Back to school: learning to read copy

Class tonight was fun!

We actually got to use the mic for the first time. Not going to lie it was a little intimidating. We are not the biggest fan of our voice so we were worried that we would sound like a major tool, especially in front of the entire class.

There are twelve interesting people in our class. That may not sound like a whole lot but when you only have two hours for class and each of you have to use the mic, it’s definitely a crunch to get everyone in.

(Sorry the photo is blurry…trying to be discrete with an iPhone doesn’t work)

The agenda for tonight was to work on perky copy and dead pans. Oh, you don’t know what that means? Neither did I. We are trying to pick up the lingo but Voice Over uses slightly different verbage then acting.

Okay, when someone says copy, they mean script. In other words perky copy means to read the script happy. Pretty simple.

Here is the copy we read tonight. This was an advertisement for wine in Washington State. We are a big fan of perky copy. BIG FAN.

Next up, dead pans. Does this not sound like bed pans? We could not get over this in class. We're a huge boner sometimes, what can we say. Anyway, dead pan means to read the copy in a monotoned voice. Yeah, wasn’t a big fan of this one. In our opinion guys are better at rockin this voice.

Here is the copy we read tonight. It’s a McCormick Grill advertisement. We wanted to say sizzle all sexy like, but for this type of read we couldn’t do that. Whatevs.

After class we felt waaaay more comfortable using the mic and performing in front of people. We have a great instructor that is a total hippie but cool.

Next week we work on real reads. Should be fun!