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Decoding Voiceover Jargon: A Guide to Industry Buzzwords
44 Plays1 year ago
This week, join Al, Victoria, and Will as they talk buzzwords. If you've ever wondered what some of the jargon in the industry means, there's a good chance it's being talked about in the bar this week.
Chapters:
(00:00:00) Introduction and Buzzwords
(00:01:27) Avails and Holds
(00:03:51) Booking Out and Calendar Management
(00:07:21) Audition Terms and Takes
(00:10:57) Alts and Pickups
(00:19:13) Dubbing and ADR
(00:23:37) Announcers and Cold Reads
(00:28:36) Pickups and Session Fees
(00:29:58) Pronunciation Challenges
(00:31:00) Recording Technique: Punch and Roll
(00:32:47) Punching In and Replacement
(00:33:37) Punch and Roll in Audiobooks
(00:34:35) Challenges of Audiobook Recording
(00:35:32) Use of Punch and Roll in Long-form Content
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Transcript
Introduction & Industry Buzzwords
00:00:00
Speaker
What is it? Uh, the fast times that reach Mount Hytham? Oh no, don't do a quote. Learn it. No. No. No. Living. No. But it's Judge Reinhold. I don't care. Whoa. I'm Gen X and I do not care. No. No. No. Come on, Mr. X. No. No. No. No. Buzzwords. What are they? Well, every industry has them.
00:00:27
Speaker
And voiceover is no different. So let's talk about
Casting Terms - 'Hold' vs 'Avail'
00:00:30
Speaker
some of them. Victoria, what the hell is a hold?
00:00:33
Speaker
A hold is when they pencil in the date, like this is when it's going to happen. And it's between you and a couple others casting all the fun things. And they want to make sure that you're available for that session time. Sure. So you don't double book or whatever. Right. But I don't think it means you've booked it. Yes, it means you're in the shortlist. But if you're not available for that hold, then
00:00:58
Speaker
then you're not getting the job. Yeah, that was the last one that I had, I think it was between me and one other guy. They liked me a little bit more, but their other guy was I heard his audition. I don't think I was supposed to, but I did. He was he was good. I thought he was better than me. But yeah, I got an avail check and then a hold and then I booked it. But I hadn't booked it yet until after the hold. So they had to make sure that I was available that day that they wanted to record.
00:01:27
Speaker
Which, of course, I said yes. And even if I had to... Was that the one? I don't remember if it was that one or a different one. There's not that many, but I don't remember if it was this one or a different booking because I had a couple right around the same time. I had to get a filling replaced. I lost the filling. So I had to get a filling replaced that morning. It was this one.
00:01:53
Speaker
I went to the dentist and I said, uh, so I'm recording a national commercial later. Um, let's, let's skip the Novocaine. Okay. And you said it just like that too. They're like, well, we can try. The dentist said, don't worry about it. You'll be fine. Yes. My dentist received Martin.
00:02:16
Speaker
And I had to come home and feed Audrey. Yes. Well, go ahead and tell us then, you brought up the avail. So what's an avail versus a hold? So they're kind of related. But the avail is not saying, hey, we want you to hold this date. They're saying, are you available on this date? Right. So you're not booked yet, but you're in the final running. Is this the same as shortlisted? No, it's beyond shortlisted.
00:02:44
Speaker
usually. So shortlisting is you've auditioned and you're among the top two or three or however many you might book the job. And maybe they'll have a callback or maybe then they'll give you an avail check or whatever.
00:02:59
Speaker
And it is possible on that shortlist they'll pick a few just to get their avails, to see if they're available. And then they take whomever based on that and put you on hold. But it still doesn't mean you've booked it.
00:03:14
Speaker
Right. You haven't booked it until you're told you booked it. But yeah. Yeah. And a veil check is a good sign. It means like, hey, we're really, really interested. Are you available to record on, you know, Wednesday or Thursday? We're checking next week or whatever. That's always. And you go, yes, yes, I am.
00:03:35
Speaker
Unless you already have something else scheduled. Yes, you're available and you figure out how to be. Yes Sorry, not sorry, you know, unless it's something you just don't want to do I suppose but
00:03:51
Speaker
Well, I mean, I had shoulder surgeries scheduled at one point. I'm like, you should book out, which is another term. Booking out with your reps to let them know these are the dates you're not going to be available. And that's usually not just for audition purposes, but you wouldn't be able to say that you're available. You can't be put on avail, and you wouldn't be able to hold that date because you've got a different commitment. So once you are on hold,
00:04:19
Speaker
And should you have multiple agents or multiple reps or any of that, put it on your calendar, your shared calendars, let the other reps know, hey, I'm booked out because you're on hold for a project.
