Microphones are microscopes. They pick up everything, including thoughtful acting! In this episode, Anne & Pilar discuss why acting is essential to a successful VO career. Acting requires imagination, creativity, and using much more than just your voice. Tune in for advice on involving your body in your read, the intimacy of voice acting, and why you need to develop a character for every genre…
More at https://voboss.com/the-art-of-voice-acting
Transcript
>> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.
Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe.
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Good morning, Pilar. How are you?
Pilar: I am great, Anne. I'm doing well. How are you?
Anne: Oh, you know, I'm doing all right. Except I, I've already spilled half a cup of coffee. Oops. I just --
Pilar: Did it again?
Anne: -- I admitted that I drink -- no, I admit that I drink coffee. I love my coffee, and people that listen to this podcast know how much I love my coffee. So I have to chase it with lots and lots of water so it doesn't dry my mouth out. And hopefully you're not hearing mouth noise at this point, but anyway.
Pilar: I just heard one. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
Anne: So there we go. So then, I'm going to have you talk so you can hear less of my mouth noise.
Pilar: Okay.
Anne: But I love our conversations that we've been having. And in our last couple of episodes, we talked about what it was like for you to be a bilingual VO in the industry and what it takes to be successful. And I want to kind of step back because you've had such an extensive career in all sorts of things. And I think something that's really important that I want to kind of reign in and talk a little bit more about is your acting experience. And I know that there's a lot of voiceover artists out there that are like, oh my gosh, I've never really acted. At least I came from the corporate side of things and didn't have an acting background, but as I went along, I learned acting. And I don't want people to be afraid that well, just because they don't have a ton of acting experience that they can't do voiceover. However, I do believe it's important for us to talk about how important acting is in our career.
Pilar: It is, I would say, fundamental.
Anne: Yeah.
Pilar: That's why the word acting is in voice acting.
Anne: Yeah, I agree.
Pilar: You know, this is something that also happens. Sometimes people think that you're like a talking head when you're on television, because you only get to see, let's say shoulders or chest, shoulders, and face. But when you're acting, you're acting with your whole body, and that goes for voice as well. So when I started acting in high school, when I started getting formal training, I majored in theater and we had acting classes. And you know, you do the proverbial, you know, act like a teapot, act like a tiger, and all these sense exercises.
Anne: I was a dog in my third grade play.
Pilar: Exactly, exactly. You know how to go bow-wow.
Anne: I'm just saying.
Pilar: But those things are important. What does it feel like to be on all fours rather than to be upright? And it's something that I think that a lot of voice actors don't think that they need. And you need to have those sensory experiences, however you're going to get them. So a lot of the work that I did when I was in college and later when I went down to Colombia, for example, I kept taking acting classes even while I had a television career, because I had to keep the body trained, because the body gets rusty, and we're, we tend to be lazy. And I'm the first to admit it.
Anne: I think to be said for -- you made me just think about when I was a little girl, right? Remember when we had all kinds of imagination or is it just me? It's like, I used to imagine --
Pilar: Yes. Back then.
Anne: Back then I had so much imagination, and I would play with my dolls. I would teach my dolls. I had my stuffed Mickey Mouse. I dragged him everywhere. And we became like acting partners if, for nothing else. Right?
Pilar: Totally.
Anne: I had all sorts of adventures with him. And I think that there's a lot to be said for that. And somehow when we get older, sometimes we lose that unless we're actively going into acting like you were. And I think that we need to readdress that as we become adults and find areas or times when we can go back to that time to create scenes and use our imagination. And I think there's a lot of that in voiceover that we have to do behind the mic because we're acting in front of a non-existent audience.
Pilar: Do you remember, did you ever make forts?
Anne: Oh yes. All the time.
Pilar: Okay. So making forts, you're making forts out of pillows, out of blankets. You're making up a scene, a place, a cubby hole, a cave that basically doesn't exist.
Anne: Right.
