Make Your On Camera Narration Performances Powerful 7 Amazing Strategies

In this video, you're going to learn how to make your on-camera narration performances powerful by using 7 amazing techniques that I'm going to be sharing with you. At least 7, I might even have more. And watch to the end, you're going to get a bonus video talking about should actors really be doing extra work for film and TV projects. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share my experiences, uh, almost 38 years now of being a full-time actor, with you. Hey, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's always helpful. I recently had an on-camera narration project, and just to make sure you know exactly what that is, it's not like a regular kind of acting job. Typically, the on-camera narrator, they're going to be reading off a teleprompter, and you're going to be giving out a lot of information. The ones that I've been doing most recently have been interview style where I'm interviewing somebody. The one that I did last, it was just a couple days ago actually, there were 113 pages. That's a lot of pages. So the great thing is you don't memorize this stuff, but I really like doing them. The pay is pretty incredible, at least as far as union rates go. And look, They're always going to change, so if you're watching this at some point and it's not the exact amount, don't get upset. You can always call the union office or go to their website and find out what the current one is. But currently, it's like a little over $1,100 for an 8-hour day to do an on-camera narration, which I think is pretty incredible. So I want to share with you some some tips and strategies that will make your performances powerful. So very first thing, make sure that you read over the script many times. I know it's long. I know sometimes it's just really hard to do, especially you've got 113 pages. I had about 2 days of notice on, on this. They didn't finish the entire script— actually, they didn't finish the entire script until the day before The bulk of it though, I got about 2 days beforehand. Make sure that you understand everything. Make sure that if you do have any questions, write them down. So I guess number 2 is, you know, take notes while you're reading it through. A couple of the notes that I had, questions that I had, I wasn't sure how to pronounce some of the names that was in the script. There were also a few times where there were initials for organizations. I didn't know how they wanted it stated. Do I say ABC or— well, actually, that's not a very good example. Let's say it was MAD. Some organization is MAD. Do you want me to say MAD or do you want me to say MAD? MAD. What's the best way to do it? There were a couple of times where— because this was actually, it was interesting, it was a 5-camera shoot. And so there were times where I'm reading the prompter and then all of a sudden I turn to another camera and now I'm addressing a different camera. Just— and sometimes they would make it very clear in there, sometimes it wasn't super Super clear. So I just wanted to make sure that I knew about it. I guess technique strategy number 3, if there are changes that have to be made in the script, if all of a sudden— like for instance, sometimes I might be talking about $100 million in bonds, so they would just have a number sign And $100 million. So I wasn't sure, you know, exactly how they wanted that stated. Just, you know, $100 million. Do they want to say $100 million? Or so get all that clear and just remember in this, I guess would be number 3. You, you can always, I think I got my numbers right. If I got my numbers wrong, sorry. I'm just trying to, to cram a lot of information into a short time period here, but You can always ask the person who is running the teleprompter if they can make some notes in there for you to make life easy. So let's say you're supposed to say $100 million. Well, maybe instead of just having a dollar sign and $100 million, maybe you can ask the person to write out $100 million and actually spell out dollars. That's always really helpful. Number 4, and actually I'm kind of going back, I'm going out of order a little bit, but that's okay. Hey, get a lot of sleep. You want to try, if you can, to be as rested as you possibly can. You want to be as clear thinking as possible. This takes a tremendous amount of concentration. Once again, we're talking about 130,000 words. 13 pages that I and the person that I was interviewing had to go through. So you want to be really sharp. Um, bring— here's number 5: bring, bring water with you. Now, I always assume, you know, they're gonna have water there for me, um, but I did bring a bottle and I figured I could always fill it up if I needed to. As it turns out, I They don't need my water. They have plenty of water there. I went through 4 bottles of water just because I'm talking so much. And I'm talking kind of loudly because the person who I am interviewing is not sitting right next to me. They're probably, I don't know, 5 feet away from me. And just so you know how the setup is, so the person who I was interviewing is sitting across from me. And then to my left. To their left is a teleprompter. So when I'm looking— so like, for instance, let's say if right now I am looking at the person I'm interviewing, well, the teleprompter would be right here, and that's where I'm talking. And the teleprompter for the person I'm interviewing is sitting, you know, behind me, or it could be, you know, on this side as well. It doesn't matter. And so it's really, really important. I guess this is number 5. Always stay on the teleprompter. Some actors make this mistake when they're using a prompter and they're working with another actor or