videos, and of course, tune into VO Boss! We'll guide you through it. Transcript It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the BOSS Superpower series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with my amazing special guest co-host, BOSS lady Lau Lapides. Lau: Hey, hey. Hey, Anne. Anne: So Lau, I am very excited that it's early morning, and I have my coffee. Lau: Me too. What would we do without it? Anne: I know. So many people have contacted me and said, it sounds like you and I in the booth in our podcast are just sharing a cup of coffee and shooting, shooting the breeze, having a conversation, Lau: High balling the water, which you gotta do in between the coffee. Anne: That's right. That's right. Lau: Just to wash the vocal folds out. Anne: Let me share — there's my big old water bottle with the coffee. Lau: And then I'm gonna show everyone, I think everyone already knows this about us. Watch this. We're gonna do this as well. Anne: (laughs). I love your lipstick. Oh, so here's mine. Lau: Wonder Twin powers activate! Anne: Right? Wonder powers activate. So, yeah, my red. But you know what, guys? Maybe one of these days I'm gonna switch it up. Lau: Hmm. Ooh, you should. You should. Anne: Oh gosh. Lau: Naked lips. Let's see what naked lips look like without the red. That would be fun. Anne: I feel like I'm so pale. (laughs), but I feel like I'm so pale. Lau: You are pale. But that's your beauty. Anne: Pale without my lips. Well. Lau: But you know what I just noticed, Anne? You know what I just noticed? Literally, I just observed this, that we just used like three props. Three props. Anne: Oh my God. Lau: In our world. Anne: We totally did. Lau: And we were talking all the way through that, as we always do. And we had no problem using the props, talking and connecting, getting our points across. And that suddenly just dawned on me, like, that's a part of our world in finding connection -- Anne: That's what we do. Lau: — and authenticity with each other. Anne: That's what we do in the booth. Interesting. So let's chat about this. Let's take this apart, because you know, I do this a lot when I'm trying to talk to students about being authentic and believable with the script. And I think what just throws the whole wrench into it is that we've got these words in front of us, and all of a sudden we don't know how to make them a part of us. And interestingly enough, like we just demonstrated, and BOSSes out there, you just heard it, even if you're not looking at us on YouTube, we were able to pick up objects and share ideas, and have a conversation, engage with one another, and not miss a beat. And we weren't even thinking about it. But what I want you guys to do is let's take a look at, a more in-depth look at this to kind of figure out how we can take what we do in real life and translate it into the booth to be believable and authentic. Right? Bring that real life into the booth. Now, one thing, I think that was first and foremost, we talked about props, right? Ah, I always have my trusty lipstick or my cup of coffee, or probably most of you have one of these, a phone or even just a mouse (laughs). Like you must have something in your booth. Lau: I mean, it's endless what we have really with us. And doesn't that make us feel comforted and taken care of? And we identify with that brush in a lot of ways. It's part of our life. Anne: I'm bringing all my makeup out. I've even got jewelry in here, but (Lau laughs), in case I -- Lau: I think a man's gonna pop up all of a sudden. (laughs), Anne: Gosh only knows I have tons of these, the headphones in there. So now, if you're trying to sound authentic and believable, one thing that we've covered multiple times in our podcast is there's not a perfect voice. Right? There's all sorts of imperfection in our voices, and a lot of that can translate -- I mean, not that — everybody has a beautiful, wonderful voice all on their own. You don't have to perform behind the mic, right? It just is beautiful when we're engaging. And so props can help us to bring that scene to life, right? I know I just had a really wonderful workshop with the amazing Ellen Dubin, and she was talking about video game acting, and all of it was about blocking, get up, move around, change your position. Do that, because that's gonna add that reality. And I'm always telling people physicate behind the mic, because that's gonna make our vocals not perfect for some reason. If we sit silent and straight behind the booth, and we just read these words, hello everyone, and welcome to the VO BOSS podcast, and the BOSS Superpower series, right? So I'm just reading, but I'm not moving, that physical part of having a prop, having somebody to talk to 00 expressing, expressing with our bodies. Lau: I love this. You know, you had me physicate. Like I have never heard