Voice acting is generally acting with nothing but your voice. I tend to think that’s exactly what we do as voiceover artists. Unless we write our own scripts, we have careers in which other people are constantly putting their words into our mouths. A lot of relationships are like that.

But as voiceovers, to be effective in our delivery of the message, we have to own those words as much as any other thought that slips through our lips. That can be difficult, especially when confronted with scripts that are written for reading rather than conversation. It’s unfortunate, but many voiceover scripts are written for reading only.

Worse still are projects involving technical terms, like medical text or science journals which are being converted to audio.  How to you own the phrase bilateral salpingo-oopherectomy?  Oh, don’t bother to look it up. It’s a type of hysterectomy.

When I literally stumble across a phrase my mouth has never wrapped around, I’ll sometimes record it later and spend sometime repeating it around the house. I might be doing the dishes or cleaning the cat litter while repeating the phrase out loud, sometimes singing it or saying it at different pitches or with different emotions.

Our bodies, including everything we use to produce words, need exercise in order for certain movements to become second nature. This doesn’t just train our muscles, but also our brains (each of us presumably having at least one). In this way, we can casually blurt out even the most technical phrases as if we coined them ourselves. That is acting.

Do you own the words or merely recite them?

Voiceover isn’t always a process of acting, but it mostly is. For that reason, whether we’re producing voicemail prompts or character animation, I think we’re voice actors. What do you think?

I had the Food Network on in the living room TV while I read emails this afternoon. Ace of Cakes was on. They featured a Noah’s Ark cake they prepared for a little girl named Rachel who was celebrating her Bat Mitzvah. I was increasingly drawn from what I was reading as the bakers shared this elaborate backstory they created for the ark cake, which guided their concept as they built this terrific piece. They had all the animals rejoicing on the cake, kissing and celebrating because they’d made it onto the ark (who doesn’t want to be part of the in-crowd?). All the animals were happy except the unicorn and the dragon who were left on an island consoling each other. One of the bakers explained that the unicorn and dragon were a metaphor symbolizing Rachel’s rite of passage to adulthood and the fantasy world she would leave behind.

A writer can’t provide an account of every word or action of a particular character. That’s not a script; that’s a diary. Creating the backstory, if one is used, is therefore the job of the performer. Many actors in fact create elaborate backstories, giving a character a made-up history to add depth and color to their performances. Often the shorter the role, the more detailed the backstory. If you think about it, that makes sense. With walk-ons or short supporting roles, there is less opportunity to see the character’s history unfold, less time to convey anything about the character. Believing the character has conflicted relationships, tragic experiences, or quirky obsessions can infuse the moment with more than the words or actions supplied by the writer.

Voice actors can be even more challenged in their efforts to develop a character, often having less than 60 seconds to convey any depth or dimension — and all without the benefit of body language or facial expressions. A backstory can therefore be a great character development tool, not only providing an effective way to flesh out a character in a short amount of time, but also enhancing the overall creative process, and making it more enjoyable — as Ace of Cakes reminded me today.