Character Development for Voice Over

hey everybody welcome back to my channel if you're new here welcome my name is angela i am a full-time voice-over artist and audiobook narrator and my channel is dedicated to those of you that are just getting started out in this wonderful world of voice-over and audiobook narration and through my channel i share with you some of the techniques that i use every day in my own voiceover business and i answer your questions so today what i wanted to talk about was another question that i have received a lot in the last couple weeks and that is really like how to develop characters say you're an audiobook narrator or even if you're doing animation or um e-learning sometimes uh commercial work where you have to take on a different character up mostly uh animation and audiobooks i would think but that's what we're going to talk about today is character development so if you are ready i'm ready let's go [Music] okay so as i mentioned in my intro we're going to talk about character development today and how to make different character voices and i have to say it doesn't really matter if you're male or female even though we are limited in some respects with what we can do not everybody falls into that category let me tell you there are some really talented voice over artists who are female that can pull off a really really believable male voice and vice versa it's really really impressive that some people can pull this off i am not that talented however i know what i can and cannot do so knowing what you can do to start is really going to help you develop some of these characters and through developing a character really can show you what you can and what you can't do so what you have to first consider and i always encourage everyone to maybe jump out of the box and try new things is to you know take a look online and look at different people or different cartoon characters i of course can't show you any on this channel here without you know maybe upsetting somebody for copyright infringement so i'm going to try to explain this as best as i can but was your let's just say uh you're going through an animation you're hired to do an animation for a character voice and the client has given you a picture which is always helpful if you're in that situation when you're asked to voice a cartoon character or some sort of an animated figure always ask for a picture of the character if you can because seeing the picture and the attributes of that character can help you develop uh an appropriate voice for them and then of course the client is hopefully going to give you some sort of a direction on the age if there's a specific accent if they're more of like the gruff you know heroin or maybe a cowboy you know they can give you some sort of direction on how they want the character to sound but having the picture and seeing the attributes are they hunched over are they do they have like a large mouth do they have large teeth do they have maybe a grumpy face you know all of these different attributes can help you determine what they're going to sound like so that is one of the best things that you can have is a a responsive client that will give you plenty of direction on the tone and sound of this character and then also having a picture to see the attributes that you are going to have to probably make your own face make to make this a believable character with a voice for audio books i get this question a lot and that is um mainly for males asking me how to sound like a female in the audiobook and first what i want to bring to your attention is that not all authors want distinctive voices between their characters some authors are fine with you just being you and just narrating the book as you and most of the authors that i have come across do want maybe a slight lift slightly distinctive voice for each character because as you go through the book and through different dialogues between characters you want to be able to differentiate the different characters from each other and like i said more often than not it's the males asking me to how how to differentiate uh male from female because obviously if you're male you're going to sound like a male and you can just give another one maybe a little bit more of a gruff voice you know kind of throw it back into the back of your throat and you know that same thing goes for females doing male voices or i'm getting ahead of myself but for males doing female voices think about how females talk do we maybe enunciate a little bit more do we have maybe more of a breathy voice you know you don't have to do anything high pitched or just like you know crazy over the top to differentiate a female from a male but just listen to commercials listen to other audiobooks that is something that i cannot stress enough especially if you're an audiobook narrator listen to audiobooks listen to how other narrators present these different character traits that'll give you a lot of great ideas and you can try them yourself to see if you can pull them off right so for males doing female characters again listen to how females talk uh maybe we maybe we choose to color more words than males do maybe we're not as maybe monotone listen to the different ways that males talk and listen to the different ways that females talk it's not so much pitch it's more of cadence and tone right and then the same thing goes for females trying to uh replicate a male voice like i said before you can kind of throw your voice up to the back of your throat and you can talk with a little bit more purpose and you know depending on the situation they could be an angry male and they could be it could be just someone just you know talking to someone else across the room there's there's the best way to find out what you can do with characters is to try a few yourself and that comes with practice right that just comes with practicing and trying a few different things but if you get a really fun audiobook where you get to do you know alien characters and stuff you can definitely if the author's okay with it you can use effects in your daw to make the voice very different so those are always fun but again it also comes with knowing what the attributes of the character are as you read through the book does this character have a like a russian accent does this character have you know missing teeth does this character have you know a mushed in nose does this character have you know any other facial attributes that would contribute to a certain type of voice or a certain type of sound and the same thing goes if they're hunched over or if they're crabby all the time or if they're a bubbly you know fairy princess they're all gonna have different sounds and different voices right because they are who they are so you have to take in consideration not just the sound that you can do but how is the character supposed to sound how is that character based on the attributes that you know of how is that character going to sound but if you're ever in doubt about if your author is going to like or your client for for example even with the animation scenario if you're ever in doubt about if this character voice that you have chosen for this character is going to be right or if they're going to like it send them a sample you know reach out to the client and say hey i'm not too sure but these are some of the ideas that i have for this character which one of these do you like send them a reel of different you know different character sounds and voices and let them tell you which one they prefer or which they had in mind for this particular character and that'll save you a whole lot of time but to sum up get a picture if you can for animation right that'll help you determine character character voice um learn the attributes of this character is it male is it female is it alien is it fish is it bare you know are they grumpy are they you know do they have some sort of facial attributes that are going to contribute to the sound of their voice learn all of these up front and accents accents are important learn all of these attributes and just try a few different character voices and if you're in doubt ask the client send them a reel of different sounds and voices you know and let them choose which one they like the best so i hope that helps you with your character development again listening to audiobooks and listening to anything that has a character voice even in like cartoons and commercials being a voice actor and audiobook narrator comes with you really need to learn to actively listen to what's going on around you to give you some inspiration and some clarification on how things should sound or could sound so i'm going off on tangents again but i enjoy character development it's fun right to develop new characters so anyway if you found this video helpful please please hit that like and subscribe buttons i really appreciate it if you have any questions about anything else voiceover or audiobook related please leave them down below and if you would like more information about me my work or how i can help you get started in voiceover check out my website at voiceoverangela.com thank you so much for your time and i will see you on the next one bye [Music] so [Music]

Channel: VoiceOverAngela

Views: 457

Keywords: voice acting, voice over, voice actor, character voices, voiceoverangela, voice over tips, voice over coach, home based business ideas, audiobook characters

Id: t4s6sqrIF6Q

Length: 10min 32sec (632 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 14 2021