Playing with Mood: The Tone
Every good actor and professional speaker knows how to use her voice to her advantage. Getting to know your voice, being able to use different tones of voice to set the mood, and understanding how your voice can come across to others can help you to communicate more clearly and effectively. The tone of voice you choose impacts your audience and may also determine how your audience receives what you’re saying.
If you grew up watching cartoons produced by Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, and so on that employed smaller voice casts with a sizable number of characters, you’ve probably seen just how versatile a voice actor can be when using her instrument to the fullest. Legendary voice actors like Mel Blanc and Daws Butler manipulated their voices to make full use of their range and tonality, and implemented creative decisions for spot-on inflections and comedic deliveries.
These sections explain what tone is, identify elements that can affect the tone of your voice, and characteristics that are related to tone and attribute to vocal performance. You can use this information when you interpret a script and get the absolute most out of each character and piece of copy you encounter.
Understanding what tone is
Have you ever heard that it’s not what you say, but it’s how you say it? Anyone who uses her voice to communicate needs to be aware of tone. Tone refers to the overall quality of a voice and also how the sound of a voice comes across to others. Tone can express a particular feeling or a mood in addition to its sound in general.
When you’re communicating something important and have a solid argument behind you, the tone of your voice has a way of shaping how other people receive what you’re saying.
Identifying elements that affect tone
Certain elements that you can control affect your voice’s tone. These five elements include the following:
Attitude: Something as simple as your attitude or state of mind can dramatically impact how your voice sounds when delivering a script. Everyone leads busy lives and faces daily challenges, so not letting what is going on at home, at work, and in the world affects your mood, and how you sound isn’t easy. As an actor, you need to get to a place where you can put those other things out of your mind and focus on the task at hand.
Breath support: You’d be surprised by how greatly the lack of breathing techniques and poor support can affect the overall quality of voice. Proper breathing techniques and support from the diaphragm help set you up for success, both in terms of producing a desirable, consistent tone and getting through a phrase comfortably. Refer to Chapter 3 where we discuss how to breathe.
Artistic choices you make: A little planning can go a long way when shaping the tone of your voice. Because the voice is a versatile instrument, you want to experiment and play with different segments of your voice by varying its pitch (where your voice sits, whether high or low), inflection (how you say something), and the gravity of the words you’re saying (where you place emphasis).
Use a pencil to mark your script and include directions reflecting the mood, where your voice may go up or down, and also factor in where you can take breaths. Doing so can help you to remember your good ideas, solidify choices, and create more consistent performances. (Check out the earlier section, “Analyzing a Script: The Five Ws and How” for what to do when reviewing a script.)
Your voice’s health: Yelling, screaming, crying, vomiting, and sickness (think cold and flu) can also change how you sound. If you’re sick or you overuse your voice, you can give your voice a different quality that may or may not prevent you from creating the sounds you’re accustomed to.
How you treat your voice: How you take care of your voice is also important. You may have noticed how certain foods, drinks, or substances can change the quality of your voice. Some people find that caffeinated beverages or alcohol dries their vocal folds. Others claim that dairy products produce more mucous and consequently make them sound phlegmy. Being near smoke of any kind can also dry out and impact the quality of your voice. (Check out Chapter 3 for how to take care of your voice.)
To counteract these vocal hazards, you can drink lots of water to hydrate your voice. You can also avoid yelling or screaming and resist anything that negatively affects how your voice sounds.
Coloring your words
When talking about tone, you can also think of it in terms of color. Coloring means adding another dimension to your read with tone and inflection. A read that stands out often has been thoughtfully constructed to include flourishes of color on words that elicit a response. Coloring words helps you to paint a picture with words that gives feeling to individual words and phrases. Coloring your words well can also help you to authentically sell a product or service with your voice.
When you choose to inflect somewhere, be sure to mark it by using adjectives to describe how you’re going to paint a particular word. Infusing your read with emotion and believability helps to better paint the picture for your audience who may or may not have the luxury of a visual image to go along with your voice-over. Your voice can set the scene. (Refer to the earlier section, “Marking Up a Script” for more information about how to make notes in your script.)
Some of the easiest words to color are adjectives, such as hot, cold, big, small, delicate, strong, young, old, interesting, beautiful, glorious, and wise. You can make your voice audibly express or sound like its definition. For instance, you can put a little shiver in your voice if you’re talking about something that is cold, whether it’s a biting storm or cool fall breeze.
