Now more than ever, you see how far a smile can take you.
‘Cuz now…you don’t have that tool in your kit to pull out when you want to turn on the charm.
Mandated facemasks have changed all that.
Want to offer a non-verbal apology for cutting someone off with your cart in the grocery store? Need to open up a conversation with a happy face? Hope to finesse a new relationship with a winning smile? Sorry….FACEMASK!
Let me just suggest that as a voice actor you have an immediate strength that can fill the gap.
YOUR VOICE.
Look, it was always a strength when you needed to show your mastery in communicating, but now it’s an absolute necessity in furthering social and human relationships.
Know how you use your voice in THE FIRST AUDITION? Well, now you have a new place to use your voice to the benefit of social interaction, as a smile substitute, and as a way to get noticed for your voice work.
Don’t hide behind your mask! Use it as a portal for your voice to rise above, reach beyond, and penetrate through the thing that hides your visual cues.
You already have a leg-up on relationships in the era of COVID facemasks. Many others are frustrated, stilted, and limited by facemask frustration…but not YOU. You have this distinct advantage of extending your friendliness, and your conversant personality through the mastery of your voice. Use it!
In fact, this may be a great practice field for you to try out what works to reach your voiceover clients more effectively…like when your face is unavailable. Being out in the world has alla sudden become more like radio than TV. And in radio, ALL the tools you need to convey a message are right there in your voicebox (driven by your intellect and emotions, of course).
In that sense the word “voiceover” takes on whole new meaning…and a new strength in a pandemic-obsessed world. Be the voice that voices OVER the mask!…and voices OVER the limitations of face-less interaction.
A voice conveys much more than a face anyway, right?
CourVO
