← A VO's Journey: Voiceover and more voice over
Loading summary
Transcript93 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello. Hello. Welcome to BO Journey Academy Live. My name is Anthony.
- [00:05]
B
I am Gabby.
- [00:06]
A
Yes. And we are voice actors. We're still voice actors. We are even today. How are you today, Gabby?
- [00:15]
B
I'm good, I'm good. I. I had a very productive morning. I am looking forward to the long weekend. Yeah, you know, that's awesome.
- [00:26]
A
Just good deal. Yeah, Very nice, Very nice.
- [00:29]
B
How about you?
- [00:30]
A
Because we have good. Busy, busy, you know, lots of stuff going on. Very excited. We have all this amazing things happening at V Academy, but it's good and it is wonderful stuff and so many amazing new people in our community and, you know, just continuing to build wonderful relationships with all of them. So, yeah, absolutely. Wonderful. Busy, busy. So it's a good thing. Good thing. So. Morning, Chris. Chris got the first. First comment. Chris, you get the first comment. What are we chatting about today?
- [01:09]
B
So today's topic is to breathe or not to breathe.
- [01:14]
A
This is VO's Journ with your host, the incomparable Anthony Pica.
- [01:39]
B
Because really, . Voiceover In 2025, that is the question.
- [01:43]
A
Is the question. I love it. I love it. So, yes. To breathe or not to breathe. Well, what should we do, Gabby?
- [01:56]
B
Oh, man.
- [01:56]
A
Should we breathe or should we not breathe?
- [01:59]
B
Oh, man, this is. This is such a fun topic.
- [02:01]
A
Set the scene, Set the scene. What is the question?
- [02:04]
B
Look, I remember back in the day when digital audio, like, first emerged and people realized that you could take out breaths, and it became not only the standard, but it was used as a way to speak speed up time, right? So you get more copy into the space, like in commercials. And I remember at one point, it was so bad. It was like audio overlapping and like, oh, my God, it was. It was terrible. It was just. And we did it. We all did it. And then, you know, somewhere along the way, people were like, yeah, this is dumb. We don't sound human anymore, right? And it kind of became the standard to go, okay, let's remove the breaths or reduce the breaths, but not kill the space that the breath resides in. And now with AI, we have gone completely the other direction. And now people are like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. See, like, the difference between them and us is that we breathe and they don't breathe. So maybe we should leave. DeBrieves how long?
- [03:16]
A
I was just thinking about, I wonder how long before they have AI breathing.
- [03:20]
B
Oh, they're gonna breathe. You know they're gonna breathe. I mean, I feel like. But when they first do. I swear to God, that is gonna be hysterical because it's gonna be so bad they're gonna breathe, like, in the weirdest places possible.
- [03:36]
A
I wonder what that.
- [03:39]
B
Exactly.
- [03:40]
A
I breathe. Um, yeah. So I. So, yeah. So. Okay, so let's.
- [03:47]
B
That's.
- [03:48]
A
I didn't even know that, Gabby. That's pretty interesting, isn't it?
- [03:51]
B
Funny.
- [03:51]
A
That is funny.
- [03:52]
B
All right, so let's. Let's. So first of all, I guess the bigger. The bigger conversation here as Chris is very excited for. He's like. He is raring to go, man. He was ready for this today. It really is the larger conversation of breath control and where it starts with the speaker and. Right. And how it impacts our performance. So, yeah, start with that. Let's explore. Right, yeah. That larger picture.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah, I think so. So I think so when we're talking about longer forms of water. Because I think, to me, it can maybe be even broken down into our performances of whether it's a short. Because I do think the time thing that you brought up is very true still. Right. Whether it's a short piece where it's commercial or some sort of audio that has a lot of sound effects, other parts to it. Right. And then there's longer pieces of audio. Right. Where you are. Really. We are the sole source of all of it. Right. From the telling the story to the. If there is vocal effects or whatever, we're making it all, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
- [05:06]
B
Yeah. I mean, you are the entertainer. Yeah.
