ARIANNA RATNER
Arianna Ratner is a voice director, voice actor, and coach who comes from a traditional acting background, incorporating those tools into her work and teaching. She can be heard in Spiderman 2, Diablo 4, Cookie Run Kingdom, Fallout 76: The Pitt, Saint’s Row, Lost Ark, World of Warcraft Dragonflight, Legion, and Battle for Azeroth, Elder Scrolls Online, The Sims 4, in The Baby Shark Brooklyn series, and many more projects. She is the only woman ever to have voiced Cinemax promos, and has also voiced promos for Food Network, Comedy Central, Max, CNN, Animal Planet, Disney, and A&E, and affiliate work for ABC/KSBW-TV. Fun fact: her voice is immortalized on the Jumpin’ Jellyfish and Avatar Flight of Passage rides at California Adventures and Disney World.
FEEDBACK
General Note For Everyone:
This is a technical note, but something I noticed with a lot of people was that there were too short beats between lines. Leave a SECOND to a SECOND AND A HALF between each line. So slate, one second, 1st line, one second-1.5 secs etc. It’s jolting to hear no space between lines and makes us know it was edited together. In general, Video Game VO is MUCH slower. Slow it down, let the moments breathe. Let each line almost live as its own beat, its own thought. Thoughts are happening in real time on the page, learning and figuring out information as the line develops. Don’t be afraid of silences (in VG work). With animation, you can also treat every line as a new beat (every time there’s punctuation), and every time there’s a beat, there’s a new thing you’re doing to your scene partner (action). It’ll add dynamics to the reads.
LISTENING TO YOUR PEERS
You are welcome to listen to your own recording as well as everyone else’s recordings. They are all available to download to members of the VOWW. Hearing your peers do what THEY do is always a great opportunity to learn.
A piece of copy in any genre can be read 1,000’s of ways. In the real world you are auditioning against 100’s of other actors never knowing really what you are up against. The VOWW is an incredible behind the scenes look into what other actors are doing with the same piece of copy. How other home studio’s sound compared to yours. What feedback would look like depending on how any performance is delivered. It can be eye opening, well EAR opening in many ways for the participants who take the time to delve into all the reads and feedback and not just their own.