Voiceover artist...rookie

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where everyone around you knows EXACTLY what they're doing and you DO NOT? Or at least, you don't THINK you know what you're doing?

That was me yesterday.

I've been told many times that studio time is very expensive, so you NEVER want to be late to a booking (to record in a studio). That's why I arrived at the studio location 90 minutes early.

No, I didn't go in.

Instead, I did what any city girl would do when faced with a potentially life-changing appointment...I found the nearest coffee shop to get some caffeine and try to settle my nerves (okay, don't lecture me about caffeine not being good for a person's nerves...work with me!)

I was scheduled to record my first-ever paid voiceover spot (for a pharmaceutical company.) I was playing the role of a cancer patient who's become anemic. Not very cheerful, I know, but a very interesting role nonetheless.

Back to the coffee shop and jittery me. Who's sitting next to me at Dunkin Donuts? It was an older couple who was in town to visit their son who's being treated for cancer. As I spoke to them about their son, it occurred to me that no more perfect people could've been placed in my path to get me out of my own worries and focus on what's important. (And the coincidence of his diagnosis was not lost on me.)

45 minutes went by quickly and I headed to the studio. The engineer and producer and whoever else I met (5 people in total) were all very nice and professional. I, on the other hand, tried not to knock over the microphone or copy stand.

Entering the glass-enclosed studio, I put on the headphones and awaited instructions from the sound engineer and the producers of this spot.

Clear as anything, I heard a thump-thump, thump-thump in my headphones.

"Oh my God! Can they hear my heart pounding, too?" I thought.

Apparently not, because the engineer was ready to start recording.

Less than an hour (and about 50 'takes' later), we were done.

I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself for one thing, at least. I covered up for a terrible rookie mistake (at least I think I covered up). The first page of my script listed my character's part as being paragraphs 2-9, so I only printed the first two pages of the 18-page script. (There was another character, an oncologist, who was recording after me.)

My guess was that my character only appeared at the beginning of this video, so I only needed to read from the first 2 pages (where paragraphs 2-9 appeared).

WRONG!

My character re-appeared in pages 14, 29-30 and 49-51!! So basically, I was performing some scripts that I had never seen before!!!

In this industry, this is called 'a cold read.'

Cold!?!?! For my first PAID job?!?!?

Since no one on the other side of the glass threatened to throw me out on my head, I guess I did okay.

And, they shouldn't call it 'a cold read' because I sure as hell was sweating!