Voice Over Play by Play with Melissa Moats

Participant #1:
Problems need to sound like problems, and solutions need to sound like solutions. And this talent did such a beautiful job of sliding from it's. Awesome.

Participant #1:
Welcome, everyone, to today's episode of Mission Audition. Thank you so much for joining us here. Today Mission Audition is the Voiceover podcast, where we get to listen to real auditions from Voices.com members, and we also get to hear feedback from world class voiceover coaches. My name is Evan Webb. I'm a senior account manager here at Voices, and I'm joined by my amazing cohost, Vanessa Vuchi, community manager here at Voices. Okay, so today's topic is on live directed sessions, winning performances, and five star customer service with Melissa Mozz. Melissa is committed to guiding up and coming talent toward finding their own success as a full time voice actor and the creator of the Voice Actors Studio in Las Vegas. You have been hearing Melissa's voice for over two decades on everything from The Ellen Show to video games to national television commercials for major household brands. She is also a published children's author. We have been working with Melissa for over eight years now here at Voices, and we are thrilled to have her on our podcast. Welcome, Melissa. Hey. Hey. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Great to have you. Thank you. Wonderful. Well, Melissa, this is pretty exciting. Ready to dive into the auditions? Here I am. So, for today's job, this is a bit of a familiar explainer video script, and the actor really here is meant to provoke interest about a new software, and it's all about urging audiences to visit this week Equilibrium. If I could even say that right. That's the brand name website and then download the app. So that's what the background to this job is. The artistic direction is as follows. So this is a narrator role. It should sound like a trusted peer and a knowledgeable expert. So balancing those two things, the actor is eager to announce this new software to the world because they themselves are all too familiar with the struggle of balancing work and leisure. So, that being said, we did invite all the town to put their own spin on the creative direction, and we're really looking for someone here who can bring their own distinct personality to the script. So that is the background to the job. And with that in mind, let's do our first audition work life balance. Three tiny words, an impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all of your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotions? Introducing We Equilibrium, a productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. Perfect. Okay, let's get right into it. What are your thoughts? Well, I absolutely loved the relatable, wise, practical and experienced just read style that this talent brought. And also really nice melody in the read, clean enunciation. But for me, a little too clean in places. Some of the words, especially toward the end, were a little overarticulated. And for me, articulation and enunciation is kind of a tricky thing. If you're going to be really crisp and clean with a read, it should be consistent throughout the entire performance. In this case, it was more relaxed in some areas and a little extra crisp in other areas. So the consistency thing was something that could really, or inconsistency, I should say, caught my ear. The word productivity, in my opinion too, could have been hit more than the word app because we're describing that this is a productivity app. Weak equilibrium. What a tough client, right? She did a beautiful job with saying we equilibrium and really showing off the client's name. But what equilibrium is, is a productivity app. And in this case she said productivity app. And I think the emphasis point was just a little bit off kilter for me. I would have preferred more of a productivity app. You know, what kind of app? Productivity app. And then at the end I felt like the huge beat between Wequilbrium.com today felt a little contrived and it just would have been nice to hear it just kind of flow out in the end the way that the rest of the read flowed. So I'm being a little nitpicky, but I feel like that's my job today. That's fair. But all in all, I really loved how much this talent brought that voice of practicality and reason and still friendly. Really nice overall. So those are kind of my thoughts to start. Absolutely. That's great. One thing I love about your feedback is that a lot of that is great feedback for a live directed session. So many things in there. You could let the talent know a little tweak here and there and then run the whole thing back. So that's great. One tiny note for me on a quality perspective, because audio quality is still it's got to be there to book the job. There is that slight noise floor if you go back and play the audition on your own, but there is that slight hiss of a noise floor. Maybe it's digital noise or something. So there might be something in the studio there that just needs that last bit of fine tuning. Not sure quite what it is, but it's a bit of a bit of a hiss there. Other than that, I also loved it. I thought it was very authentic read. I think you hit it on the nail there. Melissa, what would be, I guess, just your top advice for this audition specifically? I mean, all in all, I think that this audition was really great and this talent in a live directed session could just make a couple of weeks to the performance just based on the director's notes and I have no doubt that this read would be dialed in to their liking. Very confident in the performance. The read sounded good. I really, really appreciated the performance and everything that this talent brought to the reed. It's just those few little minor edits that I mentioned that I think were kind of like the little points that stood out to me. Yeah. Sounds like it's super close to where it needs to be. Yeah. Okay, let's get into the second audition. Work life balance. Three tiny words. An impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all of your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotions. Introducing We Equilibrium, a productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. Alright, let's dive into this one. What are your thoughts? I really enjoyed this performance. The notes that I have are this talent gets it. She struggles with this personally and she we believe it. She made me feel like she gets it and she gets me and then I get it. I also really appreciate it. A couple of other little things, such as her voice is very youthful. There's a nice subtle texture to her voice that I just personally appreciate. She sounds like she could be like the cool art teacher. Someone you ask for advice, you know, and there wasn't too much melody or sing song. It was like an effortless understated vibe. And everything was done with subtlety, which I really appreciate because that's a fine art, is to approach a read and still be super subtle. Also, one of the things I really liked about the read was the transition. Problems need to sound like problems and solutions need to sound like solutions. And this talent did such a beautiful job of sliding from Ugh to Equilibrium. It's awesome. There was a really nice shift there when she introduced the client and didn't sell us too hard. Less is more. And it was a home run for me, for Believability. Yeah, very simple but convincing. And I also noticed even like from the last audition too, and when she said the app and then this one, she said, it definitely a little bit slower, but like, same tone, same pace. So I could see the difference there as well. Yeah, nothing was too punchy. I think sometimes talent, they see opportunities for words that they want to quote, unquote hit. But it needs to be done with like a light brushstroke as opposed to fan, you know, like productivity app, you know, or it's just done with a lot of subtlety. And that's hard. It's hard to do to make the emphasis, but not so too carried away. So on that note of subtlety, what is something that you work with when you're working with students and the notes are too dramatic. How do we pull that back when we're working with oneonone session or even in a live directed session? I've got two little tricks for it. One would be, I will make a talent flip the script over and just tell me in their own words, like, what is the script all about? Tell me what is the message? What is the meaning behind the script? In your own words. And they need to be able to tell me what the heart of the message is in their own words. And then usually where their voice falls and where their voice is placed at that time. That's a really good clue for them as to where they need to be when they actually go back and read the script. Because I think a lot of voice actors want to over perform because we're performers, we're creative, we want to do something. And less is more is difficult. Another tip or trick that I give a lot of my talent would be take the script and break it down line by line and just work one sentence at a time. Like even like the worklife balance in the open, right? A lot of talent are wanting to do the work life balance. It's like way too much versus how would you just say that in everyday life? So I would literally work it nugget by nugget or line by line or phrase by phrase and just say just memorize it. And then just say work life balance. Work life balance. Work life balance. How would you really say that in real life? And that is like your clue, right? So it takes time to break an entire script down with this technique. But once you do that and you really work all the kinks out, then when you go back to read it through top to bottom, all of a sudden you show up. And I love it. It just feels a lot more effortless. That's great. One line I'm going to steal from you too. When working with talent is problems have to sound like problems. Solutions have to sound like solutions. When you say like that, it seems so simple. But the audition we just heard kind of made that easy for us to hear. Oh, that's a problem. And you solved it. And it wasn't you in our face. Right? It wasn't like it was done with subtlety. It was like we heard the undertone of like, yeah, we all get it. We know. And then when we introduced the client, it was like, yeah, so check this thing out. It's pretty awesome. And also, she definitely did a good job of saying the client name, which is a tough one, but it sounded like she says it everyday, you know? Yes. So those are just definitely things that stood out to me and really nicely done on this. Read that's great. Okay, perfect. Let's go to audition number three, work life balance. Three tiny words, an impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotion? Introducing Weekilibrium, a productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. All right, let's take this one off. How do you feel? All right. So for me, this read, great storyteller, very human, likable, thought provoking, awesome phrasing. I really like how he kind of broke up the sentences in a way that it didn't feel super choppy, but it definitely felt like it had that nice, natural rhythm to the way that we speak as everyday humans, you know what I mean? And I really appreciated that, especially because this talent has got a heavy, full, more weighted voice. It could easily sound very announcery. The choices that this talent made, he really lifted his voice and made it much more conversational. If he wanted to go into an announcery thing, he could easily be there. So I really did appreciate one of my favorite lines were, your dreams within reach? That was such a nice like, it just made me feel good as the listener. I was like, oh, yeah, the way he hit that phrase was really special, I thought. And he made me feel like I could achieve my dreams. I also wrote that the last line was a bit more announcery for me than the rest of the read. Now, this is tricky because when we're doing a call to action in a script, like we're saying, you know, so go