Audition Techniques and Terms
00:04:33
Speaker
But yeah. Which to a certain point kind of sucks because a lot of times you'll get put on hold for multiple days. Yes.
00:04:43
Speaker
Oh, I've had them constantly move. Like, oh, we're moving it back a week. We're moving it back a week. We're moving it back a week. Right. So it's like, well, I blocked my calendar for this and then you didn't do it. That kind of sucks. But yeah, at the end of the day, hopefully you still booked the job and you still get paid. It's all good. But.
00:04:59
Speaker
if you're potentially missing out on something else because you've said, yes, I'm available. Because you've locked it up. Well, and that's the thing too. So on the on-camera world, and I'm honestly not quite sure how that works in VoiceOver, but I think there is this whole, it has to be done before a 24-hour window, because that actually did happen, actually. They waited until day of to cancel the session, so I got paid the session fee.
00:05:29
Speaker
So if you are, yeah. And that only happens really if it's not something that you've booked on your own. So if you've booked something on your own, it's like if you haven't stated that upfront, like you still owe me a session fee if we don't record this date because I've blocked it and I can't book other work.
00:05:49
Speaker
then that's a problem. But if you have reps doing that for you, yes. Yeah. That sounds like a topic of contracts. Yeah. And it's probably a union thing, mostly, right? Mostly. But I think just across the board, if you have a rep working for you on union or non-union jobs,
00:06:07
Speaker
Because they go through all of the loops and hoops trying to make sure that you are available and you are on a hold and they're aware of that. A lot of times when I have booked something, I have to let my reps know when the job is completed because they're not with me in the session. So they want to know so that then they can go and follow up and do all the billing.
00:06:32
Speaker
Was it over the hour? Was it longer than whatever the session agreement is on that contract? So it helps to have them looped into that whole part. Well, also, it lets them know when they can book you for the next one. Mm-hmm. Agreed. Especially like in your situation where it kept getting postponed, postponed, they can't do anything with you during that. Right. And can I just say that one never booked because it was the pandemic cap.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was a national booking too and it was moving kept moving kept moving But you're not bitter at all I get it all no no no does not have any headspace not bitter just a little bit disappointed. Yes Womp womp womp womp
00:07:26
Speaker
Well, so how about audition terms? Yeah, how about the ABCs and AABBCC? What are those? Sounds like, you know, this comes up when you're doing, you know, in your auditions or it actually comes up even when you're doing demos. You know, they ask you, give me three takes of something. The same line. Just give me three feels on it. And that's your moment to shine. That's when you
00:07:56
Speaker
do three completely different takes, different style of voicing, different speeds, just something different. They're not asking for impersonations, but it's A, B, C, three different takes. Well, so you're actually talking about three in rows, which- Yes, I am. Is a little bit different. So three in a row, like you said, they'll say for this line,
00:08:22
Speaker
for these couple of lines or maybe for the tag or give me three in a row. And yeah, you want to do it three different ways.
00:08:30
Speaker
different tonality, different energy, different, you know, enunciation or emphasis on different words or whatever it is. Obviously, it still needs to make sense within the context of the script. You know, if you're doing like a little kid TV show thing, you're not going to suddenly have like some really super scary voice. That doesn't work. I suppose you could, but I don't know. Was that a challenge?
00:08:59
Speaker
Yes, throw the gauntlet down in challenges. But no, ABC, AABBCC, that's more of, especially in like animation, if you're doing multiple interpretations or versions of a character. So you've got like two or three different character voice options in your head. Often they'll say, you know, if you're gonna give us two different takes on this character,
00:09:23
Speaker
do, you know, ABC, so do all the lines in one character and then all the lines in another character. Sometimes they want to hear character one, character two on line one, and character one, character two on line two, and character one, character two on line three. So that's the difference between ABC and AABBCC. I personally would still record them all together and then shuffle stuff around.
00:09:50
Speaker
Right. Because, yeah, because otherwise it's harder to maintain the character if you're jumping between characters. Sure. Agreed. Obviously that doesn't work if you're doing it live in a session, but I don't know any would ever ask for that in a session. I think that's more. I let them say in session. Auditions. All right, let's do this ABC T to B. T to B.
