Here we are again typing human things from human brains for my human-loving producers, creative directors and ad-agency friends!   Let's get crazy and chat from an on-camera talent-perspective on how to get the most out of your on-camera talent during your budget and time-sensitive commercial/film video shoots.

Many of my voiceover colleagues are unaware that I spent the first chapter of my career focusing on film, tv, commercial and industrial on-camera acting.  In fact, I have confusingly posted samples of this chapter of my life on this voiceover website.  If you would like to see what I looked like in my 20s or if you need to fact-check this, or if your Zoom call is boring and on-mute, you can see some of my work here. 

We are feeling extra today, so here is a bonus introduction:  Many times, video productions have a fast-paced kinetic energy leading up to shoot-day - phone calls about fittings, text messages about call-times, emails regarding contracts.  While this all necessary for the production team to move the project forward, it is not related to crafting a narrative through a lens, therefore, tend to these matters prior to shoot-day, and strive to leave this energy off-set.  I have found that the best sets are calm environments - creative sanctuaries, if you will, where small details have been accounted for, freeing up creative bandwidth for the talent and the creative team to focus on the actual art.  For the best performances, directors should strive to foster ecosystems that allow creative focus and malleability.  With that in mind, here are 5 SIMPLE tips to establish a production environment that invites maximum professional creativity from your on-camera talent:

1) First, before the shoot-day, send a shot list and storyboard to the on-camera talent before arriving on-set. 

Since commercial shoots are often last-minute bookings for the on-camera talent, a shot-list and storyboard helps the actor get quickly up-to-speed with memorization AND framing.  For memorization, if it is a day of dialogue-heavy shooting, the actor can stay ahead of the day by looking at the next scene during lighting set-up.  I always prefer a shot list that details the order of the day so I know which scenes to focus on to memorize.  For instance, if a dialogue-heavy scene is being chopped up, I know that I can focus my memorization efforts on different scenes that are longer takes, knowing that I can memorize the quick-cut shots 'on-the-fly.'  Knowing beforehand where the day is going, the actor can deliver a better performance, because preparation can be done between scenes.

Meanwhile,  a storyboard assists the talent with an understanding of the framing of each shot.  This is particularly helpful for on-camera talent during emotional scenes or shots requiring a tremendous amount of physical effort.  Giving the actor the awareness of when a close-up shot will take place allows the on-camera talent to save the internal energy for the more intimate shot versus using all of the 'good stuff' on the wide-shot.

2)  Next, provide detailed directions to the set before the shoot day. 

While technology is wonderful, there are many times that I have been on rural locations where cell-service is not as reliable as typical urban environments.  Therefore, in addition to the physical address of the shooting location, consider adding old-school directions that are written in an email or text.  There is no shame in this game and let us all pause for a moment of silence for Mapquest...Okay, thank you.  There is nothing worse than wasting time and energy on finding the location for a shoot and showing up stressed to the first day of shooting.

3) On the day of shooting, ensure that video village, the client AND the advertising agency people are out of sight-line of the actor during takes and during playback. 

From a talent-perspective, I am at my best when I am free-to-play, unhindered by critical eyes and blissfully unaware of individual tastes.  As a keen observer of body-language, it can be nerve-wracking to have the client and agency in the sight-line, because I can watch a hive-mind weigh-in on a performance.  It is better to shield on-camera talent from critical eyes, and for the actor to be allowed to focus solely on the performance.  Once a consensus has been reached between client, agency and the director on the previous take, then the director can return to the on-camera talent to offer clear, concise feedback that is free of critical snark.  This protects the creative space and keeps performances loose, playful and spontaneous.

4) During meal-times, offer healthy, light food options.   This is not an actor "diva" thing; if you have read this far, please hear me out.  

Many sets serve doughnuts or tacos for breakfast and pizza for lunch.  While these are great and delicious American staples, a heavy/greasy or high-sugar meal creates unnecessary fatigue as the body digests sugar and carbohydrates, so the actor can appear tired during takes after a meal.  If you want an actor to give you 'three cappuccinos-type-of-energy,' it is simply inhumane to offer the talent a sausage breakfast burrito and a chocolate doughnut before saying, "roll camera."  To keep creative energy up on-set, allow lighter, healthier options to assist the cast AND crew in avoiding an energy crash.  And if you are an on-camera talent reading this, consider bringing your own breakfast and lunch to sets because, well...there is this thing called a production budget, and most production companies do not spend it on food.

