0235 - Marking up a Script for Tonal Changes

0235 - Marking up a script for tonal changes

You can mark your scripts with smiling or frowning emojis to remind you the kind of tone you need to adopt as you read it.

Practicing appropriate tone

As I said previously, one of your greatest assets in getting a better voice are your ears, so open your earlids and use them to listen to people around you in normal conversation and the tonal variety they use to engage and explain

Here are several real news scripts, with notes on each regarding the emotion tone that you may consider using for each one.

ACTUAL SCRIPT

Straightforward tone – this could be a contentious story. Just because the government says there is little evidence, doesn’t mean that others don’t believe that that claim is correct. So read it ‘straight’.

The Education Secretary has insisted there is little evidence that coronavirus is transmitted in schools -- as he pushes ahead with plans for all children in England to return full-time next month. Gavin Williamson said he had been looking at research from one of the largest studies of its kind in the world. But teaching unions are continuing to express concerns. One said that leadership teams were having to draw up their own contingency plans -- including teaching pupils in the classroom on a "week on, week off" basis.

Straightforward – but think how your tone might change if this was happening in a country closer to yours, or in your own country. The tone would change.

Thousands of anti-government protesters have clashed with police in Belarus after exit polls reported a sweeping victory for the authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. State-run television said Mr Lukashenko won nearly 80-per cent of the vote. His main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, is said to have finished on about 7-per cent.

Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, inflection and projection, the roles played by better scripting and better sitting, mic techniques and voice care tips... with exercises and anecdotes from a career spent in TV and radio studios. If you're wondering about how to start a podcast, or have had one for a while - download every episode!

And as themes develop over the weeks (that is, they are not random topics day-by-day), this is a free, course to help you GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE.

Look out for more details of the book during 2021.

Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo