Voice Talent Talk Without A Script?

Hugens Sengenti · **Voice Seeker** Joined: 12 Dec 2007 Posts: 2

Hi I'm a voice seeker and I'm totally new to this so this might be a silly question:

I'd like to produce a series of podcasts, each 30 minutes or so.

My question is, is it a norm for all voice talents to follow a script word for word, or is it NOT uncommon to ask voice talents to follow an outline (instead of word-for-word script) and just talk freely following the outline? (Obviously the voice talent has to have a quick mind and is good at giving in a speech.)

Thanks for the answer in advance!

Erik Sheppard · Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007, 18:47 (GMT) Post subject:

Well, it would be a bit uncommon. In my experience, I have been asked to be loose with a script and an occasional ad-lib, deviation or even script rewrite can sometimes be in order but we usually are asked to keep either fairly close or dead on the script.

Most folks spend a lot of time writing their scripts and, even when they are awful, they want you to stick with it. Some people just know that script writing is not their forte and will ask for help. Most of us have read thousands of these things so we can usually help in that regard.

As far as what you are looking for, I am sure you can find someone who is not only a good voice talent but has the personality to pull it off. It may be slightly unusual but it not an outlandish request by any means.

Joe Rodriguez · Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007, 19:48 (GMT) Post subject:

If you are talking about scripts for your proposed podcast, I would think that you would probably want to prepare some questions to ask the talent ahead of time, then perhaps contact the talent and see if there are any specific topics that that person would want to either specifically address or specifically not address. For a 1/2 hour podcast I imagine 10 questions would do it.

NOTE: This information is based on something I read recently, NOT from personal experience.

Good luck with the podcast!

Scott Pollak · Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007, 21:24 (GMT) Post subject:

I've co-hosted some podcasts and live radio talk shows in the past. An experienced on-air person (ahem, like yours truly) can wing it with an outline IF they're comfortable with the subject matter. They HAVE to have SOME idea what they're talking about. It's extremely easy to wing it if there are two hosts and they can banter back and forth, as we did on the live radio show.

Feel free to contact me if you're needing an experienced, live, on-air guy.

Hugens Sengenti · **Voice Seeker** Joined: 12 Dec 2007 Posts: 2

Thanks for all your answers!