Some Tips For Clients When Doing a Directed Session

I have a few tips for clients/casting people/advertisers who have hired a voice talent and are about to go into a directed, recording session with the "Voice-Slinger!" I'm sure there's more but here's some that came to mind as I was thinking about this subject.

1. Let's connect a little early to make sure the Source Connect/Zoom is good. Can everyone hear me? Can I hear you? Is there compression or other plugins that the engineer wants turned off?
2. Allow me to contribute. Be open to the input I have on lines, direction or script. Yes, you have a well-paid copywriter but sometimes in the moment of a session another brain might have something to bring to the table that you hadn't thought of. Whether it's a way of saying a word, a quick ad-lib or whatever. There could be gold that hasn't been mined yet! Don't forget, WE want the spot to be great too! Oh, and also, a lot of voice actors either come from areas where they read or wrote a lot of copy.
3. There WILL be a delay between the time I hear you and you hear me. This is pretty ubiquitous when using higher end/virtually lossless services like Source Connect. The delay might just be a few milliseconds or it might be a couple of seconds, regardless, there's gonna be a little accidental talking over each other.
4. Someone might have to step away from the session for a second. Yeah, 'time is money' but when 'ya gotta go, ya gotta GO!'
5. If you haven't gotten the talent the script ahead of time, be patient and even encourage them to take a minute or two to read the script. Luckily, this isn't normally the case but things happen and sometimes the locked script doesn't arrive til right before the session or even soon after (note: been there, done that!). And finally...
6. Do a little bit of research on your talent. Knowing something about someone makes them even more human, thereby necessitating a better connection. And when we connect, we tend to want to help each other more (read: do a better job!).

Bottom line, we, as the voice talent want this spot/recording to be the best possible spot/recording that's ever been put out there so the more we can all make this the creme-de-la-creme, the more we're ALL gonna benefit (more work!) in the long run. Good luck!