- [05:08]
A
Right. So I think in that particular sense. Right. There are moments where breathing is natural. It's a part of us talking, and we listen to each other everyday, talk and breathe. So that is a very natural thing. However, the idea of when we are telling a story, the listener especially, you know, any type of story that we're listening to, honestly, we do what's called a suspension of disbelief, or we want the listener to suspend their. Their disbelief that this is not real, or, I mean, excuse me, that this is fake. Right. We want them to believe that at least get lost in the story, get lost in our message and. And imagine just for that moment, that this world we're creating is real. Right. Or right. You understand, we call it. We are suspending the disbelief of the audience. So as performers, and we work a lot of this on live theater as well, we try to do everything we can to not pull people out of that suspension of disbelief. So things like, for example, if you're on a stage, but you. Silly things like, you know, a curtain falling down randomly that's not supposed to fall down, or like, you know, somebody. Some weird noise that's going on. You know, feet loop feedback in the, in the live audio. And then people are. People start to look around. What's that noise? Why is that happening? It removes them from the story. Right. That suspension of disbelief. So for us, but breaths, because we're talking about breaths, can have a very similar effect. So, meaning, like I'm talking, I'm talking, I'm telling the story, and all of a sudden I go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When that has no bearing on the actual story or the moment. Right. So is that natural? Well, first off, is it natural for us to go problem? Not most of us, not really. When we're just generally talking. Okay, and that's a good point to make. Right, people. But what happens is the person, like if you're listening in your car and you're driving down the road and you have this real cool story, and all of a sudden the narrator is like, you're like, right. You're going to be like, what was that? Why?
- [07:36]
B
Right, right.
- [07:37]
A
You know what I mean? And then, so when you start, when the listener starts to ask that question, you have. We've lost that, that little moment because we had to. They were pulled out of that.
- [07:51]
B
Yeah.
- [07:52]
A
So the fast, you know, so what happens is, is that we, we want to then mitigate that by not doing those things that will rip them out of that. So.
- [08:02]
B
Very good point.
- [08:03]
A
Yeah. Breaths have that tendency to do that when we are not. When we're over the top with them. And a lot of times our breathing, if they come out like that, they're over the top. Now you can listen to narrators that. And, and I, and I assume too that some of them will be this good, especially ones who have been done thousands of. But a lot of times, you know, they also have an army of engineers or some people who go in there and they will reduce the volume on each one of their breaths so that they're talking, talking, talking, and you have a little talking talk.
- [08:35]
B
Right.
- [08:36]
A
Like, it's very minimal. And then because of that, it's. You could have a breath and everything, but it's very minimal. So you can hardly hear it. And, but, but to the vertebroint, it continues that spacing.
- [08:49]
B
Yeah.
- [08:51]
A
So. So from a long form narration. Gabby, I'll let you talk about the short form. The long form narration breaths are not bad. But I'm after all this time, almost 400 audiobooks done. I can tell you, I would rather you. I hate. I would rather you submit a book with no breaths. And. And keep the space. Whatever you. Good point. Caveat. Whatever you do, don't delete every space where there's a breath. Right. Because then you'll talk. Talk. There's no. There's no. It's just. It sounds like you spent. It's. It. It. It just sounds wrong.
- [09:27]
B
Yeah. There's no flow to the content.
- [09:30]
A
Right, Right. Exactly.
- [09:31]
B
Very bizarre.
- [09:32]
A
So. So from. From that standpoint, I would. I more prefer you either reduce them all or just get rid of them, because the listener will not have a problem with there not being a breath there, but they'll have a problem with a big over the top breath there.
- [09:45]
B
Yes. I'm just looking at the chat really quick. So Jeanette said that AI has started to add the breaths and it's scary, which I kind of. That's so funny. Okay.
- [10:04]
A
Start doing crazy things. Like we all get together and say, you know, part of us narrating now. We'll go like, ski kick. And we just do, like, have them do all this crazy stuff to keep up with us.
- [10:15]
B
Right. Chris said. I kind of want to send you to a demo of mine to critique. Chris, if you join voj, you can send us anything you want to send us. That's the beauty of the community. And, you know. Yeah. We spend a lot of time working with people on their audio. And I don't like critique. Critique is a bad word. We spend feedback.
- [10:41]
A
We give feedback.
- [10:42]
B
Yeah. Evaluating, Offering feedback, suggesting, you know, changes and improvements.
- [10:48]
A
Absolutely.
- [10:49]
B
We try not to critique because that implies we're criticizing. Okay. So on the short form front, I guess. Right. Yes. So often in the final job, breaths are removed, but the decision to remove said breaths is not ours. It doesn't belong to the voice actor. Because again, unlike a lot of long form. Right. So when you narrate an audiobook, you are the person delivering the final audio for direct to consumer in a lot of short form, especially commercials, we are not that person. We are not the end deliverer of the material.
- [11:40]
A
It works.
- [11:41]
B
So it works. Yeah. I like making up words. It's fun.
- [11:45]
A
Hey, we started with Shakespeare. Why not, right? Guy knew how to make up some words.
