Woo! So we finally got to do our first rehearsal I few days ago! (And we do want to come out with a bloopers reel! haha!) But it wasn't as.......well easy as I thought it would be.
Besides half of our cast not being there (because life happens) and the other half getting hurt for multiple reasons (Poor Skaura got injured but you may ask her how since I don't know if she cares if I share what happened but it is nothing........well she didn't lose a limb or break a bone, so its bad but , I choked on honey-tea, nasty stuff. I prefer it just being bitter) it was a interesting rehearsal but productive for our first trailer!
And I learn something new from our VAs everyday! And things I need to do as a Vocal Director. Sakura makes sure they sound the way she wants them and when she's doing that (which this is something I just do I wasn't assigned to do these exact things) I fallow along with each word and tell him if he needs to pronounce some words better. But most importantly! Hitting verbs!
All stage actors should know this, but ladies and gentlemen you are probably asking yourselves "What is hitting verbs?". When you "hit a verb", you just emphasize it more, put a little more energy behind it, and pronounce it a little better than the rest of the words in the sentence. At first this will sound odd but once you practice the line more it will become more and more natural sounding. Now why is this important?
Your audience only has your voice to rely on to tell them the story (in many cases). They need to know what the characters are doing and what is going to happen next. The verbs are probably the most important words in the sentence, sometimes you need to hit helping verbs or even nouns (depending on their importance but most of the time you will not. Sometimes it depends on your director too). Self-consciously your audience will hear those words, immediately pick up on what's currently going on, and it'll be much more enjoyable to listen to. After having our VAs do it the line sounded ten times better! (well to me ^_^), and it is an extremely small thing to fix that makes a huge difference. It does not dramatically change the way the sentence sounds, but there is a difference.
So I encourage all aspiring voice actors (and our VAs I demand it) that you highlights the verbs in each of your lines and be conscious of them when you are saying them. I am guilty of not doing this for auditions but no more! ^_^ Good luck! If you wish to know more about this or for audio samples shoot me an email!
Besides half of our cast not being there (because life happens) and the other half getting hurt for multiple reasons (Poor Skaura got injured but you may ask her how since I don't know if she cares if I share what happened but it is nothing........well she didn't lose a limb or break a bone, so its bad but , I choked on honey-tea, nasty stuff. I prefer it just being bitter) it was a interesting rehearsal but productive for our first trailer!
And I learn something new from our VAs everyday! And things I need to do as a Vocal Director. Sakura makes sure they sound the way she wants them and when she's doing that (which this is something I just do I wasn't assigned to do these exact things) I fallow along with each word and tell him if he needs to pronounce some words better. But most importantly! Hitting verbs!
All stage actors should know this, but ladies and gentlemen you are probably asking yourselves "What is hitting verbs?". When you "hit a verb", you just emphasize it more, put a little more energy behind it, and pronounce it a little better than the rest of the words in the sentence. At first this will sound odd but once you practice the line more it will become more and more natural sounding. Now why is this important?
Your audience only has your voice to rely on to tell them the story (in many cases). They need to know what the characters are doing and what is going to happen next. The verbs are probably the most important words in the sentence, sometimes you need to hit helping verbs or even nouns (depending on their importance but most of the time you will not. Sometimes it depends on your director too). Self-consciously your audience will hear those words, immediately pick up on what's currently going on, and it'll be much more enjoyable to listen to. After having our VAs do it the line sounded ten times better! (well to me ^_^), and it is an extremely small thing to fix that makes a huge difference. It does not dramatically change the way the sentence sounds, but there is a difference.
So I encourage all aspiring voice actors (and our VAs I demand it) that you highlights the verbs in each of your lines and be conscious of them when you are saying them. I am guilty of not doing this for auditions but no more! ^_^ Good luck! If you wish to know more about this or for audio samples shoot me an email!