Pilar: And that's what we have to do when we step in front of the mic and we're doing, let's say, a video game, and we have to imagine that we are a warrior or we are a computer game. I did a video game last year that came out, actually it was in 2020 or 2021. And it came out a couple of weeks ago where I played, I actually played a computer voice. That was one of my characters. And then the other character was an old woman. And so for the old woman, I changed my stance completely. So I was hunched over. I always have, since my voiceover booth is my closet, I basically just took my clothes -- I did leave some clothes out, but I just padded the whole thing. And I have a couple of scarves handy. When I would play that character, that older character I would hunch over, and I would put a shawl over me over my head, over my shoulders.
Anne: So you got props.
Pilar: Yeah, oh, I always have props, always have props. Whether it's a cell phone, I have, I actually have a toy gun on my desk, a little plastic toy gun, because so many of these characters, we know when I'm auditioning or when I'm doing them, they require, let's say the older lady, she was hallucinating. And so she was seeing things, and she was just immersed in grief. So I had to go there with her in order for my voice to register. It wasn't that I was manipulating the voice. I had to feel her sadness and her grief and her seeing things, which weren't really there because she was so enmeshed in her grief.
And so the only way that I can do that is if I imagine it. So you're absolutely right about going back in time. If there is a time that you can go back to. And I did this all the time when I was in Colombia. There were so many characters that I did that I had no previous experience in playing.
Anne: Well, I was going to say, I say, Pilar, I know you, and you're not evil, but yet you played an evil character. Right?
Pilar: Oh, and she was so much fun to play.
Anne: And, you know, what's interesting is I watched the little clip that you had, and I don't remember what particular scene it was, but you were having a conversation with someone else. Your hair was short. And again, I don't understand Spanish, which again, it's one of those things I kicked myself for not learning. And I'm going to, I really should just start learning it -- but just your facial expressions alone, you embodied that character. Like you didn't have to understand Spanish to understand that you were an evil character in that. And it was literally like, what, 20 seconds, 30-second clip.
Pilar: Yeah. She was so mean. So nasty.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Pilar: And people would stop me on the street all the time in Colombia. And they would say -- because the name of the show was "Eternamente Manuela," Eternally Manuela," and Manuela was my first cousin.
Anne: Would they hate you?
Pilar: So they was like, oh my God, they would do two things. They would say, why are you -- they would stop me on the streets. Why so mean to Manuela? Or they would meet me and they'd go, oh, wow. You're really nice. What happened? It was just like, well, I'm playing a character. She was really, really evil. However, when you're playing a character, I never saw her as being evil when I was playing her. I just saw her as being misunderstood.
Anne: Okay.
Pilar: And so I did an outline for her. I did a backstory for her, where she came from, how she grew up, what were some things that might have brought her to that present moment of when she first steps into the character, into the script that first day. And that really informed what I would do for the rest of the show.
Anne: So you weren't thinking like, you're actually playing mean, but --
Pilar: No.
Anne: -- because you had such a backstory built up already, it became a reaction. Is that correct?
Pilar: Exactly. So this, this came with time because I had time to rehearse before I started the show. So when I'm in the booth, and I've got a script and I'm handed sides at, let's say 5:00 in the afternoon, which is when agents send them generally. And then they're due the next morning. Exactly. And I'm looking at a piece of paper, I'm looking at a piece of paper with words, and that's all there is. There might be a description thrown in and there might be some specs.
Anne: There might be a picture if it's a character, right?
Pilar: There might be a picture. But generally you're just, it's a piece of paper, and it's not even a piece of paper. It's a bunch of words on a screen.
Anne: Right, right.
Pilar: So it's my job as an actor to imagine this character. And if I'm talking about anything, I'm talking about commercial, promo, whatever it is that you're given. If you're talking about Folger's Coffee, it's delicious. You have to see and smell that coffee. So let's say you're not Anne Ganguzza, and you hate coffee. Okay? So you have to imagine, okay, so I hate coffee, let's say, and I don't, but let's say I do. And I'm, and I have an audition to do the next day. Well, I have to find something in my memory bank of what I love that resembles coffee. Because if I don't like coffee, I hate the taste of it. Well, maybe I like hot chocolate or I like hot apple cider, so I have to substitute. And I have to imagine, and I have to feel, feel it. I have to taste it. I have to see it. I have to hear it. So I can hear the drip, drip, drip.
