Hey Reader,

When I started performing Audio Description, pickups seemed pretty cut and dry; it’s my voice replacing an old line with a new line. Easy, right? Well, one of the very first pick ups I did when I listened back …, yeah, it was my voice, but there was a lot that just seemed off!

That initially threw me, until I learned some ways to make sure it slid in just right, like a baton moving from one runner to the other at a relay race.

And this goes for most areas of voiceover, not just Audio Description: A pickup is a line you record after the original session. Could be 3 minutes or 3 weeks or even 3 months later. Maybe a word changed, a cue got rewritten, a phrase got added, a performance note, those sorts of things. So you go back into the booth, record only that piece, and it gets dropped into what you already recorded.

In most Audio Description work, time is the enemy because the line has to fit between lines of dialogue. There's almost never enough of it.

With pickups, time is the stretch between your original session and the pickup session.

A lot can change in that stretch:

• Your mic settings
• Your recording space (especially if you're traveling)
• Your voice that day
• The intent you brought to the original line

The last one can be the hardest to match.

People talk about matching in dubbing: lip flap, voice match. Pickups use the same skill, except the voice you're matching is YOURS. And the sound is only half of it. You're also matching what you meant when you read that line weeks ago.

If the pickup sits by itself, with five minutes of silence on either side, it's easier, there’s some forgiveness to being off a little when the surrounding audio isn’t yours. But most pickups aren't like that. Usually it's a phrase or a sentence that goes into the middle of a full cue, with other cues around it. If it doesn't match, a blind viewer hears the seam. It sounds patched in, and it pulls them out of the story.

So here's what I do. Before I record a pickup, I play the original cue, plus the cue before it and the cue after it. I find the intent I brought to the original line, and I match that first. Then I match the sound.

Pickups is the November workout theme in the AD Playback Lounge. Here's what goes into a month like this one:

I start with a theme, usually something I struggled with when I started out. Then I find four movie or tv show scenes, and the Audio Description script for each one. Most scripts don't arrive lined up with the video. Some have no out times. Some come without the video at all. So I remap every timecode in and out (the hours, minutes, seconds and frames where each line starts and stops) until the script matches the scene.

Then I write and record five videos: an intro that sets up the month, and one lesson for each week's scene. A new workout goes live every Monday morning.

Each month also has two live hours on Zoom. Training starts as a lecture and usually turns into practice anyone can jump into. In group coaching, a member picks a scene from the workout, performs it, and I give notes. If a lot of people show up, I add another session so each group coaching session stays small. People get the benefit of a more close setting, get the benefit of hearing others, and help build up the community - rising tide lifts all ships kinda thing.

Both sessions are recorded, so if you can't make it live, the replays are waiting. Members can also post their reads in the community and get feedback. Plenty of members never post. They watch and practice on their own, and that works too.

Behind all of this is a lot of logistics: payments, reminder emails, the schedule, the website. The creative half is making each lesson clear to someone who's been doing this for years and someone on day one.

The Lounge has been running for over a year. The archive has more than 50 Audio Description scripts to practice with, plus more than a 30 hours of prerecorded training and group coaching replays.

It's what I wish I'd had when I started. Specific craft, practiced to picture, without a full-time class I'd have to rearrange my life around.

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what if before the holidays hit, you’ve got the confidence for supporting the people that hire you in one more way, making those back to the drawing board rewrites a little easier for directors and producers?

November's pickups first of four workouts is live now. The Lounge is $39 a month, and you can learn more and join at RoySamuelson.com/lounge.

Roy