People will rightfully tell you that you have to sound more real, more like the person next door. Well of course that makes sense. The person directing the project wants the voiceover artist to sound sincere and honest and authentic. But there is a funny flip side to all of this. I hear a complaint from many pros that I coach, that people will say to them... “No its gotta sound more real!” and then they tell me about their frustration that when they try and sound more real, they then often get criticized for sounding lackadaisical or uninspired, or unenthusiastic about the topic.
So what the heck is going on? On the one hand a director says be more real, more conversational, on the other hand they then seem to be complaining about the tone of voice when the person follows the directions that are given.
The answer is this: Often when a person backs off to become more conversational or more real, the energy drops so much that the pace is a little too slow... the cadence looses its bounce... and the melody a little too flat...
Because it’s a wholesale drop in energy it really just does sound unenthusiastic. So it seems like the read has lost all of its life.
When a person tries to be more conversational, not hard sell or not announcery, the effort should focus on smoothing out the delivery and tumbling the speech more so it feels a bit more like a stream of ideas.
This makes the energy in the vowels and consonants more even and that is exactly what makes us sound MORE REAL AND CONVERSATIONAL.
When we try and become more conversational we are often just backing off on the energy we are using. This usually flattens the amount of rise and fall in our voices, which is what happens when we aren’t passionate about something.
So the proper approach is to talk at low levels but to maintain a slight urgency. There is a greater rise and fall in the melodies we use when we are excited about a product or story. This will usually restore the rise and fall of the voice.
