Acting Your Way Into a Soft Sell with Sarah Troyer

A hard sell is a script that is very product focused. It's all information. What is the product? What does it do? What are the features of the product? What's the cost? A soft sell. So they're using the sell of telling a story and selling a feeling. If you wanna go to the extreme Perfume commercials are such a perfect example, . Yes, they are. Oh my gosh, wear this perfume and you'll be this, you know, model in France, dancing around and on the back of these little, you know, but they're trying to sell a, a feeling.
(00:38):
Welcome everyone to today's episode of Mission Audition. Thank you 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 Vanessa, community Manager, and I'm joined by my co-host Tara, senior Manager, brand Communications.
(00:57):
Hello everyone. Today's topic is ABC's, A voiceover with our lovely coach, Sarah Troyer. Sarah is a highly experienced and versatile performer with almost 20 years of experience in the performing arts industry. She is an accomplished voice actor, film actress, VO instructor, and has been working with VO casting for over five years. She's voiced hundreds of commercials, including Best Buy, McDonald's, visa, and many more. Sarah has dedicated her time in building strong relationships with those in the industry through casting assistant work, and most recently founding her own company, Vancouver Voice. Welcome to the show, Sarah.
(01:37):
Hi. Thanks for having me.
(01:40):
So, Sarah, before we get started, can you just share what are the ABCs of voiceover?
(01:44):
Oh my gosh, yes. I love the ABCs. It's my favorite little checklist to go through with my students. And it's just really essentially script analysis. It's how we can as I said, a checklist, go through it and, and make sure we're covering all our bases and connecting with the text better. So, A is our audience. B is backstory, C is character, D is desires in the film world, we often say objectives, but yeah, what are, what is our character? Desiring? E is energy, F is fun, focus, forget and fun. And then G is the gamble. So we don't have the full 26 letters, but up, up to G. Yeah,
(02:20):
. That's awesome. Thanks so much for sharing that. Yeah. All right. Is everyone ready to dive
into today's episode?
(02:26): Let's do it.
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Page 1 of 16

Perfect. Let's get into the artistic direction. Tara, lead us off.
(02:31):
Okay. So for this script, it is from upside down Flowers and Upside Down Flowers is a flower shop that started in New Jersey and has now opened several locations across North America. Upside down flowers has recently added a premier delivery service, and they wanna make current and new customers aware of this service. So the art direction reads, the listeners should be engaged and curious enough about the new service to call and find out more information. A soft cell read should be done in an engaging and enticing way. So, I don't know about you, Sarah, but I felt like this was a challenging script. Mm-Hmm. , and I think voice actors will probably be faced with this often, because yeah, not everyone is, is a professional script writer. There are some mom and pop shops. Mm-Hmm. . So let's just start this off. We'll play the first audition, and then I'm so curious to get your feedback, because this was a tough one.
(03:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
(03:30):
Agreed. Oh, let's get into audition number one.
(03:34):
Okay. Here's a version of your script. The first does have music with it, and then it's followed by just the dry vo. If you need it to sound different in any way, that's always an easy fix. Just reach out, getting married this year, wanna send that special someone a special surprise, whatever the event, upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down flowers getting married this year. Wanna send that special someone a special surprise. Whatever the event, upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down flowers.
(04:32):
What a refreshing and creative audition, in my opinion. Mm-Hmm. , let's get right into it.
What are your thoughts, Sarah?
(04:39):
I mean, right off the bat, fantastic voice. Like they, he obviously knows how to use it. It's enjoyable to listen to. But yeah, it kind of ties back into that difficult direction of hard sell, soft sell. What are they wanting? And I, I think before we even get into too much, I think we need to differentiate what a hard sell is versus a soft sell for everybody. A hard sell is a script that is very product focused. It's all information. What is the product? What does it do? What are the features of the product? What's the cost? If there's a sale, what's the sale? How long is it? So very hard hitting, very informational based, a soft sell. So they're using the sell of telling a story and selling a feeling. If we wanna go to the extreme Perfume commercials are such a perfect example, , yes, they are.