So using all the senses, that's where the imagination, that's how you can get that character. And you can do that. You know, at the beginning, people will go, oh yeah, well it's acting. And you know, I just sit there and I read the copy, and I get into it. And I read it a few times. Well, absolutely. You read it a few times, but you start sort of clicking on your memory bank to see what you can bring into it. Because when you bring in your memories, I mean, we can, we can do this exercise right now. So what's your favorite food?
Anne: Oh, all of it. Probably bread.
Pilar: Okay. What's your favorite type of bread?
Anne: Italian.
Pilar: Be more specific? A Tuscan loaf. Okay. So I want you, okay. Perfect. Artisan Tuscan, loaf from La Brea Bakery. I want you to put yourself in the bakery right now. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to feel, and I'm in the Tuscan bakery too, even though I've never been there --
Anne: It's warm from the ovens.
Pilar: Okay. And so it's warm --
Anne: Because they're baking bread.
Pilar: They're baking bread. And it's like, your mouth is starting to salivate.
Anne: 'Cause I can smell the bread baking.
Pilar: You can smell the bread. And so maybe you ask for the loaf, you get the bread, you get it sliced, right?
Anne: And I can see it because it's golden.
Pilar: And you can see it. And then you take it home.
Anne: It's got a little bit of a crust.
Pilar: And you cannot wait. You've decided you need to taste the bread before you leave the store. So what I want you to do is I want you to just talk about the bread that you're eating right now.
Anne: Okay. So first of all, I'm going to tell you that I like a dense bread, so -- that has a crispy crust, right? So it's crispy on the outside and it's a little heavy in my hands.
Pilar: Stop right there. I want you to say it as you're tasting it. It's crispy the outside.
Anne: It's crispy on the outside and it's heavy in my hand. So it's, it's dense. It's got a lot of flavor.
Pilar: What does it taste like?
Anne: Heaven. It tastes like -- well, I need to have butter on it. So I put butter on it. It's just, it's got, it's got, oh, it's got, it's salty. It's it's even, even sweet to me.
Pilar: Okay. And see what you just did there? You just gave that little paragraph a whole bunch of different flavors and colors because you were experiencing it as you were saying it.
Anne: Yeah, absolutely.
Pilar: So that's what we have to do with every piece of copy.
Anne: And now I'm hungry.
Pilar: I am too. I'm like I'm in that Tuscan bakery.
Anne: But wait, I just want to say this is for everything. I want to reiterate that we're talking about acting for every genre. You know, people think that e-learning and corporate narration and telephony, you don't have a character. Oh my gosh. Yes. You absolutely have to have a character as well. It may not be as dynamic maybe or as emotional because it depends on the experience that you're in. Right? I think if you're going to be taught a lesson from a teacher, the teacher's not necessarily going to be sad and crying or emotional in that sense, or if you're doing a corporate narration, right? You're in a professional environment. So you may or may not have a wide range of emotions, but you'll absolutely have nuanced emotions and those emotions, right, and the acting, you absolutely have to have those nuances because you're not just reading the words that puts you in the scene and it makes you believable.
Pilar: Absolutely, Anne. I will go one step further because it is actually to a person who works for State Farm, it is that important.
Anne: Absolutely.
Pilar: You approach every piece of copy as it is appropriate to the genre that you're talking about. So let's say through the commercial, when he EF Hutton talks, people listen. And it was so effective because people were sitting there, they were talking and, and then the scene was that everybody was talking and then that person stopped. The voiceover would say it and then it stopped. And so you knew that that was the EF Hutton commercial. So that can register in your voice.
Anne: Absolutely.
Pilar: If you are thinking -- 'cause it doesn't matter whether it's bread or it's a video game character or it's Charles Schwab.
Anne: Right.
Pilar: It's really all about what you put into it. So if you're doing a commercial about Charles Schwab, you're dressed in a business suit. You're sitting in your, and there's a whole bunch of investment bankers. If you don't know what it is, you look it up. That's what YouTube is for.
