The Lost Art of Sessioncraft

History, Welcome the Pro Audio Suite. These guys are professional and motivated with text. The video stars George Wissam, founder of Source Element, Robert Marshall, International Audio Engineer, Darren Robbo Roberts and Global Voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to Tribooth, Austrian Audio Making Passion, her Source Elements, George the Tech Wisdom and Robo and APIs International Demos. Find out more about us check the pro AudioSuite dot com and welcome to another pro audio suite thanks to try Booth. Don't forget the code t ri I p a P two hundred to get two hundred dollars off your try Booth and Austrian Audio Making Passion heard a few things you won't hear anymore is like, give it a couple of jabs on the throttle and give us some choke. In fact, there's lots of things you won't hear anymore. But give it a shove down the hill and part the clutch in sacking. We'll get that thing running out. I do that a couple of years ago. Yeah, what about tuning? What about this is another one I saw on the post we were talking about before we started recording. About tuning a radio the old with the old dial. Do you know how five percent now these days of gear has analog controls. The rest is digital. Actually dial the phone recently, like I mean, well, there's. Another one, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, phone numbers. Seventy one percent of people can't even remember their child's school's phone number. Isn't that correctly? I would know a clue what my school's phone number? One. I remember my first phone number. It was two O seven five. Yeah. Or if you want to talk analog, what about reading an analog clock? One in three kids can't read an analog clock. Wow, too bad. Actually would have thought it would be worse. That's mostly America, I'd say it's in America, yeah, because they were talking about twenty US states don't teach cursive writing anymore. And whole yeah stuff like that. So yeah, probably in the US. But still and here, I know the kids at school that don't do cursive writing. Oh I know, well, well yeah we don't, yeah right, we don't do cursive writing here, which I mean, well, that was another one. I can't remember the statistics a bit. Apparently handwriting, handwriting in general is going downhill, like everybody's typing. And something that strikes me from that so that I know from an old podcast that I used to do, is that your brain actually remembers things about ten times better when you write them by hand than when you compared to when you type them. Yeah, that makes sense. That's the whole trick with note taking and score. Yeah, some of this stuff actually has big consequences for the human race too. You know, it's like, it's quite interesting. But the reason we're talking about this, by the way, dear listener, is because I sort of stumbled across this social media post over the weekend and it started me thinking about stuff in the studio that you'll no longer do, like lacing up a quarter inch or a tape machine in general. Biasing a TEP deck for sure. How do you do magnetize a teap deck? Cleaning the heads? Cleaning the heads? Yeah there you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no institutional knowledge on this stuff. I mean, if you have an older studio and you need to do some of these things, you're going to be hard pressed to find a young intern, let alone somebody your own age that can do that stuff. It's two problems. At number one, people aren't even using the tech for these things that are now gone, like a tape deck, but also the whole remote nature of things. People don't have assistance in the same way and there is not the same transfer of knowledge. And also more and more jobs are going sort of in house. For example, ad agencies have an in house you know, audio mix, realm or something, but there's no assistant for that person. So where does the knowledge get, you know, transferred down generation of generation. It's interesting too, Like I mean even I wonder myself, you know, like I was I can't remember whether it was on this podcast, So apologies if I've mentioned this before, But you know, like the old drop edit, you know, like the muscle memory to sort of be able to sort of drop it into record, you know, and if you had to have your finger on play at the same time and all that sort of stuff, Like are you often wonder now whether I'd have the muscle memory to do it live if I had to, because you used to literally do it live. I still do them in pro tools. I still do them in pro tools. You're you're talking about a punch in right drop that it's an. Awesome yeah job, yeah, and okay, in pro tools that's that's not so bad because you know you can you can automate that now. But I'm talking about on analog tape. You know, back in the days of cortinats where you'd be going like, I'm going to drop you in. Well, well, the thing is even on pro tools. If you do it manually in protos, you're like, oh, I messed up. You just roll your ddit. Back back in the day, you had to be on and and here's even crazier. Back in the day, a punch in was not done by the engineer. So in New York this is such a crazy thing. My friend used to workpeops. Yes, a tape up would have would be the guy and the engineer would have to say, okay, beat three on measure of fifty five, we're going to punch. And then the guy running the