- What if your budget or your schedule
didn't allow for you to fly in your actors
to record them locally.
Well, you could fly to where your actors are,
but that can also be costly and time consuming.
Luckily, it's easy to direct a voice session,
regardless of how far apart you and your talent may be.
I was recently traveling in Canada,
and I had to direct voice talent for a pilot,
and they were all based in New York City.
So I simply put on my headphones,
and I Skyped into the recording studio
to direct the session, and it worked great.
And just last week, I Skyped with a local voice actor,
who had his own recording studio.
Now, he was only across town,
but Skype allowed us both to save time.
Now people have used phones to direct
voice sessions for a long time.
I feel that way really is lacking.
I want to see my actors,
and I want to see what they're doing in the booth,
so I can help them get their voices to a better performance.
The reason that's important is because
I can help them with their acting if I can see them.
I can make suggestions to help push their voices.
Another reason is, actors are also rather insecure,
and it doesn't make for them
to feel like they aren't doing well.
And actors are much more comfortable
if they can see their director
and see when the director's happy with the take.
Now I prefer to have my Skype screen
with the actors in the booth.
But, I also need to speak with the engineer.
So, you can either have a three way Skype call,
between yourself, the engineer, and the actor,
so you can see and talk to all of them.
Or, something you may prefer, which I really like,
is I'll Skype with the actor,
and have a call with the engineer.
That allows me to mute either one of them
as I talk to the other.
Some studios now have Skype directly
into their booths, and that's great.
But if they don't, that's okay.
You can just prior to the session starting
make sure there's a laptop put in the booth,
or you can Skype to someone's phone,
that's easy these days.
So it's gotten to the point now that I'm just as comfortable
recording long distance with Skype
as I am working in person, and so will you.