(05:29):

Oh my gosh, wear this perfume and you'll be this, you know, model in France, prancing around and on the back of these little, you know but they're trying to sell a, a feeling. So that's really hard. That's what's hard about this script, is that it is so informational based, but they don't want it to sound like an announcer. So with that, to tie it into the ABCs, that's where we really wanna bring in that character work. But imagining like, who are we, who are we talking to, and trying to find a very conversational place. And I, I do think we, we were in a conversational place at times in his second read. We, we got into the announcer, you know, sometimes we play around with forced commas. Like we throw a comma in there and we think we're sounding cheeky, or we think we're sounding conversational, but it does feel very put on. So the number one thing with a conversa, when I hear soft sell and it's written like a hard slide, I just go, just try to go conversational. Don't try to emphasize any words, just try to sound like a real person talking to a friend. So I mean, music always helps you. So he definitely, I mean, I dunno, for from the Voices team, do you guys like having music at the back in the background, or do you prefer it to be clear?
(06:38):
That's a tough one. So sometimes it takes away from the actual read mm-hmm. if the music is too loud. Mm-Hmm. , other times I feel like if, if the, the voice actor isn't fully in character, or they seem a little monotone or a bit boring, the music actually amplifies their auditions. So it makes me wanna listen more.
(07:02):
Yeah. Yeah. So it can work in either way. So I think the music really worked in his favor. I agree in the first take. And then, but once we took the music away, it did feel very announcer in the second take. So either keep the music there, or, or in a second take, really trying to find a way to, to sound a little bit more conversational. So again, Ty, tying it into character work, thinking of who your audience is. We can play around with like, lead in lines where someone else did that, which when we get there, I'll talk about lead in lines a little bit more. Yes, mm-hmm. , and that can help us feel more conversational. But yeah, I, I mean, not a clear winner, but yeah, great voice, great performance. Obviously he's very good tech-wise, so,
(07:45):
And even like the beginning, it wasn't him really slating it per se, but I feel like what he said was kind of
giving us a heads up. Mm-Hmm. , do you recommend that? Did you like that?
(07:56):
You know, I, I have agents in the us. I have agents in Canada, and then voice. I just feel like everything is its own industry sometimes. And so in Canada, in Vancouver, at least, like, you slate all the time, unless you're told otherwise. In the States, I rarely slate. It's like, they don't care anymore. They just want you to get into it. Your, your file's labeled so they know it's you. And so with Voices, I kind of just started taking on at most it telling people if I was doing multiple takes to get, you know, be like, please listen to my second take if you didn't like my first one, . So I think he could have just made it a little bit briefer, a little bit more like, to the point. But I think because we're dealing with mom and pop shops a lot of the time, the more information we can give them this might be a new process for them. So without taking too much time, but explaining what you're doing, I think that can be helpful for sure.
(08:48):

Yeah. That's so interesting what you say about the slating Yeah. Based on a different country. Yeah. Because we find, although we're based in Canada, voices is based in Canada, we have so many voice actors and clients that are from the US mm-hmm. , so we're heavily dominated by the US so we actually recommend not to slate, but I did appreciate in this audition, like Vanessa said, he gave more of a heads up. Yeah. So it wasn't a, hi, my name is Terra . Yes, exactly. And then coming back to that music piece, I feel like because this is a mom and pop shop, and it may not be their forte to, they're not hiring a voice actor all the time mm-hmm. , that music may really have helped them put the whole branding piece together. Yeah. And it would've been a, a real, probably like a plus one for them. Yeah.
(09:38):
It's, it could be strategic for sure. If you feel comfortable adding music and you know, it's a mom and pop shop. If it was, you know, I did a Capital One project with you guys couple years ago, and like, I absolutely not, I would not be putting music behind a Capital One right's a time and place, but place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a time and place for sure. Yeah.
