The VO Tips are back!

It has been a very busy couple of months but here we are! And this is this weeks VO Tip!

BREATHE CONVERSATIONALLY

One of the secrets for proper breathing during a voice over performance is actually very easy to master: take in enough air to say what you have to say. If you don’t take enough air you will run out of breath before your idea is finished. And if you take in to much air, that will result in a sudden and unnatural exhale at the end of your line.

Listen to how you, and others, manage breathing during a normal conversation. You will notice that no one takes a deep breath before saying anything. In conversation, we breathe naturally and comfortably, we breathe without thinking of what we are doing.

Sometimes you will be working on a script with extremely long, complicated sentences. Breath points in most copy usually occur after a portion of a thought has been stated. Listings provide natural break points between each item. You probably won’t want to breathe between each item, but there usually is an opportunity if you need it.

Of course, when reading from a script, the words are not yours. But as voice actors we must make the words sound as if they are yours. We must make them sound as conversational and believable as possible.