Anne: Oh my gosh. Yes.
Pilar: YouTube is such a great resource.
Anne: You to take that minute, take that minute and Google, for goodness' sake.
Pilar: Go look up the product, go to ispot TV, go listen, go, go get your feet immersed in it, go see the competition, see what they're doing.
Anne: Absolutely.
Pilar: It doesn't take more than five, ten minutes.
Anne: It really doesn't. You know what? It amazes me Pilar that there are so many people that just, they rush to get so many auditions done in a day. And yet they don't take a minute to really research the product, the brand, the company, whatever it is, right? For the most part, doing that little extra work really, really helps you in just upping your game and taking it to a whole new.
Pilar: Absolutely. Because here's the thing. Whether or not you get selected, because obviously the odds, you know, there's so many people auditioning at once for one role. To me, it's more important to have a well-crafted audition, that I stopped and thought about it. I don't have to spend hours on it. No. But when I play it back and I go away for a minute and I, let's say, go get a cup of water, and then I come back and I listen to it again. Is it something that I can be proud of? Or am I just sending it in? Because I waited until the last minute, and I did it and I just have to get it in before the deadline? So you want it to be as real as possible so that the person listening on the other end will go, oh, okay. I can't use her, but she's got a great voice, because that has happened to me. You know, over the past --
Anne: Or you can tell, well, she can act. I think there's a lot of that when they're listening to the audition, we may not get that gig, but you will absolutely prove yourself that you are an actor.
Pilar: Well, and here's something that's really important to know is that the casting director gets a whole bunch of voices together from the agents and then sends it off to the client. And then it's the client, the copywriter who makes the decision. But really and truly, when the casting director, since they listen to every audition, they're going to be hearing your voice over and over and over again. So if you're presenting good auditions, there is a situation, even though there are certain people who make the decisions, the casting director is also lobbying for people that he or she is saying, oh, that's really good. I really liked that. So that's why it's also so important that care is taken when you present something because an audition is not just an audition. And audition is like, is a little one act play. It's a 30-second or it's a 15-second one act play with the beginning, middle, and end. And to treat it any less than that is doing yourself a disservice.
Anne: So let me ask you a question. So when you get casting specs, are you following the casting specs? Because I've heard both sides of the coin here, follow the casting specs, or really just bring yourself to the party and bring your own uniqueness. So what's your plan?What is your strategy when you get an audition?
Pilar: That's such a loaded question, and I've heard it answered in so many different ways. I do look at the specs. I know people who say, don't look at the specs until the end. Don't pay attention. Other people say, follow the specs. You have to read whatever the casting director is sending you via the agent because they're sending it specifically so you take stock. And I know one specific casting director who's like people, read the spec, I'm tailor making it so guys don't miss any little detail of what the client wants. This person said it. They were like, I'm giving you all these breadcrumbs, go ahead and use them. That said, it's not like you're chained to do it exactly.
Anne: Right.
Pilar: Because they're looking for your interpretation of it.
Anne: Yeah, your unique spin.
Pilar: I mean, at the beginning, and I know so many people listening on this podcast have I'm sure gotten Sigourney Weaver, sound like Emma Stone.
Anne: Yup. Yup.
Pilar: Scarlett Johansson. I mean every, you know, all day long, you get all these sound like, and what they're looking for is not an -- I used to, I used to fall into the trap, as I'm sure many people have when I first started seeing those names, as I would run and look at her and try to almost copy their voices.
Anne: Right.
Pilar: And that's not what they're looking for. They're looking for an attitude.
Anne: Yeah, or an emotion.
Pilar: What's your point of view? Yeah. But what's your point of view? Who are you talking to? Because if I'm looking at somebody, and we're back in the bakery on La Brea, and I'm looking at the sales person and I'm saying, can I get some bread? And 'cause I'm just having a good day and or maybe I haven't had anything and I'm like, can I get some bread, because I have to go take a pill with my -- and I have to get bread. So, and so it's like --
Anne: Or the pill's stuck in your throat and you need the bread to push it down.
Pilar: Can I get some bread?