anyone use that word. So I'm stuck on physicate. But yeah, I would love voice actors to take it a step farther and just Johnny Depp it out. Like take their script and go somewhere. Go to a store, go to a Starbucks, go to a library, go be in your car, and I want you to deliver that. Deliver the line as part of your universe. Anne: What a great idea. Lau: Yeah! Anne: Yeah. Lau: Right? Doesn't the booth at times sort of pen us and it becomes boxy to us in our minds where we can literally move it outside, move it, and see how it flows and works, and physicate in that environment. Like, if I'm ordering a drink or I'm getting food, or I'm sitting at a table, or I'm da da -- how would that line live within that universe versus only within the universe of the booth? I mean, ultimately, we can't do that on every script, but as part of your actor's work, it's well worth the time to do that so that you can bring that imagination back into the reality of your beliefs. Anne: Sure. Lau: And relive that, you know, relive those moments. Anne: What I like is, even if, alright, let's say you've got a very dry corporate narration script, right? Maybe a company talking about their corporate responsibility, which may not be the most exciting stuff that you'll ever hear in the world. So for me, I'm always telling people, in order to kind of make it sound conversational, and it may not be written conversational at all, or authentically, or it's basically like here, this is stuff that you would typically read. You wouldn't necessarily say it out loud. You would typically just read it and then understand it as information that the company has provided to you. Take that script and put it into your own words. So you might have this long run-on line that's talking about corporate responsibility and all of these things about what we are doing to promote corporate responsibility in the workplace. And so take that, those words, and just put it into your own words. And when you can take that sentence, which sometimes most of the time is a run-on sentence and formulate your own speech about it, or your own personal conversation about it to someone else, explain it to someone else, that's gonna give you the idea behind the melody and the point of view that you wanna take. And then all you do is, when you get in the booth, replace it with the words. But you have the intent, you have the point of view, you have the thought of, here, it's this idea, and then this idea, and then I'm gonna combine it with this idea. And then that's the finished sentence. So it's kind of allowing you to regroup the information that's presented in the sentence in a very structured way and creating it in your own authentic way. Lau: That's right. And you have to think of your work like you're layering a cake. You have the cake; to some degree, you have the cake. Even if you're at the beginning of your career, you still have some sort of cake. It might be a demo, it might be a beginner level studio, whatever it is. But I have to layer that over time and make it more interesting. So for instance, if I were to take my pen, my trusty prop, and talk about my corporate responsibility script, I might take a note on that. Because if I'm working in corporate, I'd be writing down minutes, I'd be taking notes as I went. And that puts me in a mindset, a frame. It gives me a framework to work by that when I'm corporate -- and this is just my choice, it's not the right choice, it's just my choice — when I'm corporate, I always tend to write a few notes. I tend to take a moment to write things down. That changes my sound, it changes my pace, it changes everything. Anne: So that physical action of writing something down — also, the fact is, is what would you write down? Right? If you had that big, long run on sentence, right? What are the notes that you would take? Right? Typically, those notes are the most important parts of the sentence, right? Those are the notes that you as an actor want to probably linger on a little longer. So when we talk about being authentic, and Lau, and I, when we're speaking, our pacing isn't the same. Sometimes I, I pause, like I just did, and sometimes my words are longer. And usually the ones that are are longer the ones I want her to hear more. And so when you're creating those notes, right, you're creating, this is an important point that I wanna express to someone. So that word can be a little bit longer than maybe the word the (laughs) or the word at the beginning. At the, at the, or just tiny little words that connect. Beginning is an important word. So at the beginning, notice how at the becomes almost like a, I don't know, a 16th note in melody if I was speaking vocally, but in the beginning, beginning is an important word, so I'm gonna linger on that. Lau: We can emphasize, you need to linger on that, right? If every