to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah today. Right? That line is written in an announcery way, so it's difficult to not sound announcery when you're saying something announcery. Right. So he did slip a little bit more into that today, like a little and also equilibrium. Listen to us trying to say that word. I'm going to try it again. You got to give this major props for so I felt like his wequilibrium he showcased it he may have showcased it just a little too hard. This is like, you know, equilibrium. It was like more of like TADA, you know? And who knows, though? The client might really like that. Clients love their names. Love. But sometimes we love them too much. Right? And then the last note that I have two actually, one would be would have loved for him to finish it off with the same type of warmth that the rest of the read had versus it being a bit more announcery at the end. And I overall noticed that the quality of the audio to my ear felt more muffled. I think there's definitely room for a cleaner, clearer I don't know if it's the mic or the room just there was a muffled flavor to my ear that I think he could definitely improve upon his audio quality. But that's more both of your department. So those were my all in all thoughts. But I really was a fan of the read for the most part. Me too. I love that one. Especially when you hear someone who can they could easily pull off a full announcer read, but it was so fluid. It was very relatable, peer to peer. I do find that though, all you need is one or two announcer inflections to ruin the illusion almost. And then the client might put that actor in the announcer box. Maybe, maybe not. And to me, it's always like the end of phrases. That's where you have your choice. You can either end it like an announcer or you can sort of really keep it relatable till the very end. But I really, really love that audition. The audio, I'm not sure exactly what it might be. I almost hear it as a bit of a boxy sound. I'm wondering if it's the physical space, the dimensions of the space, the absorptive materials. Not sure what's going on there, but overall it's really clean audio, too, so I enjoy that one. One thing too. You said something that just triggered a thought. I think a lot of talent stress out over when they're auditioning, like, what's the most important part of their audition? And you want to make sure that the first sentence in your audition is something you're super happy with and you're super proud of and that you feel you sound very confident because that's going to make or break whether or not they're going to keep listening. Right. But then if they do decide to listen, you also want to make sure that you finish the read strong as well, because that's kind of like the lingering last little bit that they heard. So if you're stressing over any part of your audition, make sure that you're really super happy with the first sentence and the way you end it. So that's just a little extra tidbit there. Yeah. My note here, I totally agree with Evan on the pacing, too. Like, I felt like it was really go with the flow. I don't know. I think it would be really hard, especially at the end, if it's more sounding like an announcer. How do they kind of decipher to stay away from having that announcer voice? Yes, I think, well, it goes back to hitting words a little hard, right? And a little too much full voice. So, for example, here, the last sentence is, download it for [email protected] today. Right. A lot of talent we're doing. Download it for [email protected] today. Right. Those contrived beats add to it feeling announced already. Hitting the word free super hard makes it feel a little sold versus told equilibrium. Again, to me, it's just think of it this way, think of it as a vocal shoulder shrug. So it's like, yeah, download it for [email protected] today. Like it's no big deal. This is what you do, you know, it's just like almost like a throwaway. You're not throwing it away, but you, as the talent, can't hammer it over the head. You have to be more like, it's no big deal if you want to do this thing, download it for [email protected] today and you're going to love it. And that's it. So I think a lot of those big beats and hitting those words is hard. Just make it feel like you're announcing it versus just like, yeah, check it out. Okay, perfect. Thanks for the clarification on that. I'm sure that'll help the talent, for sure. All right, are you ready for the next yes, let's do it. Work life balance. Three tiny words, an impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotions? Introducing Equilibrium, a productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. I'm going to start this one off, actually, with the pacing, I think is pretty good, but you are the expert, so how do you feel about that? The pace to me, as the week got going, I liked, but I think the open was way overdone. I just think it was really chopped up. And again, it loses that realism and that believability. It's like this talent is honoring the punctuation. This talent is definitely trying to say, like, I get it. You really want this kind of these are three different thoughts. But again, I think it was overplayed. So I have for my notes, I love the pipes. Really nice instrument. Beautiful instrument, actually. Very clean, very quality sound. But this talent to me, leans more toward an announcer style read than an everyday read. And he's aware of it, and he's trying to pull back to not be too heavy handed with his voice, but I think there's a little more room for picking up the tempo and just moving it along so it'll sound a little less contrived. And then I wrote too many pauses. The earlier male talent read that we heard, there was a nice break in the phrasing, but it wasn't. Every line was broken up. And in this case, I felt like every line, it was the chopped chop. It was so chopped up. So I also have that equilibrium was swallowed a bit for my ear. It's funny, I sound like I'm being ultra picky regarding the client name, but I think this is an