Have you done this before…
You get a script from a client, look it over and note several names or words that you think might trip you up. Perhaps that client has written a pronunciation guide in the script. Perhaps they haven’t.
To be on the safe side, and prevent yourself from a round of unnecessary pickups, you decide to give the client a call and have them pronounce the names for you. They happily oblige, you hang up the phone and you start to record.
Then you forget how they said it.
Show of hands… has this happened to you? Yeah… me too!
A Simple Solution
This weekend I had to record a script that was filled with names of award recipients for a college football team. Shockingly, not all of the players were named Joe Smith. In fact, none of them were!
Knowing that there were at least eight names I was unsure of, I asked the client if he’d mind going over the names with me on the phone. Of course he was more than happy to do so.
Once on the phone, I got in front of my mic and hit record. When the client said each name to me, I repeated the name back, thereby creating an audio reference for each name he said.
When it came time to record the project, I had that audio file to quickly refer back to when I forget one of the names
Which I did.
Twice.
QUESTION: Have you got any pronunciation tips you use when you’re recording?
