More structure
I’m ten episodes into the voice blog, and I’ve realized that I would benefit from some more structured use of the process. Basically this far has been feeling things out, and just doing whatever comes to mind; leaping in and running with it. That’s by design, of course- I wanted to be able to improve my improvisational skills, which is still something I’m working on, but I think there’s more to be done.
content rhythym
For lack of a better term, anyway. What I’m going to do is break my voice blog up into the days of the week and use each day to focus on a specific area. For a given month, I’ll repeat the same copy or subject each sucessive week. That way, I can track my progress on something over the course of time and then reset with something new.
For example, I’ll be doing commercial copy, like a radio or Internet ad, on Mondays. For a given month I’ll be focusing on improving my read of that copy on my Monday edition. Then on the following month, I’ll choose another piece of copy to work with. This gives me a rhythm and also lets people who are kind enough to listen and provide feedback an opportunity to hear how my delivery changes over time.
course schedule
Here’s how it’s gonna be laid out:
- Monday: Commercial copy, such as a radio, TV or Internet ad.
- Tuesday: Audiobooks. The same passage each Tuesday.
- Wednesday: Character voices. I will choose a character at the beginning of the month, such as “old Irish woman” or “crotchety Japanese guy” (maybe I’ll come up with a D&D-type table and roll dice for the characteristics), and focus on developing that character for the month.
- Thursday: Commercial/Corporate Narrations. Presentations, product demos, that sort of thing.
- Friday: Improv. Ad-hoc improvisation, exposition, general wierdness. This will probably be the most challenging part for me.
- Saturday/Sunday: Potluck. Whatever I feel like, or nothing at all if I don’t.
This process will give me a range of content to practice with. I think this will be a very good addition of structure to what has been pretty wide-open thus far.