Voice over actor and teacher Bob Bergen plans an advanced animation techniques workshop in Dallas February 28-March 1st 2009.  Bob is a gifted voice actor and the current voice of Porky Pig and Tweety Bird for Looney Toons. He also appears regularly in animated films such as Cars, Shrek, Toy Story and Wall-E.  So, yeah, he’s big-time.

The workshop will be at Cake Mix Recording Visit Bob’s website for sign-up information.  That is all.

I’ve actually had the Sennheiser 416 short shotgun microphone in the home studio for about a month now. I recorded a couple of political spots with it in late October. And yeah, I like it. At least for commercials and promos.

It has an upfront “in your face” sound to it that seems to adds some crispness and presence to my voice.  And this is with an absolutely flat dry audio chain. No other processing or EQ is needed, which is why a lot of studio engineers like it.

I still need to experiment with it some as to microphone placement.  A common positioning is to have the shotgun tube in front (duh) and above the talent and pointing down so the tip is on axis with the upper lip.  Distance is a matter of how loud the voice is, I think.

I’ve never had one of those big booming voices, never been a “loud talker” and take the “less is more” approach anyway on most projects.  When I’m at an outside studio I can usually tell if some radio guy has been the last talent before my turn.  The engineer has to bring the microphone back in much closer for me.

So I’ll be playing with the new 416 to find the “sweet spot”, just how big that spot may be (not very) and a good distance for the particuler read I’ll be doing.

My other microphones include Beyer-Dynamic ribbons which have a very warm sound and an Oktavamod from Michael Joly which I think compares very favorably with other common voiceover mics such as the  AKG C-414 or  Neumann TLM-103 for much less coin.

The very attributes of the Sennheiser 416 for commercial and promo work are what makes me think of using one of my other mics for long form projects. The question is, will narration of, say training material, recorded with the Sennheiser 416, become a little tiring on the ear ten minutes into the program? I suppose it will depend on the project and the copy. It always does.

It seems odd that a microphone made for film and video location recording would find its way into the voice-over booth but it has.  The Sennheiser 416 is popular on the West Coast but not so much in New York.  One studio in the Dallas area uses it a lot and it is there where I work on one of my biggest accounts.

Engineers like it because of the way it enables voices to “cut through the mix.” It also works well in less than perfect recording environments because of its ability to reject side and rear noise sources. Many actors like the Sennheiser 416 due to a “presence” boost that it seems to have.

However, this microphone also has its detractors. Corey Burton is a long time Hollywood voice actor who absolutely hates this piece of gear and has a rant against it on his website.

I ordered one last week and it should be here any day now. I’ll let you know how it works out in my humble studio.

During my time in the voiceover business I’ve been witness to many different styles of acting before the microphone. I’ve seen actors silently but not so subtley move their entire bodies while doing the read. And I’ve seen the flat dry monotone read done while the actor stands stiff as a statue with hands crammed in pockets.

Looking at session videos on YouTube or Voiceover Universe you also see a variety of hand placements and gestures. Some actors bring energy into the read by waving hands or wagging fingers. Others will clinch a fist against their noggin to help get tension into the matereial. Ed Grover was famous for clasping his hands on top of his head to help him open up that “sweeping” read he would do for Visa.

If I’m doing a training narration I tend to gesture a lot, talking with my hands in order to help emphasize and draw certain phrases or word groups out of copy that is by it’s nature pretty dry stuff.

While voicing retail copy I try to get a little more energy into the read by rapidly wagging a wrist around behind the mic. I do most of the fast legal reads for Nationwide Insurance radio and for those I stand like a statue with arms up and out and pour  the energy into cramming all those words into the shortest space possible.

On the other hand there are voice actors who prefer not to use overly physical techniques and still bring wonderful life to their scripts through emotional connection to the words.

If you are just starting out, practice and experiment. Get training. Use a coach. Find the techniques that work best for you.

There are many genres of work for the voice actor. One of them is voicing promos for TV at the local station level. The “Here’s what’s coming up tonight on CBS 11″ kind of thing.

What sort of voice actor does well at this? Producer Robert Dwyer has a few thoughts:

“You want to be voice-over talent? Well, here’s some advice from a guy who hires VO people and what makes them valuable to a 19th market TV station. “

Read the rest here.

ISDN may seem like old technology but it just flat works real well for the voice actor and those who employ him. ISDN lines and hardware/software codecs allow for  CD quality voice transmission in real time between studios around the globe. Think of it as a microphone with a really really long cord.

Voice actor and TV news guy Dave Courvoisier has written a good article about ISDN here without getting all technical on you. Nice job, Dave.

Even when I was doing morning radio back in the day it wasn’t easy for me to get my brain and my mouth up to speed. Some people can wake up chirpy and verbose. Me, not so much.

That’s why I find the vocal warmup exercises on the CD that comes with James Alburger’s book “The Art of Voice Acting” so handy. Using tongue twisters to warm up was not new. Joan Gerber would teach similar vocal calasthenics. “Good blood, bad blood..red leather, yellow leather”, running through the vowl sounds and all that.

It was the idea of flexing and warming up all those little muscles in your face prior to tongue twisters that to me was new. It’s really quite helpful. I pop that CD into the player on my way to sessions, do the excersises in the car and arrive at the studio ready to go. Even chirpy.

If you are starting out in the voice over business and auditioning from your home studio there is a great temptation to overthink the performance you just sent out and what fruit your efforts might bring.

My advice? Don’t do it. Let it go.

However, I do like to keep a copy of the audition as a reference point should I be booked for the job. In that case, at the start of the session, I can ask the producer what it was about my audition that brought us together today. Usually it will be something about tone, attitude, or the way I read  a key phrase. Understanding what it was at least puts us in the same ballpark when the voiceover recording begins.

Put your engergy into preparing for the audition. Discover the back story, create a character even for straight copy. Use the emotions of the words. Send out your best take.  Save a copy. The forget about it.