8
The Seven Core Elements of an Effective Performance
(AKA: The A~B~Cs of Voice Acting)

In This Chapter

You’ll find more acting and performing techniques at AOVA.VoiceActing.com.

Acting Is Acting Is Acting ... Sort of

If you’ve watched any TV, movies or plays, you are no doubt, aware that not all acting is equal. Some actors are brilliant, some are so-so, and some… well, just don’t belong on stage or in front of the camera. So, what is it that makes the difference between a brilliant performance and one that gives new meaning to the word mediocre?

The answer lies largely in the talent and ability of the actor to understand and apply the dozens of techniques and skills necessary to create a compelling and believable performance.

Over the many years of teaching voice acting workshops, we’ve boiled down the essence of acting for voiceover to Seven Core Elements that we refer to as The A-B-C’s of Voice Acting. Traditional acting classes for stage, film, and television teach many of these concepts, but not quite the way you’ll learn here.

Take a look at the title of this chapter again. Notice the words effective performance. To be effective, an actor must create a sense of drama. Merriam-Webster defines drama as “a situation or series of events in which there is an interesting or intense conflict of forces.” In other words, drama is what gives a performance the appearance of reality. All drama contains elements of conflict, humor, mystery, emotion, and feelings. Drama also creates tension, suspense, and anticipation for what will happen next.

As you learn how to apply the concepts in this book, and more specifically, in this chapter, you will begin to learn how to create compelling, believable, real, dramatic characters in the mind of your audience. That’s what an effective performance is all about.

So, I hear you ask: “How do I create drama?” The answer is simple in concept but complex in execution: “You must make choices and you must commit to those choices.”

It Starts with Pretending

A voiceover performer is an actor—period. It doesn’t matter what the script is for. It doesn’t matter if the copy is well written or poorly written. It doesn’t matter if you are delivering the copy alone or with others. You are an actor when you stand in front of the microphone.

For most people, acting skills take time to learn and master. Acting is not difficult. It’s just that as we’ve grown, we’ve simply forgotten how to play. As a child, you were acting whenever you pretended to be a fireman, a princess or anyone else you created in your imagination. Pretending is where it starts. But there’s more to it.

Regardless of the copy you are reading, there will always be some sort of character in the words. To be believable, that character must be brought to life. To do that effectively, you must re-learn how to play and become a master of pretending.

By definition, the word pretend means “to give a false appearance of being.” So, if you are strictly pretending, you are not being real, but the objective of all acting is to create the illusion of reality. Learning how to pretend believably (or act) allows you overcome this apparent contradiction so you can step outside of yourself, using what you know as you move down the path of creating that illusion of reality.

The major problem most people have in performing for voiceover is that of creating a believable illusion of reality while reading from a script. Reading is a left-brain, linear process, while performing is a right-brain, nonlinear, process. The tendency is to “read” the words, rather than allowing the words to become real by pretending to be the person speaking the words.

This is where the Seven Core Elements of an Effective Performance come in. By applying these seven elements, you will be able to take your acting from simple pretending to creating a completely believable reality.

These techniques do not have to be done in sequence. In fact, most of the time one element will define another. As you work on your performance, start making choices in whichever element seems to be a good place to begin, but be sure that you include them all.

A = AUDIENCE: Core Element #1

When you have a conversation with someone, you know who you are talking to. As a result, you speak conversationally and in a manner that is appropriate for your topic of conversation.

When working from a script, you need to determine who you (or, more accurately, your character) is talking to? Decide on who will be the ideal person who needs to hear what you have to say. In most cases, the copy will give you a good idea of who the ideal audience is. If you’re not clear on who you are talking to, make it up. By knowing your audience, you will be able to figure out the most appropriate and effective way to speak to them.

The most important thing to remember is you are always talking to only one person. Attempting to shotgun your performance, by trying to connect with many people at once, will generally result in the listening audience losing interest or becoming uncomfortable.

For the following line of copy, make some choices as to who the one, ideal person who needs to hear the message might be:

Here are some possible choices:

• A shopper in a grocery story also looking at avocados
• Someone who has never seen an avocado before
• A grocery clerk who is carefully stacking avocados
• A customer in a restaurant ordering a meal with avocados

The choice you make for your audience will help determine your tone of voice, attitude, and overall approach to your performance. Focus your attention on speaking to just one person as though you were having a conversation with them. Describe the person you are speaking to in as much detail as possible and give him or her a name. Use a photograph to get the feeling of having eye contact with a real person. Doing this may help make your delivery more conversational and believable.

