I don't know if you've noticed from all my recent social media posts, but I have recently developed a new voice acting process that I am leveraging heavily across all my voice work. Because I am a fan of cheesy acronyms, I have entitled it my RAD VO Process. : ) Since adopting this process I feel like I have been constantly taking steps up the stairway of progress!
As I am sure you have realized from all my posts, I am a heavily process oriented person in not only my daily life but as well my voice over career. Simply put, I like to organize things in a way that helps me ensure I deliver everything to a high quality efficiently.
My new R.A.D process has so far done just that! Let's break it down.
At its core my new process is broken down into three phases:
Refine: Understand the content and discover its truth. This phase is step based.
Attack: Express truthfully form the theatre of the mind. This phase is instinct based.
Deliver: Reassess and commit to bring about awesomeness. This phase is task based.
In the first step of my process I commit to getting a deep understanding of the script in order to make it my own. This includes steps like defining the brand, the audience, and verbing the content with specificity.
This can literally take anything from 3 minutes to 30 minutes dependent on the nature of the script, but at the end of the process any script will be rendered unique to me as a voice actor. Even a generic advertising script like "$5 Dollars for 5 Bundles of Lettuce!" will benefit from this process as it will add a significant amount of underlying depth to the read.
In the second step of my process I begin recording the script. The reason I landed on the word Attack, beyond getting a cool acronym, is that this embodies the amount of energy and focus I should bring to the endeavour. Nothing should ever be dialed in, even if the read is intended to be dialed in sounding, it should be approached with focus and determination similar to if you were locked in combat with an opponent.
This phase is governed by instincts such as embracing truth, believing not selling, and being unconstrained. All of which are personal instincts I have come to the conclusion personally improve me as an actor. After completing this phase I should now have a recording that is completely unique to me. This phase takes as long as the recording takes!
In the last step of my process I take a step back from my instincts and ensure that I have completed all my required personal tasks to comfortably be able to submit said audition. This phase is very important as most actors will have bad habits or techniques they naturally lean on. In this phase I ensure I have leveraged different choices, that I have served the words, and that I have committed a high level of physicality to name a few.
At this point, the deliver phase of my process, I may have nothing more to do! But likely, I will have specific tweaks that I can make on said lines to increase that quality by just 5%, and that 5% is what makes a read jump from great to awesome!
So far, this process has been great for me. Not only has it been quick and simple, but it has improved the quality of my acting output dramatically! I don't know if I would recommend that you drop your own acting process and adopt mine, but I would recommend that you assess your acting process with other actors' processes in mind and find what works best for you to push out that awesome!
Remember, if you aren't submitting awesome, you aren't competitive!
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