important part of the conversation, which is there's that sweet spot where you don't want to say the client name so over the top that it stands out too much. We don't want to say it in a way where we sort of swallow it. There's just got to sort of be that seamless flow where it sounds like you would say that client name every day and you really like it. So for me, equilibrium wasn't clear enough and then productivity act was almost hard to hear. It felt like it was rushed through a bit. And what's important is why is equilibrium important? Why why does the listener need to know about it? How do they benefit? Right? It comes down to the who, what, when, where, how and why. And to me, saying that it's a productivity app, that isn't something you want to rush through. If there's anywhere you're going to make a little bit more time or take a little more time, it would be on talking about the benefit of it's a productivity app and it's this and it's that. Right? So those were my main notes and I said offering a little more variety to the read. Those were the things that my ear caught for sure on the variety part of it. I do think that a client would really enjoy this audition just because of the timing choices. And the first time listening to this audition, I was pretty surprised by the amount of space, work, life like balance. There was so much space. But then to follow that up with such a fast pacing. For me, I felt that if I put my client hat on, I'm thinking to myself, okay, this talent can give me a lot of different options. So I would feel excited about the prospect of a live directed session because like you said, I love the instrument as well. I'm hearing lots of different options and colors and sometimes auditions stand out just because they are different. So this audition grows on me more and more as I hear it. It would just be interesting to work with this talent more back and forth, give some ideas in live session. You never know what would happen out of that. Yeah, I think this talent would be definitely able to dial the reading being directed. One of the things that I can really appreciate about all of the auditions that we're reviewing today, I've got the ear for instinct. Like if someone's got good instincts or they're super off base. And I'll say that every talent that we're listening to has got some good instincts and it's just a matter of the preferences of the client. We as talent don't always know what the clients preferences are going to be. We don't necessarily know what they're going to like. We just want to really be true to ourselves in the way that we tell the story with authenticity. Right. And put yourself in the shoes of we've got to think like the client, like what's important to them. We've got to think like the writer in honoring the way that they wrote it. And what are the words that are important in there. And then we also have to honor and think like the listener. So we want to respect the listener. We never want to sound like, condescending to them, like we're trying to overwork something or say it because they're not smart enough to understand. Right. We want the listener to be super engaged with us and listening and believing us, but we still want to do right by that client and making sure their points are driven home. Right. So it's like it's a balance, but all of these talents are really doing a great job. It's just a matter of what's hitting that person who's casting their ear. What is it that they're looking for? And also, to your point about the way that he broke out the open, maybe there are going to be some visuals that are paired with this particular piece where that more broken up work life balance is perfect. Right. Because of the way that they're going to be framing up some visual cues. We don't know all that information as voice actors. So the thing that I think works better, the more casual work life balance, that flavor, I could be totally wrong, you know what I mean, without all of the information. So this talent might have made the best choice with that. We're so not sure. We're doing some guesswork when we're auditioning. So true. Yeah. I think, like, a few little tweaks here and there, and it's close to being what it needs to be, for sure. Okay, let's get into our second last audition here. Work life balance. Three tiny words, an impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all of your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotions? Introducing We Collaborium, a productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. All right, kick us off, Melissa. Okay, so I have this voice in my ear, is youthful young mom. She sounds like an elementary teacher. She's just so sweet and comforting, but not too saccharine. Right. And we see that a lot in direction where you're sweet, but it's not too sweet. Right. She cares about the listener. She cares about us. And the melody of the opening triplet, the way she kicked off those three, those first little words, work life balance, felt melodically, just a hair off. It didn't have, like, a landing point. Right. It didn't land quite right. But her voice, though, was so welcoming and sweet that I was like, whatever, I can see past that. I want to hear what else she has to say. So I did hear that she established a problem, and she definitely had an opinion about it. So going back to the hearing a problem, sounding like a problem, a solution, sounding like a solution. Great job there. And then sometimes hitting a pronoun can make a listener feel like it's a little bit more personal. So the question, what would it mean to your life? Right? I haven't heard any talent do that yet in the Reeds, and in this particular case, I was waiting for that. Just because of that sweet, comforting undertone to the performance productivity app. Again, it could have been cleaner into a streamlined schedule, felt a little disconnected from the rest of the thought before it. And then your goals are within reach. That line to me, I'm sorry, I'm giving love to this talent, but I have to say it was