Podcast Length: 13:20

The quality of your auditions when recording from home is as important as your performance. In fact, it’s never mattered more than it does today.

Since COVID, production demands now require every voice talent to not only be well-trained and prepared to deliver their best at a moment’s notice, but we’re also assuming the quality of your auditions recorded from home will be the quality of the audio of the final recording.

Beyond that, there are a few common mistakes to avoid to improve and increase your booking potential. For instance…

1. Always submit your voiceover auditions as MP3s, not WAV files (unless expressly requested), and not M4A files. And not in stereo, but in mono.

2. Be sure to read the script out loud no less than five to eight times.

Surprise yourself with each read-through!

Try not to choreograph your delivery in your head in advance of just playing it for understanding. Your performance sounds entirely different out loud than it does in your head. Commit to discovering what you’re talking about with each read-through.

A bulk of voiceover is being the “approachable expert” or the “non-announce announcer”. This is generally what’s referred to as being conversational.

3. Avoid self-sabotage. 

Rather than finding all the things you dislike about the script or the direction offered—give yourself a fighting chance to book this project by concentrating on what you DO like.

There’s an old adage that states: you become the effect of that which you resist.

Stop resisting and embrace the process. Do your best to stay out of your own way.

If this were easy everyone would be doing it and succeeding!

4. SLOW DOWN.

Keep in mind if you start out reading the script too fast, you’ll create a ‘muscle memory delivery’ and you’ll only struggle to slow down when directed to do so.

It’s far easier to pick up the pace, than slow you down.

I have no idea why there’s no reverse when it comes to speed, but give yourself the opportunity to build your read, rather than fighting the impulse to race through your delivery.

Try not to get ahead of yourself.

Take your time by giving yourself another take out loud. Make note of what you’re saying during those first few takes. If you’re flying through your read you’ll overlook what you’re talking about, even with your first few takes.

Read far slower than you’d likely read the piece once you’ve developed a rhythm and phrasing where what you’re saying makes sense to you. Once you have a better understanding of what you’re talking about during those first few read-throughs, challenge your comfort zone and go far slower than your initial impulse would like. Fight the impulse to rush.

Get yourself grounded prior to each and every take, and… take your time.

5. Challenge Your Comfort Zone.

Make sure to challenge your comfort zone with every take to ensure you’re not approaching every script with the exact same attack, the same delivery, over and over and over again. This is especially vital when you have multiple auditions to record every day.

Aim to vary up your delivery from one take to the next, especially with your first four to eight read-throughs out loud.

Clients are interested in options from you. Your ability to offer a couple credible, appropriate expressions with each take is literally what makes you interesting and valuable.

Challenge yourself to go farther than you think may be appropriate for this spot from the very start. At Actors’ SOUND ADVICE, we call this technique: “Stretching the Canvas”.

Give yourself a lot more room to create and surprise yourself, but maintain your volume, pitch and speed for the first three to five reads. Exaggerate your enunciation and diction with those first few read-throughs out loud. If necessary, make any volume and/or speed adjustments between takes four through six.

This is how you build your agility, as well as develop your ability to self-direct yourself with specific intention.

What’s consistently needed and wanted of you most from one take to the next is workable options, instead of the same ‘broken record’ delivery, over and over again. Yet as much as 80% of all the voice talent tend to ‘cookie cutter’ their performance and end up struggling to apply direction when it’s offered and required.

6. Self-direct.

Auditioning from home as a voiceover (or ‘self-taping’, as it’s referred to for on-camera talent) creates a handful of added distractions that only adds to the degree of difficulty. As if the learning curve to record and minimally edit your auditions wasn’t enough, following the directions (known as “the specs”, or specifics) to deliver your best performance has consistently been a conundrum for most talent.

The truth is no one can do anything with you until bring the script to life first.

Determine the context, and what the heck are you talking about. Is there is a “world” your character or narrative voice exists in?

One of the greatest degrees of difficulty when self-directing that can arise out of the repetition of recording multiple auditions week after week, is falling into a flat, low-energy delivery. If your auditions sound like a grind, as if you’re robotically going through the motions, you’re going to struggle to land gigs.

Both effort and boredom read in your performance like the career killers they are. Replace undue effort with effortlessness by allowing your body to back up your voice: gesture. Otherwise you’ll be acting from the neck up.

Also, we’re often directed to add ‘more energy’ when our performance falls flat. Your initial impulse will likely be to get louder and faster. Instead, increase your interest in what it is you’re talking about. That will immediately translate as interest. If you’re interested you are interesting.