00:10:14
Speaker
Top to bottom. No? They've actually said, OK, we're going to do this. So they want three in a row of the whole script. Top to bottom. Wow. Yep. I mean, it's usually it's been a small little. It's more than like a 15 second or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really extensive because otherwise it's like, I got it. I got a drink in between. Thanks. Right. Not notice it's water again. It appears to be Seth McFarland.
00:10:42
Speaker
I think it always pays to be Seth MacFarlane. Okay. Probably most of the time, yeah. Yeah. So let's, can we talk about Alts, by the way, because...
Script Handling and Realism
00:10:53
Speaker
Alts, yeah. Yes. So I actually had a recently... That's the abbreviation of Al's name, right? It is? There we go. Hey, Alts. Or it's kind of, isn't it also a medication? Oh no, that's Taltz. Sorry.
00:11:12
Speaker
So, here we go. It's a medication. Sorry, it's a pharmaceutical thing. There was a client I worked with, and they told me they had pickup lines at the end. And not pickup lines, because that means something totally different, by the way. Pickup line means something different to voice actors than it does to, let's say, parents. Because, you know, the pickup line is where you go through the school. Right. Yeah.
00:11:39
Speaker
But anyway, they said they were- Hey baby, can I buy you a drink? That's a pickup line too. Exactly. Pickup line is for loading and unloading only. Right. So there you go. No parking. But seriously, they actually sent me over a script and had listed alts but said they were pickups. I'm like, no.
00:12:03
Speaker
This is additional text and it meant that my agent had to go back and say, yeah, this is more.
00:12:10
Speaker
to record, pickups would be if there were errors in the script or if something was rewritten and we want to add something in there, let's pick up that line and do it again. But it was really, it's like, these are called alts. They were looking for alternate endings to a particular spot. You get charged,
00:12:34
Speaker
The client gets charged for that. It's not like unless you've signed a contract that says.
00:12:40
Speaker
unlimited lifts at its, please don't do that. There's a way too many contracts that say that. Happens a lot. Right? But there's a lot where they're asking you to record those alternate lines. Yeah, alts often show up in auditions too because they haven't necessarily settled on what the final text of the script is going to be. So they've maybe got two or three different versions of two or three lines throughout. And so yeah, alts are the alternate versions of a line.
00:13:10
Speaker
I've seen them when you've got a short script, 20 seconds, 15 seconds, and they're not sure how it's going to read, so the ultimate is usually a shortened version of the ending. Right, slightly reworded, yeah. Sure.
00:13:28
Speaker
And oftentimes what I see is they'll ask, you know, read all the way through one time or two times or whatever, including alts. So, you know, if it's like line one and then line two has two alts and then line three and four, read line one, then line two, then line two, alt, line two, alt, then line three, and then line four. And if it's two takes, then you do the whole, that whole thing again. I kind of, there's a lot lately that are just one take all the way through. Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yep. Good times. Not a fan. And it's poorly punctuated. It doesn't bother me. I often ignore the punctuation anyway. Yeah. Not that I'm delivering my lines like Shatner. But, you know, often times I'll- That sounded like Shatner.
00:14:17
Speaker
Oftentimes I'll gloss over a comma or meld two ideas together or whatever. I always learned that punctuation is for suggestion only. I mean, when it's written correctly and it's not always, it defines the structure of the sentences.
00:14:36
Speaker
Right. It does. So it's there for a reason. The commas give you a spot to breathe. Right. Right. You know, and the final list of things. And so obviously, if it's done right, the punctuation makes sense. But it's not always done right. No. So caveat emptor. It's written to read. It's not written to speak. Often. Yeah. Oftentimes it's not even written to read.
00:15:01
Speaker
That's true. That's true. There's definitely scripts that come through where you look at and go, did you even read this? Let alone read it out loud to see if it sounded okay, but did you even read this? Did AI write this? Adlibs, unscripted extras. We know nothing about unscripted extras. Yeah, especially you. Everything you say is always scripted and on topic.
00:15:29
Speaker
It is. 100% all the time. All the time. All the time. It's a sprinkle of something special in the performance. Helps you feel alive. I feel alive right now. Does it help you feel alive or help the script and the story feel alive? Maybe both. To help the story be more. If it's a dull script, I suppose it helps you feel alive. Yeah. To help you sell your connection to the script.
