Movie Trailers

VOICEOVER ARTIST TALKS ABOUT RECORDING MOVIE TRAILERS

Movie trailer work is a very specific type of work for a voiceover artist. There’s narration of many kinds – radio commercials, TV commercials, commercial animation, feature films — but movie trailers require a very specific skill.

You need to interpret what the feel is, what they may be going for.

If they’re going for comedy, you’ll deliver a different read than you would for a thriller or a love story or an action adventure. Read it and see where it leads you.

Pacing is crucial. Your speed of delivery is important. Every word you say, you need to sell. If it’s a scary movie, you go to the scary place. A love story requires one kind of read. A Disney trailer almost always requires you to deliver the copy in your upper register. There are all those levels when doing movie trailer work.

Interpreting the copy is important — looking at it and seeing what kind of film it is, what kind of read you may try on this when you’re recording it.

The second thing you should do is become comfortable with the copy. Read the copy several times and try out a number of different approaches.

If there’s a sentence that says, “if there’s one film you’ll see this year,” play with that line. Give it a slow, deliberate read: “If there’s ONE film you’ll see this year…” Or maybe try it very casually.

Just get comfortable with it; try it a few times.

When it comes times to deliver it, you need to be able to do it quickly. You can’t waste their time, so if there’s no voiceover direction given you need to have a specific idea in mind of what you’re going to do.

You’ll need to SELL but not to “sell” it. You’ll want to give them EVERYTHING, but give them nothing. That’s a bit of a trick!

That’s actually a direction I received from a trailer house – to give them “everything” but give them “nothing.” I had to think about that, but that’s what’s in the back of my head when doing movie trailers.

Movie trailers aren’t easy for voiceover artists to break into. But for those of us who love voicing movie trailers, it’s worth it.

Whether you audition for movie trailers you cast movie trailers, I hope this helps.

Just remember those three things:

1. Interpret the copy.

2. Get comfortable with the copy.

3. Try it from all sorts of different ways… and then when you deliver it, SELL it, but don’t sell it.

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