teepe deck, not the guy running the mixer, because it was all unionized and everyone had their own thing, that guy would do the punch. Well, I wish I had a tape up in the production suite at the radio station, but unfortunately I wasn't that lucky. So I was just that guy. And you know, it was sort of like go too late. And that's okay, but go too early and you're completely fuck. Yeah. It's funny because you know the guy I keep mentioning Richard last who was the Beatles guy, became an engineer. He was a tape of early days. You worked in filing tapes and then the next thing, when you got introduced into the studio, became a tape off. And I said to him one day, when you when you were recording the Beatles, because I think he kicked off with Rubber Soul. I think was the first thing he worked on. And he said, I said, did you ever when you had to punch in? Did you ever make a mistake? He said yeah. I said, how did the the guys the Beatles react, you going, No, they were cool. They're just like, all right, we'll do it again because they could do it again. Yeah, we all make mistakes. They didn't get stressed out of it. I was listening to David Gilmour being interviewed by Rick Biato. If you haven't seen that one yet, I have seen that, and he was showing, you know, they had all this great you know, they were flying in great pictures and things from Abbey Road. Because being Floyd recorded a lot road and he's like, yeah, I mean in the early days they were all wearing lab coats. They old to do a bunch of scientists and it was a very rigid process. And it was and you know, Rick would say, hey, what did you do with Mike's back then, you know, and David's like, I don't know. I didn't need to care, right, It was a very compartmentalized process where everybody had a job and roll well. And to get the fair Child was like a whole check it out process, and that was only for certain sessions. The fair Child was like a major piece of gear that you know wasn't because it was floating around. It wasn't in the control rooms. What do you mean by floating around like a floater piece of gear in the studio is a piece of gear that's in a rack and it doesn't live in a particular room. You can move it from right. Because it's so expensive, you can't have. Four of them. There's also things like Jeff Emerick, who was another engineer. They used to have measurements between microphone and like kick drums measurements close yeah, yeah, yeah, and he moved close and that they know it's like don't ever do that again. Right because because they were scared about blowing the microphone or something. Yeah, yeah, there's another one too, I mean micing up a drum kit. You know, there's a skill. And what about the other one I thought of too, is like dialing in a reverb or a delay. You know, like these days you can just set the tempo, you can set the session tempo and you plug in and bang it's done. How about rehearsing. Let's go backwards for a quick second, though, so just jump back to punch its okay with puncheons. And I noticed this with a lot of the the the artists these days, especially the like semipro or amateur artists that I record here and there punching in You all know that the way you get away with the late punches by having the singer do the line beforehand, so as they're going along with it. If you're late, it's still there. They sing along with themselves. They have these kids, they have no idea, and when you try to explain this to them, they're just like, what, like, I'm going to start there. It's like, no, do everything beforehand. And half of them don't even like especially with the like whole freeze rap thing. They can't even do the same thing twice, Like they can't even go back and go along with themselves. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not written down. It's not notated on sheep. Music doing commercials. When you had to do a drop in, you'd read along with your previous read until it dropped to the point where you could be that good at it. You actually phase your own voice. Yeah, I know a couple of a couple of voice overs. You were very good at that. Absolutely I could do it. Yeah, yeah, there you go. And that's how you would get the same pitch and you would launch from the same place and it would blend perfectly because if not, if you drop in cold, you're in the different, different pitch and exactly. And you had that start up sound energy too. You're sort of like jumped in rides are posted just naturally flowed into it exactly. This is a lost art on both sides of it, not just the engineer learning how to hit a punch button a record button at the right time, but even more so the artist knowing how the session flow goes. You know, like all right, I'm gonna roll back. Can we talk about punching for a second. Sure, we teach voice actors how to edit and do edits and record and do pickups and punch and role. It got picked up by somehow it became that the term. But is there really truly a big advantage to the quality of the performance to do a punch and role versus recording like five six takes and then compying it back together. Absolutely. It's first of all, someone who's good at punchings will speed the session up because you are basically doing your edit and your punch at the same time. They're doing your editing for you. That's all right, yeah, absolutely. But does it improve the performance? I know