Your one-person audience should be someone you do NOT know. When you select someone you know as your audience, the speaker of the words becomes you and your personal relationship with that individual will color your interpretation and delivery, making it considerably more challenging to create a believable performance.

At some point you may determine that your choice of an audience is wrong. If or when this happens, simply change your choice and adjust your delivery accordingly.

B = BACK STORY: Core Element #2

In voiceover, a back story is the specific event that takes place immediately before the first word of copy. It is what the character in the script is responding to. The back story is the reason why your character is saying the words in the script. If the back story is not clearly defined in the script—your job, as an actor, is to make one up! This is a very important aspect of performing from a written script because the back story sets your character’s motivation, attitude, and purpose for speaking.

Technically, a back story consists of the character’s entire life experience that has brought them to the moment in time for the story in the script. For voiceover work, that’s too much information, and we rarely have the time to deal with a complex story leading up to the first word of the script. For voiceover, a back story needs to be something immediate and powerful that causes your character to speak. It can’t be a vague description of a scene—it must elicit a specific response, which is the first line of copy.

Creating a back story for any script is a fairly simple process. Simply look at the first line and figure out what might have been said or done that resulted in your character saying those words. Then put that into the form of a statement that can be spoken as a lead-in to your first line of copy.

In some scripts, the back story is pretty obvious. Or, you can make up something. Either way, it’s essential to the development of your character. By understanding what brought your character to this moment, you will know how your character should respond. This, in turn will make it much easier for you to sustain your character and effectively communicate feelings, attitudes, and emotions as he or she interacts with the audience and other characters.

For the following line of copy, make some choices as to the specific event that occurred, or words spoken immediately before this statement, and to which this statement is in response:

To discover the back story, look for clues in the script that reveal specific details about what is taking place. Use these clues to create your own idea of what took place before the story in the script. This is the essence of your back story, and this is what brought your character to this moment in time.

Here are some possible choices for a back story for the first line:

• The person you are speaking to has asked you what this big green thing is with all the bumps. You respond with the first line of the script.
• The person you are speaking to has mentioned that they absolutely love avocados. You respond with a silent lead-in, “I love them too, but, you know…” followed by a short pause, then the first line of the script.
• The person you are speaking to is ordering a meal and is uncertain about whether or not to add avocado by saying “…would you recommend avocado?” You respond with the first line of the script.

Any given script may have several opportunities for a back story—possibly for every line, and occasionally even within a line. For each of those back-story opportunities a very short phrase or one-word lead-in may help to bridge transitional thoughts or lines of copy to help add reality to the delivery. When you bridge lines of a script in this way, what you are actually doing is adding a thought process to your performance, which is a direct reflection of how our minds really work when we are having a conversation. For example, a bridging back story for the line “OK… so they’ve got a big seed and they’re green…” might be this: The person you are speaking to says, “I’ve heard avocados have a huge seed!” Obviously, we don’t have time to actually verbalize or deal with these bridge lines in real time. Simply writing the word or phrase on your script or holding it in your imagination will usually be enough to trigger the thought process and thus create a sense of reality.

One way to use a back story is to create a lead-in line, or pre-life, as discussed on page 90. To review, this is simply a verbalization of the back story to assist you in creating a believable response. For example, if you are speaking to someone who has never seen an avocado before, a lead-in line might be: “So… you’ve never seen an avocado before? Well…” and then begin the script. A lead-in line is not intended to be spoken out loud, but, rather, should be said silently to set up the intonation and attitude of the spoken words.

Each of the choices you make will have a different effect on your approach to the performance, including intonation, rate of delivery, attitude, dynamics, and underlying meaning (or subtext). As with the other choices you’ll be making, one of these may be more suitable than the others. The only way you’ll know which choice works best is to test them. When you make a choice, commit to it until either you or your director determine that the choice needs to be adjusted.

C = CHARACTER: Core Element #3

For every voiceover performance, you will need to determine who is speaking the words in the script. This is your role in the story, or more accurately, this is the character you will be playing. In most cases, you will find clues about your character within the script itself—in the way it is written, the phrasing, or even in the way certain words are spelled. If you are lucky, the copy writer provided a short description of your character.

Begin by defining your character in as much detail as you like— the more detailed, the better. How does your character dress? What does the character’s voice sound like? Does the character speak with an accent, dialect, or have any speaking quirks? Does the character exhibit any sort of attitude or personality quirks? How does the character move? How does the character think? What is the character’s lifestyle? How does the character interact with other characters in the story, known or unknown? In what ways does the character respond to events that take place during the telling of the story? How does the character feel about the product, service, or subject of the script? The more details you can come up with, the more believable your character will be to you and to your audience. Your job is to find the character and give it life.

