Welcome to the VOlog
Hello again. It's me, Jenna Pinchbeck, and my vlog. Welcome back. Thanks for listening. Glad you're here.
All About Live Sessions
So I wanted to talk a little bit about live sessions, what they're like if you end up working with me, or if you're a voice actor reading this or listening to this, what to expect if you've not done one, or if you're curious, I don't know, what my live sessions are like. Everybody's different, I suppose. So I thrive in live sessions. I absolutely adore live sessions. I love getting on with a client. I love getting on with the director and getting into the nitty gritty of a script.
I love the flexibility within the live session that I can bring that kind of let my improv skills shine a little bit in the sense that I can take the direction and be ready for something new to arise when I receive the direction and see where the spot ends up at the end. Live sessions can be very different depending on what kind of job it is. So for example, a commercial script for a national campaign sometimes will have up to eight scripts, sometimes more, sometimes less. You'll have a bunch of different spots. Sometimes it'll be because they are finished and they're ready to go and you got hired for those eight spots. Sometimes it's slight variations on the script. And often, this is something I didn't know ahead of time. And I don't know how the world works this way, but it does. Sometimes you will not receive your script until you're on the session. Sometimes you'll get it a couple hours before. Sometimes you'll get it a couple days before. That's really nice. But oftentimes you won't get the copy for the live session that you are booked for until right before the session or sometimes even on the session because they're writing copy, they're getting things approved, they're getting everything ready for the session and it's not ready yet until you get on the session.
Cold Reading Is the Gig
So one of my favorite things actually about voice acting is that I do get to live it in the moment and really show up and be prepared for anything. It's very different from my background in theater. I mean, every night you have to show up and be your, you know, show up for the role that you're playing and be yourself and bring yourself to it and, you know, bring what you have in that moment. But there are so many things that have to be exactly, you have to hit your mark, you have to get to exactly where you need to be. It's the same thing, eight shows a week. So doing voice acting has been such an exciting and new experience over the last few years because it's been really cool to just show up and do the script cold. And my cold reading skills have vastly improved since I've really been thriving in that schedule of receiving the script and laying it down right away. So I really just, I don't know, if you're a voice actor listening, I just wanted to impart the fact that cold reading is kind of the gig. And often auditions are due like right away as well. So when you get a script, you got to be able to like really access that script analysis in a super fast way. Your instincts have to be good. You have to be able to kind of glance at a script and quickly make decisions and use your instincts. And your actor instincts and really make choices right away. There's no time to really, sometimes there's not even time on a live session to read through the script before doing it out loud for the director and for the client. So you just got to be ready to go for it. And that's something that I actually really, really, really love about live sessions.
The Joy of Direction
I love working with directors. I love taking wacky direction. I love working with directors who I know are playing with the capabilities and turning the dials and figuring out, okay, what happens if we do this and try it this way? And I know that those directions are not saying, we don't really like where this is going. Do something different. It's about finding as many options as possible within our hour or two-hour session that we have scheduled. So I really love that environment and I love discovering new and unexpected ways to deliver a script. And yeah, it's really the magic of acting and voice acting all coming together. And sometimes I get to do it for commercials that are cool and snappy. And sometimes I get to do it for animation. And that's when my heart is like the happiest it could possibly be because I love throwing myself into a role and live sessions with my animation directors have been just like I leave sweating and just glowing really because it's such a joy to get to fully lose yourself into a character and figure out the million different ways that they would say that line in that situation that they're experiencing in that moment, whoever that character is.
Animation and Character Work
And the directors that I've had the great fortune of working with are really great at bringing me down a path that is like every possible scenario that this character would experience this moment with this line. So I really have had the opportunity to find every way to say a line in some of the projects that I've been working on. We try absolutely every possible scenario, which is really cool. And it's also cool like when I get to work with stuff ahead of animation, because then I get to bring my own thing to it. And then also we have to consider like, well, if the animation goes this way or that way, and the story starts to go this way or that way, we've got to get coverage for it.
Let's Work Together
So yeah, I really love live sessions. I love working with a director. It's my favorite thing about the job. And I much prefer it if you're on my website and you're thinking, hmm, I don't know if I want to have a live session or not. Let's have a live session. It'll be great. And we'll work through the script together. That way you get exactly what you need. And we get to meet each other and have a nice time, hang out. And if you've made it this far, then we're basically already hanging out. So I would like to talk with you now. So thanks for making it this far. Thanks for listening to my thoughts on live sessions. Love a live session. And I'll catch you on the next one. Bye.