a little bit too precious. Dreams within reach. It just felt a little too contrived. Again, little too manufactured. So the rest of it was so sincere and genuine that that line to me just felt overdone. And I will say that the last line was really nice and not too pushed. So being very specific with my notes here, because this is the way a lot of casting directors and clients are going to listen and that can make or break whether or not they're going to put a book or read a talent sometimes. I'm loving the attention to detail that you're offering and I'm sure you offer in your coaching practice, but it's down to the word. You obviously hear things almost in a musical way, which is a great way to engage with copy. And I totally agree. I mean, I got great vibes from this read. Very engaging, for sure. As the brief said for me, you touched on this a little bit. It was maybe it's being precious. I wanted some of the polish to come off of the read just a bit more relatability in there. There was almost that luxury brand feel to me anyway, in that read that I thought, let's calm down, let's find a deeper level of authenticity. It's totally there in the Voice. It'd be interesting to see what a bit of back and forth would get to that next level of authenticity for me anyway, for this read. Yup, I agree. I was just going to say to you sparked a thought for me, which is, sometimes talent just love the words too much. Like, we are wordsmiths, right. We are bringing all these words to life and sometimes we just get a little too carried away. We love them too hard. Sure, yeah. That can prevent the relatable sound. It's got to be the peer to peer. You're on the same level as the listener. If you become the Voiceover talent, then the listener feels they might feel like they're below you. But I don't know, a lot of brands just want the same level relatability. Keep it up. Real. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're the expert too. Right. And the point of this podcast is the mission is to nail the audition. So we love to have our. Voiceover coaches give their honest opinions. Thank you for giving me that title of the word expert. I always say it's just after reading hundreds of thousands of pieces of copy over 22 years, I feel like you really kind of become in tune with industry expectations and what clients are listening for. But I always say to my talent, it is so subjective. And always take any coaches notes with a grain of salt because that is my notes based on what my ear is asking for, what I think is an important priority of what to be paying attention to. You know, if I'm mentioning certain words to hit or certain things to dial in. But again, if somebody else is directing you, it could be the client directing you. They may have different preferences. So as the talent, you don't want to be too hard on yourself. You can only do so much guesswork. But you do want to use common sense in your instincts. You want to be confident and you want to really think about what that copy is really saying at the end of the day, in the simplest way. Perfect. I love that so much. Thank you. Okay, last but not least, let's get into it. Work life balance. Three tiny words, an impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all of your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotions? Introducing Equilibrium, a productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. This definitely gave me like a sense of peace. Definitely a feeling of peace. Definitely engaging too, in my opinion. But what do you think, Melissa? Oh, I have a lot of thoughts on this one. Let's go for it. I said to me, this read was quirky good. She is a whole lot of fun. She says it like it is. You always know how she feels. She does not sugarcoat the word balance that she landed on with a question mark after it was so funny to me because let's face it, that's a conversation I think so many of us are having. And she's like, balanced question mark. It was such a fun choice. And especially with the audition saying like the specs saying do what feels right to you, do your thing. She was not afraid to take. Those were for me, some of my favorite things about the read, the front half, I really, really appreciate it. Now, in contrast, some of my notes would be I love the opening lines, but as we get into where the optimism should start to creep in and the solution the shift, right? We should be starting to take form. We're not hearing that. I think when she says but career progressions and big promotions, it still sounded really negative as opposed to it being a good thing, like career progressions and big promotions. To me, that's like, yes, we want that, right? But there was a negative tone to that. And then also I think we could have eased into more optimism as we get into that transition. So introducing equilibrium, it was just kind of like, eh, you know, versus I would have loved to have heard a bit more smile and a bit more positivity on that client name and that we're shifting gears here, right. Productivity app. I don't think we hit that the way that we needed to. Kind of going back to some of my earlier points. That's such an important line, everybody, because it's like the biggest benefit to what this thing does and what it's all about. So it needs to land. Right? And then I also said toward the end, those last sentence or two, it sounded negative and sort of bored. It had this like where the optimism should have really, really been here. The call to action lacked energy and positivity to my ear and it sort of fizzles out at the end. So again, keeping it super real today in my notes and my comments because I really want to help. The open rocked my world. Like, I thought it was so fun and fresh and different from all the others, but then at the end, the second half, it just kind of fell flat. So really understanding the problem and the solution like we've talked about today and ending just as strongly as you started. So there you have it. Yeah. And I really appreciate the amount of detail that you're