(09:56):
Okay. Amazing. Well, let's jump into our second audition. Okay.
(10:00):
Getting married this year. Want to send that special someone a special surprise, whatever the event, up upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand-cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down flowers.
(10:22):
So I thought she had a very friendly personality. She was more on the bright side. What were your
thoughts on that?
(10:29):
Yeah, I mean again, I feel always good to put a smile on your face instantly makes us sound warm and friendly. So if you ever see those adjectives in a casting, like instantly put the smile on your face. I think she lent a little too far into it. You know, there was a little bit of a giggle in the voice. Maybe that's what you were talking about, Tara. Like, there's just a little bit of a sharpness to it. Which I would just warn people to be too. Pick, pick and choose your moments for a giggle in the voice, because it can be really strong in a, in the right moment. But if we have too much of a smile and a giggle to the voice all the way through, it can start to feel a little bit forced and take us back into that announcer place, which they didn't want.
(11:09):
Right. They wanted a softer cell. So I love that she had the smile on her face. I would just tell her, take the giggle outta the voice and just maybe again, think of where who you are. Are you sitting next to a friend and maybe you're just having coffee and you're going, oh yeah, you know, this flower shop. I love it. You know, if you have a special somebody that you need flowers for, you can kind of imagine it. And it it brings it to a more intimate place that really works well with my students when I go think the person

sitting literally right next to you and talk to them like they're right next to you. I think that would really
help.
(11:39):
Yeah. We've had some coaches that like, have said that, like, they're just like, I pretend like I'm talking to my sibling. Mm-Hmm. Mm-hmm. or a friend, and it's like, how would you actually tell your friend? You wouldn't like, just be like saying it so monotone or whatever the case is, you'd like listen or whatever, depending on the script, but you'd be like, let me tell you about this. Yeah. so do you do that often? You said you'd tell your students that for Yeah.
(12:03):
Yeah. I think that's the big one. I, I also talk about you mentioned something about monotone there, Vanessa, and that I think that was a really big struggle. You know, this vocal trend that we're in right now is the conversational vocal trend. Mm-Hmm. Before, you know, during Covid was this very caring, we care about you. And then before that we kind of had more hard cells. It was easier mm-hmm. To just, you know, voice actors. We were just like, oh, this brand, I know what kind of voice they need to put on. You know? Right. We kind of were able to get away with that, whether now there, there is so much bringing it into an intimate place and thinking of who you're talking to. But with that, sometimes people overcorrect and they go monotone and they don't emphasize anything. And so, a hard cell, I'd say there's a lot of emphasizing soft cell.
(12:45):
I like to use the words noticing, noticing words or coloring words, so that sometimes when we mimic what the word actually is, so if it's like thin and light, we might go thin and light. Like we might just do like a little something to it. So that those were ways that we can still make the script interesting without emphasizing. So just a slight notice of it. If we were gonna throw in commas where there aren't commas, she did that a couple times. Again, making it just the briefest of commas as opposed to a real hit comma. Those are all things that we can do where we're still playing with script without being an announcer with it.
(13:20):
And how about the audio quality on this one? Like how did you find the audio for this, this audition?
(13:26):
I, I thought it was fine. Nothing peeked out to me. Okay. I mean, there was a little bit of sharpness, as
Tara was saying. But yeah, nothing that would make me go, like, I don't wanna book her or anything like
(13:38):
That. So more so focused on like, the giggle, kind of taking it back
(13:41):
A bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah. Love that she put a smile, just yeah. Take the giggle out of the voice and choose a moment where they, we could throw a little bit of a, you know, right at the end of like, we got you covered. No worries. Throw this, throw the giggle in there. That would be a really nice spot.
(13:55):
Do some coloring. I like that. Yes.
(13:56): It,
(13:57):
I'm gonna use that coloring
(13:59):
Perfect. Here. Do you have any other comments?
(14:02):
No, I'm ta I'm writing down coloring, cuz I'm gonna use, I'm gonna try to put that in meetings now. Yes.
