Why Voiceover Direction is so Darn Difficult!

It is a right of passage for every voiceover artist when they receive the inevitabe instruction "Speak faster, but sound slower"! I have indeed been given this exact direction but my favourite "difficult to interpret" instruction has to be "Think fire and fury", followed moments later in the same job by "Gooood, very good... but I need you to sound more lyrical".

At first glance, instructions like these appear contradictory, even nonsensical. They are also extremely common — voiceover direction is one of the most underestimated parts of the production process. On the surface, it sounds easy: tell the voiceover artist what you want, they do it, job done.

In practice, it is often the point at which projects slow down, frustration creeps in, and both client and voiceover artist feel they are “nearly there” — without quite getting there.

Voiceover direction sounds simple — Until you try it

From the outside, it can look as though giving direction to a voiceover artist ought to be straightforward. After all, everyone speaks. Everyone hears. Surely saying what you want shouldn't be that hard.

In practice, it is exceedingly difficult, both to give useful instructions on how a script should be read and to interpret instructions received.

Clients usually have a mental picture, a dream maybe, of how something should feel — the emotional temperature, the sense of authority, urgency, restraint, warmth, or seriousness — but feelings are slippery things to translate into precise vocal instructions. We simply do not have a shared everyday vocabulary for such vocal colourations, so people reach instead for metaphor, paradox, and imagery.

Hence directions like:

"Give it more energy, but calmer."
"Smile more — without sounding like you're smiling."
"Authoritative, but like you're asking a question."
"Warm, but not too friendly."
"Can you make it sound… more expensive?"
"Less acting. But more emotion."

All perfectly understandable. And all extremely hard to execute!

Why clients struggle to say what they mean

When a client says "speak faster but sound slower", they are almost never talking about syllables per second - although it may be nothing more abstract than the need to fit a lot of words into a 30-second ad slot. If it's not that, what they may mean is something closer to:

Increase physical momentum without giving the impression of urgency.
Maintain flow, but don't sound too pressured.
Keep things moving, but don't feel rushed.

Likewise, my client's "fire and fury" followed by "sound more lyrical" might have been a request for conviction without musicality — intensity without expressive rise-and-fall — perhaps passion but delivered without sounding too poetic or performative.

These are subtle distinctions. They live at the intersection of tempo, rhythm, stress placement, pitch movement, and emotional stance. Even for a trained voiceover artist, translating them into sound is non-trivial.

Why voiceover artists struggle to interpret direction

There is a second challenge here that is less often acknowledged: even when the intention behind a piece of direction is clear, executing it is technically and cognitively demanding.

Speaking faster while sounding slower may require:

Tighter articulation but reduced stress.
Shorter pauses but flatter pitch movement.
Increased rhythmic regularity while suppressing urgency cues.

"Fire and fury... but more lyrical" may require:

Stronger consonantal energy.
Reduced pitch range.
Less melodic shaping, even while sustaining emotional force.

None of this happens by accident. It requires conscious control, training, and often several takes to get right.

The voiceover artist as translator

A professional voiceover artist does not simply "follow instructions". They translate intention into technique.

Clients often speak in impressions, images, and emotional responses. The voiceover artist's job is to interpret those impressions and decide what to do with the voice in concrete terms — adjusting pace, pitch, stress, articulation, and tone until the result matches what the client heard in their head, even if neither party could have described it precisely at the outset.

This is why contradictory-sounding direction is not a problem; it is raw material.

All part of the job: Not a failure on either side

If anything, this should reassure clients rather than worry them. You are not expected to have the technical vocabulary of speech and performance. That is not your role. Luckily my background means I do have a way of describing intonation patterns, the knowledge of why and how to make certain words prominent, where and how much to breathe, etc., all of which helps with controlling some important aspect of the performance. But that all happens behind the scenes and is not your concern.

Your role is to react honestly and say things like:

"That feels a bit guarded."
"It's too polished."
"It needs more presence."
"Can you make it sound more committed?"
"That's clear, but not quite grounded enough."

Abstract, yes, but my role is to understand what those reactions point to and do whatever is needed in concrete terms to turn them into a recording that works, the recording of your dreams.

So if you ever find yourself apologising for giving "bad" or "contradictory" direction, don't. If describing sound were easy, voiceover would be a very different profession — and probably a much duller one.

Final thoughts

I knew my latest directed session was going rather well when we got to:

"You’re doing what I asked — but not what I meant."