I recently turned up to a Voice Over job at a studio that I’d never worked in before, with an agency and client that I’d never worked with before.  Now that’s quite normal, however as we settled in to start the recording session I quickly realised that something was missing.

There was no pen or pencil…nothing to write with in the recording booth.

What do you need a pen for?

That’s a reasonable question if you’re new to voice over work.   Initially you may not need a pen, however there’s a good chance that once you read thought the script a few times you’ll start getting feedback from the client or producer on how they’d like to you read it.  This may include which words to emphasise, if they want an up/down/neutral inflection on a word or end of a sentence ,if some words need to be grouped together a certain way or perhaps a word needs to be deleted.

It’s possible that you may remember some of these directions, however if you can mark up your script to reflect the instructions given then you can spend less time thinking about it and more time actually doing it.

Additionally you may like to add in your own reminders on the script like finding the right place to take a breath in a long sentence.

My story ended well.  I got my hands on a pen and marked-up my script so I had quick reminders to ensure was always following the feedback given.

If you’re interested in learning more about voice over, working on how to mark up scripts is just one of the things we cover during our group courses and 1 on 1 coaching sessions.

Andy