Voice over: a plea for imperfection

What moves us, touches us, affects us, makes us happy?

Fellow voice actors, let's talk about furniture for a moment, you'll soon see the connection with voice over and intention, I promise. Woodworking is one of my hobbies, and I find it meditative. And even if carpentry and cabinet-making aren't your thing, you'll quickly understand my point. Furniture made by machines in factories is perfect, to within a tenth of a millimetre. Does it offer what a piece of furniture made by a cabinetmaker emanates? Absolutely not. It breathes the hand of Man and his inherent imperfection, and by the same token, nourishes those who look at it, who touch it, with living sensations, with an extra touch of beauty. And why? Because the one who made it infused it with their soul.

Perfect is clinical, robotic, polished, hollow, cold, dead. I touch on this subject in my article about voice over and artificial intelligence. What touches us, what moves us, what thrills us, is not the perfect, it's humanity. Humanity with its rough edges, its weaknesses, its frailties, its slight imbalances. This woman's photo resonates with us because her face tells her story and expresses her soul. The opposite of the botox and silicone that polishes and standardises everything. Before continuing with this article, I invite you to watch these four short videos. It won't take any longer than a compilation of bloopers or a few videos of kittens.

1) a TV advert for Dewar's Scotch Whisky the script being a poem by Charles Bukowski 'So You Want To Be a Writer'

2) a tribute paid by New Zealand soldiers with a haka, to two of their fallen comrades

3) Michel Simon and Serge Gainsbourg singing l’herbe tendre

4) a promo for a global itinerant exhibition by artist Grégory Colbert

I'd ask you, if you don't mind, to watch these videos in their entirety (each is between 1 and 2 minutes long). The Michel Simon and Serge Gainsbourg film is in French, the promo for the travelling exhibition is in Mandarin - please watch those too. Even if you don't speak these languages, trust me: there's a very good reason why I'm asking you to watch them. And if you wish, you can find the French version of the Dewar’s spot here, which I had the immense joy of recording.

What do these videos have in common, and how can you draw a fundamental, essential lesson from them that will radically change your approach to voice over?

 Get naked

So what do the four videos you've just watched have in common? Humanity, honesty, vulnerability, sincerity, authenticity. You get these feelings from the intention of the people who are conveying them. Now, how does that translate in the voice over world?

With a little practice, any French voice actor (or any voice actor for that matter) can read a script aloud very easily if you don't bring anything to the table. It's easy, it's hollow, it's meaningless. If you put your heart and soul into it, if you tell the story (whether it's a few words in the tagline of a TV spot or an audiobook lasting several hours), even with considerable experience, everything changes: it becomes much more difficult, you stumble, you struggle... and that's where it gets interesting. By exposing ourselves, by laying ourselves bare, we infuse the script with our own humanity, our inherent imperfection: we 'give it life'.

I'm not going to tell you here how, as a voice actor, it is feasible, the topic is too vast to cover in a single article. But without delving too deeply into the details, the voice (and its transmission), due to its nonlinear physical makeup, is imperfect. It’s this imperfection that must be harnessed. That said, let me tell you how you absolutely CANNOT achieve it: with tricks and gimmicks. GIVE an INTENTION. Take note of the capitalisations. That’s where the real secret lies.

The intention in voice over

A question that often comes up is: what do I mean by intention? When you say yes to your marriage. When you give a farewell speech at a friend's funeral. When you say 'I love you' to your baby. When, as a soldier, you shout for your unit to take shelter... You haven't experienced any of these situations? Appeal to your humanity.

On the subject of perfection, Charles Bukowski said " Perfection stinks. It disgusts me. All these women and men who seek perfection in the stereotypes created by society make me vomit. Fucking meat mannequins with no personality and no self-respect. Same clothes, same music, same expressions, same food, same sex, same cars, same lives, in the end (...) When everyone is the same, everyone is nobody. Perfection is a little bird in a cage that lives, eats, shits and dies for the sole purpose of being admired. "

As for the intention, Auguste Rodin, in his artistic testament (which you can listen to and read in full in this video The Artistic Testament of Auguste Rodin ), talks about it much better than I could. "When you sculpt, never think in terms of surface, but in terms of depth. Let your mind perceive every surface as the outer edge of a volume pushing from within. Imagine the shapes as if they are reaching toward you. All life springs from a centre, then grows and blossoms from the inside out."

You’ve probably guessed that when I critique perfection, I’m certainly not advocating for mediocrity. So how do we navigate this oxymoron? Aim for authenticity rather than perfection. I know, easier said than done - and thankfully so, or everyone would be doing our job!

Thank you for reading this article and if you found it interesting, please share it with your friends and colleagues on your social networks. I invite you to share your experience here and to leave your comments, suggestions or questions. I'll do my best to answer them.

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