2. Now reverse direction. Start at the top of your range and move downward thru your natural pitch to your lowest note.

3. Continue your lip trills while going from low to high and back to low again. It’ll sound a little like a siren.

4. Repeat the sirens 3-5 times until you feel like your voice is beginning to get warmed up.

5. This can be hard to describe on paper. Feel free to visit this link ( ) to see an example.

Lip trills are a great way not only to warm up your face and resonators in your sinus cavities, but also helps keep your vocal cords and neck muscles from tensing up while you’re warming up your voice. Don’t worry if your voice cracks during the sirens. That’s just a natural part of expanding your range. We all have “head tones” (high) as well as “chest tones” (low) in our range, and in order to move back and forth continuously from one to the other, you have to move through your natural “break,” which is the sound that often people associate with a teen boy going through puberty. One of the reasons for this is that the vocal cords are actually growing and stretching and sounds that used to be easily within one range move to a different register, and the voice “cracks” as it pushes through unfamiliar territory. So in addition to warming up your voice, this exercise can also help you widen your vocal range.

Sirens w/out Lip Trill

1. Allow your mouth to hang slightly open, and begin an “ee” sound at the bottom of your range. As you exhale, slide your pitch higher and higher until you hit your highest note possible.

2. Now reverse direction. Start at the top of your range and slide your pitch downward until you hit your lowest note.

3. Make sure your face and jaw are relaxed and comfortably open while making the siren sound.

4. Repeat the sirens 3-5 times until you feel like your voice is warming up.
Practicing sirens can really begin to stretch your range and gently allow the musculature in your face and neck (as well as your vocal cords) to begin to become accustomed to the sounds you’ll be making while acting.

Whether you have a high or low-pitched voice you can also begin to think about the placement of the sound you’re making. This is separate from the pitch. Placement relates to the physical location in your body where your voice is resonating. For example, if you have a head cold and are all stuffed up, you might sound very frontal, or nasal, since your sinuses are blocked and thus blocking the sound from escaping completely, therefore creating a very frontal resonant sound. If you drop the sound way back to the back of your throat, then you would almost sound like you were swallowing the sounds, creating a very different quality altogether.

Begin to play around with extremely frontal, a mid-range placement as well as a back placed sound. This is something that you can bring into your work and begin to pick and choose where certain voices you create will be placed and where others will lie instead. [Should this be a new exercise to help develop awareness of where you’re placing your voice?]

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Try each of these phrases in the emotions suggested at the right. It will really work your ability to quickly change the feel and tone of your expression.

Exercise: The Phrasinator

• Over here………………………………….. Excited
• I need that…………………………………. Overjoyed
• Let go………………………………………..Secretive
• What are you talking about………………Frustrated
• Don’t do that………………………………..Uncomfortable
• I don’t think that’s a good idea…………..Annoyed
• Give me the new one……………………..Angry
• No…………………………………………….Scared
• Try it again………………………………….Sleepy
• Listen to me………………………………..Happy
• Alright……………………………………….In awe
• Stop right there……………………………Uncomfortable
• Wow that’s huge…………………………..Frightened

Then if you want continue playing with the phrases by trying each of the different descriptions with each of the sentences. To take it one step further, try adding punctuation (? . !) and see how that might change the way you say the lines.

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It is commonly believed that the first voiceover was from Walt Disney, as Mickey Mouse in “Steamboat Willie.” And although this was a long time ago, in 1928, in actual fact the first voice over was in 1900!  This historical achievement belongs to Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian inventor. He was thrilled with Alexander Graham Bell’s new device, the telephone, and set out to create a way to remotely communicate without wires. The beginning of “Wireless!” In 1900, working for the United States Weather Bureau, Fessenden recorded the very first voice over: a test he made reporting the weather.

He was also the first voice of radio. In Boston, in 1906, during the Christmas season, he recorded an entire program of music, Bible texts, and Christmas messages to ships out at sea.

As voice over became more routine in radio, cartoon, etc., the actors behind those voices were rarely known by the public. Exceptions are Walt Disney, of course, and perhaps Mel Blanc, a radio personality and comedian. He became known as “The Man of 1000 Voices” for his versatility, and is the voice on many cartoons distributed by Warner Brothers. One of the most influential and prolific voice over actors of all time is certainly not commonly known by the public, but very well known in the industry. This is Don LaFontaine, who began in voice over in 1962, recording VO for a movie trailer. He became the vice of movie trailers, setting the standard for how they were written and voiced.

As voice over acting grew into a formidable business, it still, however, was very “behind-the-scenes.” Literally and figuratively! Actors filled their spare time with voice over work – it was what they did “between jobs.” But voice over really came out into the light, and became more than respectable, with the onset of digitally animated films of recent years. Celebrities began providing the voices for characters in huge box-office successes such as The Lion King, with Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones, Shrek with Eddie Murphy, The Narnia series with Liam Neeson, and there are hundreds of other examples! (Click here for a list of great voiceover performances.)   The public is now used to big actor names in animated films – it is a powerful marketing strategy for the production companies of these films.

And well-known actors love it! Nancy Griffin said it well in her NY Times article from 2003 , “Film/Television; When A-List Actors Are Happy to Hide Their Faces.” She wrote, “No hair and make-up necessary, not a personal trainer in sight and a four-hour work day: these are just a few of the enticements luring A-list actors, including Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Robin Williams, to headline animated features.”

