On Saturday, February 23, I’ll be conducting a special workshop for voice actors:
IMPROVABILITY
Enhancing Your Voice Over And Writing Talents Via Improv
I use a number of techniques to get new performances from voice actors or new story approaches from writers.
All are related in some way to improvisation. (I have a long background in improv, but that’s another posting sometime).
One of the techniques I use is the creation of improvised “backstories” for the performers.
Some very good coaches use backstories. I use them very differently.
It’s much easier to demonstrate than to explain. But my backstories ultimately have a single goal: to lead the performer to an interpretation (or the writer to an expression) they otherwise never would’ve arrived at.
In short, to “discover reality.” (If you come to the workshop, you’ll hear that phrase from me at least a few times.)
Here’s a “Before” and “After” example from the 2011 (and last) International Radio Creative & Production Summit. In this video, the two voice actors deliver the copy according to their own natural instincts.
After that reading, I gave each performer his own backstory.
Obviously, the bland “announcer” copy needed the most help. But notice the change in the Russian character, too.
Did you notice a difference in either or both performances?
Radio is a hot medium too often peopled by cold performers — jocks who are completely predictable, who don’t care about their audiences, and whose shows rarely are fueled by emotional or creative inspiration.
These people are all attitude and no substance; they strut and shout but don’t really care about anything.
As a result, they don’t achieve a strong connection with their listeners.
And if you don’t make a human connection with the person on the other side of end of the transmitter, what’s the point?
