A Behind the Scenes Look Into Casting with David Goldberg

Usually when a client wants something really unique, really specific, like a classic announcer style or a classic hard sell voice actor, they specifically say that usually when the client doesn't say that they don't want it.
(00:22):
Welcome everyone to today's episode of Mission Audition. Thank you so much for joining us. Mission Audition is the voiceover podcast where we listen to real auditions from voices members, and we get to hear feedback from world class voiceover coaches. My name is Tara, senior Manager, brand Communications, and I am joined by my co-host Vanessa, community Manager here at Voices.
(00:41):
Hi everybody. Today's topic is Six Steps to Win an audition, which will hopefully feel motivational for you listening. David Goldberg is one of the busiest and most recognized voice directors in the industry, regularly working with voice actors, politicians, and celebrities as he owns Edge Studio, an international casting and production facility, and voice acting school. David, welcome. Hey
(01:02): Guys,
(01:03):
How are you doing?
(01:04):
Super swell. Thrilled to be here. Thanks so much. This is great.
(01:07):
So we are going to dive into five different auditions. This is a doozy of a script. We have a dual character
script, which we haven't done in a very long time. Vanessa, are you ready to get started?
(01:18):
Yes, I'm so excited. Let's get right into it. For this audition, the artistic direction reads the voiceover project requires one voice actor who is able to play two roles, a contest announcer slash game show host as the first character, and an exciting yet overwhelmed contest winner who can't make a decision as a second character. This audition style is fast paced and hyper. Okay, let's get into it. I'm excited to jump into audition number one. David, are you ready?
(01:44): I am.
(01:45):
Okay, perfect. Let's play audition number one.
(01:48):
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Good. Congratulations. You've won a five day getaway for two to anywhere you choose. Where do you think you'll go? Uh, um, so much pressure, uh, so many places to choose from. I have to decide right now. We've always wanted to go to Paris. No, Australia, no Iceland. It sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com. Compare prices of vacation packages from all over the world in one place, book flights, all-inclusive resorts, car rentals, and more through the center of travel.com. Design your dream vacation today. Book through the center of travel.com.
(02:24):
All righty, let us know your thoughts on this audition. David,
(02:27):
I have a lot of thoughts on this particular audition. I
(02:30):
Love that ,
(02:32):
The guy has a lot of really good qualities to his voice a whole lot, and I'll talk about those qualities soon. But I think from the onset of this, from probably a second or two or two seconds into the audition, we'd probably say, uh, he's not necessarily the guy for us. I think we need to look at the direction, right? Fast paced and hyper. Now, that does make this a really, really challenging audition because there are two characters. So I feel like the client here is giving direction for the game show host, but not really the participant or not at all for the participant character. So that's sort of up to, I think, um, client, I guess they'll hear it or they'll know it when they hear it as the expression goes, because they're not giving direction on that. But before we get to that participant character, uh, the game show host guy, he's doing the classic like announcer show.
(03:22):
And usually, and this is just from my experience in this business, if the client wants a true classic announcer style, they're gonna say in the directions we want a true classic announcer style. But they haven't, they've asked for fast paced, okay? So they want this to be done quickly, and this is a radio commercial with a lot of copy. So they probably need the pacing to be fast. This guy's not super fast. They also say hyper, which is really like crazy subjective, right? But they didn't say we want, uh, announcer style. And the the game show, the, the title of this game show host guy, is game show host. Game show hosts are not necessarily, um, the classic style. This is sort of a roundabout way of saying, usually when a client wants something really unique, really specific, like a classic announcer style or a classic hard sell voice actor, they specifically say that usually when the client doesn't say that they don't want it.
(04:18):
My, uh, gut tells me that this client is looking for someone who reads quickly and has a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm, but does not necessarily the classic and outer style. So this guy begins by saying, good congratulations in doing that whole kind of classic thing. That's possibly not what they're looking for. I wanna repeat mm-hmm. , if they wanted that, they probably would've stated that in the direction. I don't know who this particular client is, so I don't know that for sure, but that is usually the case. Um, now when it comes to auditioning, there are a whole bunch of different types of people who may listen to and audition and select that final voice actor. Sometimes it's the copywriter, sometimes it's
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the marketing team, sometimes the ad agency, sometimes the client, sometimes the sound editor or
video editor, a focus group. (05:02):
And I know lots of different people, uh, may participate in the, uh, casting process. And, um, very often it is the client. And if the client is listening to this, I don't think they're gonna be attracted to the way this guy says the client name, because he misses the T and the word center, it's a small word right center. But, uh, that t is pretty important because without the t the word almost sounds like the word sinner. And I don't think they're talking about a sinner here, right? So in two times in his script, I'm looking at the script right now, he says, uh, this center, well, he should say the center of, uh, of travel, but he says, it sounds like the sinner of travel, which is kind of funny. So I don't think that that would fly super well with the client, right? Mm-hmm. These are some of the things that we listen for when we are auditioning. When it comes to the participant character. He has some, he reads with some kind of spontaneity in his voice, but it sounds a little artificial. It doesn't sound truly spontaneous. It's a little spontaneous sounding with the, uh, uh, uhs and stuff. But I don't know, it just sounds a little artificial to my ears.
