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VOICE ACTING
Start Your New Voice-Over Year With Two
More Patrick Fraley Exercise Challenges
January 3, 2019

For a recent article, Do You Exercise Your Voice Acting Skills? top voice-over talent / trainer Patrick Fraley permitted us to share four voice-over acting exercises from his new book, Patrick Fraley's Complete Book of Voice Over Exercises. Today, Pat challenges us to start the new year with two more ...

By Patrick Fraley
Voice Actor & Trainer

The 'Series of Three' Exercise  

Objective: To practice different techniques for giving "A Series of Three" of the same line to a director or producer.

Materials: A recording device and a partner if you have one.

Directions: 
  1. Look over the five Series of Three Performance Lines below. Choose one, and with it in mind, perform it using one of the six Series of Three Techniques.
  2. Play back for your partner or alone, and listen for a difference.
  3. Continue to match up and perform Series of Three Performance Lines with the Series of Three Techniques.  
Series of Three Performance Lines
  1. Your ancestors are pleased. You have brought great honor to the house of Krondu.
  2. Best-case scenario? You're dead and I'm havin' a smoke.
  3. I was not always a traveler. Once I ruled a kingdom, but that's another story.
  4. When I want an opinion, I'll give it to you. Now get back to your station!
  5. As the sun set, it's brilliance shone like liquid fire against the ruined castle walls.  
Note: You're going to find one technique works best for you.  

Series of Three Techniques
  1. The Goldilocks Series. Perform the line, Too Hot, Too Cold, and then Just Right.
  2. The Circle Back Series. Deliver the Right Choice, Contrasting Choice, Right Choice Again.
  3. The Sally Fields Series. Perform the line as if you Like the Person You Are Speaking To, Dislike Them, and are Indifferent to Them.
  4. The Hide and Seek Series. Perform as if three People Can Hear You, Only One Can Hear You in Secret, then, One Person Hears You Not In Secret. 
  5. The Sandbagging Series. Never give them your best choice first. Save it for your last performance. Do anything on the first two, and then hit them with your best shot.
The 'Good-Bad Mindset' Exercise         

It doesn't get simpler. If the commercial has a story (possessing conflict or implied conflict) there is a problem (Bad) and a solution (Good). With commercials, the solution is often the product or service.  

Directions: 
  1. Record the script below the way you think others not using the Good Bad Mindset will.
  2. Then, following The Good Bad Mindset, perform it following the notes at the beginning of each passage. 
1st Read, "Stroke" TV
ANNCR:
Like most people, you tackle a to-do list. Every day. And maybe you find the time to relax and just take it all in. Your life is pretty much normal.
Until it's not.
When a stroke happens, it comes out of nowhere.
At Regional Medical Center, our board-certified doctors specialize in stroke treatment.
So you can get back on your feet.
When the unthinkable happens, think Regional Medical Center.   
2nd Read, "Stroke" TV
ANNCR:
[Good] Like most people, you tackle a to-do list. Every day. And maybe you find the time to relax and just take it all in. Your life is pretty much normal.
[Bad] Until it's not.
[Bad] When a stroke happens, it comes out of nowhere.
[Good] At Regional Medical Center, our board-certified doctors specialize in stroke treatment. So you can get back on your feet.
[Bad] When the unthinkable happens,
[Good] think Regional Medical Center.
-------------------------
ABOUT PATRICK
Voice actor and voice-over trainer Patrick Fraley holds an MFA from Cornell University in Pro Acting, and is the author of 16 books on voice-over, including Patrick Fraley's Complete Book of Voice Over Exercises. He has supplied voices to more than 5,000 cartoon characters, placing him in the top 10 to be cast in animated TV programs. And he trains voice actors in workshops nationwide and in online Home Study Courses that include personal coaching.


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Comments (1)
Cynthia Small
1/3/2019 at 1:04 PM
Thanks for the reminder to keep up the chops; we don't want to start the new year off with complacency. And I love that these exercises suggest using a partner. It can be very isolating hanging out in our own little heads and our own little booths!
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