5)  And finally, please offer a comfortable chair to the on-camera talent on-set.  This sounds SO basic, but it is FREQUENTLY over-looked. 

This is not a "needy" actor-thing (yes, I know that Christopher Nolan and Bradley Cooper have a "no-chair" policy on their sets.  If either of you have taken the time to read this humble blog, that is AWESOME and thank you, and congratulations from this corner of the web!  You will be the two exceptions to this point about chairs).  Most on-camera acting jobs (particularly hosting, spokes, or teleprompter shoots) require what I call, 'heightened reality' or 'subtle enthusiasm.'  For natural enthusiasm on-camera, it necessitates a slightly unnatural over-energetic performance for the energy to read on-camera.  Consequently, during long shoots, the actor's energy needs to be harnessed and conserved between takes.  As my mentor, Larry Cure, once said, "film acting is hurry-up and wait."  Most on-camera acting jobs require the actor to be "on" for a few brief, intense moments, and then wait while the next shot and lighting are prepped.  For the best performances from an actor it is essential to allow the actor to conserve energy by having a seat immediately adjacent to set.  This allows the talent to be "at the ready" while also free to study the upcoming scene/shot and conserving energy that will be used for the camera.  

Did you read all the way to the bottom of this?  Thank you!  Remember when you read a blog post from a creative and thought, 'this person is doing something unique and I would like to collaborate creatively with him.'  And that person was the person typing this and that blog post was this particular post.  Let's get together.  Do you agree with these tips?  Did I miss something?  Let me know what you think.  [email protected]

If you are a person career-minded creative individual that struggles with finding time to relax, perhaps the best way to improve your career is to do the opposite of completing that next to-do… instead, take a quick pause and recalibrate with a hobby that will help you relax AND benefit your career.  As strange as it sounds, learning a musical instrument improves cognitive function, relieves stress, increases creativity and, in my opinion, allows you to approach your creative projects from a three-dimensional view.
 
As a content creator, copywriter, producer, voiceover talent, director, or video editor that is responsible for generating content at-scale, playing an instrument and understanding the intricacies of music composition will compliment your storytelling. The parallels between music and narrative pieces are endless.  Songs, for example, follow the narrative structure, and I have mentioned before that a music-bed is the ultimate directing hack.  Furthermore, an understanding of instrumentation will allow you to dial-in emotional tone faster.  For instance, knowing a major chord will typically sound more “cheerful” than the “melancholy” of a minor chord might enable you to find a music-bed quickly or help you to communicate tone to the voiceover talent and client.  Other nuances appear as well: for instance, a string instrument generally pairs well with a spec pushing “inspiration, “ and acoustic guitar plays well with “warmth.”  In short, a grasp of instrumentation opens the door for more dynamic storytelling because creatives have a more holistic understanding of the pieces being crafted.
 
Picking up an instrument will undoubtedly benefit your creative career by dramatically enhancing the skill of script interpretation.  To begin, music has its own language that parallels storytelling.  For instance, a music piece will begin with an intro and conclude with a resolve just as a narrative piece offers an exposition and resolve.  Similarly, a song can crescendo while a story climaxes.  Additionally, many musical words such as staccato, tempo, beat, and accent all correspond with directing voiceover talent, interpreting copy and scoring a script.  Even the word “score” has a shared meaning!  And there is the obvious parallel between voiceover director and conductor…
 
Understanding music and playing an instrument also makes you a master of pacing and tone, thus creating a “good-ear.”  The nuances of a music bed and understanding how a voiceover compliments a piece can improve directing abilities, and learning an instrument enhances this skill.  For example, when working with pitch, a director that comprehends musicality can offer the best places to lift words and create emotional pivots at the appropriate times.  Similarly, as a voiceover talent with a “good-ear,” directing notes are interpreted more clearly (even if the client is struggling to "speak creative"), because the subtleties of one’s performance are more easily identified and adjusted, since tone has been practiced with an instrument. 
 