(06:11):
Yeah, I think you bring up a good point, David, because I think as, as the listener continues to hear the auditions that the other auditions we have, what is that fine balance of reading the script, but then putting in your own ahs and ums from a client perspective? Because you wanna stick as much this script as you can, because like you said, if, if someone on the other end, let's say it's the marketing team, they already know their ad needs to be a certain amount of time. They only have this amount of time, everything fits within that 20 seconds or whatever it may be. So if you add too many ums and ahs, you're gonna go over time, which then leads to more edits. So what is that fine balance between sticking to the script but still having a little bit of your own personality shine through?
(06:56):
Well, I think it's more than that. I think you need a lot of personality. So let me back up and say a few things, uh, to respond. Number one, I I, I sort of see auditions or all a voiceover performance split into two halves. There's the technical part of your voice and there's the emotional part of your voice. The technical part of your voice is being able to follow the, the direction the client says, um, emphasize this word. We need a dramatic pause there. We need you to go a little, little faster or a little slower. And those are the technical things. Adding the, uh, ums and uhs, I think it's terrific in almost every application, but I wanna stress not every application, rather almost every application, because there is a time and place for everything in this industry. There are some scripts, and I don't need to go into them now, where you would never add anything, but in sort of an informal playful commercial, I think it's terrific to add.
(07:46):
However, we know that the client has a, this is a word, heavy script. So the client mo, uh, wants us to move quickly. They even state that. So you can't go too far with the ums and ahs. The guy's already eaten up a lot of time by saying, come gradually, you know, extending that first word. So that's eating up an extra second to second and a half, which is the equivalent of like four to six words. Yeah. Um, but the ums and ahs do add a lot of like a natural authentic feel. So here's my suggestion. Anytime a voice actor has to read a, like a first person, uh, account of something like a testimonial or a dialogue as it is, uh, in
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this case, I think a great thing to do when recording is to add a ton of spon, uh, spontaneous ad libs, like
add a whole ton of them.
(08:34):
Cool ton is a technical word there. I dunno how many words that means, but, uh, but add a whole lot of these like ums and ahs or whatever it might be, and then delete most of them, maybe even all of them, or delete most of them, like I said. And what's, what's left over sounds really real. I, I'll give you an example of this. Mm-hmm. , when you give a first person script, most voice actors and they read it, it will sound a bit artificial. So they'll say things like, and I exaggerate. They'll say, oh, um, so much pressure, uh, so many places to choose. Like, it sounds artificial, right? Mm-hmm. . So if you have them throw in some ad libs really spontaneously, if they say things like, oh, you know what? Uh, so, uh, so much pressure. Like they, they really add these ad libs and then, and it sounds more natural too, right?
(09:20):
It does. And then they can delete the ad libs and what's left over usually sounds amazing. It really does. The other thing about this guy's voice, and maybe this is the last thing I should mention, is there's not that much, uh, variety to it. His, uh, game show voice sounds really identical from the first word through the very end. And the character sounds almost the same from the characters, uh, or the participant character's first word through that last word. Mm-hmm. . And when you throw in these ad libs and then you delete them, you get a lot of variety, like a whole lot more variety, which is really cool. So I think overall he has a great voice. It cuts. I think his voice will cut amazingly well through music. His articulation is generally pretty good, except for the word center, as I mentioned. I think he has a lot of comfort at the microphone, which is so important. He has very little vocal tension, which is great. He has a little bit here and there, like, he's thinking a little bit about what he's doing at times. What I think he should do is allow himself to infuse more personality, be more playful, and be, uh, just have more fun with what he's doing more and add more variety. Like, not get stuck, stuck in one zone. Mm-hmm. , but just be more, yeah, more playful.
(10:29):
Okay. That's so helpful. Thank you. All right, let's jump on to our second audition.
(10:34):
Congratulations. You've won a five day getaway for two to anywhere you choose. Where do you think you'll go? Oh, oh, um, oh God. Oh, so much pressure. I, oh God. So many places to choose from. Oh God, I have to decide right now. Oh, um, we've always wanted to go to Paris. No, no, no. Um, Australia, no Iceland. It sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com. Compare prices of vacation packages from all over the world in one place, book flights, all inclusive resorts, car rentals, and more through the center of travel.com. Design your dream vacation today, book through center of travel.com.
(11:24):
Um, so this audition to me felt very over the top, his oohs, and ah, they, they felt like they really dragged
on. But what are your thoughts, David? Do you agree?