it's faster, but does it improve the performance? I kind of feel like this it improves the consistency because you get a take and the producers are like, oh, that's a great take, and then when you go to cut it in it doesn't blend. Yeah, it doesn't work, and then you're doing it again. It drives me crazy because really in voiceover, no one does a punch in anymore, so always do another take to three exactly, No, I didn't like that. And then you're like, but but if you just did it on the fly you, I know you had it or not written. We I kind of feel that's because of the digital age too. Though, you know it's sort of like we don't like you know, back in the day, you know, like on analog, especially like if I had a voice talent coming in in my radio days right where I'd be making maybe twenty or thirty commercials a day, I would have I would know Andrew's coming in for a session today at twelve o'clock, so I'd have all my music beds if they were just straight thirty second rip and reads, I'd have all my music beds lined up on the multi track and Andrew would I just get Andrew in and get him to read to them. And I don't know about you, Andrew, but I kind of I always felt that the voiceover artists would be appreciative to hear the music in the headphones because then they got a vibe for how they're supposed to read it. And that sort of stuff. And that's something that else that's lost these days. You know, you're recording with the music is also like half the time people don't want to do that getting direction. Getting direction, Yeah, that's that's going to be a lost art too soon, you know. It's like, and that's feedback I get from doing my voiceovers is people go, I love being directed, and I kind of like, fuck. Aren't you? Aren't you? Regularly it's sort of like no, obviously not. No, because everyone's just saying record it and phone it into me, send me files. Yeah. So Robert, when you do the live session with someone, do what we used to call it dropping. I think I can't remembin that. And so don't go I'll do that. Yeah, I'll punch it in. Yeah, I'll just play it back to them and then I can read they can for us, it's. Late, but you can just touch down. We do have a version of. Source Connect coming out that will let you read along with it and everybody will hear it in sync. Okay, and you can bring back the true music punching. But I will very often tell a talent to read along with it and go, and three out of five times they mess it up. They don't know how to do this and. They just don't read along, or they do read along and they go and then and it's like that's not the point, like read along with it for real, not like. Shadow. But do you think hearing themselves back while they're rating, said, they're getting that doubling thing because I kind of feel like that's what it gets. Them, the pitch, that's the pitch. It's confusing them though. Yes, they don't know how to do it. They don't know and why don't they know how to do it because they're coaching The coaches don't coach them on how to do. It because no one's made them do it before, and it's dispracticed. I think it's dispracticed. Because the coaches teaching them this stuff are not engineers half the time. Well, I guess what I'm getting at is like, you know, I teach a lot of people how to record, and I feel like I need to take it on myself now to really kind of maybe prioritize that method more than I used to. You. I would always say, well, you could do the dog clicker method, you know, and just record all your pickups later, or you could comp it together later. But maybe I should be a little bit more insistent on you should really learn how to do a punch. In surely books, yeah, for audio books, they should know it. They should know how to do this. But even on commercial like a thirty second commercial would is it better that they try to get a top to bottom. So the problem with thirty second commercials is this. For audiobooks, it's imperative because then you get your edit on the fly and there's so much shit super and doing an audiobook it really speeds it up, so edit like punch on the fly. But for TV commercials, the main problem is that the producers have lost the ability to hear it in place, and they all want three in a row, and they also all want to break it down too much. The style of recording is like record the script in full three times. Then they don't even give a shit, like why did we even do that? I guess just to get the talent familiar with the script. And then they immediately go back that's the rehearsal. That's the rehearsal, or something doesn't be familiar with the script, and then they immediately go into a billion line by lines, let's do the first line. Because they're searching for how they want it read. You know, nine times out of ten, I feel like they don't really know in their head how they want these to sound. They're basically waiting to hear it to go yes, that's the line I want. That's the way I want it to leave it. I believe that. I think it's an add thing too. They can't focus on the whole script. They can only see you, like, one line at a time, when they can't. Like get an overall feel. Like if they have an idea for the first line and then and the actor makes it to the last line of the script, they can't even remember what they thought about the first line. That's right, what was the first line? That's true, It's