Important notes for Thursday's voice recording (9/3/2014)

* As Adam, Jim and I will be doing voice recording on Thursday, I decided to make some notes in order to prepare us.
The following notes include information I have found over the years, as well as personal advice from existing voice actors I have managed to contact recently.

• Do vocal warm ups before recording. Thus relaxing the muscles and making it easier to record lines. 
• If you open your mouth wide when you speak you make what sort of emotion you are trying to project clearer. After all, there are more muscles in the human face than anywhere else on the body.
• Acting slightly whilst performing can help you get into character. 
• Standing up gives you more energy when performing and allows you to breathe better.
• You should try and look at a visual image of the character you are representing. That way you can use the previous two statements in order to bring that character to life. 
• If you're using a voice that hurts your throat, then stop immediately! You don't want you to lose or damage your throat after all.
• Avoid drinking very hot or very cold water as it can damage the throat. Instead only drink room temperature water.
• Don't eat chocolate before recording, as it builds up saliva in your mouth and can slur your words. 
• Remove jewelery so as to not make any other noise. 
• Make sure to get multiple takes, even if your using a filter, as other factors can get in the way e.g. you were too close to the mike, you accidentally slurred a line or the audio team simple needs a variety of takes to choose from.
• Record at least a couple seconds of silence for each piece as that will allow the audio team to better edit the voices since they can remove any ambient noise. 
• If you mess up a recording you can stop, give yourself five seconds for ambient noise and then start again.
• If you do the above then try and mark the take on a piece of paper. This makes the editing process ten times quicker when editors know which audio starts later or needs to be cut. 
• Start low, then get higher. Otherwise if you yell straight away it can be off putting for a listener (similar to a jump scare). 

Also, one last thing that I hope everyone does know already, but I must emphasise is that EVERYONE should be RESPECTFUL to one another and SILENT during recording. After all, talking, laughing or other off putting things can drain a voice actor's confidence and weaken their performance. Plus it would then take twice as long to record what should only take a single session.