(11:35):
Oh my goodness. They dragged on. Yeah. So, um, remember when you were looking at a client's
direction and you know that this is radio generally, that means you have 30 or 60 seconds, uh, maybe
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even less if there's going to be room left for music cues or sound effects, or another voice actor who comes in at the end or the beginning or whatever, and the, uh, the ad libs just take too much time. Mm- hmm. , oh my goodness. Even that, congratulations. He's longer than the first person that we listened to, um, which is not good. He, this guy did put the T in center, which is good. But a couple of things, and, and by the way, almost everything I spoke about regarding the first actor who we listened to, can be thought of on the second actor here. Uh, like it's the same, okay?
(12:21):
This, the same feedback other than the t uh, this the second guy pronounced the T and center, but some other things. Um, I did forget to mention that the last guy said the word resorts with a Z rather than an S. And the last guy also said the word two, which is one of the first words in the script. Let me look right now, I'll tell you where that word is. A really good ear. Mm-hmm. You do. He said you've want a five day getaway for two, two, anywhere. That two sounded like tough. He said for two, any, anywhere that's, he said like anywhere, which is a little, little hard. This guy, the second guy does some of those same things. I think that the second guy should think about the words which will really be important to the client. And, and one of those words are action verbs.
(13:07):
Words like compare, I'm looking at the script here. He says, uh, one of the sentences, compare prices of vacation packages, compare, that's the key word, right? In almost every script, not every, but almost every script, and even more so in commercial script, action verbs are really important to value. And he goes by those action verbs pretty quickly. Mm. It is the action verbs that are selling the point mm-hmm. . So you take a sentence like, compare prices of vacation packages. I feel like that when people are new to voiceover, they tend to look at the noun that very often is at the end of a phrase or the end of a sentence, and they think that is the word that should have the, the emphasis. And in, in this phrase, again, the phrase being compare prices of vacation packages, newcomers will probably, uh, emphasize vacation packages because they're, and it makes sense from their perspective, they're thinking, okay, we're talking about vacation packages, but really it is generally the action verb that better sells the product.
(14:05):
Because at the end of the day, as important as vacation packages are, it's much more important that the client conveys that on this website you can compare prices of vacation packages. That's what this is about. If this voice actor goes through those words rather quickly, write that down, everyone . So it is those words that can, um, prevent someone from getting the work because the, the key messages are not being, um, communicated to the listener. You know, something I said on that other guy is I said, all different types of people may listen to an audition and participate in the casting process. And I mentioned that sometimes it's the client. I did mention very briefly that sometimes it's a focus group. And let me talk a bit more about that, because this really is important, uh, to think about. Now, often before a client is gonna spend a million or $5 million on their ad campaign, they will take a sample radio commercial, maybe even, uh, even from two or three, uh, choice voice actors and play it for a focus group.
(15:01):
So they, the client will, or the ad agency, uh, or the marketing team will play the ad for a focus group and then ask the fo the focus group some basic questions. So, so in other words, the, the client ultimately is, is making sure that the voice actor will work for them, that the, the key messages are getting, um, are being communicated to the listener. Mm-hmm. . So in a spot like this, uh, if this is played for focus group, you can sort of guess what the question, what questions would be
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thrown at a focus group? The focus group, the participants in the focus group would hear the commercial one time, and then the questions might be, okay, great. What is the name of the client and how do we get in touch with them? What is, in other words, the phone number or the website, or something like that.
(15:41):
But then some more specific questions would be thrown their way. And those questions would be things like, what does the center of travel.com do? And if the, if the focus group says something about vacation packages, that doesn't help, right? That's when the client says, okay, this voice actor is not communicating our message. Mm-hmm. , they're gonna want the focus group to say, well, I would go to the site so I can compare prices of vacation packages. So for anyone who is auditioning, especially on a commercial, think about what questions a focus group may be given and make sure you really focus on your, on answering those in your audition.
(16:18):
Yeah. I think that's actually some really good feedback, and it's like a different way that, that we've ever even heard on the podcast too, that a coach has even looked at. I'm gonna give a little bit of feedback from what I kind of felt from this one. I felt a little bit overwhelmed, I won't lie. Um, especially when I heard it for the first time. I think, um, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that like the talent truly deciphered both characters. Um, the only thing I would ask him to do is just to dial it back like a little bit, but for this one, what are your final thoughts for those? Do you agree? Do you disagree?
(16:51):
Yeah, I think this guy had a lot more variety in his read, and yes, but it was overdone. Mm-hmm. too long, you know, really drawn out as we talked about. Um, I think like the first guy, he's comfortable at the microphone, he's playful. Uh, he's, I mean, when I say comfortable, what I mean is he's not shy of the microphone,
(17:09): Right?