word is the same, and every word is important, nothing's important. (laughs). Anne: Right? It sounds monotonous and robotic. Lau: Like what's important if every word is important, right? Anne: Right. Lau: But if I take that pen -- and to me this is a corporate moment or a business moment, or whatever you wanna call it-- I think maybe I'm gonna do bullets, how I would do in my life. I'd take a sentence, I'd take a thought, and I'd pull a word or two out of it that are my emphasis words, my bullets, and do like little bullets. and say, wow, out of that sentence, I got coffee. That was the word of the day for me, coffee as a bullet. So that when I go back and I review that for my speaking, I can remember, I can mark that coffee, that the word coffee or the name of the coffee is really an emphasis for me. Anne: Sure. Absolutely. Lau: This helps me with that. Like, because then I'm gonna say coffee, like Starbucks coffee. Anne: Right. Lau: And I'm gonna use this. Anne: And the other thing too that I think is super important to remember is that we talked about you taking the script and going out into the real world with it, right, and start practicing with it and playing off of maybe someone else. Notice how you said, well, let's play off of someone else. I mean, when we started this podcast, you and I were talking to one another. We were engaging with one another. Lau: Yep. Anne: Well, when we're sitting here in our studios behind the mic with a script, you cannot be alone (laughs) just saying. In your head, you must be the person that is speaking. And you must also have your imaginary friend that you are speaking to. And so you want to make sure that you are engaging with that audience member or that listener. And so you must talk to them, and they will have reactions for you or questions or comments. Right? And you cannot just start talking to them like, oh gosh, have you ever had a friend, Lau, that you can't get a word on edgewise? Like, and it's basically all about yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, ya. It's all about them. Right? All about their monologue. And so when you're behind the mic, don't let it be all about your monologue. Let it be about you engaging with your listener and allowing that listener a beat to acknowledge, to respond, to have a question, whatever that is. And I'm not talking about you have to time things, but that's an imaginary beat where I've said something, and now Lau, I'm looking for you to respond, right? You just shook your head, right? You just went, mm-hmm. So that's where I think we need to also invite that into our script, right? And invite that real life into our script. Lau: You have to do it. It's so important. And have cheaters if you have trouble reaching that at times. Like in our daily life, we're not always great conversationalists, or we're not always in the mood for a talk or whatever. So you have to have those cheaters, whether you're talking to your kid or your dog, or a photo or a video or something that stimulates you into thinking, this is part of my daily experience. This is part of a reality of my life that I can connect to right now, that I can make real. Because I may not be in the mood or in the mindset every single day to connect to that particular audition or to connect to that particular product. Anne: What I love is like literally like now that I've sat here, and I'm taking notice and, and BOSSes out there, really, let's watch the YouTube video on this, because I was just watching you, Lau, and everything you said, you had your hands, everything you said, and I was responding. I was shaking my head, I was going, mm-hmm. So that's the parts that you have to play in your script. And believe it or not, even in a mundane medical narration script or in a telephone prompt, believe it or not -- I'm always imagining, here I am and I'm talking to the listener and they've got their thoughts about me (laughs). Because maybe they don't wanna listen to an automated attendant. Maybe they're angry, maybe they're frustrated. But yet I will still talk to them with a tone where I'm like, I know you're frustrated. I know that you don't wanna listen to my voice, but let me help you. Okay? And so that point of view, that intention — all of a sudden, I'm speaking about intentions so much lately -- I think that intention, before you even approach voicing or opening your mouth, I think your intention is so very important. Lau: So very important. And you know, in the script, in this context, it would be an actor's intention because you're in a false reality. You're not in your real reality; you're in this technical reality. Anne: Sure. Lau: But then you have intentions or purpose, or whatever you call it in your daily life and thinking about, wow, how much do I care about…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
