Good Sound - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 120

● In a single reading, group any phrases or lines that naturally occur together in speech. You don't want
your voice actor to have to break what would normally be several sentences delivered together into sev-
eral separate takes. The lines will lack the transitions that are found in natural speech.
● If you have portions of dialog where characters are speaking simultaneously, try recording them both
at once and individually. You can decide later which sounds better. Of course, if you are using high end
equipment with multiple microphones in a studio setting, the studio people will rig up something snazzy
so each actor can hear the other on their high-end headphones allowing them to act “together,” but
be recorded separately. If you have the resources, good sound isolation, a multitrack recorder, and long
enough cables, you can do the same thing at home, but it's really a step above what most home users will
be able to accomplish.
● Consider the physical situation of the character when the lines are delivered. If the character is crouching
or hunched over, make your actor do the same. Record them a few times in a natural pose, while trying
to make their voice sound like they are hunched, and a few times under the actual circumstances. If your
character is supposed to be winded, have them just act like it a few times, then have them run in place
for a minute and deliver their lines. If your character is saying something when they walk into a wall,
once again, have them pretend fi rst, then give them a fi rm (but loving!) shove on another take to gently
simulate the impact. If your character is being eaten by a bear, it is advisable not to have your actor actu-
ally eaten by a bear, regardless of the level of realism that might obtain.
● In addition to reading the different lines of dialog into separate fi les, try using one overall take in which
all the actors cluster around the mic (or mics) and do their interactions “live.” What you could lose in
sound quality by not having everyone speaking directly into a mic might be made up for with the group
dynamic and better interplay between the actors.
NOTE
When we use the term “actors,” we really mean whomever you have decided to record for your
dialog. You don't need to go inquiring at the Screen Actors Guild, or, even worse, your local
community theater group. Most likely you will be able to fi nd “actors” of suffi cient talent from
among your friends and family. Who knows—your own voice might be appropriate for any
number of your characters. Of course, if you really want to be nice, you can advertise in your
local craigslist “GIGS: Talent ” section and throw some starving actor or actress a bone.
The Goal of the Recording Session
The goal of the recording session is to walk away with a set of sound fi les that represent several different read-
ings of each spoken line of your script. The sound signal that is recorded on the fi les should include minimal
background noise and be as strong as possible without clipping. Clipping is when the sound source (in this
case, the actor) is so loud that it overloads some portion of the recording equipment, making that particular
portion of the recording useless.