00:16:00
Speaker
We've already spoke about coaches, but that's what they're trying to do. You're trying to be a part of the script. And that's what ad libs do. They like the dirty. They like it dirty. That's all I heard. We like the dirty. Well, people don't speak perfectly. Leo Barr after dark.
00:16:21
Speaker
I am proof of that. You know, there's, there's stumbles, you know, there's little extra noises and sounds. That's all part of this. Al just called himself a dirty old man. I did. And then he's talked about noises and sounds. Hmm. Hmm. Well, okay. I did. Well, you know, when you get old, your body groans and creaks and extra noises and sounds. Sure, there you go.
00:16:48
Speaker
Which leads us to efforts, which is primarily an animation and video game thing. Efforts are the non-verbal vocalizations that your character is making when they're taking an action, when they're lifting a big heavy
00:17:08
Speaker
a treasure chest or getting stabbed or whatever it is, right? Right. Efforts. It's the extra sounds that they're not usually in the script. It's usually ad-libbed. There might be like a parenthetical that says, you know, make a dying noise or whatever. Which is why improv is helpful in this. Yeah, taking improv class. Yes, take one. In order to know how to really do some of those efforts. Yeah.
00:17:36
Speaker
It's super helpful. And there are workshops on that too, specifically video game efforts. There are workshops on that that are fabulous. Sound like a tree in the wintertime with no leaves. And all of a sudden someone cuts your branch. What? But do it colder.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah. Less leafy. No leaves. No leaves. Yeah. Yeah. All of that. All of that. Right. Oh, man. Yeah. Sometimes the instructions that you get for like just like it's not even a human character. It is something completely made up. And it will tell you what's happening with your voice. Okay.
00:18:24
Speaker
Okay, you got stabbed by a knife. No, no, a bigger knife. You got stabbed by a big knife. And it's definitely on your left shoulder. So get it right. Oh, okay. Because you no longer have a right shoulder. Right.
Voiceover Techniques and Challenges
00:18:39
Speaker
Okay. Can we talk about ADR looping and debbing? Yeah, that's something you know about.
00:18:48
Speaker
I know a lot about the dubbing part of it, which I absolutely love. I call it charioca. I mean, it's not that much different than ADR and looping. They're kind of the same thing. True. The difference being with ADR and looping, you're recreating the performance with the same or similar voice.
00:19:06
Speaker
Right, so you might be doing a little bit of voice matching on those. Or the original person who did it is re-recording it. True, although a lot of times they've asked if I can voice match for a particular person. And sometimes it's just doing those efforts, which is even funnier because you're like, yeah, does that sound like Jennifer Aniston getting shot? Okay, yeah, I can do that.
00:19:28
Speaker
So it was a really weird thing on the left shoulder. But dubbing, I call like karaoke for voice actors because that's basically what it is. You are taking a film that was in a different language typically. Or animation. Or animation, correct. And now you're having to match it at least with the lip flap or the mouth movements.
00:19:55
Speaker
time-wise, which is why I call it karaoke. Because when you're watching a karaoke video screen or whatever that's called, you know when you're supposed to sing a particular line because it highlights, dubbing kind of does the same process. Right. They've got the little streamer of text across the bottom of the screen usually. Yeah. Or a crawl, if you will.
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah, so the difference between live action dubbing and, say, anime, you're still matching the lip flaps, but obviously, like, you know, speaking English lines for something that originated in Korean or Chinese is never going to look the same. Right. So so then you're shooting for the time.
00:20:34
Speaker
Whereas with anime, they're shooting to actually match the lip flaps as close as possible because the mouth is just opening and closing or gridded teeth and whatever. But the translation for anime isn't necessarily the same words as the original anyway. They're completely reinterpreting the story so that it fits. And the people who do the translation for it are incredible because they
00:21:00
Speaker
They do it based on maintaining the same general overall story, but changing it so that in the new language, it looks as if it was recorded that way as best as possible. It's crazy. Because you brought it up, Victoria, you said voice matching. Would that be the same as recording the clean version of a movie that had F-bombs thrown in them?
00:21:28
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's still ADR. What does that stand for? I always forget. Automatic dialogue replacement, which is silly because there's nothing automatic about it, really. Right. Although I don't think they do made for TV films anymore. Like even stuff that is on the network, I'm hearing a lot of interesting language that wasn't allowed before. There's still the seven words you can't say. That hasn't changed.
