Working with varying qualities of scripts is something that you have to get used to in the voice over industry. Some scripts you get will be absolutely fine, spelled correctly, appropriate use of punctuation, good grammar etc. Others won’t be!
It’s your job as a VO artist to take the copy, interpret it and deliver it in a style that the client likes. This means that you might need to make some changes.
Now, we are not talking about major script changes here. Some clients can get a bit precious about that kind of thing. They can sometimes be open to suggestions, the odd change here and there, but if you go to a client and completely rewrite their script for them, you’re going to irritate them. This is clearly something to avoid if you want to get any repeat work!
However, this doesn’t mean you can’t mark the copy for your own benefit so that you can deliver a better read. Here are some tricks of the trade:
– The simple comma. Sometimes you will get scripts that are fine. Other times you will get copy with no commas in at all or copy with commas in the wrong place. Where there is a comma, there is a natural pause in how you deliver the copy, so mark up the script, put the commas in where they should be and this will allow you to pause and take a breath in the appropriate places
– Underlining. If there is a particular word in the copy that needs more emphasis then underline it to remind you that you need to place extra gravitas on that word. This word might be the company name or a particular brand.
– The up and down arrow. There are times in a script when you will need to chance your pace and tone of delivery. Marking your copy with up and down arrows will act as a reminder for when you need to go up or down on a particular word.
– Circle. Circle words where you are unsure how to pronounce them. These might be jargon words that the company uses or words that an American might pronounce differently from a Briton. Check with client on how they want the word to be pronounced.
– The bold capital letter. You can use this to help you convey the emotion of the particular text. H for happy, E for excited, C for Calm etc.
These are just some of the ways that you can mark your copy to help you with the overall interpretation and delivery. Marking your copy is a personal thing so come up with a method that works for you.
Just a cautionary note – use them sparingly. Don’t litter your script with markings all over the place because you will just get confused and find the script difficult to read. If you mark the script appropriately you will find it will help you deliver a better read.
We have written two other posts on this important aspect of marking scripts. You can find more information & useful tips if you read Formatting a VO Script and Script Basics in Voice Over Plaza.
What works for you? How do you mark up your scripts? Please feel free to share any tips that you have here.
Good advice Constantino. Markup helps, so I stay with paper though it’s time I considered a screen with annotation ware.
Still, there’s something expressive about touching pencil to paper.
Issue for me is I’m a time-served news subeditor, and the moment I hold a pencil I want to scratch redundant words!