The Mic Guy: Adventures in Voiceover

If I have to trek 40 miles through the rain, Sausalito isn’t a bad place to wind up.

Before my private coaching session this afternoon, I sat in my car atop the hill behind the Sausalito Public Library and looked out over Richardson Bay. The sky was glowering gray, the air clean and clear, and the view magnificent.

My narration work felt more comfortable today. (Blue merging into green helped.) Despite my recent struggles, my directors seem to believe that narration will develop into a good niche for me. Whether that’s true or not remains to be proven. At any rate, I’m enjoying it more now that I have something of a handle on working into the appropriate tone.

I had one narrative read that sounded reasonably tasty the first time through. By the time Sirenetta coached me through a couple of takes, I was actually pleased with the final result. Two factors helped: (1) it was copy from a medical documentary, so I called upon my dozen years in the healthcare industry to find the comfort zone; and (2) it was a cold open, allowing me to lean into more of a promo voice, which lands more centrally in my wheelhouse than straight narration.

I continue to find myself challenged in my commercial reads, balancing conversationality with my demon perfectionism. Once I get over my “terror of error,” as I like to refer to it, I’ll be in good shape. I didn’t feel I was fighting my copy quite so tenaciously today, so that’s a positive sign.

Still a road to travel.

This entry was posted on February 11, 2009 at 11:11 PM and is filed under Narration, Reflection, Strategy, Voice acting, Voiceover, Voicetrax. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.