Back to school: the finale
Tonight was our last Commercial Voice-Over class. Sniffle.
In the past six weeks we have:
– become comfortable reading into a microphone.
– read perky and dead pan copy, and decided that we are definitely a perky reader!
– caused our entire class to burst into laughter during a recording of us reading “natural reads.” Apparently our natural voice resembles that of a sista.
– attempted to read copy with a gangsterish tone but ending up sounding like a drill Sargent.
– recorded a MaxFactor lip gloss commercial at an actual recording studio.
– wanted to punch myself in the face after trying to read industrial copy.
After all of these classes, listening to our teacher’s feedback, working on pontificating, embarrassing myself in front of the entire class, nothing could have prepared us for tonight’s final class.
The rumors were true.
Said local talent agent did appear.
The sight of Ms. Kathleen Ham from Donna Baldwin Talent Agency as we entered the classroom stopped us dead in our tracks. Our heart started pumping faster, our palms began to sweat, and our stomach churned. We could have fallen over dead. Bit the dust. Croaked. Gone to the light.
What the heck am we doing here? We are not a professional Voice-Over person. We felt like we were waiting for our execution.
Luckily, we didn’t go first. Larry, who used to be a flight attendant for Delta took one for the team and went first. Thank you Larry.
Larry did his thing. No stutter, no heavy breathing, he was flawless. When he finished he took his seat. The whole class was on pins and needles waiting for Ms. Ham’s feedback. Was it going to be bolts of criticism or rays of praise?
The room was dead silent.
She finished writing on her extremely large yellow notepad and looked up. Blank facial expression across her face. She uttered, “Nice. Needs to be more raw, more conversational but we think you are heading in the right direction. Make sure to watch your register. Don’t get to high pitched. Keep it low and raw.”
We swear the entire class exhaled simultaneously after she spoke.
Maybe we won’t die today? Maybe we can get through our read without screwing up?
We were next.
Gulp.
We walked up to the microphone, stated our name and why we took the class, and then began to read. We don’t remember reading our copy. It was truly an out of body experience. All we remember is finishing our read and then smiling. We went to take our seat and waited for what seemed like an eternity for our sentence feedback. After about a minute she said…
“Not bad. But, where is your confidence? We want to hear your voice. Be snooty. Be aggressive. We are sure in your industry you have to be raw. But overall you did a great job.”
Whewwww.
We lived.
All in all this class was fun and we learned a lot about myself. We definitely need to work on making our voice stronger. When we get nervous we tend to talk softly and mumble. It was great feedback.
If you have a Performing Arts Center in your community and they offer classes you should definitely sign up. We mean, what do you have to loose?
