The class that I made sure to finish was called Exploring Motivational Assignment. It covered how we speak, the process we go through to make the decision to speak, and how reading differs from speaking. It was mostly a video class and learning different techniques about how to read like your speaking was fascinating.
One of the things that you can do is to imagine, or even write down, the silent questions that you are responding to.
In most commercial copies, you want to sound like you are talking to a person, not selling to the public. The silent questions are those that you imagine the person you are speaking you to be asking as you read. You want to figure out who you are first, then who you are talking to, then what you are talking about, so that you can correctly emote what the client wants as realistically as possible.
This was just a precurser to the session with Robin. With her, I got to go much more indepth than just with commericals and reading conversationally. We went into the differences between speaking and reading, pitch, diction, timing, and other things that can help with sounding real, such as movement and sounds.
Pitch is an intricate part of our speech. In normal conversation we almost always rise in pitch on the last word. For monosyllabic words this is the rule, but multi-syllabic words are slightly different. The first (or sometimes the second) syllable is the one that will go up in pitch while the last syllable drops pitch. This is something we do subconsciously when we speak and to bring that consciously into reading is key. You do have to watch out for making each sentence into a question. That would be very bad. Another thing that goes hand in hand with pitch is volume. We rarely get very loud, even with intense emotions. Our volume might rise, but the more intense the emotion, the quieter we get sometimes. This of course varries with the emotion, situation, and the person we are talking to.
Diction is HUGELY important. You need to make sure that you are clear and understandable, but still feel real. Certain words, such as "especially" and "probably," you want to always dictate clearly and enunciate. Other words, you can lapse into the vowel shifts to create the realism. With diction you also want to focus on word emhasis. This ties in with your speed and timing.
With timing, you taking into account everything else, and then add in verbal sounds that fit with the copy, such as sighs or laughter, even stuttering as long as you use the words that are in the copy and it fits with the feeling of what you are trying to portray. Things you want to think about with timing are the emotions, how intense they are, the extra sounds, diction, and pitch.
Another technique that helps make reading converstationally sound like an actual conversation is movement. Most people talk with their hands. In voice overs, adding that element makes you sound even more realistic and personable.
This past session was a LOT of fun. :) I do have quite a bit of homework to do though. More of my reading out loud, emotion card game (which is a blast to do with friends, especially when a bottle of peppermint schapps and some coffee is involved), and more of the modivational assignment (taking a copy and writing out the questions and practicing converstational reading and adding in those questions silently, without writing them down).
New homework is to choose at least (I can do more if I want!) 14 commerical copies from the library and 7 narrative copies that fit my voice and favorite them and print them out for my next session. I also have the opportunity to bring to the table any of my personal writing if I choose to (for my demo) and I need to find something in Japanese. The other assignment is that I have to record myself telling a story. I then have to listen to the recording, writing down everything I said. Then I have to read the copy that just wrote and try to sound EXACTLY as I did when I first told the story. It'll be a challenge, but fun and totally worth it.
This past session was a blast, and the next one looks to be the prep work and practice for my in-studio immersion and demo. Which will be extremely helpful.
I'll try to update more on my homework as I complete it. Keyword here being try, as my life is getting quite a bit more busy.
Until next time - Mae
