Essential Voiceover Jargon to know

what's happening boot junkies Mike delgadio here with another video today we're going to talk about jargon and things that you might hear during a recording session I've got a whole list of terms over here on my computer and we're going to try and go through them and such so that you can get a sense of things you might hear during a recording session when you're hired to do something these are words that you can expect to hear I'll just try and give you a quick overview of what each of these these words are the first one is talent and that's you you're the talent you're the person that's being hired to act as the artist to deliver the lines the client is the person who's going to listen to you so you're the talent and you're working for the client there may also be an engineer in the room the engineer is the actual person who's working the board and the board is the mixing console the equipment that they're going to be using so they will run the board and the client will listen to you in the in the studio and you are the talent you are hired for a session a session is an amount of time that you're hired to work for you might be hired for a one-hour session to record some spots or those are television or those are advertisements you might be might be hired to record a session for some tags and those are the little slogans usually at the end of a spot so those are different those are different aspects of what you might be hired for for during a session the next thing is cans so they may tell you to put on your cans in the booth and they're just headphones and not if they say do you have enough juice in the cans that means is it loud enough in your headphones it's old timey thing I you don't hear it that much but I have had some some engineers say do you have enough do you have enough in the cans once you're in the booth if you've never seen the script before the first thing that you'll do is a cold read and the cold read is when you have no idea what this script is and it's the very first time you read it sometimes you'll be asked to audition with a cold read because they want to see how your script interpretation is no want you to see a script having never read it before and deliver it into the mic as a cold read it's usually okay if you stumble on those or if you if you do it but they're trying to get a sense of how what your EES is and how quickly you can interpret a script you may also be asked to do a dry read a dry read is when you're when you're doing a script and you don't have any guide to go forward they haven't given you the the time or there's no music bed in your in your headphones if you're doing it to a commercial that you don't you can actually see the TV commercial or you can't hear the background music and of what will be do you'll have no no references during a dry read when you're first in the booth and you're working with another actor they may ask you to do a run-through and that is to just go through the script once or twice to just read it to get a sense of what your delivery is how fast you're going to do it what it's going to sound like to the other person it's just like it's like a rehearsal and usually with voiceover you get very little in the way of rehearsal time so a run-through can really help once you're ready to go the engineer will after you've put on your headphones he'll ask for a level or he'll say can I take a level and during a level the idea is your your even though you're not being recorded he's going to ask you to deliver the most energetic part of the script in the way that you intend to deliver it into the microphone and that allows him to adjust all the settings on his mixing board to make sure that it's not too loud or too soft and your idea as the talent is to try and deliver it as closely as possible to the way you're going to really do it don't be surprised though if the engineer is secretly recording your take because sometimes when you're really comfortable and there's no pressure of being recorded often those are some of the best takes you have the take itself I don't think I've defined the word take the take is just once threw on a script it could be a line it could be a word but every time you repeat it it's a you take so if you're saying I'm loving it and that's your and that's your whole line then that's take one then you repeat it I'm loving it that's take two I'm loving it let's take three right so you're just doing different repetitions of the same line it's a new take every single time notes if you're if you've delivered a line you can ask for notes or they may say I'm going to give you some notes and that is feedback on your performance and it's usually something specific that they want you to change to think about so if it's if you say I'm loving it they might give you some notes and say no you're going to assert it I'm loving it and they'll give you so or they'll say could you hit this one word harder and that means to to to emphasize that one word more so they'll give you they will give you notes and you can also say do you have any notes for me on that it's just the the art term instead of saying do you have any feedback usually say do you have any notes or they're going to give you some notes as you're recording you will often do several takes take 1 take 2 take 3 and then once they say they've got a good take that's one that they like they'll often ask you for a safety and that's them asking you to do it again the same way and usually what that's for is that's um it's usually a bit of comfort to the actor so if you've done one that's you know pretty good they'd be willing to put that on the air or wherever it's going to go a safety will get you to do it again and now that the pressures off because you've got a good one sometimes