true. I resemble that remark, but it's so true. I mean, like even sessions I've done recently the same thing. They they don't seem to remember what the hell was read like two lines back? Yeah, like like literally. Then it's like, you know, they want to change everything, and it's like, but if I do that, it's not going to match with what we've already done, which you said you liked, you know so. And also what's up with this one? You recorded three in a row, And then immediately it's like, can I hear that back? You just heard it? Like you just heard it like not even twenty seconds ago. What about you grab a piece of paper and you write some notes, you know, like I do you know, like I have a paper script or the iPad with the pen and old scribble notes. As we go, be prepared. How's this? This was a session I've mentioned before in a previous show, but it was at the point where the engineered because I knew that the client had no idea, either no idea or just couldn't articulate what they wanted, and he said, look, why don't you just get a pen and paper and just write down some notes so we can come back and have a look at what you know, what you think? Yeah, I mean going back to the I mean this kind of goes with that. Is like the amount of casting sessions that I sit in, you can sort of see they're not actually listening for the voice. They're actually listening for a delivery. They're listening for the read that they go, ah, that's the read that I want. The actual voice now is secondary. It always has Oh. I liked that voice. It's like oh that read, I liked that read. I think it's always been that way. I've always told people that the thing to get in the audition is read the capy and really understand the copy and deliver. They're not looking for a particular voice. They're looking for an interpretation and a feel. I think that's changed a bit. Robert, I don't feel like and I don't want to be one of these the new school versus old school, because this is not the reason for this comment. This comment is purely based on, you know, just experience. But I feel like twenty years ago, when I used to sit at Take two or something like that, it would be more about the voice. It would be more about I think he needs to be a bit older. I think he needs to be a bit or she needs to be blah blah blah, Whereas these days it's more based on the read. I kind of that's my vibe. I'll give you my interpret that. I think that the age has everything to do with the read. The way Sage talks is completely different than the way I talk. Oh yeah, of course, yeah, totally yeah, even in her. Use of up inflections and the way it's just like oh and you see it. Is talking of that. It's so interesting how everything has changed, because I think for the first time I went across to America and sat down in the studio in New York, like being an Australian was like, oh, Hello. It was like, you know, a performing monkey, where's this alien that just dropped in on an aeroplane? Now? I was watching NASCAR and one of the commentators on NASCAR was Australian. It worked, it was fine, but it was kind of like, oh, that's interesting. What about the story Matt's Matt Colick tells about you know when he first went to the to the US, and he used to walk into the studio or be on the line and he'd talk in his Australian voice, and then when they got into the reed, he'd be into his an American character and they'd be going, oh, no, hang on that line, there sounds too wuzzy, and yeah, you know that's not right, that's not right. There was it was Nick Tate. Well Nix probably had the same issues, because Matt tells the same story. But then when he walked in and he spoke to the producers in an American voice and never showed his Australian character went into the booth, it was never had that never never had any issues. Matt. That's fantastic, man, Thank you so much. You know, two or three takes and it's done. And then she walk out going yeah, cheers, mate, exactly. Did the entire thing with a full American. And then last thing, as you walk up the door, you'll drop your ac Yeah. That's right, Yeah on your got a schooner. Funny. So what I find in the sessions though, is that you get the producers that break it down into practically, like you know, half sentences sometimes usually at least yeah, a section at a time, spoon feeding and the whole edit that they want, and it sounds cut together, and it's kind of the style, but you know, it sounds cut together. And then you know, at the end of the session, everyone does the like now that we've done that, like, do you have an interpret that you want to do? We didn't, We didn't care about that at the beginning, but now now we're going to ask you if you have an opinion on this whole thing and the talent. And then I'll usually jump in there and I'll say, like, let me play you the edit that we have here and just give us that edit. But naturally instead of and usually the video, a good VIEO talent has a much better audio memory, even though they can't punch in necessarily or they're not used to punching in a lot of them. They can hear a take and they know where they went up, where they went down, and they can do that again. And then they can, you know, like blend in or give that tweak, or hear that whole record and know, I want to down there it is. We have a good memory for pitch and rhythm, and then you can just go