(17:10):
He's letting some more personality come out. But I still feel like he's a bit focused on the technique. It's, it is. So, okay, let me, let me expand upon something. Yeah. So twice what's come up is sort of the, the different sides of delivering voiceover. One being the technique, and one being the acting. And there are a lot of voice actors, especially those who are new, who get so caught up focusing on the direction that the client gives, that they no longer infuse their own personality. Mm-hmm. , mm-hmm. . And it is so much the personality that we hire. That's what clients want. They want personality. Of course, the personality does have to work within confines. The personality has to be able to read it on time or add the dramatic pause here, or emphasize another word that the client wants. You have to be able to incorporate, or voice actors need to be able to incorporate technique, but still let that personality come through.
(18:03):
This guy does a better job of that than the first guy, but, uh, there's still, there's still some like, reservation about him. Like, he's not truly letting his personality out. He's still, he's clearly thinking about his, what he's doing, vocally speaking. Right? Uh, I think that you get, I think a great place to get to in a
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voiceover career is when the technique happens reflexively. So you, you, the client can tell you what to do, or you can look at the script and say, okay, I should emphasize this word, I should do this, or whatever it might be. And that just happens sort of reflexively, right? And then all of your effort can go to the personality, and that's, that's typically the voice actor who we want to hire.
(18:42):
Okay. Perfect. Thanks for the final thought there, David. Let's move on to audition number three.
(18:48):
Congratulations. You've won a five day getaway for two to anywhere you choose. Where do you think you'll go? Oh, um, so much pressure. So many places to choose from. I have to decide right now. We've always wanted to go to Paris. No, Australia, no Iceland. It sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com. Compare prices of vacation packages from all over the world in one place, book flights, all inclusive resorts, car rentals, and more through the center of travel.com. Design your dream vacation today. Book through the center of travel.com.
(19:21):
Okay. So for this audition, what I liked about this one specifically, um, the pacing is on point. In my opinion. , it sounds like it's edited on the talents end. So I think that this shows that the, the talent want the extra step to make this audition really stand out from the others. What I'd like to see in this one is that character change. Um, thinking about like receiving an a reward, like be excited about it. Like, right. So I would've liked to hear Yeah, you just
(19:47): Wanna trip.
(19:48):
Yeah. Like, I think I would've liked to hear that enthusiasm in the tone of her voice. Um, Tara, what are
your thoughts?
(19:55):
I totally agree, Vanessa. So I thought that this one, the voice fell a bit flat for me. If someone called me and it was a legit phone call and I want a trip, I would be so excited. Oh, yeah. It was also hard for me to distinguish between the two voices mm-hmm. . So if I wasn't actively listening, I would think it was one voice. David, what are your thoughts?
(20:15):
Yeah, it could sound like one voice, especially if the client is adding one track of music that's consistent behind the entire spot. And we don't know if that's the case or not. They may not even have any music, or they may have music just during the character or just during the game show person. But, um, assuming that they, they want hyper, they will probably add, the client will probably add some music to add to that, that energy and Yeah. With music in the background, yeah. It's gonna sound like one person. Mm-hmm. , there's a such an easy thing that voice actors can do to change up their voice to sound different, because some, some voice actors can't really come up with more than
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one voice. Right? It's so simple. Change your microphone. Ooh. Oh, it's the easiest thing. Wow. Yeah. So
there's a bit more to that, and I'll get to that in a moment. (21:00):
Um, but changing the microphone can right off the bat change the, the tonal quality enough to really help differentiate one character to the next. So here's the other thing you have to know. When you do that, you have to make sure you're technically inclined enough to match levels, because different microphones have different volume outputs. Mm-hmm. , right? So if one microphone has a louder or lower, uh, output than when the client is listening back, one character is louder in volume and one is lower in volume. That's sort of a little, yeah. That's weird. So as long as you can correct that, you know, you should be good to go. The other thing that I did wanna mention is that for any voice actor with any microphone, you should always write down what microphone you're using. When you record, always write it down. Good tip. Because down the road, more than likely, at some point you will update your microphone.
(21:47):
And then if a client ever calls you and says, Hey, can you do a pickup on a job we gave you two years ago? Or something like that, then you look at your records and you say, oh, yeah, yeah, I still had my old microphone. And then you can match that microphone. But anyway, back to the point here. Yeah. If, if she changed her microphone, that would be great. Another thing that people can do if they only have one microphone is physically stand in a different spot relative to the microphone, because that can drastically change the sound quality. You'd have to experiment because most microphones have like a, a sweet spot where they really does sound best. And so if you stand, for example, in a really unsweet spot, well now your character voice sounds bad, and that's not gonna help you win. Mm-hmm. .