- [11:50]
B
He sure did. So we end up delivering the material with the breaths with. We don't process, we don't do anything. We actually leave the audio very, very raw, and we let the producer make those decisions. In the end, will they take out a lot of the bre. Absolutely. But they want the option to do it themselves. Basically. They don't want us messing with their job, and I respect that. Now, if I am submitting something that's going to go to final, I may remove or reduce. If I am submitting something as an audition, I leave them in. But if any of them are really what I call the obnoxious breath, right. You know, the big, like, I had to get diaphragm dramatic with it, and, you know, yeah, I get rid of them or I reduce them in volume significantly because again, like Anthony said, it's suspension of disbelief. So I don't want to pull them, the client out of what they're listening to. I want them to, you know, be focused on them. Okay, now, breath control, right? So I know. I already know this answer. I know how we both learned this, but, Anthony, go ahead. Where did it for you? Right? Where did breath control and all this stuff originate?
- [13:19]
A
So this goes back to the beginning of my journey as an actor. Are we talking about, like, how. So. So, yeah, so, yeah, you know, one of the very first things that you do as a performer, right, Is learn how to control your breathing. Use your diaphragm, right? And, you know, be able to take in breath. Use that breath and exhale. And exhale that breath in a manner in which you control and it's. It's gives you full body, gives you the ability to project, and then it also, you know, helps you get to the back of the end of the seats. I had a challenge with that as I transitioned to a voice actor because a lot of times my. Because I was trained to be loud, and I'm generally a loud person. That. That, you know, diaphragmatic, I guess, if you want to use the word focus, really pushed me to not sound natural for a microphone. Right. It pushed me to be very. Like, I was on a stage, you know, like, I'm on a stage now and, you know, you do you. And it's, you know, it's like again, and, you know, so I really had to adjust. But, yes, that's where the back of my whole trainings came from, was learning how to breathe on stage so that I could perform, I could move physically as well as be very clear and concise with my words. So everyone understood me and I was still able, though, to move and perform.
- [15:07]
B
Yeah. Mine largely originated with chorus, because.
- [15:13]
A
Chorus, of course.
- [15:14]
B
Yeah, right. A big part of chorus, choir, singing, any of that stuff. It's all about where you take the breath. I mean, literally, if you're working in a chorus with a conductor, the conductor is telling you where to breathe. Imagine that. Right? So if you've never experienced that, it's something, and it's really, really interesting, but it does start to train your brain and your body of where to take your breath. So breath control for me, I had so much chorus behind me that I didn't have too much of a problem with it unless I got nervous. And then I had to really kind of assess things. But for a lot of people, it really is sitting down with a piece of copy and using your punctuation marks as your breathing points and mapping where am I going to breathe? And I know that sounds crazy, but if we don't, that's where we end up with performances that sound really disjointed.
- [16:23]
A
Yes.
- [16:24]
B
The other thing that I think is important that voice actors learn is the breathe and hold meaning when we take a deep breath in. Again, this comes from singing, right? And we pump up the diaphragm, but we hold for a second before we start this slow, gradual exhale that happens while we're speaking until eventually we empty the tank. And that's a really.
- [16:55]
A
That's a really good point. As. As I've. I've worked on and I actually do breathing exercises now where I will take in for seven counts, hold for four counts, and release for four counts. And what it's done for me actually is while I narrate part of what people might. You know, we all know no matter what you're doing, if you're narrating something and you're narrating along and you lose your breath before the end of a sentence, oh, so then you had to start. But you know, you don't want it shouldn't be breath there. Well, the better you'll get at this, the more this exercises you'll be. It will allow you to finish that sentence and you'll be able to shape your words. Even when, like I'm. My breath is going out right now, but I'm still talking and I'm still going. Right. You know, it. We. It does. It is pre. This is. This whole thing literally is you every single day working on you becoming better at your craft. We've got a lot of stuff over here, Gabby.
- [17:46]
B
Oh, my gosh. We have some really? We always. Let's have people all. We've got Cancun with us today. We have Amsterdam. This is so neat.
- [17:53]
A
I love it. Years ago talked about leaving the space. Made sense to me. Do you use the breath fix in rx?
- [18:01]
B
I don't.
- [18:01]
A
I don't. I don't. But I don't trust it. I don't either. I never mess with Anything with breath. Because we breathe when we talk, too. So it can get it messed up.
- [18:11]
B
It can. And it will very easily remove or it'll mistake the ends of certain words for a breath. So I'm like, nah, I'd rather manually.
- [18:22]
A
Yes, exactly.
