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3 Ways Storytelling is King in Voiceover for Ads and Business

Voiceover Business

So…what’s your story? Or rather what is your relationship with story? Chances are it’s tight. We humans love story. We swim in it, soak in it, eat it up daily. Hourly, even. But have you stopped to consider your relationship with story as a voiceover artist?

actor LeVar Burton speaks Kim Handysides Voice over
Source:Craig Barritt/Getty Images for AOL Inc.)

Levar Burton, (Reading Rainbow guy, Geordie from Star Trek:Next Generation, Kunta Kinte in Roots) as the key note speaker at DevLearn 2017, stated that story telling is our super power as human beings. Intrinsic to that power is the ability to project ourselves in a moment outside this one. Speaking to a few thousand eLearning developers and creators, he recommended habituating  the gateway to story, using the ubiquitous chestnut “What if” to better engage their users and learners.

How voiceover artists use “What if”?

By bringing it to everything you read. If you’re trained in acting, you recognize this as incorporating Meisner technique or Practical Aesthetics. If your background is broadcasting, think of it as finding that personal angle to hook the 6 o’clock supper hour news story on. But make it personal to you. The copy is a retail radio spot for a weekly special about cheap chicken and toilet paper? Use “what if” to imagine those prices really making a difference in your life. Maybe you’re a millennial who’s just left home, you’ve got a new family and all your money is going toward diapers, or you’re on a fixed pension. If the copy doesn’t provide it, build your backstory to better present it. Your “what if” world-building will help your message connect on an emotional level.

Emotion Amps Up VoiceOver Storytelling

brightly lit scan of brain & head
Source: Fine Art America

Settled around the crackling fireplace, the smells of Sunday pot roast lingering in the air and your grandfather tap, tap, tapping the tobacco in his pipe as he launches into a story about his youth. How did you feel? Lit up like a Christmas tree?  Our brains are actually wired to process info best through storytelling. We have an eons old history of passing everything on aurally. Whether legend, cautionary tale or recipe on how to live life, we figured out over millennia the kids would get it faster, deeper, better if sewn together in story. In fact, three times more areas of our brains light up when we bake info in a story cake than if we just slice it up into naked factoids.

Persuasive Voiceover and Influencing Action

Your story (i.e. commercial ad, corporate narration, explainer video, etc.) if told well (i.e. with emotion, with enough world building and an appropriate “what if”) will prompt your listener to action (which is what your client wants) and fill out their time cards appropriately or sign up for the corporate baseball team or go and put that brand of frozen pizza in their shopping cart next time they need groceries. What we do is powerful stuff (when done well). Our clients entrust us to tell their stories to their clients. It’s a big responsibility. We are the Hermes of humanity. The messengers. To ply our trade well, we need to understand both the needs of the message maker and message receiver.

Morphing a Memorable Message

Matthew McConaughey in Lincoln ad Kim Handysides Voiceover
Source: MLive.com

A story told well stays with you. Romeo and Juliet. A Christmas Carol. Harry Potter. Yes, these are all written stories which we’ve read at one time or another, but the same holds true for stories told in spoken word. Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Kate Winslet in Titanic. Great stories, but also, really great voiceover narrators. Those voices, telling those stories stick with you.  Same with ads. The Alka Selzter man from the 70’s moaning “I can’t believe I ate the whoooole thing,” the tiny grandma from the 80’s shouting “Where’s the beef?” or more recently, Matthew McConaughey rubbing his fingers and musing, “That’s a big bull” in the Lincoln ads. Story makes the message stick.

Tell Your Voiceover Story

drawing of a crown and word kingBack at the DevLearn conference, LeVar Burton wrapped up his speech on storytelling to the eLearning crowd by telling us what we imagine and what we create are inextricably linked. So true. Everything man has ever created existed first as an imagining, shared with another in, most probably, story. It begs the question, whether copywriter, voiceover artist, producer or “other” creative, what will your unique contribution be? What are your stories? And how will you tell them from your singular perspective?

Filed Under: Voiceover Business Tagged With: ads, backstory, commercial, commercial ad, copy, copywriter, corporate narration, DevLearn 2017, eLearning, explainer video, Meisner technique, messaeg connect on an emotional level, message, Practical Aesthetics, retail radio spot, speech on storytelling, spoken word, story, storytelling, storytelling is our superpower, voiceover artist, voiceover narrators, world building, your relationship with story

5 Top Tips to Secure your Survival In the Arts Guaranteed

Love, Voiceover Coach

I’m addressing a performance art graduating class tonight. A class of musicians, actors, dancers and singers. I remember being in their seats. A hungry-for-life, embrace-the-world, chomp-down-the-nerves and go-for-it young adult. For me, that was a few Presidents ago, and hey, I’ve done it. Continue to do it. I’m a working actor. A voice actor. I love my art and I love my life. What would I tell myself, if I could, when I was the same life-point this graduating class will be tonight?