(22:28):
But if you can just move a couple of inches to the left or the right or something like that, sometimes that helps. Something else you can do, and this is kind of weird, but it does make a difference physically record it, that you, the character piece at a different time of the day, wearing different clothing, if they're dressed up like a, a game announcer for the, the first, the opening and closing, and then at some point they put on like ripped shorts or whatever, pajamas, something really different, and record 10 hours later or the next day and then insert it in. It will really help give a, a different sound as well. Great point about, uh, her sounding the same, her voice is very smooth. She read the time, which is great. Um, you know, she, she did not draw out the, uh, the ums and the ahs, like mm-hmm. the, uh, other, uh, talent that we heard so far today. So that's good. Yeah.
(23:14):
My question to you is, and this can be in general, but I guess obviously specific to this audition as well, how would a client know that they've found like the right voice? Obviously all clients are different as well, but maybe for you specifically, what would be something that you would look for for this audition that's like the perfect voice or the ideal voice?
(23:34):
Yeah. There, there's not one answer. It really does depend on the client and the application and so on. If a client is basing all of their casting on the results of a focus group, that's sort of like a, just a mathematical thing, you know? Right. We play 10 different, uh, auditions for 10 for, uh, 10 different focus groups. And the voice actor who causes the focus group to have their, the best answers, they get
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the job, then that's easy. That's just math. Outside of that, um, we listen for if the music is going to be loud, will someone's voice cut? Well, with that particular music, because this is gonna sound like a sidetrack, but I'm gonna, I'm going to go on a tangent, but come back to where I was. Okay. So hold on to that point, this crazy tangent here, but I will come back.
(24:19):
So voiceover is like the, the, the end of the food chain. When, when we record scripts for our clients, usually, um, everything else in the production has been done. In other words, a client has come up with the, an idea of a commercial or a narration, and someone has written a script and the video is done and the music has been selected, and the sound effects are done. And sometimes we are even given a scratch track to work with. If anyone listening doesn't know what a scratch track is, that's a temporary placeholder. Voiceover might be recorded by the client or someone at the ed, the ad agency just to kind of keep place. But, um, the point is that all other production elements are typically done by the time the voiceover is recorded. So what's really important is that when you record your voiceover, you make sure you match to everything else.
(25:09):
Mm-hmm. , that's really important because you can't expect the other things to be changed for you. You need to match to them. The example I've used before is if you look at all of the elements into production, graphics, music, sound effects, visuals, other voice actors who may have recorded already and all of these things. And if each is a piece of a puzzle and the whole puzzle is done except for one piece, there's just one piece missing the voiceover, then you need to make sure that you match to the rest of the puzzle. You need to conform to it. And so, no, tell me,
(25:39):
Um, so David, if, if you're the client and you're hiring voice, a voice actor, are there key, key, let's say,
um, like do you have a criteria that you're like, they have to have this, this, and this for me to hire them?
(25:55):
Well, no. There's some things like they have to be responsible and professional and things of that nature. Talking about like conforming to this puzzle in a spot like this where the music will probably be loud, we will look for a voice that will cut well through music, but on another commercial that may not have music, or we'll have softer music, that's not as important. If a spot is international, we may, it may be more important to have better articulation because if, if the spot were, well, we do a lot of, a lot of international work, and so if the spot is being played to a country or a group of people, uh, who don't necessarily speak English as their mother tongue, then the, uh, the annunciation may be more important. Like that first guy and the second person also said t a couple of times mm-hmm.
(26:37):
. Mm-hmm. , you know, they said t anywhere. If someone doesn't speak English, like really fluently, if they hear t anywhere, that may not be understood. Right. In that case, the voice actors should say to anywhere rather than to anywhere. There were two, by the way, it's not the most important word in the script. There's not like a, a grand list. I, it really does change, uh mm-hmm. For everything. And at the end of the day is our client who has final say, unless the very often our clients will say, like, you guys pick for us mm-hmm. , because they know that, you know, we, I think we can pick pretty well after all these years, but, um, yeah, I dunno. We just kind of go with the flow and see what makes sense.
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That's so great. Thank you for that feedback. You had a lot of great pieces of feedback, both for newbie voice actors and voice actors that have been in the game a really long time. Okay, let's move on to audition number four.
(27:24):
Congratulations. You've won a five day getaway for two to anywhere you choose. Where do you think you'll go? Oh, uh, whew. So much pressure. So many places to choose from. I, I, I have to decide right now. Uh, we've always wanted to go to Paris. No, uh, Australia. No, uh, Iceland. Well, sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com. Compare prices of vacation packages from all over the world in one place, book flights, all inclusive resorts, car rentals, and more through the center of travel.com. Design your dream vacation today. Book through the center of travel.com.
(28:03):
Okay. So for this audition, I felt like his EQ balance was spot on, which made this very easy to listen to.
Vanessa, did you hear it? What was your feedback?
