Do you know your audience?

Standing on the podium, in front of the microphone, you deliver your speech. Audience starts jumping in joy, they start praising you, claps and hand shakes everywhere when you get off the stage. Job well done!! After all your audience loved it. Well.. might not be true every time.

It's been observed that 62% of the times, yes 62%!!! when you speak in front of a live audience, you don't know your audience!!! You might not believe this. Obviously, you are an awesome presenter, a killer machine when it comes to exploiting that microphone, you have that swag, that persona/aura to create an impact and people love it. Well, i don't doubt you, but the problem is that your audience most of the time does not know how to REACT.

You need to understand the psyche of the audience well before you enter that hall. You need to relate with them. Following are the major categories in which your audience generally falls, knowing these categories well can make a difference.

1. "Me too" audience - It's a chain reaction when it comes to audience feedback. In a gathering of hundred, even if five start praising you for nor reason, the others would soon join them and you would start to believe that it's going great. But think of it in a different way, if even two start with negative feedback, then a group of fifty taking you down would not be a good scene. Most importantly many of them are doing out of a chain reaction, they have not used their brain at all. Majority of the feedback you get when you speak is driven by this, do not fall in this honey trap. 

Always, keep a self check mechanism in place when you are speaking. With every line that you speak, you should ask yourself if you are going in the right direction or not? If you genuinely ask yourself this question, you will get the right answer. Tweak your speech then and there, otherwise your speech would die an early death!!

2. "Need a change" audience - In many cases you will find the auditorium/hall fully loaded with people dying to listen to you. Beware, many of them have no idea what your show is all about, and many of them even don't know who you are. This group has come to listen to you for a change, and it's not that they genuinely thought of coming to your show, in fact they had no other choice and thought of killing their time by occupying a seat in your show. They do not connect with you at all, they would not respond to you, they would put a poker face throughout. You end up in a confusion, if your are going right or not. Not to mention,

With practice you will learn to identify such people, it's better to ignore them, as they do not add anything meaningful to the equation.

3. "Mystery shoppers"- So you think you know the best on a particular topic. Well, you might be, but then there are some "Mystery shoppers" in the group who are best in this game.They are here to judge your talent, to benchmark how much they know vis-a-vis the competitor i..e YOU. They will listen to you seriously, they will stare at you, their gaze might make you nervous, they would grin on every wrong statement put in front of them. They would try to take you down any time. This species is a bit intelligent than you think they are, and their feedback can make or break your reputation.

To tackle them, it's better to do your homework before the speech, ask the organizers about the invitation list, analyse it, research about them, know who your audience is. If you get it right, you can atleast ask for a truce, if not beat them.

Speaking well and a great response not necessarily paints the right picture when you deliver a speech We need to read what's not visible, audible. Believing what you see might not be true for you. Better watch out for cues that you ignore most of the times.

So what do you think? Do you have any other category in your mind? Do let me know, I 'll share the same to all my readers.

Where's your life's script??

Each day throws at us a completely random script. Paying attention to it can make our day Ultra awesome..Let's just read what's not written in that script!!! 

Your script is already around you, if you look in the right places.

Have you tried reading it - 

In the morning newspaper ..

Useless papers on the xerox machine..

papers in trash..

Screensavers..

credit card wordings..

insurance clauses ..

netbanking home page...

debit card CCV ..

ATM notices ..

wrappers..

on that beer bottle..

laptop model number..

Toll free numbers..

medic prescriptions..

on the cigarette box.. .

movie ticket..

apparels..

signages..

default notices..

credit scores..

phone book..

music system displays..

TV remote..

on the aircrafts..

Room keys..

tissue box..

menu card..

YouTube subtitles..

palindrome sequences..

Mailbox delivery failures..

The BACK button..

The FORWARD button..

The REFRESH button..

The list is huge..actually infinite...

Pay attention to these and you will observe the secret script of your life which will always make you happy!!!

Do let me know if you can suggest me more.

FB Page

Twitter

Pinterest

Linkedin

When do you sound your best??

http://voiceoverprateek.wix.com/randomreverbsWell this might sound weird, but this is an important question, if you really want to make an impact in the studio. Its not how will you sound your best but WHEN??

This one question can easily give an edge to your portfolio (If you know the answer, ofcourse!!!). I have asked this question to lot many voice over artists / Public speakers and they do not know for sure the correct answer to this question.

This is a fact that the tonal quality of your voice changes with every passing hour of the day. Your voice quality is affected by many parameters like your environment, people around you, the sounds you live in through out the day. You do not sound real when you are in the middle of the chaos that this world has to give you. 

So what's the answer?? That depends. It totally depends on when and for how long you are in sync with YOURSELF. Only when you give time to yourself, you sound YOU. Many voiceover artists make it a point to be with themselves before going for a recording, this helps you regain a lot of energy, as well as make you aware about your body.

Personally, for me the best time when I sound good is just when I am out of my bed every morning. I have observed that my voice sounds deep and heavy when I wake up. This is not just the case with me, I have heard lots of artists saying the same thing.

Again, a word of caution, every individual has his/her own sweet time when they sound real. It also depends on the tonal quality you want for your recordings, so for me if I need to record something happening, I usually do it in evenings (for you this might be different)

So next time when you go for a recording, read the script, understand the type of voice required, do a thorough check of your tonal quality..and if doesn't sound good.. Well sleep tight.. May be you should do it early morning.

Visit my webpage - http://voiceoverprateek.wix.com/randomreverbs

Visit my FB Page - https://www.facebook.com/Prateekvoiceover

Visit my G+ profile - https://plus.google.com/u/0/102175408285189376356

Well, we are all in voiceover business where there’s no limit to how we use our voice, Right?. With each new assignment done in front of that microphone, we improvise,learn,evolve and that’s the beauty of voiceover. A voiceover artist explores the range of his/her voice with every new assignment BUT .. are we doing it the right way?

There have been numerous instances where even the best voiceover artists have gone awry. This happens more often with the beginners. Over emphasis, over modulations, unnecessary animations in your voice can ruin your audio and bring much damage to the essence of the script. So what should be done to escape this circle of erratic improvisations?

Numero Uno… Be NATURAL!!! It’s your voice, you know the best how to use it, when and where to take pauses, when to speed up, slow down, raise the pitch.It’s good to hear what your client wants from you, but you are the best judge of your voice. Simply, following your recordist’s,client’s instructions many a times in the recording rooms damage the outcome. So be yourself.. convince them about your style of delivery..see if you could mix your style with client’s demand

STOP IMITATING!!! Its a good practice to listen to other voiceover narrations before going for the recording but mind it, this can totally skew your talent in another direction.You search youtube,vimeo,sound directories, to listen to a particular type of script and knowingly or unkowingly it creates an impression on your voice. You start to sound a “Me Too” voice. This is a dangerous situation for any voiceover artist. Listen, understand the basic principles, but do not copy. Do not try to be someone else. Your voice is totally different from them, and you will fail for sure if you copy them in your recordings. So stay ORIGINAL.

PRACTICE. When it comes to recording your voice for a script, there’s no substitute to doing a thorough homework on your script. Read .. understand .. again read .. understand .. understood the script? Yes? Okay then, read it again.Trust me this helps.The more you read your script, better would be the voiceover.Understand the nuances of the script, how long is it? How much modulation is required? What is the script trying to tell? Answer these questions and record your voice.You’ll see the difference.

So next time when you try something new as a voiceover artist, do not forget to be NATURAL,ORIGINAL and PRACTICE!!!