 

Kim Handysides Voiceover: 5 Top Tips to Secure your Survival In the Arts Guaranteed
Observe Yourself and Others

1. Watch and listen – Your art, whether it’s music, drama, dance or visual arts is the interface between you and your world. Notice people. Notice what they do, say, how they sound, how they move. And then take notes. That practice will help you unlock what’s in your mind-creator and be able to transpose it into your art and feed it out into the world. Your education is not over. Your art is something you will continue to craft for the rest of your life. Look for ways to learn more everywhere. From each other, from the Masters (that is, whomever you deem to be a master in your field), on You Tube, on Skype. Take classes. Your learning never ends. And that in itself is an amazing gift.

 

Kim Handysides Voice Over: 5 Top Tips to Secure your Survival In the Arts Guaranteed
Photo cred: Frabz.com

2. Be friendly & respectful – Your conduct with each other, and with whomever you work with in the future, whether peer, director, choreographer, conductor, producer, etc. It follows you and becomes part of your brand. Which will help you or harm you when getting work. I once camped in the Rockies with a very successful visual artist. A watercolor painter who claimed five figures a piece. When people said to her, “You charge a lot for that painting. How long did it take you to do it?” She replied, “About 3 weeks. And 30 years.” Be respectful of the experience of those who have more of it than you. If you’re respectful to them and lucky, they might share their wisdom with you.

 

Kim Handysides Voice Over: 5 Top Tips to Secure your Survival In the Arts Guaranteed
Credit: viralnova.com

3. Make and keep connections – You are each other’s first contacts. Work with each other, recommend each other. Help each other. Begin a list of your contacts and grow it. You’ll often hear, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” It’s actually both. If I, as a voice actor and director am going to produce a commercial ad campaign, and my client says, “Hey, I think I want original music for this jingle. Do you know anyone?” I immediately say “Yes.” The more yeses you can honestly give your client, the more valuable you are. Then go into your contact list and connect with your composer friend. The one who’s friendly and respectful and will work as tirelessly as you will to make your client happy, so you both will get hired again. And recommended by your client to her colleagues. And so on. And so on.

 

Kim Handysides Voice Over: 5 Top Tips to Secure your Survival In the Arts Guaranteed

4. Brood and nest – The late wonderful Carrie Fischer, (you young ones probably know her as Princess Leia from Star Wars) said “Take your broken heart and turn it into art.” If you need time to brood, to go inward, to nest cozy at home or mend a broken heart, respect that. Take time for yourself. Listen to your body and your emotions. If the creative force burns bright in you, you will be tempted to overdo. Which often leads to burn out. When you’re young and starting your path, you’ve got this inner volcano of energy to do, and yes, putting in many, many hours on your craft will help you improve. They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at any given thing. But, taking time away from your art for family, friends, spiritual renewal, fun, keeps you balanced. Healthy and happy. Rejuvenates you. When you’re refreshed and crawl out of your cave again, then you can blast off and pioneer your art in a different direction.

 

5 Top Tips to Secure your Survival In the Arts Guaranteed
Credit: Shutterstock

5. Embrace the facts & figures– Not the negative stats, you know, the “It’s so hard to make a living as an artist,” but the positive ones, which I’ll get to in a second. Yes, it’s true. Many students who graduate from the arts will switch into something that brings in a steady income. That’s a fact. But I challenge you to use a healthy fear of the negative stats to drive you. Become good with the money you get from your art, so you can keep making more of it. Be frugal at first. Reinvest in your materials and your education. If you need to take a rent-paying job, get one related to your field, that may bring you more contacts, or give you insight into another aspect of the business of your art. Here’s the positive part: It’s show business, the music business, the art world business. You can tell what the operative word it here. Don’t be afraid of looking at your art as a business. Math may have been your least favorite subject in school, but make it something you love from now on. Because everything you do each of the preceding tips, your continual crafting of your art, your personal presentation and the connections you forge, the self-care that you undergo, it all supports your business, your brand, and your art.

 

A working female voice over artist for almost three decades, I coach others and share whatever I can to give back and foster my community. I wish you well.

Now, go do what you love.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Love, Voiceover Coach Tagged With: art, broken heart, coach, commercial ad, craft, show business, voice actor, voice over, voice over artist, working actor, your brand

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