(28:12):
I really like this audition, especially when this talent was voicing the contest announcer character. Yes. Um, that stood out to me. The volume sounds a bit low to me, not exactly commercially loud, but David, what other tip would you give for this talent and for voice actors out there listening,
(28:30):
You guys rock, like you had such great things to say. The volume's a little lower. And here's the weird thing about volume. Like I think if you ask a client, if you, if you said to a client, um, the volume is a little low, do you think you could raise it? I think the client would say, I guess so we probably could raise the volume. But what happens is clients aren't necessarily thinking about that. They're just going from audition to audition to audition, and things sound better when they are louder. Mm-hmm. . And so for whatever reason, if you're, if your audition is just lower in volume, it's, it tends to like take away some, some points from your audition or your chance of winning, like right off the bat. So yeah, for every voice actor out there, you should, you should be at, at full volume.
(29:13):
Second thing for everyone to write down,
(29:16):
Check mark volume. Hi .
(29:19):
Write that down. Full.
(29:20):
Yeah. I'll, I'll whisper the rest and see what, you know, people think . I, I, here's something I, I
wanna talk about. Because what's evident is that so far we have four guys now who have all done this
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game show thing and they've always had the same congratulations. And so I would give any voice actor out there, a little homework assignment. And when I tell you the homework assignment, you probably won't do it because you realize it'll be dreadful.
(29:46):
. Oh, I'm so intrigued.
(29:48):
Boom. ,
(29:49):
I want you to listen to like 50 auditions. If someone's beginning saying congratulations, and then go to audition number two and hear congratulations, then go to audition number three. Now, if I did that 50 times, you'd probably stop listening to this podcast.
(30:08):
You know what, we are living proof of this cuz we actually shortlist all the auditions and we had to
actually do that. I think we listened to about 30 and oh,
(30:15):
Oh, I think there were over 50 for this
(30:17):
Episode. Oh, maybe there was 50. There were a lot. So we totally get it. It is hard.
(30:21):
So one of the key things in winning auditions is to, I really believe is to give something that's novel, something that's unique, something that's a little different, but I, I need to stress that there's not an exact amount of difference you can add. There's not like how novel can you be, you know, on a scale of one to 10, B, 7.5, like that, that, that, that number doesn't exist. Mm-hmm. , you need to look at the script, the client, the purpose of the recording, where is being played, uh, how it's being played, who is listening to it and, and think, well, can I sort of stray a little bit and, and offer something novel. So for example, um, e-learning, uh, you know, if a client wants something to be very, very clear and articulate, there may not be as much vocal freedom as there is in a spot like this.
(31:12):
And so in a spot like this, there is that, that range. I think that makes sense. This is probably being played only in one like location. It's not being played internationally. Mm-hmm. , it's supposed to be playful and informal and you know, this dialogue is kind of fun. And so there's a lot of a leeway to, to enjoy yourself. And so offering something novel is easier in this script than it would be in another type of script. However, if you have 50 auditions that all say congratulations, and you have to listen to that 50 times in a row, it is mind numbing. Mm-hmm. , when you are given an audition, take a moment and think, okay, what's my knee-jerk reaction? Well, my knee-jerk reaction is, oh, congratulations. And then think, well, my goodness. Well, if 50 people do that,
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, you won't stand out.
(32:01):
They'll roll their eyes and move right onto the next audition. So that's the homework assignment. Like,
could you listen to that 50 times in a row? And you'll probably say no. And
(32:10):
Like you said, that word is so long already that it's like, yeah, you, that's, that's how you're catching our
ear is from that first word. It's like, if not, then you're just gonna hit next.
(32:19):
Right? And you're missing out on, like you said David earlier, you're missing out on an extra four to six words. If someone's really only listening for, let's say three seconds and you say congratulations for three seconds, you, they're not even listening to the other words you say. That could be in a completely different tone and style than that first word.
(32:38):
Also, um, another point for this too is like you said, some voice actors forget to put in their personality too. It's like they're so caught up in reading the script, reading the script, am I gonna get it right? And I think this is mostly, I mean, it might be more advanced voice actors, they might, this might happen as well, but to more so beginner voice actors, it's, they forget that they're having fun as well, right? So to put that personality in and that emotion and to try to make it as, as natural as it can be. I know it's obviously easier said than done, but this is why we have amazing voice coaches to help out . Okay. Let's move on to our last but not least audition.
(33:19):
Congratulations. You've won a five day getaway for two to anywhere you choose. Where do you think you'll go? Oh, um, oh, so much pressure. So many places to choose from. I have to decide right now. Uh, we've always wanted to go to Paris. No, Australia, no Icelands. Sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com. Compare prices of vacation packages from all over the world in one place. Book flights, all inclusive resorts, car rentals, and more through the center of travel.com. Design your dream vacation today. Book through the center of travel.com.
(33:57):
So I thought this audition, he sounded very believable and in character. Did you feel that Vanessa? I did.
(34:04):
I totally agree.
(34:05):
Oh, you did? I wasn't sure if you were gonna fully disagree with me or
(34:07):
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Not. Yeah, no, it caught me right from the start. , this talent caught me honestly right from the start. I think the processing could have been a little bit better, maybe used a little bit more work. Um, again, I'm not the expert, but you are David, so what are your thoughts?