These celebrities have really brought voice over into its heyday. It is regarded with great interest by aspiring actors, and it seems millions of young people want to find their way into the field. It provides rewarding and challenging careers to actors of all sizes, shapes, personalities, and skills. And it is enormous fun!

Then mute or turn off the TV or radio and grab any random bit of text, such as an ad in a piece of mail or magazine. Try to bring the new tone and vocal patterns you’ve been copying to these new words. You will be using the style you’ve been mimicking with this new material.

This will really start to train your ear and attune you to what is currently “hot” in the advertising world. And it gets you practicing, reading aloud, and using your voice in new ways.

And it’s fun! Enjoy!

You must find out who might hire you to use your voice and where they are located. It’s a pro-active way of forwarding your career in voice-over. So for a moment look at VO as a military objective. Select a few targets and do a little recon, or research. And you won’t even need to get your hands dirty.

Start with what you like. For example, if you really like the show Naruto, you might search and find out that in the United States, Naruto is licensed by a company called Viz. A little more looking (with your friend Google) might turn up that the English dub for Naruto is recorded at Studiopolis. Voila! You now have a production company to add to your hit list when you have a demo to mail out! With commercials, you might have to be a little more investigative, but there are resources (such as adforum.com) out there that can help you find the ad agency who produced the commercial and who’s associated with the promotion of that product.

So, for this exercise, pick an area to start with: animation, video games, or commercials. Now choose three of your favorite shows/movies, video games or commercials. Begin to do a little Internet legwork. Find out who the production company is, and in the case of commercials, the ad agency who commissioned the spot. Try and discover if the company/agency casts their projects in-house, or if they have a relationship with a separate casting company. In some cases, you may even find that the same studio/ad agency produced more than one of your selections, then you know they’re definitely somebody you want to target.

There is plenty of information available on the Web, and a little digging could turn up e-mail addresses or maybe phone numbers that you could use to contact the company and find out who might be best to send your reel to. Start a file and keep the info you find for future reference.

Good hunting and good luck – make it fun!

Tongue Twister Practice

Hello! Can you believe it’s 2012 already!? I certainly can’t. Last year was a whirlwind and I expect this year to be just as exciting. We have plans for films, more episodes of Shelf Life and look forward to working on more fun projects. I was so excited when Yuri surprised me with a weekend getaway to Paris for our anniversary! Bon Voyage, indeed! And then so relaxing to spend the holidays in Idyllwild and Desert Hot Springs for a little R&R. Here’s to thrilling and fantastic surprises for your year as well, and to surpassing your goals with your own New Year’s Resolutions. My focus this year is on visibility (for our projects, for my work and for our company). Bigger and Better in 2012! Tara (&Yuri)   Yuri Lowenthal & Tara Platt: Raise Your Voice (Acting)!

 Read more:

Newsletter Jan 2012

It is a grand gig. You can record from home with your own little studio, since technology has advanced to make this a possibility. And you don’t have to have a “look,” a necessity that some people feel hinders the chance of becoming an on-camera actor for many folks.

But the competition is fierce, and just having a good speaking voice and good articulation is not enough. You have to learn to read (perform) and make it sound natural – like you are speaking new thoughts to someone particular. It takes acting skills, and speed of making choices. You have less time in a recording booth in a VO session than in many other forms of acting. You often have never seen the copy until the moment before you are asked to perform.

Another necessary skill is to be able to find the line between enunciation and sounding affected. You can work on this by recording yourself reading copy, and ask friends to give you their honest opinion – does it sound natural, clear, easy to listen to, believable, appealing? It has to sound real.

If you are serious about joining the Voice-Over world, take classes, get coaching, make a great demo, get equipment to record yourself at home, make a website, read all you can about it, listen to people who know, read our many tips here on our website, and consider getting our book, Voice Over Voice Actor.

Most important of all, Practice Practice Practice! And stay passionate about it.

Good luck and have fun.

The correct answers are:

1) Of their almost 100 credited titles together, what animated spin on a classic fairytale featured VO big-hitters Mel Blanc and June Foray in the 50′s?”
Red Riding Hoodwinked

2) Which two actors have most often voiced the Star Wars character of Yoda?
Frank Oz and Tom Kane

3) Which Hollywood A-lister has done commercial VO for Budweiser and worked opposite Meryl Streep in an Oscar Nominated Animated feature?”
George Clooney

Thanks to everyone who participated!

1)    You must have a strong dream to get you through the dry times as you get started in VO industry.

2)    Be sure to get ready before you start offering your services.

3)    Keep your job, unless you are independently wealthy! You will need finances to train, create a demo, and it takes time to get started. You need tenacity and perseverance.

4)    Don’t have unrealistic expectations – that way lies heartache. Just because your friends tell you that you have a great voice and are going to make a ton of money, the fact is the competition is huge.

5)    Create a good quality voice over demo (get help with this – it is NOT something to be done on your own).

6)    Further to the last tip, do not think you can be self sufficient in this industry. Even the best VO actors get critiques, engage a coach for continual training, and they practice, practice, practice!

7)    Get a website up! Some people advise that you should wait until your demo is ready to create a website. But these days an online presence is practically mandatory and you might be losing contacts to hold off until your demo is completed. So create it as soon as you can so people who find the site have something to listen to.

8)    Oh, and did we say this already? Practice, practice, practice!

Keep the dream alive. Be realistic and know it will take time. And the more you practice and train, the better your chances of having a fun and rewarding career as a Voice Over artist!