 In short, music and instrumentation offer many ancillary benefits to a career minded creative individual.  By learning a musical instrument, creative minds will benefit from the numerous parallels between storytelling and music.  Theses parallels – song-structure, the language of music and listening – will create more enriched content from creators, copywriters, directors and video editors.  Simply put, the skill-set that is acquired from playing an instrument is transferable to other creative endeavors building a more holistic understanding of each part of the creative process. 
 
Did you make it to this paragraph?  If you have reached this point, I would like to thank you for taking time to read this post.  I take pride in crafting unique perspectives on the advertising industry that cut through the clutter.  As the world moves faster, I am striving to build connections.  True connections take TIME and the ability to slow down when appropriate.  Clearly, we are on the same page since you scrolled through an article that took more than :06.  I would like to collaborate with you.  So please reach out with a “hello,” and let’s make great content together. I would appreciate you commenting or sharing this post if you found it insightful.  I can be reached at [email protected].  High-fives from a fellow creative-mind and voiceover artist.  ChrisBurnettVoiceActor.com

Has your creative team returned to work in a somewhat ‘hybrid fashion?  Are you being asked to meet in the office of your advertising agency while also being offered the opportunity to continue to work as a creative director, copywriter, producer or commercial video director from home?   Wait – is that the same question written two different ways for SEO purposes?  #insightfulreader. 
 
As working environments continue to evolve, the landscape of remote voiceover recording has progressed as well, allowing creative directors, advertising agencies and producers to receive broadcast-quality audio while directing voiceover talent from anywhere (in a previous blog, we 5 ways to maximize voiceover sessions, which you can see here).  In order to maintain a seamless audio workflow, here are three tips for ensuring smooth remote voiceover sessions now and into the future:
 
First, ensuring a smooth remote recording session actually begins BEFORE the session.  Consider connecting with voiceover talent 10 minutes prior to the actual directed session begins to ensure connectivity issues are addressed prior to bringing the client into the remote session.  During this time, audio levels can be adjusted accordingly and connectivity will have been established before the client is introduced into the voiceover session.
 
Next, request that the voiceover talent capture the audio of the session while performing.  In other words, request “backup audio” from the voiceover talent and have it sent to you after the session as a high-quality WAV file.  Having a second recording of the entire voiceover session provides a safety net in the event that the internet is slow or “glitchy.”  During the post-production process, you can always pull from the backup audio if necessary rather than scheduling an entire new session to grab a small pickup line.  Wait – did you just save money from reading this?  Yes, my friend, indeed you did.
 
Finally, if the last couple of years have taught us anything, unforeseen interruptions can occur occasionally, both in life and in the creative process.  Obviously, every now and then, there will be a few ill-timed days when the internet may create glitches in real-time voiceover recording for unknown reasons.  When this does happen, rest-assured that there are an abundant number of viable options to direct voiceover talent remotely with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Phone, etc (and if you are interested in the ultimate time-saving voiceover directing hack, read this).   In these rare cases, the session can still proceed as planned with the voiceover talent recording the audio and taking direction via one of the aforementioned services.   After the session, the voiceover talent can simply email the whole session to you and your creative team as previously mentioned. 
 
In summary, the “new normal” of the blended home-work environment allows the creative process to take place in various locations.  To evolve with this new professional landscape, it requires advertising agencies, creative directors and video producers to work collaboratively with post-production houses and voiceover talent to ensure smooth remote recording sessions.  By maintaining flexibility, preparing beforehand and ensuring backups, the creative process can continue on from anywhere.  And since you have been kind enough to read this far, here is bonus tip – always remember – if you suspect that an audio disturbance has occurred, it is perfectly fine to ask for a safety take from the voiceover artist when the client has left the line. 
 
Hi reader, thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog.  Did you know that I offer numerous creative services in addition to voiceovers?  For instance, does your project need music mixed?  Or do you need audio synced to picture?  Maybe you need commercial or corporate copywriting or idea generation?  Let's chat!