(34:22):
Yeah, well he's very ent. Um, interestingly, he's so sibilant in one certain frequency that even the word like, which was at, I think it was 21 or 22 seconds had a cient l That's the first I think that I've ever heard. Uh, I think it, the phrase was sounds like, let me look at the script.
(34:41):
Can we? Yeah. David, let's listen to that one more time.
(34:44):
Okay. If you go to, uh, about 20 seconds,
(34:48):
Sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com,
(34:51):
You'll hear like this sound that's really high pitched.
(34:54):
Sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel com.
(34:58):
The other thing, if you wanna listen for like, almost everyone today, except for the woman, everyone is
saying resorts with a z.
(35:05):
Yeah, interesting.
(35:06):
Just listen to that and Totally. Yeah, totally get what you're, what you're going for
(35:12):
There. Yeah. It is very sandy sounding.
(35:15):
Oh, interesting term for it. Sandy
(35:17):
. I got that from our audio producer. .
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Yeah. The, the s Yeah, it does sound very sandy sounding. Um, so for those listening out there, David, what are your critiques for this one? Some critical feedback.
(35:36):
Yeah. I think, I think the big takeaway is that voice actors need to do two things. They need, they need to learn what to listen for. Um, keeping in mind that sometimes it is the audio engineer who is participating in the casting process and if the audio engineer is part of that, they're just thinking, okay, good voice, but I have a little extra processing to do and I don't, I don't know, like if you're a voice actor, why have to cause more work for anyone else? Like, you should be able to process that on your own side. Mm-hmm. . Yes. Side note, sometimes clients say we want a raw audio. There's a lot of discrepancy in the industry. What constitutes raw audio? There's a big school of thought that says if you are sibilant, running your voice through a deser to remove that sibilance is not really processing, it's just ultimately giving your client a flat reading. Like it's correcting for any issues with your voice. I think if you are sibilant, you should run your voice through a, uh, a d ser and remove that sibilance. Even if the client says they want raw audio, but that is up for interpretation, right?
(36:36):
So anyway, so I think voice actors should do two things. They should learn what to listen for, and most of them don't know what to listen for. And number two, they need to listen differently. A lot of voice actors will listen back when they edit and they do so on speakers. And when you listen on speakers, you may not hear the sibilance, you may not hear low end rumbles interesting. You may not hear popping and things like that. When you listen on headphones, you'll hear that stuff. And so I think voice actors need to listen on headphones and not just any headphones, but good headphones, studio quality headphones. Mm-hmm. , like, if you're not spending at least 50 or 75 bucks on US dollars on headphones, you're not getting I think a, a decent pair.
(37:13):
So as a client, would you rather have raw audio with, let's say there's no processing on it, it's just the voice actor speaking into the mic and sending you that recording? Or do you prefer to have it processed?
(37:25):
We prefer no processing except for any, like, for fixing any issues. So I'd, I'd rather not, uh, I wanna make sure a voice actor doesn't clip mm-hmm. . So maybe there's a little bit of compression or, you know, uh, gating just to make sure it doesn't go above. I'd rather not have to deal with too much popping or civilians. So I think that it's really nice if a voice actor has a pretty raw audio, they just, they make up for any issues with their voice with processing outside of that they don't further process. Okay. That's great. But like I said, that that's a really, is a big discrepancy in the industry. What, what, how do you, how do you define raw audio is mm-hmm. , there's no one answer.
(38:07):
Okay. That's amazing. Also, I'm gonna add a thought in here too. Um, and we've talked to many voice actors and coaches about this, but when talent record and if they give two takes, let's say, that are the same, it's almost like they do the first take and the second take and they do it how they would want to hear it. Mm-hmm. not how the client would want to hear it, or maybe they think that's
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how the client will want to hear it. What are your tips, um, especially for this read on maybe the talent trying to, if they were to do two takes, how to look at that differently and go in with the mindset of, this is how I wanna hear it, or I would like to receive it and this is how the talent would like to receive it.
(38:52):
It's a good, a really good question. Uh, I will tell you that when voice actors give two takes and they're
identical or even near identical, it's just a waste of time for us. Mm-hmm. .
(39:02):
Mm-hmm. , I'm assuming you probably don't even listen to the second one.
(39:07):
Yeah. It's no different than, uh, for example, if you were, if you work in an office environment and you're hiring, uh, someone and they sit in your office and you are given the, in giving the interview and you ask how fast they can type and they tell you how fast they can type, and then they tell you again how fast they can type
(39:25):
And it's the same number. Yeah.