Keep in mind, if you become too rigid or fixed in how you “rehearse” your performance, rather than continually create with each and every take, you’ll likely struggle when the client offers you direction. If you’re unable to self-direct, it’s doubtful you’ll be prepared to apply direction when it’s offered and required of you.

You’re paid to have a pulse. You’re hired because you have an imagination and a personality. If you’re strictly going through the motions, and letting your imagination sleepwalk through your performance, you’re going to have a tough time and you should get some private coaching.

Our job as voice actors is to offer a handful of appropriate, creative options with every take within the context of the project, rather than attempting to craft only a single-solitary delivery. (Which, sadly, a bulk of talent do.)

Treat every audition as if you’re booked on the job. Treat them as the opportunity they are. They’re an opportunity to play.

Besides, some jobs will be work. Some will make digging a ditch seem like a piece of cake. There’s no escaping it. They don’t call this ‘work’ for nothing. However, don’t allow that effort to show in your work. Remind yourself to be effortless in your delivery, otherwise your read could become a chore to listen to.

7. Pay attention to the final length of the spot.

Don’t count your slate in the length of the audition.

If the script or specs state a length, do your best to stay well within that timeframe.

If the spot is 15 seconds long and it took you 25 seconds to voice it, try it again and do your best to deliver your performance within 15 seconds without sounding rushed or forced. You still want to sound natural, just pick up the pace.

Granted some scripts are overwritten. Sometimes clients want to hear what makes the most sense, even if the narration does run long, to hear what communicates the concept best. They’ll likely edit the script prior to the actual recording session.

Regardless, do your best to bring the piece in under the time stated anyway.

8. Whichever talent agency sent you the audition first should be the ONLY source you audition through for that specific project.

While it’s commonplace to have multiple talent agents in a variety of markets across the country as a voiceover, if you’re sent the same audition from more than one casting source, which is likely to happen on occasion, you are only expected to audition once and through a single source, per project.

Think about it. What’s the producer who sent the audition to your agents supposed to do if they receive the same audition from you but from more than one source—and they want to hire you? Split the booking through multiple agents for the same project? Never gonna happen. Not only will it appear you’re inexperienced and don’t know what you’re doing, but you will appear unprofessional to producers.

Typically, whoever first sent you the audition is the agency you audition through.

However, if you’re not sure or it’s a ‘photo finish’, the general rule of thumb is to go with your most local talent agent.

But there are no absolutes here. For instance, if you’ve only just secured representation with an agency, that may be the deciding factor as to which agency you’ll audition through.

Talent agents realize most voice talent have multiple agencies representing them, they simply don’t like being reminded of it.

Ask your agents how they prefer you respond to them, if at all, should they invite you to audition for a project you’ve already been submitted on.

9. NEVER post your audition on social media, online or repurpose your auditions anywhere under ANY circumstances. EVER.

You don’t have the legal right to post or repurpose your auditions, whether you signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) or not, and regardless of whether you’re union or not.

Hang on to your auditions for future reference for about six months or so

It always helps to listen back to the audition that may have landed you the job.

Even if you’re just getting started and figure you’re just auditioning for “practice”, you don’t have the right to publicly post or promote any audition you voiced for any reason.

10. Never audition “just for practice”.

There’s a real client on the other side of this project who’s attempting to advance and elevate their brand. If you audition for the project, it’s assumed you’re available and ready to work.

Your auditions are your most important form of promotion. This is quite literally how you build your reputation and your brand with your agents and the producers who utilize them most.

If you’re offered the job, but you aren’t free when the client needs to record, and you respond by stating, “I can’t make it. I have a day job and I was just auditioning for practice!” Chances are you’ll never be offered an opportunity again.

Make it your mission to become a reliable ‘vocal brand’ that elevates every production you have the pleasure to voice.

The best audition doesn’t necessarily book the job—but ONE of the best does.

There will always be elements you can’t control when it comes to getting booked. And by consistently delivering your best work and aiming to become among the top 10% of all the auditions submitted for every audition, you’ll make yourself valuable and sought-after.

Your job is to consistently deliver remarkable auditions.

Your commitment and tenacity will continually be challenged throughout your career. Stay with it. This is your career. Own it! After all, what’s the worst that could happen? You become an even more skilled and reliable voiceover? That would be a very good problem to have, wouldn’t it?

Copyright © 2024 by Kate McClanaghan. All Rights Reserved.