VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[jrodriguez315]

Practice makes perfect, right? So I have a couple of questions.

Do you have specific practice regimen?
What does a good practice session look like or sound like?
What are good resources for practice materials?
Do you practice dry reads or use a sound bed?
Do you have a specific practice for the different "types" of work you do i.e. audiobook, promo etc . . .
What is the most important thing to remember when practicing, what should the newbie be looking / listening for?

For the character folks, do you practice characters, accents and dialects?
What are some techniques you've used to develop characters?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[Bruce]

Man Joe, that's a lotta questions, but I'll take a stab at it. As a veteran of many years my practice is all of the work I do and all of the auditions. I'm constantly striving for perfection or originality or a striking performance if it's required. If a project intrigues me, or dumbfounds me, I'll try it several times to get an interesting result.

Good quantities of copy can come from the Edge Studio package or membership in V123. With the latter, you might actually get a job from it. Dry reads are usually best, but with jingles and uptempo music it's often helpful to do a couple of takes (if not all takes) with the music under you to give you guidance and inspiration.

Specific practice for different material? Just be good. Have good diction when required and go for good interpretation. Did your read make sense? Did you carry the "arc" of the idea across? Also did it match the material in intensity or style? Maybe listening to your material a day or two later will give you some perspective too.

I've been practicing character voices since I was a wee lad and will be until my last gasp. I'm always listening and mimiccing back. Turner Classic Movies, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, the deli's of New York...some of my favorite characters came a visit to the Automat in NYC when I was a kid. They didn't lock up their loonies in those days.

Good characters come from observation and from creating a history and a look and feel for the character. Movie actors get weeks to create their characters. We get a couple of minutes, if that.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? You pay them $2,000 for a mid-week afternoon rental and they'll let you play there.

Or, you do that other thing.

B

[mcm]

[dmgood]

Lately, I've been practicing cold reads.
I bought access to the script library from Edge Studios.
I pick a category, print off a page or two of scripts.
I start at the top and work my way down, not being choosy, or picking what's "right for me".
I read it through silently to myself once, woodshedding the script (who's speaking?, who's the audience?, what are the key points?)
And then I record two takes - cold.
I may do a pick up on a tag line where I read it three different ways (just to experiment a bit).
This is built around the concept that you should be able to pick up any piece of copy and nail it in the first or second take.
It's also a lot of fun trying to alter my voice and create characters appropriate for the read on the fly.
From "Beef - it's what's for dinner", to "Let's bake some cookies with Betty Crocker"