(39:28):
So the idea of giving two takes usually, not always, but usually is to show range, to show that you're flexible. Two takes is amazing. It's an amazing opportunity to show that you have range, you can think differently, um, because the chance, the chance that you give the client exactly what they want is like one in a gazillion. Right? Uh, at the end of the day, the client's gonna listen to you and say, yeah, we'd like you to slid down here or add more smile here. We want it to be a little bit more enthusiastic or a little bit less enthusiastic. Like, there's no way to know exactly what the client wants, but if you're able to show a range from A to Z for example, then the client will hear your, your two takes and say, well, okay, great. You can read really slowly, for example, and really quickly, and therefore chances are you can give us something in the middle, which is what we want.
(40:13):
So you're adaptable, you're flexible, you have a range. That's key. That's usually the idea of giving two takes. In many applications these days, slating is not necessary. Right. I, I think with voices.com, voice actors don't need to slate. Mm-hmm. on the rare time that a client will ask you to slate. So in other words, if a voice actor wins a job through voices, and then at the recording session, the client wants you to slate for their own, uh, for their own systems, voice actors tend to slate pretty poorly. And so I think it's really, I, I know it's really important that the voice actors say their name clearly and confidently and declaratively.
(40:51):
Sometimes we have slates that are like quite long, and at that point we're like next, like, we're kind of on to the next one. So I, I do like your point of that, of just being like, first take 30 seconds, second take six seconds. Like, that's actually a really good tip. And I, I feel like I would also even enjoy that. Like when I hear, when, if I were to hear that, uh, playing an audition, just like, okay, first take 30 seconds. Okay, second, take 60 seconds, or whatever the case is mm-hmm.
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. And something else that's good about that is if you can't decipher what the client wants because their d their directions are, are unclear or they haven't given directions, then if you only give one take, there's, you're much less likely of, of nailing what the client wants. So way, if the client hears the beginning of take one and they say, oh, no, no, it's too fast, then they know upfront to listen to the end and hear a second take. Mm-hmm. , um, words of advice though, for voice actors, leave very little space between the end of your slate and take one like a half second at most. Mm-hmm. , and then at the end of take one and going into take two, half second, just move them right along, no dead space.
(41:57):
Yes. That, that's key. We listen to a lot of auditions where number one, the slating takes five to 10 seconds and it's far too long, and then there's an awkward pause. It's sort of like if you're at an awkward Christmas dinner and no one knows what to say and there's just that awkwardness that happens. Drum roll, please. Yes. It happens in so many auditions and I just, I I wish I could splice out that, that dead air. So that's a great point. Okay. We've heard all five auditions and now we'll ask our audio producer Jeff to add a drum roll.
(42:36):
Congratulations. You've won a five day getaway for two to anywhere you choose. Where do you think you'll go? Oh, um, so much pressure. So many places to choose from. I have to decide right now. We've always wanted to go to Paris. No, Australia, no Iceland. It sounds like you first need to visit the center of travel.com. Compare prices of vacation packages from all over the world in one place. Book flights, all inclusive resorts, car rentals, and more through the center of travel.com design your dream vacation today book through the center of travel.com.
(43:08):
I like person number three, and of these five, I would go with person number three. Let me tell you why I think that person number three has it. Because assuming that this is sort of a, a phone call conversation where the, the game announcer is calling the, the winner, I can't imagine a world in which someone would get on the phone and say, congrat when someone answers the phone. Like, hello, congrats. It's just, that's too much in a phone call. I hang
(43:36):
Up on them
(43:37):
. Yeah. You think it's like a call it be
(43:38):
Spam at this point.
(43:40):
So if there's, and radi, so here's the thing to think about. This is radio. So there's no imagery to convey
the point when it comes to radio. We rely on sound effects to, to paint the picture right, to conjure, to
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help the listener conjure up a mental image of what's going on. So it sounds very stereotypical, but it probably would be the case that there'd be a sound of a phone ringing. So when the, the game the, uh, the winner, the participant of, of the, the game show con, the contestant answers the phone, they hear the congratulations, the woman sounds more believable, be she, because she didn't do that, that like, that overly energetic, elongated congratulations that the Yeah, the guys did. So I think that, that, for that alone, I would go with her and this woman already is talking more, more personally, more one-on- one. So yeah, I, I would go with her.
(44:36):
Okay. Thank you. Well, that's a wrap. Thank you all so much for tuning into Mission Audition. We hope that this episode has really helped you learn more on six ways to win an audition so you can start leveling up and nailing your auditions. David, can you tell us how can people get in touch with you?
(44:51):
Yeah, uh, they can email me directly. My email is david edge studio.com.
(44:57):
So if you're looking to enhance your skills, we do offer a wide range of scripts for you to practice, including today's script all [email protected] slash blog. If you need more resources from David, please feel free to connect with him.
(45:10):
Amazing. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Mission Audition. I'm Vanessa and I'm here with
my incredible co-host, Tara. We're wrapping up, but stay tuned for next month's episode.
(45:22):
See you next time. And happy auditioning.
(45:26):
Oh so much, David.