I'm gonna use coloring in meetings.
(14:08):
Okay. Perfect. Let's move on to audition number three.
(14:13):
Getting married this year. Want to send that special someone a special surprise. Whatever the event, upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down flowers.
(14:34):
Such a fun one. It
(14:35):
Is such a fun one. Yeah.
(14:36):
Yeah. This was a fun one. Mm-Hmm. . So I definitely got a cinematic feeling to this one.
Yes. Yeah.
(14:42):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. So it's so funny. You know, as I was saying, announcer, announcer Hugh very much was in the announcer, but there was something about his performance that there was, he hid all the right spots. There was a casualness to it, and put a big smile on my face listening to it right away. So there was something to it that even though I'd say he was quite in the announcer realm, whatever he did, it just kind of, it felt like, yeah, I wanna listen to this and yeah, I wanna go try these flowers. Yeah. You know?
(15:09):

Yeah. Yeah. I felt like he was very real, like mm-hmm. , although he did have that, that cinematic feel. He was capturing me with his voice. Yeah. Like his voice was drawing me in to listen to more mm-hmm.
(15:20):
. Yeah. I think, I think that was a really good example of that balance of putting a smile to the voice, but not pushing it too hard. And it was a very warm, welcoming feel of like, come on in, come have some try our flowers. . Right. So I do. Yeah. I think, I think he was in the announcer world, but every other little aspect to it worked in his favor. So I would be like, yeah, I, I like that. Even though it was more announcer. I think that was great. I wanna hear more ,
(15:45):
It sounds like. Maybe a, a top pick for you. Yeah. Who
(15:49):
Knows? I think so. .
(15:51):
Ooh. A little spoiler alert maybe.
(15:53): Yeah.
(15:54):
Maybe I might have been it away. Yeah. And like the little like little breath feel at the end when he said
like, the word surprise and Yeah.
(16:03):
Yeah. He had a lot of nice, like a little bit of a vocal grind or Yeah. Airiness at the end of some of his
words that Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was a really nice voice.
(16:12):
Yeah. So all good things. Do we have any critical feedback for this one?
(16:17):
I would say, and this is a note for everyone, you know, we do have the luxury of giving multiple takes in an audition for Vancouver and the States, depending on the size of the script, if it's a very short script, maybe three, three. But I'd always say give two unless you feel really good that you nailed it in the one. But this is a perfect example where it's a hard sell. They want it to sound like a soft cell. Obviously what he just did was fantastic. But I would say just to cover his bases, do a second take and just really lean into a conversational, talking to someone as if they're sitting right next to you kind of feel. Yeah. And then that way yeah, you've covered your bases and whichever way the caster wants to go, you've, you've shown that you can do both.
(17:01):
And I think that's key too. When we hear in our short list, like two takes, they often sound the same. Oh yeah,
(17:08):
Yeah. Don't do that. So .
(17:10):
Yes. So don't
(17:11):
Do that. Why not to do in an audition?
(17:12):
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, you know, it is different in the animation world too, versus the commercial world, but within commercial world, they can be similar, but they should sound different. And just because you went up on one word and down on the other, that's not enough of a difference. So it's, you know, either focusing, if there's multiple adjectives maybe, you know what this, this take, I'm gonna be really confident, but then in this take I'm gonna be very warm and and inviting. Those are two different ways we can make our take sound differently. And that if it's animation we do, if we're giving a second take, you know, different voice, different acting choices, we can make them even more drastically different.
(17:50):
Yeah. Like a personality change basically.
(17:52): . Yes.
