0592 – How To Practice Talking To Time

2022.08.15– 0592 – How To Practice Talking To Time

Practice Talking To Time

You will also benefit from being able to ‘talk to time’, that is to fill exactly 10 seconds - or 7 or 12 or whatever - and to make sense and be a complete sentence. This is useful if you ever have to present a programme or bulletin that has a ‘clock end’, as well as knowing how to shave off a second or two (or half!) from a commercial voice-over script.

As we saw in episode 427

Take some copy which has a required duration indicated on it, and read it aloud like you might in a demo, and with a stopwatch to hand.

How many words did you read in 30 seconds? Or how many seconds were you over?

Keep practicing until you can sensibly get the copy in the seconds required, several times in a row. Then take another script and repeat the exercise before return to the first script and seeing if the rate and the rhythm are still there.

Then go back to the second script. Then take a third one, of a different style and duration and word-count, and try it all again.

A further exercise would be to take your 30 second script and elongate it so it when you read it, it lasts 40 seconds, or shorten it to 25: all of these are skills that will come in useful in the recording studio. You are often presented with a script that is just too ‘word-rich’ and yes, every single one is vital. It is up to you to ‘fit the words into the seconds’ in a clear and interesting way.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.