back to write where that was and match it. And your best voiceovers. Your best voiceovers sometimes are singers. Actually, Andrew Heydes working with me when we do demos together, because I'm one of those directors that go, I'll give it to the I'll give them the line, can you give it to me something like this, And. He's going to what did you say to me once? I'm not a perform monkey? Oh? Something like that. Shatter is famous for his uh rant about which. By the way, who's your client down in like Huntington Beach area? Mine? Yeah? Shit? Who is it? He's been in it for a long time and I don't know if I. Should say his name. Okay, say his name, but he was telling me that he was the next session after that, famous William Shatner. Oh as initials are s R. Right, he spoke to him recently. Yeah, yes, and he was like, I was there, man, I was talking about that. He's like, I got one better, Like, I'm pretty sure I walked that producer watching him walk out of the room, and he was demoralized, like completely, oh my. God, literally shatting because he went. In the room and the engineer was like, oh my god, I've got this one on tape. You wouldn't believe it. Well, let's let me feel let me drop something for the for the actor then. So you know, I have been like teaching ABC's of recording yourself do a voiceover, right, And so I've been telling people. I usually teach in context of commercial because that's what most people are gunning for out of the gate, That's what their first demo is. And so I tell them to record three solid takes top to bottom. You should be able to get through the script three times in a row without fumbling and stuff, you know, all that stuff. So what should they do with those three takes? Now they've got those three takes? What should the actor do with those? Should they listen to all three, pick the favorite, maybe just debreadth it. Or do everything? I think as an actor, it's different when you say, can I hear that again? Because as an actor, when you perform it and then you play it back, it is a different experience. So you don't know. You've got to listen to all. You have to listen to it, and you have to as an actor, if you're at home doing this, you have to be able to that back and hear yourself for the first time after you performed it. And that's a real trick to do. Can I think? I think if you want to go a bit deeper, though, the thing I find is when people are recording alone is that they lose the feel. I'm really big on feel because it was something that was rammed into me by a guy called Jeff Thomas, who was sort of my Jeff. He rammed in a lot of stuff that I still use. I still use today and everything. Everything needs to have a feel, It needs to make you feel something. And there are times I reckon that when I get sent voiceovers there's no feeling to it. It's just this cold spewing of the words. You know, Yes there's some timing to it, and yes there's you know, all that sort of stuff, but there's no feeling to it. Like if you're reading a commercial, the first question you need to ask yourself is what what's the feeling of this? What does it need to feel like to the listener? Right, So when you listen back to those three takes, is that your question first question should be is does it feel right? Is does it feel right for the product? Or does it feel right for what it's supposed to be? Then worry about does it work, does it do this? Does it need inflection? Blah blah blah, Because. If you're talking about, like what you're saying, interpretation of a script, if the script's well written, it'll flow really quickly. As soon as you start reading, it's like immediate, you know where you are. And the other thing about a really well written script is you can pick the keywords. It'll all makes sense. It's got a rhythm to it. You know where the key words are going to be. Ye. Well, yeah, that's a skill in itself though too, I've discovered that that really is a skill in itself. Not being a voiceover artist, but having directed a million sessions, it's always been second nature to me that there are words that need emphasis and others that you don't. Yet some people get them completely asked about and you think, why are you leaning on that word? You know, the wrong word? Yeah, the thing with the tone, it's like, and that's of reading the whole script up front and just setting the tone or getting into the zone. But once they get that, they then start focusing on individual lines, and someone who's seasoned it directing a voice they will at least go into that first and get a whole bird's eye view, set the tone, and then focus on things. Some of the problem is that it deviates from that point or you start losing that overall direction. And I think that a good voiceover talent will be able to make it through the entire script many times over and give good stuff and then you have lots of options and you hear it cohesively and you know you're there quicker or if not. I think what's happened is that so many A junior writers and directors have seen this done so many times where it's just broken down like take two. Great, now let's start breaking it down into individual piece. And the other problem, quite frankly, is really green voice talent that can't freaking make it through a full read depends how on the script is a thirty second spot even. Oh, okay, I'll think you talk about like longa