www.soundoutmedia.com

by Victoria Fenner

c) 2008

The Day Before Your Studio Date:

1.) Start by doing some deep breathing.  Practice breathing deep into your diaphragm just like you would do if you’re a singer or play a wind instrument.  Sit comfortably, but upright, shoulders back.   Best to sit on a hard chair softer furniture will compress your rib cage.
2.) Read through your script.  Out loud.  Several times until you are comfortable with the meaning and the flow of the words.
3.) Familiarize yourself with the words.  Notice where you pause, where you take a breath.  If you stumble over a sentence more than once, practice it.   If you still stumble, note how you would change the sentence so it flows better with your voice (maybe breaking up a longer sentence into two parts.  Or substituting another word).
4.) Breathe.
5.) Make note of any difficult words (foreign pronunciations etc.)  To help you, your producer can write the word phonetically in your script for example, Solzhenitsyn would be written soulz-hen-EET-zen).  Practice the difficult words.
6.) Some announcers mark the breaths, pauses and emphases in their copy.  Mark a short pause with a diagonal /, longer pauses with a double diagonal //.  Mark important words you want to emphasize by underlining them the thicker the line, the stronger the emphasis.
7.) Breathe.
8.) If your script is shorter, try memorizing what you are going to say.  (Acting experience comes in very handy when you’re doing this kind of work).  That way, you’ll be able to talk your performance when you go into the studio, rather than read it.
9.) If your script is long, it won’t be feasible to memorize it.  Practice scanning a paragraph, then lifting your eyes from the page.  Learn to use your script as a guide, rather than being dependent on it word for word.
10.) If you have access to a recorder, record and listen to yourself a couple of times.   Have a friend listen.   Critique yourself.  What is your emotional tone?  If you are reading a newscast, strive for authoritative, but accessible and friendly.  If you are doing an entertainment feature, you can have even more of a smile in your voice.

Studio Day

1.) Arrive 15 minutes early.  Relax until your producer and sound tech arrives.
2.) Once they arrive, they’ll let you into the studio.  The technical operator and producer(s) will be in the control room, looking at you through the glass. You will be connected to them through headphones, which they will use to direct you.
3.) Take your time to settle in, go over your script.  Some performers do vocal warmups (singing a bit helps, as do yoga stretches).  Don’t worry about looking silly you’re the talent, so do what you need to do to relax and warm up.  While you’re warming up, they’ll be busy setting up the audio equipment, so they won’t even notice what you’re doing anyway.
4.) Check out any script changes (as above) with your producer.  Get her/his okay most of the time it will be okay but sometimes a word change can change the meaning of a sentence.  So best to make sure.
5.) Make sure you have a glass of water next to you.
6.) Read over your script once .. or maybe twice.  But not more than that. This way, you’ll sound fresh and not like you’ve been over it many times.
7.) Relax, but be alert.  Sit up straight.  Breathe.
8.) Remember.  This is fun.
9.) The producer and tech will let you know when they’re ready.  The tech will come in and tell you how far to sit from the microphone.  S/he’ll ask you for a voice level speak the way you plan to speak when you’re performing.  Normal volume.  The tech will set the sound levels based on this test.
10.) Your producer will be able to talk to you in your headphones.  S/he will also have a set of very simple hand signals too.
11.) Don’t worry if you start a sentence or a paragraph and have to start again.  It will happen many times and will be edited after the fact.   Your producer will also interrupt you if s/he wants you to redo a sentence, paragraph or part of a paragraph.  Sometimes s/he will ask you to try a different emotional tone, or emphasize a different word or maybe there’s a word that was mispronounced that you didn’t catch (happens all the time).
12.) Relax.

Tip:  Remember to lift your eyes from your script.  Look at the two people in the control room frequently.   Establish eye contact.  Talk the script to them.   That way, your listeners will also get the sense that you are talking to them.  The producer and sound engineer will be giving you their undivided attention befitting your position as a star.   The goal is to do whatever is necessary to be the best you can be (short of bringing in a case of expensive imported spring water from an obscure mountain in the Himalayas .. but when you get good enough, you can always ask).

After the recording is done:

Your producer will take all of the sound files, choose the best takes, and edit out all the extraneous material in the studio.  In some cases, s/he might add a musical track or sound effects.   If there are audio clips, they will be added after the fact.

All that will be left is for you to wait for the final version.

If they’ve done their job right (and they will) .. you will love what you hear.  Even when you say I don’t really sound like that, do I?   Yes, you do.   And everybody else will think you sound great.