Anne: That happens to me all the -- I need, I need a cracker or I need a bread -- need a piece of bread.
Pilar: Right, exactly. So it's all in how you, what is your attitude? Who are you speaking to?What's your point of view while you're saying this piece of copy?
Anne: It's so, so important. And it's funny because you and I may experience completely different genres during our days. Right? I do a lot of corporate. I do a lot of e-learning. I do a lot of telephony, but yet I also am always thinking about who I am, who I'm talking to, and putting myself in a scene because that emotion or that nuanced emotion is everything. It is everything. It is what takes a voice actor from simply reading the words to being immersed and making a believable and authentic.
And I can't express enough people just say, they just read it and they read it in a melody that they think it should sound like, right? Oh, I've heard it on television like this, or, oh, I've, I've heard it in a video like this, but I'm like, no, you are not the person that's going to mimic any of that. And as a matter of fact, if you get the job, like I'm trying to train you what it takes to get the job. Right? And then when you get the job, then you can be directed as to however the client wants it. But I think you have to prove your acting first. And that I think it comes down to really, I think, the emotion and the point of view that you're talking about, which is everything.
Pilar: Yeah. Yeah. I would hazard that to say that long-form, something like e-learning, it's almost more important.
Anne: Oh my God. Yes. Absolutely.
Pilar: Because you have to think about, who's listening to this on the other end. So if I'm going to be doing this, you know, straight kind of a thing, then, you know, once upon a time there was a little... and then, and my range doesn't change or [singsong] my range is changing like this, and it's always like this, you're going to drive the person on the other end crazy.
Anne: Exactly.
Pilar: So you are telling a story, no matter what genre --
Anne: No matter what you're doing.
Pilar: Yeah. And you have to always tell a the story.
Anne: You have to pull attention.
Pilar: Absolutely.
Anne: The longer it is, I think the harder it is.
Pilar: I agree.
Anne: And I think the more dry the material, the harder you have to be in that scene, you have to be that character so that you can hold their attention. I mean, there's so many other things vying for our attention. And that is absolutely. I think so, so important for us to understand that acting is, is everything. It really is, acting as everything in terms of, I believe being successful in your voiceover career. So let me ask you a question. What are the differences that you've experienced in, let's say, stage acting or on-camera acting and voice acting. What are the major differences that you have to account for?
Pilar: Okay. Stage acting. Well, first of all, you're projecting because you have to reach the last person, the last seat in the theater.
Anne: Yeah, and we don't have to do that in our studios.
Pilar: No, you don't have to do that. Film acting is very close. It's very concentrated.
Anne: Well, plus you have somebody to kind of, if you're in a scene with somebody, right, you have somebody else to play off of.
Pilar: Yeah, absolutely.
Anne: And that's a big --
Pilar: Not always, not always --
Anne: No? Okay.
Pilar: -- but at least you -- yeah, well, because a lot of the times, if you're, if you're doing, if they're doing a closeup of you, sometimes the other actor will, will be there, but sometimes they won't be. And it'll just be a stand-in. So a lot of the times you have to use your imagination. Voiceover though, you generally never have anybody to bounce off of.
Anne: Right. That's where your imagination takes, right?
Pilar: That's why you have to use imagination.
Anne: Yeah, you have to have a lot of it because you have no, you have no audience.
Pilar: And also I think something that's so important that people don't realize that I discovered actually many, many years ago when I was working, when I first started working in television, I remember a cameraman, because you know, they work long, long hours. And he once said to me, he said, everything that comes through there, we can see what you're doing because the camera never lies.
Anne: Oh yeah.
Pilar: He said it in such a way. And I was --
Anne: That makes so much sense.
Pilar: And it was just so interesting to me because I thought, wow, they've always got, you know, their eyes trained on you when the cameras aren't rolling, 'cause they're setting up the shot. So there is a truth that you have to present. Otherwise, if you are quote, unquote acting, it's going to show because the camera picks up everything, and the microphone is the same thing.