longful. No, I mean doing a long for one can be a nightmare without a seasoned voiceover, Like the reason why you want to hire a season voiceover for your like you know, big long twenty minute because if not, you'll never make it through the script with the person who can't. Read, like you need whole paragraphs at once. With that stuff. It's not as bad as an audiobook. But I know I hijacked the content or the subject. But I mean, I feel like that's a really strong takeaway. What's a really strong takeaway for the actor in this situation is when they're learning that process is just should they commit to one of those three takes and just clean it up or should they comp together those three takes. Don't send out anything you're not happy with. If you're not happy with it, don't send it because I certainly nothing lead to my studio unless I'm one hundred percent happy with it, which is difficult given the imposter syndrome that goes on in my head. But you know, yeah, if you're recording yourself, I wouldn't get into individual three in a row takes unless there's something specifically you're trying to fix as doing auditions goes, you should be doing so many auditions a day, and you're just going to get bogged down and trying to do every audition, you know, every sentence, one at a time, and the other realities that when they listen to this, they're not going to be listening to it in that much detail yet. So it's broad strokes, and you need to show them that you have an understanding of the script and a unique interpretation. And beyond that, it doesn't matter that you nailed every single word and all that other stuff. It's it's the broad stroke of I've got a superior understanding of the script than the next guy or the guy before. Also, if they listened to the first ten seconds, then you're probably going to be shortlisted. Yes, feel so fat five? Yeah, they to the first ten seconds. You're in, like Flynn. To make sure if you have a lead in, like one of my clients at our studio and her lead ins, hey fuck her, and then she'd start the script you know, has it, always make sure you edit that out before you send it in. Can I give a quick example, because this is something I've mentioned a couple of times talking to people about their demos. Is in a casting session at a major agency, right, a couple of them that I work for. If you do a casting session, it goes a bit like this, right, because I'm the monkey that sort of plays the all the. Andrew takes the de beats and the order. Yeah. So it's sort of like, so, okay, so I'm sitting there at the front of the room and I'm sitting behind pro tools and I've got them all lined up, and then there's you know, the client and the creatives and the producer and everybody else sitting at the back room. It's like, Okay, Rober, let's go. You hit play nah next nah, next, Yeah, maybe nah next next, No, no yet, yep, good, yep, not next next. It's that quick. It is that quick. I've never had to play them back for people, but I've been in plenty of sessions where I'm doing sound design and mix and the producers like we've got all seventy eight eighty one hundred one thousand auditions, it's been three days. We have to make a decision, now, can you please? And the guy's like, ah, man, I don't want to do this, and then they log into the website and they just start going like click, and y'all hear is like today on today, today, on today, today, on today. I think it's ripping through them so fast. Wow, no one has a chance. It's I'm telling you, it's the first three to five words and they are playing the next one. Yeah, because they don't, because they don't like doing this. They hate it. And the first thing they're listening for is like a tone. They're just going for a ton. Okay, yeah, I like that. Time. Can you play some more or shield list that one? It sounds like you're picking the patches on a synthesizer like that, very much like that. I like that one. Now, that's the one we talked about. A minute ago. Dialing in a reverb or something. It's like, no, that's not right yet, or the delay is not sitting properly, you know, or whatever. It's just bang bang bang bang bang. Decision decision decision. Yeah. It's like a keyboard. You just work you out a keyboard until you hit a note. H I like that, that's the note. I like, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Georgie. It is completely like that, and it's so sad and the reason why I see. That is because I know that probably each one of those auditions someone spent somewhere between at least five minutes and an hour. Five to an hour, Which is the reason Andrew that I always said to you, I don't understand why people slate their demos. You know, people go, oh, hi, I'm such and such as like not you're gone by now, buddy, you're long gone. They haven't even. Got that far you're told to like. It depends on the audition. Some say slate at the top of the read and some say don't. Yeah, well i'm talking. I'm talking demos here and not not auditions, demo demos, because sometimes that's all that gets thrown into the mix of these agencies. And so you know, ninety percent of them start with a spot where others go, hi, I'm such and such, and it's like they get through high I'm and it's like. Legs next, exactly, which brings it down to another thing, which is a lot of the time all these auditions. But when the audition goes badly