going into for the emotional state. I think if you're in the session, you might just hear from a client, let's do it again, but smile more. But you have the entire breakdown of the whole thing and you know, why are we giving more notes of optimism? How do you make it sound like a problem? That type of thing. So that level of detail I think is incredibly helpful if you're on the talent side because on the client side, you're just going to hear, hey, just do it again with more smile. Yeah. The copy analysis, right? Like the copy deconstruction, we have to really take time as the talent to understand what we're saying. I think especially newer talent that I mentor, they're really focused on how the read is going to sound. They want it to sound good, they want it to sound pretty and they're really, really hung up on what the voice is doing. But in my opinion, the most important part is to really understand the message and the writer. First and foremost, understand the writer and what the message is really saying. Figure out where the transitions live, figure out where the problems live, where the solutions live, making those clear choices and then run it through your heart filter. That's the emotional part. Right. So we've got the intellect, we've got to run it through our mind first, then we run it through our heart filter, our feeling filter. And then lastly, our voice is going to know naturally what it needs to do if we've taken the time to do those two other things first. Yes. And just to have fun with it, too. Right. I think I've said this in many of our episodes, permission audition. But I'm always saying, just have fun with it. I think a lot of people forget that aspect. And the end of the day, you have to kind of take, like, what you said and stop focusing, like, so much on, like, being perfect or this is a read and I have to get this done, and just to conversation as if you were to be talking to someone in person. Right? Absolutely. I think that as talent and I'm guilty of this myself, it's like we can definitely overthink things at times. We can try really hard to anticipate what the other person on the other end wants. And I feel like it's the wrong approach when you're auditioning. One of the things that I catch myself saying over and over and over to talent is this note. Don't even look at the casting specs when you start auditioning first look at the copy and how does the copy speak to you? And because once you've been influenced by the casting specs, you cannot be uninfluenced. It's there. It's like it's like this thing in the back of your mind. It's like we want warm and sincere, even if you heard it in a way that was a little more spunky or a little more sassy. Right. And maybe the client doesn't know that that's what they want until they hear it. Right. So for me, as a talent, I think it takes a lot of pressure off of me when I go into my booth to audition. If I don't feel married to facts and direction right out of the gate, I'm looking at the copy first and I'm like, how is this little story talking to me? How do I feel about it? What are they saying? Let me get in there and have some fun, like you said, Vanessa, and just be like, let's just kind of play around with it a little bit. And then once I get it to a place I feel good about, then I'm like, all right, let me take a little peek at these casting specs and see what's going on, what they have in mind and that'll. Help you come up with your b take, your second take if you want to do more than one read and show them a little bit of range and variety. Right. So anyway, that's all I got. That's great copy first strategy that is very helpful for a lot of people auditioning out there. So use that one. Alright, well, we've gone through all the auditions today, so let's pick a winner. Melissa it was so hard to decide because there were some really good things about every read that we heard. But I definitely have to give it to

Participant #1:
work. Life balance. Three tiny words. An impossible equation that humankind has tried to solve for centuries. What would it mean to your life if you could achieve all of your goals? If family fitness and personal finance could come together with career progression and big promotions? Introducing weak equilibrium. A productivity app that seamlessly brings together your personal and professional goals into a streamlined schedule that puts your dreams within reach. Download it for [email protected] today. Read number two. It was just effortless. It was understated, consistent, and I just really felt like that talent understood how we're feeling out there. So bravo. Yes, indeed. I really understood the assignments. And for the first time, I believe we have an honorable mention that we'd like to point out as well. Any thoughts on yeah. Was it the first read? I loved the first read, again, for many different reasons than our winning read today. That first read, it also had this wisdom and this voice of experience and also just caring. It was a really nice balance. What threw me off a little bit on that, that read was just that ending got a little too announcery and that enunciation. It was just a little too overplayed. But other than that, it was such a good read. Perfect. Okay, and that's a wrap for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. So, Melissa, how can Talend get in touch with you reaching out to The Voiceactorstudio.com? And our email is info at the voice actorstudio.com for any coaching or workshops that we've got going on. And then if they're curious about anything I have going on in the Voiceover world, my website is ladyluckvoiceovers.com for my personal voiceover work. Perfect. Okay. If you'd like to find today's script or any others, check out our [email protected] slash blog. And for any additional resources from Melissa, feel free to follow her on socials. Awesome stuff. Well, Melissa, thank you so much again. And everybody that tuned in today. Again. My name is Evan. And my name is Vanessa. And we're signing off. See you next time. And happy auditioning.