Now Hear This! - 2010, Sum-Sum-Summertime!

[Scott Pollak]

And so... as a natural follow up...

This morning I had to crank out - and I DO mean crank out - a "Thank You" spot for this campaign. In about 30 minutes I had to script, voice, and produce a :60 "Thank You". It's attached.

Let me guess; you guys want this script, too, right?

[RickRileyVoice]

Rick: ... One spot where the tone takes an odd turn, though, is in the "but for five thousand mothers..." sentence. The musicality of that phrase feels out of place with the rest. There's a sing-song quality to it, and "their last" feels like it almost has a subtle touch of sarcasm.

Justin, I felt the same way after I listened a couple of times, and should have done a retake, but I didn't, because hey, it's only a forum, right? It's not like there's any money involved. WRONG. I forgot that the most critical ears on the planet are right here. From people who WANT to find something they feel is missing, and want to add. IMO, that's why this was a cool exercise.

In essence, this is a GREAT piece of copy because it hits the absolute pinnacle of the range of emotions. All within a few sentences! You go from the joy of life, to the tragedy of undeserved death. And the 'tragedy' was where I failed.

One thing I learned years ago, was to smile when reading copy. I've done it so much, that what was once very foreign, is now very natural. So much so, that just yesterday when I was being directed, I was told to "get rid of that 'default' smile". My director couldn't see me, but it was a natural part of my delivery and she sure heard it. So now, what I used to have to consciously make myself do, smile, I have to now consciously make myself NOT do. I don't have a problem with that, but here, when 'death' came in the very next sentence after trying to capture the 'joy of birth', I failed to switch gears as quickly as I should.

Again, it's a great piece of copy because it really encapsulates why one has to be a "Voice Actor".

If I could keep this going, I would really like to hear a female read. Who would be better able to grasp a story of mothers and babies, than women who become mothers and have babies.

Very perceptive Justin, thanks for your ears,
Rick

[Scott Pollak]

Okay, so my 'studio' is actually in my bonus room, located over my garage. Occasionally I'll be in the middle of recording and this will happen. All you can do is chuckle, regroup, and tarry forth.

[JBarrett]

Haha! Funny stuff. On the plus side, your read gets a natural smile.

[Pat Sweeney]

Scott, excellent sound effects!

[Jon Morss]

Scott -- Nice work as always. Very believable.

Here is a little somethin' somethin' I auditioned with for the NuRun "Who We Are" posting from Voices.com. I booked and completed the recording for this gig, so I guess its okay to post the audition.
When the recording is up on their site, I'll post in the Gigs and Nifty news section as well.

[JoeActor]

Congrats on the booking, Jon!

Your voice in this one has kind of a young "Carl Kasl" quality to it (he's on NPR)...

[Lee Gordon]

Today there was a lead on Voices.com that is something we used to call a blivit (10 pounds of $h!t in a five pound bag). It was about 45 seconds worth of copy that they wanted stuffed into a :30. Fortunately, the style they wanted was one of those "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday" type drag race commercials.

I submitted it as dry voice only. I added the music and the compression just for posting here.

[JoeActor]

Lee.

Thank you.

I've learned 3 things:
1) way too much about this show in a really short period of time
2) new word: blivit
3) I no longer need coffee

Go Get 'em Lee!
Joe

[Lee Gordon]

Perhaps some of you saw this on Voices.com today. The job posting consisted of an animatic of two squirrels speaking Italian with English subtitles and they wanted the squirrel lines read in English. Here's what I sent.