We all want our work to be masterpieces. Most, if not all of us take great pride in what we voice and produce. Each of us are well-seasoned in mic etiquette and technic. We've learned expression and developed the instincts of key phrases.
Yet, I find that if I'm not careful, my work can easily sound like nothing more than just a radio commercial.
Almost 40 years of radio can be hard to break.
It's been my experience through my freelance voice over endeavors that big-budget creative directors for radio and especially TV don't want radio people. Radio talent sound like radio commercials. They want actors; people adept at bringing personality and real life to the written word. Granted, some scripts lend themselves to that. But even those scripts that read bland, it's the talent's job to make them sound real, believable and even relatable.
That's hard to do.
To help further their skills, talent will hire or consult with a talent coach. For those of us living on a tight budget, that's out of reach.
I've discovered that one thing I can do, that won't cost me a dime, is to go back to the very basics. I go back in time to when I was a kid.
I learned a lot and gained my greatest inspiration just by listening. Which makes sense. We thrive in an auditory medium, after all.
I needed to relearn, or at least bolster the skill of thinking in pictures.
When I was a kid, I had a friend named Chris. He was completely blind. He and I discovered we were both big fans of Ray Bradbury. Chris had just about every Bradbury story available in talking book form on vinyl. There were countless days and nights we spent together in his room. We had the window shades drawn and the lights out. We both laid on the floor listening to William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, or George Takei paint pictures of the planet Mars and other fantastic worlds.
I needed to relive those days.
That relationship with Chris lead me to discover that CBS Radio aired a nightly program; CBS Radio Mystery Theater. These nightly shows were 30 minutes long. And each starred household name actors from film and TV. The host and main narrator was E.G. Marshall.
A few years back, I found a huge library from that series' almost 30 year run. I made it a point to take at least one night a week to close the window shades, turn out the lights, get real comfortable. Then, I pressed play and let master thespians show me how they did it, and did it so well.
The first time I listened, I did it for pure enjoyment. Then, I listened again to see why it worked so well. First, I dissected the actors' delivery. The next listen was breaking down the script and the mechanics of the story. Then came the reverse engineering on the production value; sound effects and underscore.
At first, I thought it was probably easier for that generation of actor. All of them grew up with radio before there was TV. And a majority of them began their careers in radio dramas. But, I recall an interview I watched with Vincent Price. He began his acting career on stage, then film, radio came later. The interviewer asked him how difficult was it to transition from film to radio. Vincent's reply was masterful as it was beautiful.
"I reminded myself that just as the camera is the eye, the microphone is the ear. It wasn't a piece of technical equipment. It was a person I was telling this story to."
I try to remind myself of that every time I crack open the mic, regardless of how good or bad the script is.
I invite you to take some time this week; close the curtains, turn off the lights, and play some of the stories you'll hear in the link below.
It's E.G. Marshall and Fred Gwynn -The Munsters, My Cousin Vinny, and Pet Sematary -in "The Last Lesson" from 1975. Enjoy the story. Give your eyes a rest. Let your mind's theater create the images. Let E.G and Fred's voices become the movie projector. Listen. Love. Learn.
Have fun!
Mike -The Reel Architect.
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