that safety take feels a lot more natural it flows because you don't have to worry about you know you've got one and so their safety will often be a better one it used to be in the old tape days in case something glitched and the tape was bad but now with digital that doesn't really matter so the safety is really more of a psychological thing because the pressures off sometimes when you're asked to do lines you'll be asked to do some wild lines and usually it's um it's an aside or an ad-lib or slogan or something where they'll ask you to do some wild takes where you're not actually doing the whole script through they might say could you give me some some do a few wild of the slogan and that just means try that try that line a few different ways right in a row with just a short break and be taught in between I'm loving it I'm loving it I'm loving it I'm loving it you know it's so different different takes and those are just wild ones and they'll splice in the one you want they might also say could you ABC it or could you give me three in a row of that and those are just ways to get you to do that same thing over and over again then also might be ways to do they might also ask you to do some wild ad-libs and sometimes if you're doing banter between two actors they might ask you go uh-huh Oh hmm ah you know words like that that they can splice in to fill in any gaps and reaction shots data to make a script feel more natural and not just words per part part part part part okay if you've made a mistake or if they if they like most of it take and they want to fix one word have you do a different inflection they'll ask you to do a they'll do something called either a drop in or a punch in and the way that works is they're going to play the whole thing back to you and you'll speak along with the script trying to do it exactly the same way and then all of a sudden the audio is going to stop in your headphones and you're going to keep talking and deliver that word or words or portion of the script that they feel could be done better or could be done differently so you'll go you'll be it's hard to explain here but you'll be you'll be speaking along in and trying to be perfectly in sync with yourself in the headphones from a previous take then suddenly it will stop and you'll keep going so and they'll be recording you for just that new section it's called a drop in or a punch in sometimes when you're working on a script or working on an ad or a video they will give you what's called a scratch track and a scratch track is really someone who's not the voice actor it could be the animator or the engineer who has recorded themselves into the own into their computer speakers so they have a sense of the timing of an advertisement or a video or something like that and you're going to try and hit those timings they're not you're not necessarily going to have to mimic their inflection but they're trying to give you a sense of where the timing is on that script and so that will be a scratch track they will often say during a video if this is the hero and that is the hero is the most important word phrase or line in a script so if you're talking about McDonald's when you get to the line that mentions McDonald's that's the hero and that's the word that you got to hit perfectly you're going to emphasize it just right that's the part that the listener that's the part that they want the listener to hear the most it's the hero so if it's about the Big Mac then you're going to hit the Big Mac the right way converse to that is the throw away so there'll be some parts of the script that you are that you're going to speed through you're going to gloss over you're going to de-emphasize and that's this that's the stuff that you throw away that's the part of the that's the less important part of the script the connective words the phrases that lead you into the hero so you're going to either throw away or you're going to highlight things you're going to highlight the hero once they have a good take that they like and that they've approved sometimes it's called a bye they call that the buy take that's the take that they're going to buy to use so sometimes you'll have a couple of different buys but if they say that's a buy that's the one they're they're happy with that take and they'll you'll move on to the next part of the script or the or whatever else you're doing or you might be done at that point once they have the buy you're good they may ask you to slate a slate is during an Edition recording that's when you introduce yourself you say what client working for and how many takes this is Mike delgadio for McDonald's I have two takes for you that's a slate if you're in a session they may ask you to slate each take so you might say something like this is act 1 scene 2 page 3 line 4 take one and then you deliver this is act 1 scene 2 page 3 line 2 take 2 and they'll help you sleep but that's it's a way for the engineer if he's got this big long recording session with lots of repeats they may may ask you to slate each one that says take 1 take 2 and they'll they'll give you a guide on how much they want you to sleep doesn't happen so much now with the digital consoles where they can put markers to market and they type it in but I have had remote sessions where they ask you to slate each one boooooo ok we're blasting through this next thing so that's all the that's all the stuff that will happen in in the booth for direction for delivery there's a couple of like other technical terms that they might have they might say you're popping the mic or I'm getting pops and that's when you are sending a blast of air into the microphone and it makes it this deep base and it ruins the take so if you're right up on it and you're in you're blasting air into the mic you're popping