Just as in life, scripted characters have feelings and experience emotions about the stories they tell. And, just as in life, characters respond, evolve, and express emotions during the course of their stories. Learn how to reveal those emotions and feelings through your voice and you will create believable characters. Chapter 10, “The Character in the Copy,” will explain many ways for you to do this, and you will find additional tools for creating and documenting characters in Chapter 15, “Mastering Character Voices.”

For the following line of copy, make some choices that will clearly define and describe the person speaking:

Here are some possibilities for the character who is speaking these words:

• A grocery clerk stocking the shelves
• A shopper (talking to another shopper)
• An avocado grower or farmer
• A waiter or waitress in a restaurant
• A person speaking to a friend about fruits and vegetables

As with the other choices you make, your choice and definition of the character you are playing will have an impact on every aspect of your performance. Your other choices may affect your choice of character, and, of course, your choice of the character may require that you adjust some or all of your other choices. If you commit to each of your choices until you determine a choice is not working, you will be well on your way to creating consistent, interesting, and compelling characters.

D = DESIRES: Core Element #4

All characters have wants and needs! Theatrical actors will refer to this aspect of character development as objectives or intentions. Desires, objectives, and intentions all refer to what your character ultimately wants as a result of his or her words and actions. Some actors mistakenly use the term motivation when describing their character’s wants and needs. However, a character’s motivation is more accurately related to the back story, which gives the character a reason for responding. The character’s desires refer to the outcome of the character’s words and actions.

The character always wants something very specific. It may be simply to enlighten the listener with a valuable piece of information, it may be to entertain, or it may be to instruct the listener. Whatever it may be, your character wants, needs, and desires to accomplish something from speaking those words. If that desire is not clearly explained in the context of the script—use whatever information is available to make it up.

Quick test: What does the character in this script want and need (desire) as a result of speaking these words? Come up with a half-dozen or more choices of your own before reading further.

Here are some possibilities for the character’s desires and the words that might be clues to the ultimate desire:

• Establish curiosity (Some people think they’re a mistake!)
• Tease to create interest (… they’re delicious … )
• Add a touch of humor (… so they’ve got a big seed …)
• Intrigue the listener (… they’re green … )
• Provide important information (they’re a fruit and taste good in salad)
• Create urgency (Get some today.)

As you can see, there are many possibilities. There is really no single, correct way to interpret or deliver any piece of copy. As an actor, you need to make a choice as to what might be the most appropriate message that your character wants to communicate. And there may be more than one. As with other choices, the only way you will know what works best is to test them when rehearsing.

There are no wrong choices. But there are choices that may be more effective than others. One key to choosing your character’s desires is to consider the interaction between your character and the one-person audience. Also, be wary of choosing a desire of “selling.” People love to buy, but they hate to be “sold.” Choosing a desire of helping by providing important information that allows the listener to make an educated decision to buy will almost always be best.

E = ENERGY: Core Element #5

There are three distinct levels of energy in every performance: psychological energy, physical energy, and emotional energy. All three must be present. Leave one of these out and your character will lack a sense of truth and honesty.

Psychological Energy

Think back to a time when you said one thing, but meant something entirely different—and the person you were speaking to somehow knew exactly what you meant. We’ve all done this. In fact, this is the basis of all sarcasm. The thought you hold in your head can directly affect the way the words come out of your mouth.

Try this: Say the phrase “That’s a really nice hat.” You most likely just spoke the words without any objective, intention, or desire, so it probably sounded pretty flat and uninteresting. Now hold the thought in your head that the hat you’re looking at is the most incredible hat you’ve ever seen, and it looks amazing on that person! Say the phrase again and notice how different it sounds.

Now, change the thought to be that you are very jealous to see the other person wearing a hat exactly like your favorite hat. Your desire is to outwardly compliment them on their hat, but on the inside you really don’t think it looks very good (even if it does). You’re not happy, and you want them to know it without really saying it.

The words are exactly the same in both situations, but the thoughts you held in your mind were different. The result is that the perceived meaning of the words is different.

In theater, the term subtext is used to refer to the underlying personality, and unspoken thoughts of a character that define the character’s behavior and reveal what they really believe. Psychological energy is simply another way to understand subtext.

This is a powerful concept when applied to voice acting. Applying psychological energy to a performance allows you to emulate the thought process of your character, which in turn allows the words to sound honest, real, and authentic.

