Practice

Just read a tweet from Stephanie Ciccarelli @stephciccarelli of voices.com that lead me to her latest blog post on practice http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/2009/08/practicing.html

Not that I’m copying, but rather, as a commercial producer, I do tend to go into practice mode, without really thinking about it, when I’m producing a set of commercials in slower times.

Practice may consist of lots of electrical store ads, as quick as I can, without loosing the momentum for the client when its on air. Or I could mess with the odd line or two in the read to make them stand out, without all the commercials sounding like they are station promos, my pet hate:

The Pet Hate: The principal is simple, I make a spot for the client who plays it on the radio. As a radio man, I firmly believe our radio product attracts our listeners, thus attracting advertisers to our stations. The moment the lines blur too much, there is no difference between commercials and the promos that make the listener want to come back. The commercials work well-client likes that, but there isn’t anything to tell the listener that’s us & that’s them. We are the vehicle for advertisers so don’t blur the lines.

Back to practice, even if its just debreathing a voice track, do it. I like the line from Marc Cashman Practice makes you better (“makes perfect” can leave you disappointed). I can debreath without listening to the read and accuracy is almost 100%, that’s through practice. I have a reasonable view too; with a voice that’s uncompressed, I can tell if it’s a Neumann or Rode compared to a few others (that’s better than 50% accuracy) not bragging, just a simple little game I play as I edit, helps me too, to judge whats breath & whats an ‘s’ or the sound before ‘b’ & ‘d’ & ‘f’.

My practice still happens even after 22+ years at this game.

Work on it!