THE VOICES CAREY METHOD
Oral interpretation. That’s the real work. Filtering the words on the page through your 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 for a long time. I started off as a kid doing theater, oral interp and impressions, then radio and television, back to theater, improv, character analysis, you name it. Voiceover eventually became my main focus. I seriously studied my craft through acting 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 most voiceover teachers think it’s all about the voice. It’s really not, you know. Now that may sound counterintuitive to you. “Whaddaya mean, voiceover is not about the voice?! It’s VOICEover, 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 it's all scene work. An actor is always in a scene. In the Voices Carey Method, you move through the scene, and the voice follows. This is the basis of everything we do and teach. Here’s the step-by-step progression of the Voices Carey Method:
Developing physical facility with the words
Crafting dialogue
Creating a scene
Asking the Actor’s Questions (https://www.voicescarey.com/voices-carey-voice-acting-blog/the-actors-questions)
Rehearsing
Evaluating the rehearsal
Letting loose
Living fully in the scene
The more you practice the Voices Carey Method, the more you grow as an actor and the more each of these steps reveal just how important they are. Time to put in the work!