the mic and that's called a closest and they'll ask you to back off the mic or turn your head or something so that you're not sending air directly from your mouth into the microphone and causing it because once you've popped it you've ruined that take and they have to redo it again along those lines they may ask you to eat the mic so right now I'm you know this far off the mic I'm about a foot off the mic but that doesn't necessarily lead to the most intimate of delivery so they might ask you to get right up on the mic and that really gives a sense of intimacy and you can sound like you're right in that person's ear now that leverages something called the proximity effect and the proximity effect is the the tendency for a microphone that as your voice gets closer to it the source gets closer to the microphone the amount of bass increases so that even though you're talking really quietly you can really make your voice deep and that's just a proximity effect some mics most mics do it some mics tone but if they ask you to eat the mic or get up right up on it they're trying to leverage the proximity effect and so you'll you'll see it sounds much more intimate when you're that close let's see they may ask you to connect your words connect your words is too try and eliminate any pauses so as you're delivering lines especially during advertisements they don't want any dead air in between the words so they'll ask you to smooth out your words so that you don't leave any breaks in between and it really is a no way that you have to learn to inhale very quickly take little tiny micro breaths along the way and just practice not putting big pauses in between words a pause for dramatic effect doesn't work in voiceover you need to move it you move through quickly last couple a bed a bed is when you have a music bed something that you might be listening to or they're going to put under your voice and sometimes they'll tell play for you what the music bed is and so that you can hear what the timing is and what the music is that you're going to be talking over help you match tone pace things like that so the music that's played under you is called the music bed the engineer on the other side of the booth will have a microphone and that they will communicate through over the talkback and it's usually just a button that they press and while they're pressing it down their microphone is live and you can hear it it should be off when you're recording and on when they're giving you feedback if you can't hear them you see them talking but you can't hear you just tap on your microphone get their attention tap on the mic and that tells them that they haven't pressed the talkback button but it's just the way that they communicate back to you over the talkback mic last two pieces of lingo that you'll encounter one is called a patch so if you're in a studio a and somewhere else there are people listening to you in another city another building somewhere else those two studios are called they're patched together it might be over something really high-quality like an ISDN line or a source connect line where they're going to record you in their studio even though you're here you packed together over a high-quality or they'll be doing something called a phone patch where they're just listening to you low quality over a phone line or Skype or something like that but you're doing the recording either in your booth or your engineer on your end is doing the recording and they will send the final copy but it gives them a way to hear what your delivery is and to give you any notes any direction along the way the last thing that is really much more of an engineering term but it's called the wet and the dry signal and this is sort of a little bit different than all the other ones but the wet if sometimes you'll hear in your headphones they might say do you want the wet or the dry and really that is prior to an effect being added or after an effect being added wet and dry so before us as your voice goes into the mic and into the first effect it's dry after the effect is applied to it it becomes wet so if you're if you're adding reverb to it the reverb signal is the wet signal now if that wet signal is going into yet another signal after that say a compressor after it comes out of the reverb it becomes dry again and it's the dry signal that goes into the compressor and after it gets compressed it's now the wet signal again so as it goes through each part in the chain as it goes into one effect it's dry as it goes out of an effect it's wet and then it turns dry again and goes into the next one that's really more for your signal chain when you see sliders they're called wet and dry because you can mix how much of each that you want or they might ask you do you want to hear the wet or the dry and in there some sometimes singers want to hear reverb in their headphones so they'll want the wet signal whereas voice artists sometimes we want to hear the dry signal we don't want to hear all the effects we just want us so that we know how we sound all right holy cow that was long that was a lot more lingo than I thought I was going to deliver today anyway I hope this helps go study up on your jargon play it again if you have to now get in your booth and record something amazing holy cow it gets hot in these booths whoo this is the this is the the thing with with home booths everybody it gets hot I'm sweating 20 minutes in here high-energy it gets hot so make sure you open your door let that cold air in again get that heat out of your booth anyway we'll talk to you next time

Channel: Booth Junkie

Views: 64,445

Keywords: voiceover, voiceacting, voicework

Id: Ac5_NHtzD4g

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/DeadDillo]

There's some really great stuff in this. Thanks!