The 9th in the series of voice-over basics is on the Microphone Placement.
TCVO Presents…
SPRING INTO VOICE-OVER!
© Teri Clark Linden, 2014
Microphone Placement
Distance
Basic, traditional distance from your mouth to the microphone is five fingers (standing directly in front of the microphone place your hand with your pinky finger touching the mic (or pop filter) and your thumb touching your lips. Close-up distance from your mouth to the microphone is three fingers. Same methodology as above – remove pinky and thumb.
Setting Levels
A good engineer will set your microphone with you in front of it. Then, she will move to the engineer booth where she will set volume levels with you reading the copy in front of you. Keep reading the copy, even if over and over, until the engineer tells you to stop. Your levels are set, you are planted. If you do walk-ups to the microphone for effect, remember where your first mark was (I use a pen or pencil at my feet before moving). For narration or audio book jobs, I have been asked to set different volume levels based on scenes where I may be shouting or getting very quiet. This is something for you and your engineer to discuss.
A good engineer will set your microphone with you in front of it. Then, she will move to the engineer booth where she will set volume levels with you reading the copy in front of you. Keep reading the copy, even if over and over, until the engineer tells you to stop. Your levels are set, you are planted. If you do walk-ups to the microphone for effect, remember where your first mark was (I use a pen or pencil at my feet before moving). For narration or audio book jobs, I have been asked to set different volume levels based on scenes where I may be shouting or getting very quiet. This is something for you and your engineer to discuss.
Effects
Yelling
Never yell into the mic. You will sound horrible and distorted and cause damage to your sound engineer’s poor eardrums (not to mention the fact you may never be asked back!). There are a couple of ways you can get a “yell” effect at the microphone. One way is to step a good foot directly back from the mic. If you do this, remember where your engineer placed you initially when setting levels and try to walk back into that spot. The other way is by turning your head away from the mic (staying planted) to the left or right at approximately 10 or 2 o’clock.
Whispering. Pat Fraley suggests not whispering into the mic as it doesn’t sound that
great, but instead lowering your voice to what is called “Sotto Voce” at the close-up
distance at the mic (or even closer – I feel I’ve swallowed the mic at times) creating a
very soft effect. Think about volume used talking to a sleeping baby or an aside to
someone when you don’t want the others in the room to hear.
Not very common, but it does occasionally happen (like at the agent’s office
when auditioning in a group read for a voice-over) where you find yourself with 1, 2 or
even 3 other people around a microphone, and most likely with script in hand. If one-
page (and okay with the person who gave you the script) fold up your script into the
tiniest one page possible, retaining all of the lines you need of course (this usually
means getting rid of extra white space, Halo Data or video description in the case of
TV commercial voice-over copy).
© Teri Clark Linden, 2014