- [18:23]
B
But in certain programs, you can train or map the program to recognize your breath pattern and then you can create a hotkey. So audition lets you do that.
- [18:36]
A
That's true. Absolutely. Yes, that is very true. All right, so Dylan says, I know it's not Friday, but I have a question for VOJ before sending out.
- [18:43]
B
Okay, Dylan.
- [18:44]
A
All right, Dylan, you pulled her leg. I can't make the live meetings and I've made a good VO side hustle. I want it to be more. Can VOJ help guide me full time path? I want to voice commercials, but not sure where to start. Well, I tell you, we've got the commercial queen who teaches every week and is available at voj. So. Absolutely. Absolutely you can. Yes. And I'll let you talk on it, Gabby. But I think it's super important to know that we have, you know, all of these different areas and. And really specialists. And Gabby happens to be our, like, super specialist here in this resident commercial.
- [19:26]
B
Yeah, I love it. I love it. I mean, commercials are like, I am. I am a disgusting human in that I purposefully use my subscription services with commercials so I can watch the commercials. I turn commercials up. I tell other people during the commercial.
- [19:45]
A
Commercial on what?
- [19:47]
B
Yeah, I'm like, stop talking. It's the commercial. Yeah, I am. I have an illness, but I've learned how to. How to make it make me money. So it's okay. Come to the dark side, Dylan. We have cookies. Come on. Come join.
- [20:03]
A
I love it. I love it.
- [20:05]
B
All right. V says good morning from Cancun. Yep. Chorus still have sight reading nightmares, but I do it every day with void. I get that. I get that. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I mean, I'm always like, look, even if you can't sing.
- [20:25]
A
So, Gabby, real quick, I know we're right at the end. We're not going to take too much time. But there's one other part of this because it is breathing is. And maybe you could talk a little bit about. Because I know you talk a lot about this, Gabby, too. But there is also the performance aspect where it's on purpose that we are using noises. We are using non lexical ad libs. Yep, exactly. Can you talk just a little bit about that, Gabby?
- [20:57]
B
Non lexicals, man. Again, it is the difference between a person and everything else. And in this day and age of the conversational, normal, relaxed delivery, what we used to think of as mistakes, they're not mistakes anymore, right. When real people speak, they. They. They sigh, they laugh, they giggle, they suck their teeth, they roll their eyes, they. And there's names for all this stuff, right? A guffaw, for instance. It's one of my favorites. We naturally introduce this stuff into our speech. Actors know this and know this well. Like, nobody tells an actor to go on stage and go, right. It's just a natural reaction to a scene. Voice actors forget that this is still part of our craft, even though no one is telling us to do it. It's expected.
- [21:59]
A
Absolutely. And I love the words you use there. Reaction. So those adages, acting is reacting. And on. On a stage or even on the film, a lot of times, you know, they had the luxury to either see right in front of them a physical something physically happening so that they can react to it, whether it's physical or words. For us, a lot of that has to live in our head. But it is still a reaction. Do you know what I mean? So we're still reacting. We're either reacting to, you know, the prompts that were given, the storyline that's given to us that we're dealing with, right? Where we're coming from, who our audience is, you know, in a broader story about what's happening throughout the story. But acting is reacting. I love that. Gabby, that was. I like that word you said.
- [22:46]
B
So true. It's so true. And John. Yes, Hi. You have met. You have met somebody who gets excited about commercials. That is me.
- [22:55]
A
Now you have mission is complete.
- [22:58]
B
Funny thing that all commercial voice actors share in common. It's a story we talk about is when our family members go, oh, I hate commercials. We all look at them and go, do you like where you live? Do you like. Do you like your home and your things?
- [23:12]
A
Shut up.
- [23:14]
B
We do not. We embrace the commercials in our homes.
- [23:18]
A
Yes. Well, everybody, what a fun day. This is a great topic and absolutely loved it. And thank you all for being here with us.
- [23:27]
B
Yeah. And we will see you tomorrow.
- [23:30]
A
What are we talking about tomorrow? Is it. What is it?
- [23:35]
B
Mouth noise.
- [23:36]
A
Oh. Oh, my goodness. Mouth noise. Somebody said, gabby, that's great. I do the same now. And I look and I look at the commercials I love, and I put their links to reference again in the future.
- [23:53]
B
Yes, for sure.
- [23:56]
A
Absolutely.
- [23:56]
B
Oh, man.
- [23:57]
A
Love it. All right, gang, thank you guys so much for watching. Have a wonderful day. We will see you tomorrow. Goodbye, everybody. Goodbye. Goodbye.