00:21:58
Speaker
Seven words? You've seen Carlin's old thing about that, right? George Carlin's seven words, you can't say. Yeah, and he says them all. That's great. And he says them all. Yeah. Right? Right. But I think for the most part, too, with dubbing, they do try to stay true to the story, but it's not always
00:22:18
Speaker
So in particular, the one I was working on, there were some things that were said that couldn't be translated word for word, but you still want to make sure you can match the mouth as closely as possible, but it's still, it's more of that timing thing like you talked about. But there are certain things in our language, and this is across the board, no matter what language you're working in, that just don't translate, especially when it comes to idioms, right? Like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
00:22:48
Speaker
You say that to somebody in Korean and they're like, you're going to be arrested.
00:22:54
Speaker
What did you do? You're going to jail for that. So just those types of things that don't translate well. So you have to find an alternate way to say it so that it fits, but also within that time constraint. So it's fun. I love dubbing. A dub all day. What other kind of buzz words? ANNC and also AVO, they're abbreviations. So ANNC stands for announcer.
00:23:21
Speaker
Hey, how you doing? Yeah, so it's primarily and it doesn't mean announcer voice But primarily in commercial copy you will probably see for your lines a and NC will be the review or AVO especially if there are other voice actor parts that are character parts even if it's just like mom and sister, whatever
00:23:45
Speaker
Sometimes they say F-V-O or M-V-O. Right. Or male or female. If it's male or female. And you may have to file label with such language. Yes. Definitely follow the instructions for file labeling. Oh my gosh. Always. Please do. Always. Always. All the time. If you don't, you're not booking that job. Yeah. Because most casting directors will just throw it out. You couldn't follow that simple instruction. I'm not even going to listen.
00:24:13
Speaker
That's the things they're looking for. And this, as competitive as it is, I mean, they're almost looking for things that then they're to call the call. I mean, to a certain point, right? Like some casting directors, you'd hope that like all of them, but some of them, like they really want you to book the job, obviously, right? But if you're blatantly failing at the simplest of things, like naming the file properly,
00:24:38
Speaker
It seems something so simple and it is. It does. And sometimes when you're in a session and they say, take a beat, what's that mean? Let me take a beat. Okay, so taking a beat is just a brief pause, right? It's not a pause just for the sake of a pause. Usually it's motivated by some
00:24:57
Speaker
internal thought or a shift in your emotion or a shift in your understanding of what it is you're talking about or something, but it's a pause at the most basic.
Script Reading and Pronunciation Challenges
00:25:07
Speaker
So when they say take a beat, it means just take a second, split second, think about what it is you're doing. I've been told not to take a micro beat in promo. So like don't pause at all or don't just pause for a tiny fraction of a second. Right. So for example, next on CBS,
00:25:27
Speaker
Next on CBS. Don't do the next.
00:25:30
Speaker
on CBS, they want it next on CBS, like all in one, versus next on CBS. So it's kind of like this, no micro beat, like, oh, okay, no micro beat, done. Yeah, well, because that's putting the emphasis on the wrong word anyway. On next, yeah. Because you're putting the emphasis on next, whereas if anything is getting emphasis, it should be CBS. Right. Which leads into billboarding. Billboarding is putting the emphasis
00:25:57
Speaker
on a certain word. This guy's good. It's like he knows what he's doing. It's amazing. I mean, I made the list of stuff. I didn't make it so that it could be segued like this, but... See? Well, that's improv. I got a skill for radio. That's just improv.
00:26:15
Speaker
I've been to like UCB. Hello. Duh. So yeah, Billboarding, especially in commercial copy, you will often be asked to billboard the product name or the manufacturer or the brand or whatever. Right. And it's, I mean, how do you explain it? It's kind of like a beat. You might, there's different ways to do it. Probably most common is that micro beat and then hitting that word just a little bit more oomph.
00:26:42
Speaker
I've heard them call it, give it a little juge in session. I'm going to juge it up. Juge it a little bit. Okay. And then I've had a coach tell me, give it a little Hollywood. I'm like, okay. So it's just got to pop a little bit. That's all. But not like you're scaring your audience, right? Don't make them jump out of their chair while they're watching television. Unless that's the point.
