Aliso Creek Voice Over Blog

I am a firm believer that speeding up auditions equals more auditions equals more jobs.

And this efficiency means mo’ money per hour of auditioning.

When I read an audition there is often a sentence or two that I “pick up” so there is usually some quick editing involved in creating the final audition.

I also like to clean the beginning and the end with silence.

But then the question arises “should I take out the breaths?” The answer is no… and yes.

Here’s a my video about editing breaths in voice over production.

If your body has to choose between staying alive and talking… it’s going to gasp for air and choose staying alive.

People say to me, “hey, I know how to breath. I’ve been doing it my entire life!”

But there is a difference between breathing when you are speaking naturally and breathing when you’re reading voice over copy.

Here’s some hints on how to perfect your breathing skills.

You only need to read through a handful of audition descriptions before you run into the word “conversational”.

Or you may find the direction more negative such as “no disc jockey or announcer”.
As voice over styles evolve, there is a trend toward a more natural, personal read.

But what exactly is this “conversational” sound and how do you achieve it?

Here’s how to perfect your conversational technique.

Your on voices.com or voice123.com and you check out a new job that has been posted. And it has a budget of $1000! Not bad

Then you read the job description and find out that this job is an audiobook. And it’s 110,000 words. That’s a rate of less than one cent per word. 

Watch this video to learn how to decide which voice over jobs make sense according to the word count.

So you raise your voice over audition up properly, give it the finest preparation, a positive attitude and an engaging personality.

You sigh and you heart beats faster as you send your mature baby out into the world.  You have such pride and great hopes for its success.  And as you leave the casting studio or press the upload button…

You slam the door and think “get out of my life! I never want to listen to you again!”  What’s up with this? Continue reading →