You can color other words too. When coloring nouns, you may want to look for clues in the text to see how the author treats particular nouns or how your character perceives them. What your character thinks of those nouns adds to how you say them. For example, if your character likes ice cream, she will favorably refer to it, which may sound like a smile in her voice. If your character dislikes ice cream, likewise you have the artistic license to determine whether that perception creeps into how she refers to ice cream.
Nouns often come after adjectives. The noun that follows an adjective you have colored with your voice may enjoy that same sentiment. To illustrate, your character may say: “I love ice cream.” The color you’ve assigned to the verb “love” can also apply to “ice cream.” If you add an adjective to say “I love soft ice cream,” you can make the color different on “soft” than what you chose to do with “love” to add more depth and variety, transforming what could be a relatively dull statement into an interesting, captivating — even salivating — statement.
You can also color pronouns and verbs. Coloring words requires thought and purpose. When you have decided what you want to do, mark up your script to reflect which words you want to color and how you are going to say them to remind yourself of your creative choices.
Seeing the connection between your voice’s tone and musical instruments
Think of your voice like an instrument, and we like to consider stringed instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and bass, as similar to the human voice. Stringed instruments can mimic the human voice in many ways, primarily through use of tone.
The tone of a voice is endless; it can come across as shrill, squeaky, soft, harsh, or raspy; you name it. Stringed instruments, when played a certain way, can also imitate those tonalities and inflections to communicate with other instruments or the audience. Just as a skilled musician can utilize tone in a variety of ways, so can a skilled voice artist change the tone of her voice to suit a role or fulfill a vocal requirement from a director.
Some voices like the violin, comparable to a soprano voice, have a lighter, airier tone whereas others, such as the viola, compare to an alto voice. The cello compares to a tenor and has a darker, warmer tone. The bass compares to a bass voice and is deeper.
Even instruments that don’t use words to communicate a message can do so effecti
vely using tonality. Think of tone as the vocal equivalent of body language. What someone may not be telling you with her words may be fully evident in the tone of her voice. Tone dictates how people receive a message, and the voice is often all a voice actor has to give when recording for a project. That being said, voice actors in particular need to be more vocally expressive with their interpretations than actors (like on stage or TV) who have the benefit of using their physicality to communicate in addition to their voice.
Try playing with your voice to see where you can take it and see how similar it can be to a musical instrument. Speak intentionally using moods, colors, shapes, and feelings as your palette. If you can read music, take a piece of music and look at the dynamic markings on it. By using the sound “ah,” speak the musical markings (notes, rests, staccato, and so on) to experiment what different tones your voice can form.
Selling with Your Voice
In voice acting, your voice is one of the most persuasive tools you could ask for to drive home a message and demonstrate who your character is. You can use your voice in the following three ways to help someone believe your character and entice the audience to buy into what you’re saying, which may include having them buy a product, service, concept, or idea.
Staying soft
The soft approach is suggestive and persuasive without directly asking for the business. This soft or gentle approach presents the ask as more of an invitation than a direct order. The soft sell often targets women, although it can also be used in advertisements directed to men. Soft sells don’t push the listener and often appeal more to the intellect and emotions. These are the commercials that pull at your heart strings. You can consider the soft sell to be more like an option, but a smart option.
A soft sell empowers people to make a decision without hitting them over the head. Musical selections used in commercials with a soft sell are generally pleasant, depending on the content of the script. A friendly, conversational tone works best for the majority of soft sells. That being said, authoritative reads can also be used. Examples making use of the soft sell approach are commercials for soap, diapers, and yogurt.
Going halfway: The medium sell
When reading for a medium sell, you’re asking for the business but not in a forceful or abrupt way. These commercials have a more upbeat, lively, and entertaining composition. Excitement, discovery, and family themes permeate this category of sell. Music varies but is invariably fun. The medium sell often targets families, but it also reaches out to young adults and kids.
A medium sell may remind people of why they love a brand and sell new people on the feeling it brings. Speaking in a conversational manner and using humor are elements of this sell. Remember that you’re talking to someone in a comfortable way but still asking for the business. The medium sell can often be heard in commercials for restaurants promoting a special or new item or hotels inviting you to book your vacation with them.
Hitting hard
The hard sell takes no prisoners and demands the business. The hard sell has a sense of urgency unlike any of the other sells. It’s go-big or go-home time. The hard sell is generally associated with limited-time offers, and the target market is typically, but not exclusively, male. The music is upbeat if not rocking and helps take the ask (the company’s pitch) up to another level. Your voice may take on hard hitting attributes, such as a different tone of voice (think gruff, booming), although you’re always full of confidence.
Although not entirely pushy, the hard sell needs to be aggressive and assertive. Hard sells are frequently employed in television infomercials, pitches by big box stores, beer commercials for or at sporting events, and marketing for car dealerships.
