vo on the fly

Monday I had an audish for a car radio spot that was super fun- and yet another illustration of how one can apply improv to everything. The roles were salesman, man, woman so I was reading with 2 other people. (Actually one of them was the guy who taught my VO class! You start to see the same people if you go to enough audishes). The couple is asking the salesman if he has a car like one they have just see in the movie "The Transformers." Right when we got into the booth they had us mark up some changes on the copy. They added a few interjections and line changes, we read through once and then read to record for the audition. We slated in the same order each time: "name-salesman" "name-man" "me-woman." The first round comment I got was "that was great, just do something different this round so we have a different take." This is a common request during auditions and having a background in improv makes it easier to go with the flow and pull out something new each time. We read the spot again, and then the producer changed the casting and had the man and salesman switch parts just to see what it sounded like. It did sound better that way, the new 'salesman' had a more announcer type voice and the new 'man' had more of a character voice. We did it once more with the new parts, everyone in the booth was happy and that was it. My big line: "Oh, and great gas mileage!"