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Announcers calling host's names

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tvrandywest:
Quickly... we tape 2 today:

Without making it sound like brain surgery, I've always made these personal choices the way an actor makes similar decisions about characterizations. It's part of the training that is behind all interpretation... voice-over included:

"Who am I? What am I doing? What's my relationship to the other(s) in this scene?", etc.. There are many of these questions anyone doing any kind of professional performance asks himself based upon the clues in the script. And they include the all-important, now cliched "What's my motivation?"

So almost all of the answers are the copy: "This is backstage and our contestants for today are completing their word associations..." vs "Here it comes, television's most exciting hour of fantastic prizes, the fabulous...".

Now factor in the way the host enters, his energy, and the energy expected from the audience. The last little bit is about your own sensibilities and style as they relate to what you're saying. For example. a brisk, sharp name like "Wink" with a hard consonant ending seems to me to demand a staccatto, crisp reading that will contrast with the lengthy "Martindale". Wink loved it and told me everyone else always wanted to do the "Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink" thing.  Finally, you gotta keep in mind what precedent you want to set for yourself that you can recreate on the 7th show that tapes on the same day. "Price" is so copy intensive that by this Thursday when we tape the 8th show in as many days it's unreasonable to expect myself to do the vocal gymnastics I can on most Monday mornings   ;-)

Of course on an exisiting hit show like "Price" there's already decades of success and listener expectation to use as a general guide. There are reasons I deliver Bob's name the way that I do; nothing is accidental. I've received a surprising amount of mail pro and con about such nuances. But then there is a like amount of discussion on the net about similar fine points such as set colors, camera angles and like.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

Matt Ottinger:
A question for our esteemed professional announcer guy:

To what degree do you get advice -- or for that matter, direct orders -- from the powers-that-be?  You used the great analogy of approaching it like an actor, but do you very often get "direction" (if not necessarily from the "director") about how to approach a particular call, or do they not bother so much with that sort of micro-management and let the professional do his thing?

tvrandywest:
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Nov 10 2003, 11:53 AM\']To what degree do you get advice -- or for that matter, direct orders -- from the powers-that-be?  You used the great analogy of approaching it like an actor, but do you very often get "direction" (if not necessarily from the "director") about how to approach a particular call, or do they not bother so much with that sort of micro-management and let the professional do his thing?[/quote]
I've NEVER received a "line read" (suggested delivery of a specific piece of copy) on a game show. The only thing close is being directed for timing of a specific hunk of copy, as it sometimes must match a pre-built video piece. The simplest example of that would be replacing fee plugs on "Price" re-runs. The timing must match.

In commercial and promo work, line reads are considered an insult by the hearty, old-line professionals, but it happens occasionally. Hell, I think it's great - if the session producer is married to a specific read as he hears it in his head, let's do it and move on!

Direction on game shows has always been far more general in my experience...
"More/Less excited", "More conversational", "More dramatic", etc.. You wouldn't have gotten the job if they didn't care for your general interpretation. That's where the kind of thinking described above is vital - developing a style of delivery you see as appropriate for each show, using the copy as your guide.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

chris319:
On our show Gene Wood used to get two directions with regard to reading copy: FAST and FASTER.

tvrandywest:
[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Nov 11 2003, 02:33 AM\'] On our show Gene Wood used to get two directions with regard to reading copy: FAST and FASTER. [/quote]
 Ooooooooh yes! Nobody wants to edit, so the burden was placed on the announcer in those long closing rattles of multiple fee plugs (in the days when they were read live) to make up for the time an episode ran over.

I just had something similar today, racing through a couple of promo consid fee plugs that will replace a previous similar read on a "Price" rerun airing (iirc) the day after Thanksgiving. Lord only knows what was there before, but the Juiceman Juicer copy was a freakin' miniseries by comparison!

Randy
tvrandywest.com

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