Sometimes, voice actors are required to slate before an audition, or a demo. I’ve also heard slates done by someone other than the actor (example: their agent) at the beginning of the recording and I’ve heard some people slate at the end.
Why slate? Well, the purpose of a slate is to identify who is speaking.
Slating made sense years ago, before everything went digital. You’d hear a tape with actor after actor doing their auditions, and a slate before each one to know who it was; or at least I’m assuming that’s how things were done. That was before my time.
Nowadays, we get mp3 auditions. As long as your full name is clearly written in the file name, I know who you are when I’m listening. No slate is needed. At least not for me.
I recently sent a casting call for teenage/young adult characters. I specifically asked for no slate, yet many voice actors slated anyway, probably out of habit.
As I was listening to the auditions, I became increasingly frustrated with the slates. Why?
First of all, because it interrupts the flow. I’m in the world of the characters I’m casting, I hear them speak through your voices, I imagine each of them being you and every minute or so, someone comes in and says a name in a completely different tone. It takes me out of the world I’m in.
It’s like watching a great movie at the theater and being interrupted every minute by someone who won’t stop talking. So annoying. You’ve been there I’m sure, we’ve all got that friend…
Second of all, it’s a waste of my time. Ok, sure, it’s only a few seconds per file. But I’m listening to hundreds of files, and I like to listen to them more than once. So after the 20th or 200th name, a few seconds have now turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. You get the gist. I just want to dive into the audition right away.
Third of all, most people slate in their natural voice. So I got to listen to a grown up voice telling me his name and then pretend to be a teenager. But once I’ve heard that you are a grown up, I can’t get it out of my head. All I hear is someone pretending. I can’t picture you as being the character and that’s probably the most damaging consequence.
At that moment in time, I don’t need to know if your voice has range, I want to know if your voice fits the specific character I’m casting. Perhaps, if I was casting for an over the top character it would be different, but I often cast characters that need to feel authentic and real.
I ended up uploading all the auditions that had a slate into my editing software and removed them one by one. I didn’t want to be influenced negatively by the slates.
So here’s my advice:
Don’t slate unless you are specifically asked to. Make the “no slate” the default.
If you must slate, slate in character.
And write your name in the file name, don’t write “take03”; but that’s a different conversation for a different day…There will be another blog on file naming soon
What do you think? Yay, or nay to slates?