VAMFR 026 | Maintaining Good Psychological Health as a Voice Actor, Part 3




Voice Acting Mastery Field Report: Up to Date Information from the Ever Changing World of Voice Over show

Summary: <br> <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/vamfieldreport/26_VAMFR_026___Maintaining_Good_Psychological_Health_as_a_Voice_Actor_Part_3.mp3">VAMFR 026 | Maintaining Good Psychological Health as a Voice Actor, Part 3</a><br> Welcome to episode 26 of the Voice Acting Mastery: Field Report podcast!<br> You can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:<br> <a href="http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://www.vamfieldreport.com/podcast</a><br> Welcome to the third and final part of a special report on maintaining good psychological health as a voice actor by our special correspondent, <a href="https://www.maureenprice.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maureen Price</a>!<br> For those of you who have already checked out parts <a href="http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/vamfr-024-maintaining-good-psychological-health-as-a-voice-actor-part-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one</a> and <a href="http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/vamfr-025-maintaining-good-psychological-health-as-a-voice-actor-part-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two</a>, you’ll remember that in part one, Maureen explored how to deal with rejection in healthy and productive ways. Her guests shared their approaches to grappling with one of the most inevitable and universal experiences of being a voice actor and she’s so grateful to each of them for their honesty and vulnerability in addressing that subject. In part two, Maureen discussed ways to overcome self-doubt while in the booth as well as how to build more confidence as an actor. Her guests shared their personal anecdotes from sessions and auditions and how they find solutions to common self-doubt pitfalls. It was one of her favorite episodes so we hope you’ll check it out.<br> In this episode, Maureen will be discussing the best way to approach directing yourself when you’re alone in the booth and you don’t have a casting director, voice director or producer to give you feedback on your performance. Like dealing with rejection, learning how to direct yourself for auditions is one of the most common experiences we have as voice actors. It can cause a lot of emotional stress, especially when you’re all alone in the booth trying to figure out whether your performance is professionally competitive or not! In the face of this daunting and isolating experience, Maureen thought it would be helpful to get as much advice as possible from her guests and see how they approach the challenge of directing themselves.<br> Ideally, we shouldn’t have to self-direct at all. For many acting teachers, self-direction is a bad word! They believe, quite understandably, that an actor’s job is to play pretend as fully as they can with as little self-consciousness as possible. Trying to direct one’s own acting means that your attention is divided and that there is a part of your brain that is critiquing your performance as you try to create it. Having such a split focus can lead to stiff and mannered acting.<br> In a perfect world, every actor auditioning for a part would be able to audition in person for the production staff and get real time feedback from them about what they are looking for. That way the actor can focus single-mindedly on playing pretend and allow the directors in the room to do the critiquing.<br> Unfortunately, when there are hundreds of actors auditioning for each role in a project, it’s not feasible for the production staff to be available for every person who wants to audition. Instead producers send audition materials to agents and casting directors who distribute them to voice actors. Each actor must then take the time to analyze those audition sides, record themselves, and submit their recordings to the production staff for review.