or they hired somebody and they didn't like them, it is right back to the guy that I know that's done it a million times. It's always never failed. The andrew the yeah, whoever it is. And then on the phone straight away, yeah, yeah. Are you available right now? Holy shit, we're in a session. We just found out that this guy can't read, or that we you know whatever it is that he overdoctored. I had one of those years ago with it was a Jaguar commercial and I got a call saying, how quickly can you get here? There's a guy that had a tantrum in the booth. He couldn't get the read right and he had a tantrum, and they Okay, I think that was good. I see you later. Well, I had one not long ago, and and I won't even say the secon. This person's name is now a running joke at the agency. So and you'll understand why that matters in a minute. When I tell this story, is like, we got them in based on their demo to do a read that was on their demo, that it was the exactly literally the. Brief was, you know that read on your demo. We want that. They couldn't do it right for an hour. They paid for an hour, so he kept them there for an hour, couldn't get it. They walked out the door. This is a major international agent. That person will never work at that agency again. And their name is now actually a joke. It was a howis she? Session? Oh, it was kind of a it was kind of a Jonathan. And Jonathan's not the person's name, don't it, but it was. It was a bit of a Jonathan. It's now a joke at the agency. They've burnt themselves forever, you know, at this agency. And it's like, and those people will not just stay at that agency, they'll move on, of course, they'll move to other agencies. And they do. Yeah, and it's like, don't do. It, you know, don't agents use a sleet of another sex. So it would be a female slating Andrew's demo. Isn't that something that's done too. I'll tell you what I did two years ago. I got Jim If from Locius. I got him to do my slate. Yeah, yeah, which is really funny because it'd be like, Hi, this is Andrew Peter's demo and then I start reading, so they're going, what, well. You could do one? You could I could give you when I could go, this is Andrew Peter's voice demo. Take one AI. You should just use AI to slate it. Yeah, yeah, some robotic voice. But George going back to like, what should a voice talent know to do and learn how to do? They should definitely learn how to do a punch and roll and read along with themselves and catch on to that previous read and follow it and shadow it tightly and then keep on going from some point onward. They should learn how to do that. They should learn how to listen to a read and give it back exactly the same on one or two listens. That's a huge, huge, huge skill of voice talent needs number three energy yep. And then the last thing that a voice talent needs to know how to do is when they're asked for something different, give me something different exactly? Do you know? The funniest thing And I won't obviously mentioned who this was, but someone came here during COVID to do a session Davis john and it was one of those Jonathan Blake, Jesus Christ, how does he get all this work? Johnson's lovely, Jonathan's a lovely lady. And it was like, can you give me three in a row? And it was three exactly the same. I don't think you actually understand what they meant like three in a row, like three different different ones. Yes, not three exactly, and that's excusable. Maybe the first time and they're like, no, no, no, give me a variety, give me this or. That from that. Yeah, is the same. Do we call this an ABC, read Robert, we call. A BC give me three in a row? Usually it's three in a row or. AB you see. And there's another subtlety to this, because we want three different ones, but we don't want one like this and one like this and one like that, like it's gotta be three in the zone. But like you and I can tell that some actors, this is the other funny one. Some actors, when they're asked to do three in a row, they do all three exactly the same in the different way, one up, one. Flat, one down, a different tones, one flat, one down. Every time they're asked for three in a row. It's like that's what they were taught formula. Yeah, it's just a formula thing. Yeah, Which when you get towards the end of a session, when that line normally comes out, you know, it's sort of like, okay, well we think we're about right, but can you just give us three. Three in a row? That's just another version of please give it to me differently, Like now I've asked you for three takes, and now I've just gotten three of the same. We've established a tone, we've established a cadence. Now can you give us, you know, some some some variation in there that we can play with. That's right, absolutely, it's it's a subtle thing because it's like you want to be in the pocket, but you got to be different, and it is we're not crazy. Like I know when I hear the same thing twice again. I know when I hear something that I could use that take or the other take, and the clients are like, give me C from this one and D from that one, and and B from the other one. And then you hear it and whatever, and and you know that like B and D are interchangeable. I could edit B or D in there and the clients won't actually know which one it was. I think you said a really great thing earlier, which was even if if you