(17:52):
Yeah. Okay. Perfect. That was some, that was a good one. That
(17:56):
Was, I know, I, it, it was so interesting. Listen, listening to it a second time mm-hmm. , because we obviously listen to anyone that doesn't know. We listen to every audition that comes in through mission audition, and from there we create a short list and then we collaborate with each coach every month on who are our top five auditions that we wanna showcase. And I feel like this audition stuck out so much more to me as we're recording. It did versus when I was originally listening to it. So
(18:26):
True. Yeah. I'm sure it can be overwhelming for you guys when you get like 50 auditions and you're like,
I don't know anymore. . (18:31):

. Yeah. Sometimes we will have audition our, our shortlist, you know, they might be 15 people. And from there we Wow. Bring, we will cut two out, then we cut two more, then we cut two more. And so it's definitely a process and, and it takes quite a bit of time. Mm-Hmm. , sometimes we meet multiple times about it, or one of us creates the first shortlist and then two other people join in and then we talk to the coach. Is that your process too, when you're, if, if you're hiring for a role what's your shortlist process?
(19:04):
Well, I, I haven't had the opportunity to really be a part of that process. So I, I help a lot with, I communicate a lot with casting. I help them find talent. So I'm not the one making the choices. Thank God. I don't know if I, I'm there yet. that just seems so hard cuz you just wanna give it to everybody. Maybe this is
(19:22):
Good practice. Yeah,
(19:23):
Yeah. No, it's really, really fun. And yeah, it's, it's been really interesting to watch casting directors work on how they narrow it down. I think that's part of the skill of a casting director is really knowing what the client wants and they can, you know, within five seconds they know it. And if somebody's on the, on the cusp, they'll listen further and they'll kind of go, you know, they'll verbalize what they're looking for in it. So it is really interesting to watch them work and yeah, it can be, it can be really tough, especially, you know, depending on the project when it's the big money projects, you're like auditioning a hundred, 200 people , you're like,
(19:59): Yes.
(20:00):
How does it not all start to sound the same? I think, I think it's good to, yeah. I think it's great that you guys work as a team so that there's multiple ears you're coming back to it. Right. Because that can be the, I tell people like, sometimes it is a bit of a lottery ticket of just how the casting director was feeling that day. Like, were you right before lunch and they were just wanted to get it over with then, you know. Yeah. Or were you like right after lunch when they were feeling all happy and like ready to sit back and listen. You know, it's just
(20:25):
Sometimes it's interesting. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I find that when we listen, cuz it's three of us, we all have different points each time we do. Yeah. So it's like, almost like we're just like three clients sitting in a room and we're all like, where some of us are like, yeah, I like this one. I'm like, mm. Didn't love this one. And then it's like, okay, let's talk about it. But it's just interesting how we have different opinions. Yeah, yeah. In that sense, and I mean, I'm an expert, but it's like, even like little things like audio, I can kind of pick up those things as someone who's not an expert. Yeah. But then asking you or any coach in a mission audition and like, getting the feedback from there is nice to hear mm-hmm. , you know, and it's, it helps us learn too. So
(21:02):
Yeah. For sure. It takes multiple brains.
(21:05):
. Yeah. And I, I mean, we're very strategic at voices where myself, I wear a, I wear the brand hat. Vanessa wears the social hat, and then we have our, our audio producer, Jeff, who of course wears the audio producer hat. Yeah. So we all come into a room and like Vanessa said, we all are looking for different things mm-hmm. , but at the end of the day, we have the same goal of representing our brand in the best way. So we also learn a lot from each other too, which is really cool on the casting side, which I'm sure for you is really neat too, because you're hearing all these different voices mm-hmm. and you're getting to coach them and you can tell two voice actors the exact same piece of advice, but then they put their own spin on it. Yes. So they can come back to you with totally different sounds.
(21:51):
Yeah. It's always really good. I like the idea of like, best ideal wins and sometimes you give a direction and as you said, an actor will go in a different direction with it mm-hmm. , but then you're like, wow, that worked, like, awesome. Okay. Whatever that was, let's keep that and let's keep moving. You know, you just get to move on from it. And I do recommend everybody if they can try a little bit of casting assistant or get into full-time casting. Obviously everybody wants to do full-time casting, but you learn so much. I, I think I became a better voice actor when I became a teacher because I started viewing it from a director lens and then starting getting into casting, I was like, okay. Casting director lens, not just an actor lens. And you're seeing all the different sides of it and what people are wanting. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool.