Part II
Creating Your Audio Résumé
In this part . . .
In this part, you get an introduction to demos, that is, a sampling or demonstrative recording of your vocal abilities for prospective customers to listen to. You can go about getting your demo made in a couple different ways such as doing it yourself (DIY) or working with a professional recording studio.
Every good demo starts with a good plan. Be sure to focus in on the chapters relating to planning your demo, picking copy to include in your demo, and knowing how to select appropriate music and production elements to complement your reads. If you’ve been voice acting for a while, we also give you some pointers to help you determine whether you demo is ready for a tune-up.
Chapter 6
Deciding What Demos Are Essential
In This Chapter
Understanding what demos are
Knowing how many demos you need
Figuring how long a demo should be
Coming up with demo ideas
In hopes of being hired for a job, many voice actors and musicians started out by giving live performances to give prospective customers a taste of what they can do. A pre-recorded demo serves as that taste. Thanks to modern technology, you can submit your demo to prospective clients, and they can access it and listen to it without your having to be present.
In this chapter, we explain what voice-over demos are, show you why you need one, express what a demo can do for you, determine how long a demo should be, and help you plan on how many demos you should have.
Discovering Voice-Over Demos
In order to get voice-over work, you need a voice-over demo. Your demo needs to be your best work you can do at the present time to show prospective clients and potential agents what you can do. Furthermore, it also needs to be something you feel comfortable assigning your name to and marketing to the public.
Your prospective clients can listen to the demo and evaluate your services firsthand. Creating a variety of voice-over demos rounds out your portfolio, showcasing the styles of voice acting that you can perform.
Voice-over is ubiquitous, meaning that it’s everywhere. You can listen to professional voice-over demos online at www.voices.com to get a taste for what actors are using to promote themselves online to get work.
These sections explain the importance of voice-over demos and how they can help increase the chances of your getting work.
Knowing why you need one
A voice-over demo is like your business card and résumé all wrapped into one. Your demo gives listeners an appreciation for what you’re able to do vocally and also provides a glimpse into how you can sound as the voice of their job.
Having at least one voice-over demo is essential to promoting yourself as a voice actor. How will people know if they want to work with you unless they can hear your voice?
In today’s digital world, a demo is typically hosted online these days with little reason to have a hard copy on a compact disc. Demos also tend to run shorter and narrower in scope. Having some copies on disc isn’t a bad idea because you may have some opportunities to hand out or send them to agents or casting directors that still accept CDs.
Serving potential customers at all times
When you feature your voice-over demo online, your prospective clients can listen to it at their convenience, no matter what you’re doing. Listening to the demo doesn’t require any effort on your part after they download the file. Technology has definitely helped voice actors get their demos to potential clients. Before the digital age and the Internet, people handed out CDs or gave live reads at a studio or an agent’s office.
Having your demos available online provides a great amount of value to you. Not only are those demos working for you in your absence, they could be getting you bookings! How do you make this a reality? Produce a handful of one-minute demos that highlight your best work, each of which focuses on one application of voice-over. Keep reading for help in how to record demos that can do this for you. Chapter 8 can help you when you’re ready to actually record your demo and where to place it online.
; Determining How Many Demos You Need
Having a variety of demos for prospective clients to hear is beneficial to you in many ways, not the least of which is that your voice-overs can appear in more searches when those clients are seeking a very specific sound or kind of voice sample when working on an online marketplace site (such as www.elance.com or www.voices.com).
Even though you may have a few different types of voice-over demos online that represent the type of work you can do, you also need to realize that a client may have a certain need, and just because the client is picky, doesn’t necessarily mean the client isn’t interested in you or doesn’t appreciate a good selection for future reference. The client is looking for something specific to cast a voice for his project.
For example, if you go shopping for a loaf of multigrain bread, would you pay much attention to pumpernickel, sourdough, or raisin bread? Not likely. You’re decidedly going for something very specific and only want the multigrain bread. Everything else is a distraction, no matter how good or healthy it appears to be. That’s exactly what clients go through when they’re looking to cast a voice.
If you post your demos on a voice acting marketplace site (refer to Chapter 8 for more guidance), what you can do to help attract customers to your demo is use as many accurate, descriptive words as possible in your text to explain what your voice-over demo is about. We suggest you start with three or four demos that best highlight your skills. As a beginner, you may only have tried a couple different styles of voice acting and may be most comfortable making a few short sample reads of material you found in the public domain or wrote yourself. If you post on your own website, you still need to make sure you include a detailed description.
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