Remember when you read an entire blog post that was created from the mind of a creative voiceover professional, and you thought ‘whoa-that’s extremely insightful and such a unique perspective?’  And then you thought ‘wow-I bet Chris Burnett brings a fresh perspective to all of his creative endeavors, even if he does type in third person sometimes?’  And then you emailed him at [email protected] so you could collaborate?  That time…that was right now.

Let's be honest - placing a "process" on creativity can be a moving target due to its subjective nature. So how does an advertising agency, video producer or creative director ensure success from voiceover talent when every session is a little bit different? Below is a simple formula to maximizing sessions regardless of the different scenarios surrounding it.

1) Give the voiceover talent the script as early as possible. 

Often times the voiceover talent receives the script immediately before beginning a session, so there is very little time to prep or read it through. For the best performance from the start, it helps to provide the script (even if it is rough) at least 15 minutes before the session. This allows the voiceover talent to have any pronunciation questions prepared while also noting any tongue-twisters before the session, and marking the script for optimal performance.

2) Begin by playing the original audio from the voiceover talent you hired.

In most cases, an advertising agency or director has hired a specific voiceover talent based on the pre-recorded demo that the voiceover talent provided. 

It is preferable to begin the session by referencing this audio so everyone has an objective place to start from in regards to tone.  At this point, as the director, you can offer early feedback on the audition that provides a road-map for both parties on how the piece should sound.  For instance, “Chris – we liked the energy and personality you brought to this particular set of lines. In the first take, can you keep that same vibe but come down at the end of the line so it sounds more like a statement?”

3) Present a brief background of the concept.

It is surprising how often a voiceover session begins and the first comment from the director is, “let’s grab a take.” Time is extremely valuable, but before hitting the record button, consider beginning with a general explanation of the tone of the piece, the campaign and the company culture. For instance, "this is a friendly, welcoming piece inviting new customers to try out this company’s new product. Their current advertising environment centers around younger audiences who are in-the-know. So we cast you because in your demo, we liked how you sounded cool, hip and spoke to the target audience." Then, let the voiceover talent hear the music or see the rough cut of the picture with the scratch track. By providing a small amount of background information, this ensures that everyone, from the advertising agency to the voiceover talent, is on the same-page when beginning.

4) Lead Your Critiques with a Compliment

Every person, regardless of their field of expertise, enjoys a compliment from a professional peer.  Voiceover talent and actors are no different. During the first take, listen closely for an opportunity to praise the actor’s performance and consider leading your critiques with a compliment. This small gesture invites the voiceover talent into the creative environment and softens future critiques. By extending a small compliment, directors can establish a safe-space for creative-play, and bring out the best in the performer.    

5) Less is More
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Performance is subjective and collaborative by nature, so voiceover perfection is in the ear of the beholder. Therefore, power is having multiple options of lines in various styles of delivery for the final presentation to the end-client. Rather than explain at-length what is needed, mention a small critique and let the voiceover talent give you variations. You can then hone-in on the target by referencing your favorite take of the variations. For instance, “Hey, Chris - can you give me an ABC of this line with a little more attitude?” Then, “those three takes were great, and my preference is C. Let’s roll another set of three in the style of C."

Here are a examples of simple, brief phrases that work well:
"Chris - that was nice - let's try it again with more of a smile throughout,"
"Great, Chris; this time let's try it more determined,"
"Wonderful read; can we go again with a slower pace on the front-half?,"
"I love the delivery. Chris, can we emphasize this word on the next one?"

By keeping brevity in the critiques and leading with a quick positive statement, it allows more time to actually record so everyone can operate from an objective piece of audio versus discussing a subjective idea of what they want. For this reason, when offering critiques and asking for alternate versions of a line, less is always more.

BONUS TIP! Did you notice the words "we" and "let's?" Collaborative words work best when offering critiques, because the best creative is a team-effort.
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Did you find this helpful? Please reach out if you have any questions you would like addressed in future articles. For more perspectives from inside the booth and creative needs, please reach out at [email protected]