(22:31):
That's amazing.
(22:32):
That's great. That's so interesting.
(22:35):
Okay. Well that was amazing feedback. I loved that. Yeah. Terry, did you love that?
(22:39):
I'm learning so much. This is so great, Sarah. I'm so excited for you to be on the show. Thanks
(22:43): Guys.
(22:44):
It's all about mission audition. Okay, let's get into audition number four.
(22:50):

Hey, getting married this year. Wanna send that special someone a special surprise? Whatever the event, upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down Flo, get yours today.
(23:14):
All right. Okay. Sarah, we're gonna throw this right to you. Okay.
(23:17):
What are your
(23:17):
Thoughts on this one? Alright,
(23:19):
Love a lead in line. He also did an exit line, you know, kind of made it your own. I always say how do I wanna word this? You can have a little flexibility with scripts as long as it's short. Obviously with, with commercial scripts especially, we've got a timeframe we always have to be aware of, right? Mm-Hmm. time is money. Mm-Hmm. . If it's animation, I say, you know, have fun with a little
(23:41):
Improv. I love that. Time is money. Time
(23:42):
Is money for them.
(23:44):
noted. Write that down, everyone listening. Time is money.
(23:47):
Yeah. Beca Yeah. Check your time at the end. I always say that should be the last step cuz I, my students sometimes when I tell tell them about timing, then they just worry about being, you know, reading quickly. And I go, no, no, get the performance first and then check in and make sure that you're within the timeframe. But yeah, a little lead in like a, you know, like, hey, like that instantly feels warm and welcoming. Sometimes like a did you know, or, you know, anything that helps you feel conversational is great. Sometimes we can cut that out and we don't need it. And then like a little, Hey, that's nice, keep that in. And then he added a little something at the end. I would never take away from a script for anybody who feels like they wanna improv a little bit.
(24:25):
Don't take away from a script, but like little things like that. Again, if it's not overpowering the script or you're taking away from it or just trying to be funny, as long as it's fitting to the script, I say go for it. I so yeah, I liked, he sounded very warm right off the top of it. But I would say he has such a fun voice. Like I could totally see him doing animation and I think that's, that maybe his voice just didn't match the spot.

He kind of reminded me of like Sonic the Hedgehog a little bit. Like I could just totally see him doing
cartoons and everything like that. I bet he does do. That's
(24:59): Great. That's a
(24:59):
Compliment. Yeah, no, great compliment. He's a phenomenal voice, but I think that's gonna be this thing that he'll have to work with to sound genuinely warm because he has such a fun, fun voice. He's just gonna have to work a little bit harder to sound warmer. And he did get in a little bit of a staccato read and that takes us out of announcement that No, like, we don't talk staccato to each other. Yeah, exactly. You know, it instantly makes us not sound conversational. So I think for him, I would just say pull back on the smile. Think of someone Yeah. Who are, are you talking to? Think they're sitting right next to you? Find a personal connection. I think for people like brothers or best friends, you know, instead of being like, I'm a, I'm a clerk at a grocery store talking to a customer, , just trying to make it as personal as possible. Yeah. yeah, I think that would really help him. I think the staccato was just, what stuck out to me is it just didn't feel, it just felt a little robotic. But yeah, I could totally see him doing a lot of animation. He just has a lot of, there's a lot of cool quality to his voice.
(26:02):
It's interesting. I just wanna jump back to the script quickly mm-hmm. , because it's, I'm so happy that you said feel free to add a little bit to the script, but don't take away mm-hmm. because even for the auditions that I've listened to at Voices with Mission Auditioner, even branding projects will, will of course use our platform as much as we can to hire our voice talent. And I have found at times they will maybe change words where they're taking away mm-hmm. and on our side we've had many meetings. We've been very strategic. Yes. Like I've said in the past about that script mm-hmm. and whether it's two sentences or two paragraphs, it is perfectly timed. There are storyboards, there is so much work that went into that. So it's a big frustration when words are taken away from the script. So I'm so happy you said that.