somebody else, because what they'll do is they're reading the prompter, they know what the line is, and then they kind of go back to the actor. And And you never, never, never, never, never want to do that. Once you're starting on a teleprompter, you stay fixed on the teleprompter. Otherwise, your eyes look weird. Here, I'll just show you. So I'm talking over here. Let's say I'm talking to the teleprompter, and then I kind of glance over to the person, then I go back. It looks weird. So stay— once you're on the teleprompter, just stay there. Tip number 6. If you can, and this is what I did, and I always like to do this, I show up early. And the reason why I show up early, for a couple of reasons. One is I just don't like either being late or cutting it close. There's enough pressure to get things done. I don't want people worried I'm not going to be there or even showing up a couple minutes late. It's just— I'm not saying there aren't times where it's out of your control. There's an accident that you certainly couldn't have planned on and everything just— I get all that. But you want to do everything you can to circumvent any of that stuff. So I showed up about 25 minutes early. And one of the things that I did is I walked over to the person who's running the prompter and I said, hey, could I start practicing with the prompter? Prompter. And even if you're really familiar with the words, you've studied the script, let's say you printed things out, let's say it wasn't 113 pages and it was much shorter and you printed things out to look at, or even just looking at it on your computer, it's very different when you're seeing a teleprompter. And I like to practice a little bit. I didn't go through 130 pages, I just went through a couple pages, but That way, the person running the prompter could get a sense of my style because it's crucial that the person who's running the teleprompter followed you. You don't follow the teleprompter person. You need to make sure that they are moving in the way that you are talking so that you don't have to speed things up. You certainly never want to have to Wait for the words to show up at the bottom of the screen, you know, as you're talking, because that would be horrible. So try to practice as much as you can. It was really— it was a wonderful experience for me. I mean, not only did I learn a lot just from the topic of what I was talking about, but It just— first of all, and I have to say, I loved not having to memorize all this stuff. That made it really, really good as well. But, um, it's, it's fun. It's fun for me. I got a chance to meet some really good people. And yeah, at the end of the day, uh, I was, I was pretty exhausted. It, you know, once again, it takes a lot of concentration. And the other thing too, and this is number 7, It's okay to make mistakes. It is. And I know that it's easy. And I think at the beginning of my career, I would have been stressing out because at the very beginning, sometimes it's not that I was necessarily missing words, but sometimes things were phrased in a way where I wasn't— I wasn't using the commas in the way that they had it planned. And once again, I can't give out any information about the script or anything, but, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, where sometimes I would pause someplace, but that's not really where the pause should be, and then I would just goof it up. Or sometimes I missed words, sometimes I mispronounced words, sometimes I stumbled over some words. Some of the words were hard, and I made some mistakes with it. And So for number 7, just remember it's okay to make mistakes. You're allowed to. We're human. And if that happens, don't worry about it. Don't apologize. Oh, I'm sorry. Don't worry, I'll get it right. Just keep going with it. It's a lot of work to be able to do this stuff. And that's exactly what what I did. And I did find that once, once we got going, things went much smoother for me. At the very beginning— and once again, it's not like I, I was horrible and I made millions of mistakes. I made a couple of mistakes, but then there were stretches we go for pages and pages and pages. Everything was fluid. And some of the stuff they just threw at me that I'd never seen, they hadn't sent it to me. And so, you know, it takes, takes a little bit of work to be able to get that stuff, you know, just down perfectly. But I did find that once I got rolling, things went much more smoothly. So if you guys ever get a chance to do on-camera narration, it's great. Just make sure that you are teleprompter proficient. And I will leave a link to a free app that you can use in the notes, and that way you can practice. You know, you don't have to go out and buy a teleprompter, and you can actually practice using a teleprompter with this app. And that way you'll be prepared for, you know, anytime a situation comes up where they say, hey, are you teleprompter proficient? And you can say, yeah. I am. Hey, before, um, I, I share the bonus, uh, link with you, uh, don't forget, if you haven't done this yet, uh, press the, uh, click on the subscribe button, the notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, and please share the link with your fellow actors. And that way we can all learn from each other and help each other. If you've had any experiences being an on-camera narrator, Some of the things that went well, some things that didn't go well, any other techniques or strategies, please share them in the comments section below so we can all learn from each other. So here is where I had mentioned you can find the link for Should Actors Really Be Doing Extra Work on Film and TV Projects? And I hope you enjoy it. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.