Mistakes
Most of us can’t remember what it was like when as babies, we learned to walk. In fact, research has found we can’t remember much about life before age 3. That’s probably a good thing.
There’s a lot of hard-knocks learning going on in those years. Wobble a step or two and crash. Reach for something shiny. Crash. Oops, my pants! Reboot. Nap. Ouch, my new teeth! I want to eat NOW!!!
So, welcome to the baby-step time for your VO career. Read two lines, muff a word, crash. Grab the mic, ooops, sorry. Cough into the mic, deafen the engineer and sicken your colleagues—oops, sorry.
Here’s the secret: EVERYBODY makes mistakes, at all stages of the VO biz. Everybody fluffs a line—sometimes more, sometimes less—but it happens. So, rather than take the time to climb up onto the roof and jump off just to show us how sorry you were that you said CONDENSATION instead of CONDESCENSION, just stop. Back up to the start of the phrase or sentence, stay in the moment, in the bubble, with the vibe—and start that line or phrase again. We’re recording this, remember? You can edit out the mistakes.
I find if I’m bungling lines it may mean:
Uh, how about if you wake up first before recording today?
OK, ace, slow down and focus on the copy, not on thoughts about what audition is next.
Now, there are two kinds of misreads: the ones you know about and those other ones, where you don’t even hear that your words and the copy aren’t the same.
When you’ve launched your VO career and have to edit your own stuff, you’ll get a direct reward for not making that second kind of misread: less time editing. Because then you’ll know that clients usually want you to say what they wrote. They’re funny about that.
So learn from mistakes, but don’t beat yourself up. That takes time away from business.