(26:54):
Yeah. Yeah. I say to my students like, don't take away cuz Exactly. That. There's so many meetings, so many rewrites, so many, like that's a quick way to off the writers , you know, you're like, oh, I just lost a job cuz the writer hates me. .
(27:07):
Yeah. And at the end of the day, it's their job to know the client, right? Mm-Hmm.
(27:11): Mm-Hmm.
(27:11):
some clients, I mean, hey, they might like that, but yeah. I mean, majority probably wouldn't, who knows? Yeah. I guess you just kind of have to go into it reading the script, but then trying to be different as well. Right?
(27:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Make smart choices, I think don't add stuff, you know, don't, don't fall into the pitfall of I'm just gonna be different. Yeah. Like, do the character work. Think of your audience, think of the brand. Yeah. Like does it actually fit the spot, the stuff that you're at? Come to the table with something, just don't come in as an editor and take stuff away. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
(27:46):
Yeah. And it's very much like audition number three where we heard that cinematic voice. Mm-Hmm. where just his voice in general was so unique that he already stood out to us. So he was putting his own flare mm-hmm. , but keeping the words the same. But it's like that personality came through his voice For sure. Which is what I want as a casting director is I want you to stick to the script, but just bring your own flare.
(28:11):
Yeah. It sounds so cheesy, but like, nobody can be you and that's what will make you unique is your own interpretation of the script and the own your own decisions of what you wanna add. Yeah. Mm-hmm. .
(28:22):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
(28:24):
Okay, before we move on, do you have any other feedback for this audition, Sarah?
(28:28):
No. I think just for him, I, I think just finding, working on the conversational, smoothing out, smoothing it
out when I say that I've just avoid the staccato feel and yeah. I think he'll find a good place. Yeah.
(28:39):
Okay. That's amazing. So last audition, let's get into it.
(28:43):
Getting married this year, want to send that special someone a special surprise. Whatever the event, upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with up upside down flowers. Take two. Getting married this year, want to send that special someone a special surprise. Whatever the event, upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down flowers.
(29:41):
Okay, let's get right into this. I'm gonna do some pointers myself. Yes. You could tell that she might not be in an isolated room or booth. Mm-Hmm. . It sounded a little bit echoey, a little quiet as well, but what are your thoughts?
(29:56):
Yeah, I mean that's, it's so hard with voices, obviously the technical side is quite important because they're gonna be working outta that booth, so you wanna make sure mouth noises. It's so tough when you're just having a day, you're like a little bit more dehydrated. Mm-Hmm. . So yeah, for everybody, you know, do a, do a quick pass through after you're done recording and see if there's anything you can edit out. Apple juice is a really good thing to drink. If you're having mouth noises or something in the apple, like, or eating an apple, there's just like, yes, hydrates the mouth. Don't do oil. I used to try to switch with coconut oil cause I was like, it's lubricating for whatever reason, it doesn't work. Apple juice seems to be an industry standard. But overall just, you know, hard for everyone but just hydrate.
(30:41):
Cuz even though if you're dehydrating you try to catch up on the day, it just, it's more like if were you dehydrated the day before? Did you drink water the day before? It's gonna affect you today. So yeah, that's, yeah, I didn't notice it too, too much. So I think she probably could have just edited it a little bit out. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . and then, yeah, her stuff wasn't as crisp and clear, so I bet you it was just something around the mic that she just needs to play around with. Or maybe just get a little bit closer, a little, a little hand. You know, you wanna be a little bit closer, but not too close. Yeah, I, I really liked she did find a conversational place. We were just lacking a little bit of energy in that first take, which then she found in the second take where she had a little bit of personality and she was excited to talk about flowers. So I think she found that that happy medium of, of energy and excitement to talk about it without pushing it too far. Yeah.
