Oral interpretation. That’s the real work. Filtering the words on the page through your catalogue of personal experience (your psyche) then down into your pool of emotion (all the feelings you’ve felt in your life and coming up with something that grabs the listener. Something compelling. It could be comedy or drama. It could be dramedy.
I’ve been acting a long time. I started off as a kid doing theatre, oral interp and impressions, then radio and television, back to theatre, improv, character analysis, you name it. Voice over eventually became my main focus. I seriously studied my craft, took voice over lessons, went to many VO seminars, read the books, got the t-shirt, saw the movie and bought the action figure. I picked up some pointers here and there, but mostly, I came up empty. I didn’t find what I was searching for.
It didn’t take me long to realize that that most teachers of voiceover think it’s all about the voice. It’s really not, you know. Now that may sound counter-intuitive to you. “Whaddaya mean, voice over is not about the voice?! It’s VOICE over, Bruce! Of course it’s about the voice.”
Nope. That’s the external, not the internal. Take the game of Chess. If you don’t understand what’s really going on, you think it’s a game of moving pieces on a board. But it’s not. That’s only the external. What’s really going on is strategy. Chess is about strategy, which is internal, hidden. If you don’t understand that, then you think it’s a game of simply moving pieces.
That’s not a recording booth, it’s a scene.
That’s not a microphone, it’s someone’s ear.
– Bruce Carey
Same with voice over. The Voices Carey Method focuses on the actor inside, not the voice outside. It’s not about manipulating your voice. It’s not about words on a page. These are the external things. It’s about the internal world you are creating. It’s about being in a scene and filtering someone else’s words through your own experience and emotions and sending it out the old pie hole spun with your particular feelings and point of view. This is the real work. The real work is Oral Interpretation.
In stage acting and film acting, we have a method. But as I studied my craft- voiceover- I discovered there was no workable, written method or curriculum for voice acting. So, about ten years ago, I began building the Voices Carey Method, incorporating techniques from all the different areas of acting I had studied, coupled with original observations. I realized its all scene work . An actor is always in a scene. In the Voices Carey Method, the actor moves through the scene, and the voice follows. This is the basis of everything I do and teach.
Because I’m a working professional, and there are only so many teaching hours in a week, I simply can’t accept everyone. So, I’ll have you read for me. I’m listening for certain qualities and if you’ve got them, I’ll teach you. I have students from Miami to Baltimore to San Francisco and L.A.