00:27:12
Speaker
Indeed. You know, maybe you're doing a Halloween ad and you want to get that jump scare somehow. True. I don't know. True. And if it's on the script.
00:27:24
Speaker
It's on the script, and the script is often called the copy. So know what you're reading. Yes, the copy, the copy, the script, the words, the dialogue. It's what you're reading. Do we know why it's called copy? Does anybody know? Is it because it was like we're giving you a copy of it? Probably because it was it. Yeah, I think so.
00:27:44
Speaker
But because I know there's there's the term rip and read you've heard that one before right? It's like it's like a cold. It's been a while. But yep. Take them off the. It came right off the teletype. You pre read it. You ripped it off the teletype and you read it. Yep. And it's a cold read, which I was going to say it came off the Ape Wire. What do you know? I'm blowing my own mind here. Cold read is reading a script without having previously seen it, previously practiced it. You just grab it. You go.
00:28:14
Speaker
And if you flub a lot, what happens? What do you need to do? Start over. Or?
00:28:21
Speaker
profusely apologize? No, don't apologize. Touch the mic. Well, if you've already read the copy, you're done with the script, you've delivered it, you've done your thing with a client, now they come back and they want you to do some... Pickups. Which we kind of talked about already. Sure. Which is fine. Look what you did. Yeah, see? Yeah. You're welcome. That's why I'm here. I wasn't done with cold reads yet, but okay. Okay, well, cold readies. Go ahead. I'm done now.
00:28:50
Speaker
That was improv folks, just improv-ing. That was failed improv. It failed. Oh, wow. Because I didn't pick up the ball that you handed to me. But see, there's another pickup. There you go. Yes, and? Yes, and. So pickups, we talked about. Yes, re-recording something usually where you screwed up. Usually it's not, hey, here's a bunch of new stuff for you to do. Although if it's a pickup session,
00:29:18
Speaker
You've already done the main session and now, you know, after feedback from the client, maybe they changed some of the script, added some new lines or changed lines or whatever. But you usually get paid for that session as well. It's not like a... I said usually. I didn't get paid for my last pickup session. Ooh. Shame, shame, shame. Well, it was also a flat rate project. So there wasn't like recession fee or usage fee. It was just, this is the rate. Okay.
00:29:49
Speaker
And the director did say in the pickup session, like, if they don't like this, they're going to have to pay more because we don't have it in the budget for you to do another one. Like, okay, cool. Right. Okay. Or your pronunciation's wrong. Yeah, that one sucks in auditions, right? Like, it's funny because sometimes you'll get pronunciation information.
00:30:08
Speaker
But then sometimes it's like, and obviously I'm not going to know how to pronounce this weird drug name. Right. Right. And you can't find it. Yeah. If it's brand new, you can't go look it up. Can I just call Pfizer and ask? No, you can't because, oh, you signed an NDA to just to audition. So like you would hope that they're going to give you pronunciation guides, but they don't always.
00:30:29
Speaker
Right. No. And oftentimes it's something that you could probably figure out on your own, like if it's something common, like a city name or something. Right. Yeah, the drug names are the tough ones. They are. But it's funny, I've heard them on air and went, oh. And a coal reed. Oh, that's how you say that. Oh, OK. I was not calling it that. Oh, it's analgesic. My bad.
00:30:59
Speaker
Oh, man. Okay. There we go. Speaking of punching in. Yeah. Getting a little punchy, are we? Yeah. Okay. So what is... Tell us about that, Al. What is a punch in? It's a recording technique. It is a recording technique, and you should be familiar with it as a musician. Yes. It's also often called punch and roll, which is related to it.
00:31:22
Speaker
It's in the re-recording. I've done it for pickups in long form where you pronounce the wrong word and then six months later they send you your pronunciation list and you have to go through the whole thing again and find the words and re-record them with the same feeling as you had months ago before the check cleared. Which, by the way, boys and girls, is why you're using non-destructive editor.
00:31:51
Speaker
Otherwise you're recording that whole job over again. Don't do it, folks. But it's also really nice when they punch it in for you while you're in a recording session in order to get... So you can hear the delivery and you can kind of read along with it. So this has worked in a variety of genres too. So even in dubbing, I would listen to...