comp it together and now you have a performance, now you have the the guide track. Yes, so if you make your own guide track, you can comp together your takes. That's your guide track. Now read that make it natural. That's because you, as a performer will do a far far better edit if you don't edit. It's always the way to do it. Like we have time at the end of the session. I always ask for that, and a lot of the times like, oh, that's really good because it's got all the little nuances off the talent. It's like yeah, and then you use the demo as a guide track to then guide you on the performance. That takes that skill of being able to listen to something and give it right back to you, like you got to be really good at parroting something. And then you can. Tell it's about memory as well, like you remember during the session that I liked that line read X, that line read this way. And if you can remember some of that stuff when you give them one take at the end, then oh, the good bits I want should pretty well be there. Andrew, do you have your own shorthand? Yeah? Do you have your own shorthand like like up on a phrase, down on a phrase flat? Do you have like your your own way of noting how to read the script? Look at them nice the pencil? Look are you asking me? Because I don't have a clue. I'm sorry, And and you have your own shorthand like like like if you make an arrow up that means up inflection at the end, or down inflection, or this means more energy. If it's going to be a long session, then I'll print out the script if it's not just using iPad. But and I have things like if they say things like and this was stuff I nickly. In fact, I was doing a session with this guy last week and he gave me another quirky little bit of direction, and I said, I said, Paul, you always give me the quirkiest direction, but I always hang on to them because they work. I remember doing a session years ago with him and I kept hitting the same word and he goes, no, no, He said, look, I tell you what to do. Can you cross and out? And can you write it upside down? Oh? Okay? And it tricks your brain because your brain gets that word and it's like, what the fuck's that? And it just makes you reboot and it works. It works every time. That's an interesting one. But it's on a word that he doesn't like. The way it's being read is out what it is. It's if I get into a rhythm where I'm hitting the wrong thing. Yeah, you're too rhythmically, you're too locked into this tempo and rhythm. Yeah, I need to get I need to put a little sync thing and it's going to make a trip for a second. So Andrew, you're you're reading it every time? Yeah, see, I think a lot of voice talent. They memorize the script. After a couple takes, HM. That memorized scripts, I've got my memory anyway. I wonder I'm like an old computer. I'm fucked. It should be just holding the door right. That's funny because because I find that that I like it. I can tell when actors are reading it, and it's better when they're not reading, and when they're saying it from memory, the performance is always much better. You can tell when someone's reading. It's almost like from a audio point of view, you can see their eyeballs going back and forth. You know, like you know, you're. Probably right for a less experienced actor, for sure, Like someone has a lot less experience reading off the page convincingly for them. That's a really really good trick is to memorize the script, get them all. I think it's important to make it natural. Yeah. Well, the interesting thing is when years ago, when ice to do like some on camera acting and stuff. Well, you have to learn the script because you can't stand there in on camera with a fucking script when you're in the middle of a drama. But it was much easier to learn the script and then deliver it because, like you said, it's much more natural because you're actually you're not reading anything, you're just saying the words and in a conversation. When you're doing a drama and you have a script that you're reading from, it's so much more difficult. Yes, yeah, because you're reading and acting at the same time. Yeah, and they don't go together very well, right. I Also this drives me crazy when I'm doing industrials and they have the talking head person who's like standing on a green screen reading stuff and they're just like like their eyes. Are Yeah, I can hate that. It's like, look me in the eye and tell me your message. Don't like, I'm not a frickin page. There's so many famous actors, like you know, historically and we're talking about like big actors from years gone by who could never memorize the script and they'd have the other actor with the script pinch to their chest or someone in their back. You know, it's like, because I couldn't remember the script, they just read read off the guy's coat, you know. Where they're sure are pretty yeah, exactly. Well there's that, but I'm thinking of a couple of melee that. Doesn't work in the sex scene. You can bleep that one out rather where Lipster comes in handy. You at write a lot of sex scenes. And he doesn't have a lot of sex scenes though. The Pro Audio Suite and Austrian Audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters, mixed by Robo. Got your own audio issues Just ask Robbo dot com take record from George the Tech Window. 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