The trick to using psychological energy properly is to keep the true belief just under the surface and to not reveal it during the performance, except through subtle intonation and behavior. By keeping the true belief hidden behind the words, it allows other characters to respond more appropriately, and it keeps the audience curious. This is especially important if the true meaning is in direct opposition to the textual meaning.

Although the concept of psychological energy may sound relatively simple, putting it to work as part of a voiceover performance may take some practice. Once you’ve mastered this aspect of a performance, you’ll be well on your way to creating consistently believable characters and highly effective performances.

Physical Energy

I think it’s pretty safe to say that when you are in conversation with someone, you are not standing or sitting perfectly still, without moving. OK, maybe some of you reading this don’t move, but most people use much more than just their mouth when talking. Facial expressions, body language, physical movement, and gestures are all part of the way we communicate when speaking to others.

Have you ever noticed that your physical movements are a big part of the way you speak? You use physical energy to give power to the thoughts and emotions that lay just under the surface of the words you speak.

Physical energy is absolutely essential in any voiceover performance. When you move your body with appropriate energy to support the emotions and thoughts of the words you speak, the result can be a totally believable performance.

A mistake many beginning voice actors make is that they will stand perfectly still when they are in front of a microphone. Their hands will hang at their sides and their faces will show little or no expression. Their performance will be flat and uninteresting, with an almost monotone delivery. Once they start moving, everything changes. Words come to life, we can hear how the character feels, and we are actually drawn in to the drama of the story.

Fortunately, adding physical movement to a performance is an easily acquired skill. Usually, lack of movement is the result of nervousness or comes from a feeling of discomfort or insecurity from being in an unfamiliar environment (often called “mic fright”). But the simple truth in voice acting is that you must move. It is one element of a performance that is essential to creating compelling and believable characters.

Emotional Energy

Understanding how your character feels about a situation, thing, product, event or person is an aspect of subtext. It’s part of what lies just below the surface of the words and directly affects tone of voice and attitude. Your character’s emotional energy is different from psychological energy in that psychological energy deals with the thoughts behind the words, whereas emotional energy is the expression, through physical movement of the feelings and emotions that underscore the thoughts. The two go hand in hand.

Using the hat example, consider how your character feels emotionally about the discovery that someone else has the exact same hat they have—and that they look great wearing it. Your character might feel devastated, frustrated, angry, happy, proud, or even excited. A full range of emotions is possible, but the most appropriate emotion will be determined by looking at the overall context of the story—understanding the big picture. Based on your choices as to how your character behaves and speaks within the context of the whole story, you will better understand the how and why of the character’s feelings and emotional responses.

Keep in mind, that as actors, our job is to create a sense of reality. Expressing over-the-top emotions can actually destroy believability. The best way to use emotional energy is to keep the emotions just under the surface. Start by allowing yourself to recall how you felt emotionally in a similar situation and observe where you hold physical tension in your body for that response. Then, base your performance from that feeling and the tension in your body.

By using a personal experience, the emotional response will have truth and honesty, which will support the thoughts held in your imagination, which, in turn, will result in a more authentic and believable performance.

The essence of how the three levels of energy affect your performance can be summed up as:

• Change your thoughts—it will change the way you move, which will change the sound of the words you speak.
• Change your physical movement—it will change the way you feel, which will affect the sound of the words you speak.
• Change your emotions—it will change the way you sound.

For the following line of copy, make some choices as to how your character might think (psychological energy), how he/she might move and where tension is held in the body while talking (physical energy), and how he/she feels about the subject (emotional energy).

The important thing to keep in mind when it comes to energy in your performance is to remember that all energy must start with a thought and move through physical movement before the emotion can be effectively communicated.

F = FORGET WHO YOU ARE AND FOCUS: Core Element #6

A key principal of acting is to “get out of your own way” so the character or role you are playing can emerge and appear real to your audience. It sounds simple on the surface, but this idea may be confusing to some people.

The reality of all acting is that the role you are playing is not you. The secret to excellent acting is to do everything that needs to be done to understand the story, character, relationships, responses, moods, attitudes, dynamics, and energy; apply the appropriate acting techniques to give meaning to the story, breathe life into the character, and “take the words offthe page”; then put all of that behind you as the real you steps aside to let the character come to life. And to do all of this invisibly without giving the appearance that you are “acting.” If there is any part of the real you that is apparent in a performance, it is you “doing” the character—not the character being authentic.

