A common challenge voice-over artists face is with reading copy on the page. If you’re close to the mic and reading two pages of copy with them placed as a 2-page spread on the stand in front of you, once you finish reading page one your head is going to tilt to the right in a very real way and stay there for all of page two. And if the mic is placed just above or below page one, you are again going to affect the level and quality of the recording by inadvertently turning away from it for half of your read! So it’s actually better to pause between pages long enough to place page two in the same spot as the finished page one and thus, keep your mouth-to-mic position intact.
Make sense? Good. Now, let’s return to that DJ example I mentioned in that last post. When the DJ moves in to. make a point:
“… if you wanna get in, be there early (but we’re gonna be giving away VIP passes
later in the show) and we’ll see you there – gonna be a par-tay…!”
… it’s not only louder, but somehow, it’s more intimate. What happened there?
First, he obviously dropped his voice down in register to share a secret. But he also moved
into the mic to not only increase the volume but also the PROXIMITY EFFECT, which is this
interesting phenomenon of increasing the bass response in the mic and resulting recording. Promo guys use this trick all the time. By getting very close in, they beef up the bottom end of their tonality, which creates this pleasing boominess we all seem to love when the VO intones.
“… he’s BACK and this time, he’s not taking NO for an answer…”
So use that when you’re doing big bad movie trailers, but otherwise, use that information to help remind you to back OFF the mic to sound natural, real and the most like YOU, which is what we’re after nearly all the time in the everyday VO world. An easy measure for a reasonable distance is to hold your phone call hand up between your mouth and the pop screen, and maintain that general distance throughout. So… you’re comfortable but poised. You’re breathing from the diaphragm, your copy is properly placed and lit in such a way that you don’t have to squint – did I mention the SIZE of the copy? Be sure and blow it up or print it so that you waste zero effort in trying to figure out what it says – duh… (I like 16-point – makes it feel real).