Moho Forum

I've never worked with professional voice talent, and I hope you can give me some advice in recording my short script (of 180 words).

I am using an incomplete fragment of the script to solicit auditions online, and I have now received a few auditions from some accomplished character talents.

The auditions which come back to me from the various character voices show that I can get the baseline professional quality I need: fine timbre, fine diction, fine recording quality, and fine (smooth, narrow) dynamic range.

What I'm not getting in the samples is any of the emotional content of the script, even if I try to be clear about the requirements.

The readings are pleasant and businesslike; they do not convey the meaning of the words.

I don't want to micromanage the performance, nor do I want to ask for the all the subtleties of a Rolls Royce performance if I can only afford a motorcycle .

I get the impression that the job ought to be a flat fee... is that correct?

I don't know how I'm supposed to move ahead on this.

Do I ask the talent for some more free "takes?"

Do I simply assume the talent can deliver if I pay enough to develop the right outcome?

Or do I assume these voices, even though they do characters professionally, would have already given me the emotion reading I've asked for if they could?

If the acting is this important, do I need to look for an actor rather than a voice-over professional?

I want to be a great client--reasonable, clear, supportive, and abiding by all the standard practices for developing this kind of performance.

But how?

assuming you are doing this remotely, it might be an idea - if possible - to have a skype session open while the actor is doing the recording so that you can produce them during the event. If you are getting a decent quality recroding then thats half the battle one, but...

I don't want to micromanage the performance

...is not the right attitude imo. You, as the director/writer(?) of the script are the only one with the vision to 'produce' a good performance out of the actor.
Ideally they should be character actors rather than voice over artists - but i would imagine even seasoned character actors wont be able to 'act' a script when its out of context of the conversation (recording just their side of it with nothing to bounce off for timing and emotion) - thats where a producer comes in, as the one who knows the script and can give ongoing pointers to the actor.

Although i've not worked with voice actors before, I am a music producer, and in a way this is similar to producing a vocalist to try and get a certain performance out of them. Leaving it totally in their hands rarely gives desirable results - from the producers perspective at least.

There are many payment structures possible - paying a flat fee, paying per hour of the session, paying per minute of complete audio... etc. i guess its what you come to agree with the actor, but ideally you want to produce them while they are doing the session so that you dont have to keep going back and forth re-recording the same things over a long period of time which isnt constructive for you and will likely piss the actor off... i'm sure they would be much more receptive to 'on the fly' production, and getting the job done satisfactorally there and then.

good luck

My feeling is it shouldn't matter what you pay, a voice actor should make an effort to bring some life to the script. You should give them direction though.

I worked on a cheap cheap cheap radio commercial some years ago. I was able to make a funny duck noise and the ad agency I worked for had a very low budget so I got to "quack" around for a few hours. It was loads of fun... although I nearly lost my voice.

The "real" voice actor they hired to do the dialog was not famous, or well known at all. It wasn't her only job, the budget was non existent, there was no "direction" to speak of, yet she was hilarious. It was a blast and she made silk out of a sows ear... and did... take after take after take until the "director" (one of the art directors at the agency) was happy.

It could be that a voice over actor isn't what you are looking for but a character actor. That is what we asked for when doing the radio spot. The actors you are auditioning should have a demo tape. We listened to a bunch of them before we picked someone and they didn't do "samples" for us. We picked the actor based on just the demo tapes.

-vern

By any means: give directions! You are the director, you are expected to give them.

From your posting I don't get the information wether you explicitely told them to do voices for a cartoon. Maybe that was the bit they were missing? Anyway, you can always ask for getting two different reading: one in what they think is correct tone, and one which deliberately goes over the top. Ths way you'd be able to judge the range of an artist's voice and capabilities.

"Voice talent" and "actor" is not the same. Sometimes a person with a decent reading voice is marketed as voice talent - but this is totally different from what animated films need. Ask specifically for actors.

I agree with what slowtiger said. My "go-to" voiceover guy is an actor (with lots of v/o experience). I imagine when he's recording lines he probably even acts out (with his face/body) the emotions he's trying to portray in his voice. You could even have them video record the v/o session and use it as reference when animating (add in those subtle nuances into your animation).