In voiceovers, script analysis is your number one guarantee of being competitive. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating over and over again, if you don’t truly understand every single sentence of what you’re saying then you’re not “saying” it, you’re reading it. It’s why at least a third of the blogs I’ve written focus on the different ways to analyze and understand voiceover copy. I went into some detail in the article on Voiceover Technique and the Product (Part 1), as well as in its follow-up, Voiceover Technique and the Product (Part 2). Most importantly, we discussed script importance in this article on Voiceover Script Analysis. Review these and get ready for the next several blogs to employ these techniques in much greater detail, breaking down the techniques and strategy line by line, and sometimes word by word. That’s right – each word counts. Throwing away a word means throwing away something the writer might have felt important, and that’s a make-or-break no-brainer.
Before the next blog rolls out with the first script, start paying attention to how you read an article, a novel, a textbook, an email. How do you process the information? Emotionally? Intellectually? Pragmatically? Creatively? Do you read between the lines or do you take each word to heart? None of this is “right or wrong” but it helps to understand how we process information that we read, because there’s some authenticity to that. If you remember to do the same with voiceover copy, you are now treating it as something important, or interesting, something you want to UNDERSTAND. Yet another method for taking you one step further away from “reading words on paper.” Even though you’re selling beers, burgers, and beachwear, you need to act like you actually care. I know it’s hard to care about the latest collision warning systems reducing accidents to 7 percent, but if you don’t, someone else will. And you know you want that gig.