Anne: You know, it's funny because if you do the parallel thinking and whenever I watch television or a movie right away, I immediately say, oh my God, I don't believe that. I don't believe that character. And it's rare that I see it because most of the time, if it's released for television or movies, you've got a credible actor behind it. But if you ever have that experience where you're not believing the character, it is so obvious. And yet I don't think people think about that when they're doing voiceover, right?
They think it just has to sound a particular way, and that will make it believable. But in reality, if somebody is listening on the other end, right, and they have a keen sense of believability, I think people always know. They may not be able to put their finger on it as to why it's not believable, but they will be able to tell that it's not believable. And it sounds just like, hey, it's an announcer. You know, that kind of thing. But I think in reality, we all have to strive for that believability factor first because when you can get there, regardless of the copy -- I mean not every piece of copy is Pulitzer prize, winning material, right? I mean, that's where our jobs come in to make it a story, make it our story and to bring that story to the table and make it believable. And if we can't, it's, it's obvious to the ear. Maybe not our own ears, but it's obvious to the person listening that has a vested interest. And if you cannot engage with that listener, then they don't have to engage with you. Right? They don't have to listen to you.
Pilar: Exactly. Or if it's a casting director or --
Anne: Exactly.
Pilar: -- they're listening to your there'll be just, okay, next.
Anne: Exactly. Next.
Pilar: We're done. You know, what I've heard over the past two years now, every single casting director says, we listen to every audition. What they don't say is how long they listened to it. So I've been told that literally six seconds in, sometimes it's less. If they don't hear the truth, they just go onto the next audition. They do not listen to the whole thing.
Anne: And you know what, that makes me even more resolute in the fact that your very first words out of your mouth for that audition or for whatever it is, you have to already have been in the scene. And it has to have been a reaction to something.
Pilar: You're responding.
Anne: Yeah. You're responding. And that melody, if you want to break it down into melodies, if you're musical, is completely different than simply starting a word, like welcome, you know, I mean, that's like, oh, that was just, I read the word welcome, but it would sound completely different if I was actually welcoming you at the door. And it would sound completely different.
Pilar: Or you could be welcoming into an airplane.
Anne: Exactly, exactly.
Pilar: Or welcoming into a car or welcoming into a school. It's going to be completely different because we are --
Anne: Wherever you are.
Pilar: Yeah, exactly.
Anne: I think that's every time for my genre is, you know, when it's welcome or introducing or any of those words, right, it's hard to make them sound authentic, believable. Right? We don't always, we're not always saying welcome, you know, in our everyday life, but you've got to make it sound like it's a greeting, and that you are genuinely happy to see that person. So that becomes a challenge for people. So you've got to step into that scene and figure out what is that scene before you even start talking? I think that's, that's so important.
Pilar: And I think it's also important, probably one of the most important things is to have a lead-in which you're not going to put on the audition necessarily, unless they're asking for improv, but that you're having a conversation.
Anne: Yes, absolutely.
Pilar: You're having a conversation before you start speaking.
Anne: Yep. That helps for sure.
Pilar: It's like, when you're going, when you're rolling into the scene, it's not like you just kind of get up and start. You're already in there. You're already talking about it. And then you can just flow right into the words.
Anne: Absolutely.
Pilar: It's so much harder when you're like, oh, okay, you see the line going. And it's like, okay, now we have to start talking. That's not real.
Anne: This is the beginning.
Pilar: Right? Exactly.
Anne: It's like, no.
Pilar: So if you say, if you say, oh, I'm here, I'm in front of a whole bunch of people and they're really, really excited. And this is going to be a really great day. And the sun is shining --
Anne: Welcome. This is just the beginning. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I love that. Yeah. Welcome. Wow. Good stuff, Pilar. I could talk acting all day. We can talk acting all day. I think that was -- thanks so much for those nuggets of wisdom. I absolutely think our BOSSes are going to appreciate those. You guys, I am going to give a great, big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL that allows us to connect like BOSSes. You guys can find out more at ipdtl.com. Pilar, It's been amazing as usual. And I thank you for being with us.
Pilar: Glad to be here again.
Anne: Yeah. You guys, have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. Bye.
Pilar: Bye-bye.
>> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.