When you think too much about what you are doing, or you put too much effort into the process of creating a performance, your acting becomes apparent and the performance will suffer, often by sounding as though you are “reading” the script or over-acting.

One of the most difficult things for any actor to learn is how to forget who they are so the character can become real. The reason this is often a difficult task is because, as human beings, we have an ego that can cause us to second guess ourselves or stand in the way of what we know needs to be done. We can be a master of performing techniques and still be in our own way on an unconscious level. Often the only way we know it’s happening is when our director asks us to make an adjustment in our performance.

Listen to your director, listen to your instincts, listen to the unspoken words to which your character is responding, listen to the other actors in the studio, listen to everything. It is only through listening that you will be able to focus on doing what needs to be done to create the reality of the moment. When you are fully focused, you will discover that you no longer need to think about what you are doing. The characters you create will almost magically come to life. The second you allow yourself to drift off focus, or start to think about what you are doing, you will fall out of character.

If you don’t fully grasp the idea of forget who you are and focus, don’t be concerned. Many very successful actors and performers don’t fully understand this concept and may never experience what it is like to truly forget who they are and get out of their way. For most actors, the experience is erratic at best, happening only occasionally. However, when you do achieve this state of performance, you’ll know it! It will feel as though you are outside of yourself observing your performance. Sort of like an “out-of -body” experience, except that you have complete control.

G = GAMBLE: Core Element #7

If you are going to succeed in voiceover, you must be willing to risk. You must be willing to step outside of your comfort zone to do or be something that most people would feel uncomfortable doing or being. It could be as simple as making an announcement at a party, standing on stage in front of an audience of thousands, or standing all by yourself in front of a microphone in a voiceover booth.

A reluctance to risk is usually the result of an unsubstantiated, irrational fear, which is often the result of negative self-talk. These “voices in our head” will tell us we cannot do something, that we aren’t good enough, that we aren’t competent, that what we want will never happen, and on and on. Our voices can literally stop us dead in our tracks, preventing us from taking even the slightest risk that could lead to achieving our life’s ambitions.

Quieting the voices in your head, and thus removing or reducing the fear, is actually quite simple in concept. The important thing is that the voices must be acknowledged. If you don’t let your voices know they have been heard, they will just persist and get louder. But when you acknowledge your voices, and simply say “Thank you for sharing, but I’m going to do it anyway,” over time, they will begin to quiet down. It will take consistent effort, but you really can quiet your voices. When you quiet your internal negative self-talk, you will find that you will be much more open to rationally evaluating potential risks and that you will be more willing to take those risks that can move you forward without experiencing fear. You may actually discover that you begin to seek out opportunities in which you can stretch your abilities by overcoming your fears. The process can be very enlightening.

All performing is about risk. You are gambling that the choices you make for creating your character and delivering your lines will bring the character and the story to life. You risk the chance of not being believable or making inappropriate choices, you risk not being hired again, you risk many things on many levels.

You may never know exactly what the producer or director is looking for in your performance, if your performance truly meets their needs, or how it will ultimately be used. Even though you may not know, you must be willing to risk that what you do will be the best bet for a successful outcome. All performing is a gamble.

Building your business as a voice actor requires a willingness to risk. You’ll risk your money as you build your home studio, invest in your marketing, produce your demo and study to master your craft. You’ll risk rejection when you audition, when you call prospective clients, and when you think you’ve come up with exactly what a script needs—and the producer doesn’t think so.

If you are not willing to risk, performing as a voice actor is probably not something you should pursue any further. Just stop reading right now and give this book to someone who is willing to take the risk of doing something they have never done before.

Voiceover is a craft based on creating compelling characters in interesting relationships. The only way you can create a character that is not you is to be willing to gamble, or risk that you can do what needs to be done for a believable performance.

Gambling on your performance is not about winning or losing. It is about using the tools of your trade, your experience, your training, and your many performing and business skills to create more certainty for an otherwise uncertain outcome. In other words, by understanding risk and allowing yourself to take the gamble, you can stack the deck to improve the odds for a masterful performance and successful voiceover career each time you stand in front of a microphone.

1 Burton, C. (2003). Scenes for Actors and Voices by Daws Butler. Bear Manor Media.

2 Bergen, B. Warner Bros. voice of Porky Pig and other characters— www.bobbergen.com.

3 Fasano, C. (1999). Lyrics from the song “Welcome to the Workshop,” Spiritually Wet, published by FWG Music.

4 MacLaine, S. in an interview by James Lipton, Inside the Actor’s Studio. Bravo Television Network.