00:32:12
Speaker
the dialogue that was happening before they would punch in my lines, right? So that's kind of nice. Or you would do it if we were re-recording a section, I think Al already said that. You just kind of hear, wait, da-da-da-da, and you can read along with it because you know where you're going and then you just keep rolling with it. So, nice. Yeah, so usually there's a couple different ways that you can punch in. If you're going back to just correct
00:32:39
Speaker
a mispronunciation or a small section. Oftentimes the start and end of the punched section will be set.
00:32:47
Speaker
So then when you hit record it'll play back the however long leading into it so you can kind of get back into the rhythm and the cadence of the thing and you just keep going and it records during that window and when it gets to the end of the window it starts playing again so you've just replaced that piece. For musicians it's like oh I flubbed that solo I'm just going to re-record these two bars in the middle of you know this whole section. So it doesn't sound like
00:33:14
Speaker
And this program sponsored by Mr. Black. You've never heard that, it's absolute worst. I have no idea what you're talking about. You don't? No. What they punched in has no feeling to the rest of the copy, to the rest of the recording. It's just vacant. You hear stuff like that on PBS a lot. And it's different.
Recording Techniques and Final Thoughts
00:33:38
Speaker
I don't think it's a punch in it, but it's because the such and such show is sponsored by
00:33:43
Speaker
And then they have like all the new sponsors in a completely different voice or the same voice with a totally different feeling. And viewers like you.
00:33:53
Speaker
But Punch and Roll, I can tell you about Punch and Roll. Tell me about Punch and Roll, Will. Yeah. I used it extensively on the audiobook that I did that had a final runtime of 11 and a quarter hours, and I only had seven pickups. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. So it still took me, I still averaged like three to four hours per finished hour when I was recording, which isn't awesome, but it's not terrible.
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, hey, Will, you don't suck at it, so that's good. Yeah, seven pickups. Apparently, really good at it. Apparently, I'm pretty good at it. Amazing. Well, so the thing is, and this is weird to say as a voice actor, I don't actually enjoy reading.
00:34:35
Speaker
No, that's not. I don't enjoy audiobooks at all. I don't. I don't like the process of making them. It's a lot of work. I like audio dramas. Yes, as an audiobook. Those are amazing. Love it. Yes, please. Sign me up. I don't enjoy reading, and I think it's because I have no pictures in my head. Yeah.
00:34:52
Speaker
reading isn't a pastime for me. So seeking out audiobooks is not really high on my list, although maybe that'll change because I did pretty good on this one. You did. And that's all thanks to punch and roll. So every time I'd screw up, which often was many times per page, often I would get maybe a sentence at a time.
00:35:15
Speaker
I just back up to wherever the last good part of that was, wherever a natural kind of stopping point was. I'd set the playhead there and I hit my punch and roll record, which would then pre-play like three seconds or whatever. And I would read along with those three seconds and then keep going until I screwed up again. Isn't it better than following the dog clicker? Oh yeah, especially for something that long.
00:35:43
Speaker
There's no way. I would not go through 11 and a half hours of plus all the extra time for all my screw ups to find all the dog clicks and go back and edit. No, awful. Yeah. Terrible. No, thanks. If it's short form stuff, I don't see a reason to try and do punch and roll for like a 30 second commercial. There are people who do. I just don't imagine that it would actually save time.
00:36:07
Speaker
over, reset and record again, just keep rolling, record again. And then I go back and listen to it and I cut out the crap. I don't even dog click. I just start over 30 seconds, right? 60 seconds. What I recorded that, uh, ifs does firefighters training manual, 300,000 words punch and roll changed my life. Yeah. You got it. I mean, I can't imagine doing longer form stuff without punch and roll. What does it, uh,
00:36:36
Speaker
the fast times at Regemont High thing. Oh no, don't do a quote. No, no, no, no. But it's Judge Minehold. I don't care. I'm Gen X, I do not care. Come on, Mr. Hand. No, no. What? Fine. All right. There's an empty can, I'm running low on water. Last call, anything? Learn it, know it. No, no, no.
00:37:03
Speaker
I cannot encourage these guys. No. Seriously, you need to know the buzzwords so that when you encounter them on a script during an audition or even more importantly in a session, you got half a clue what the hell they're talking about. Indeed. True. But ask. If you don't know, ask. Sure. Yeah. What does that mean? But hopefully after the first time you've asked.
00:37:30
Speaker
retain it. Write it down. Yeah. Or some retain. Indeed. All right. We'll see you next week. And then.