(31:36):
And that's a perfect example of different, two different readings, two different takes,
(31:39):
Right? Yes, yes. Two different takes, which is fantastic cuz yeah, if they were wanting just a little bit of a, you know, thinking of the different type of music, maybe it's like slow violins, like her first take would've been great. And then the second take was just a little bit more exciting and hey, special day come, come buy our flowers. She fell a little bit into the pitfall as well of the staccato. It was just in moments it was less so than the last one. I would say that's the biggest one for everyone is just try to avoid that staccato or like, putting commas where there doesn't really need to be commas. Seeing if you can smooth it out. I think we, we, a lot of us have quite musical ears, so we like to put those little, like breaks in the script cuz it to our ear musically. It sounds nice, but when we're going conversational we can just, you know, just read through it. You don't wanna rush through it, but you can just keep keep it going.
(32:28):
That's such great feedback. Okay. So thank you so much, Sarah for all of your feedback. That was so
great. Mm-Hmm. colorful. Colorful is sticking in my mind.
(32:37):
I really noticing Yeah. All those,
(32:39):

Yeah. I'm so excited for it. Okay. So it's time for us to choose a winner. Oh. So Sarah, which audition
number are you choosing to be the winner for this? Read?
(32:51):
No, this is where Jeff would put the dress. This is, yeah, this is tough. I mean, it is. Yeah. I I mean, if I was helping out with casting, it was a gender open audition, I would give a, a male and a female option. And so my winners were audition three and five. Yeah. Ooh. Yes.
(33:12):
Okay. So if you had to choose one of them, oh gosh, between three and five. I know, it's hard. It's really
hard questions today. Yeah.
(33:19): Yeah.
(33:19):
If you had to choose only one between three and five, who would you choose?
(33:23):
I think I know that I would go with
(33:33):
Getting married this year. Want to send that special someone a special surprise, whatever the event. Upside down flowers will ensure that any day is made special with the best hand cut flowers in town. Call us today and grab some great flowers to turn any event into a happy one. Turn any frown upside down with upside down flowers.
(33:54):
There was just right instant engagement. And that's essentially what you want from your marketing material, right? Is that it instantly draws in the listener. And even though he was a little bit on the announcer side, as we said, which might sound so counterintuitive or yeah, counterintuitive what we said with other people's auditions, they're gonna be like, what the heck? But there was just something warm and inviting and I wanted to hear more from him. And that's tough to do, right? Like, people hate ads, they hate them, they'll turn them off on the radio, they'll, they'll skip them on YouTube. So if you can have a voice that makes somebody wanna pause and listen to it, that's the voice you gotta go, go with. And that was voice number three. Yeah. Voice number three. Congratulations.
(34:35):
Oh, I, I'm excited because as I said earlier in the podcast, that voice really stood out to me, especially while recording this episode. Mm-Hmm. . So I, I'm super excited to see that it was number three. Although they were all really good auditions. They were. And you gave
(34:49): Were
(34:49):
Yes. You gave such good feedback. So thank you so much for that. Thank you. We hope that this episode has really helped you learn more on the ABC's a voiceover so you can start leveling up and nailing your auditions. Sarah, how can talent get in touch with you?
(35:02):
Yeah they can follow me on Instagram, which is sarah underscore troyer or shoot me an email vo with sarah gmail.com. I really love coaching people. It's my favorite thing. So if anybody ever wants help with their auditions I would love to help them out. Perfect. Do you have a website or anything or is it all Oh yeah, I should say that too. Sarah troyer.com. .
(35:25):
Perfect. We want all the ways to get ahold of you. Amazing. 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. They are all [email protected] slash blog. And if you need any more resources from Sarah, feel free to reach out with her, connect with her on Instagram, send her an email, head over to her website, all the ways she's available for helping you.
(35:51):
Okay. Perfect. Thank you for tuning in to 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.
(36:02):
See you next time. And happy auditioning.
(36:04):
Happy auditioning. Thank you Sarah. Yay.
(36:08):