Pro edition
Session Pack.
The public page names four things a session needs. This is the pack itself, written for the client rather than the performer — which is the point, because the person who can prevent every problem in it is the one commissioning.
Marking a script
| Mark | Means |
|---|---|
| ALL CAPS on a word | Stress it. Use sparingly — a script with nine capitalised words has none. |
| [square brackets] | Direction, not to be read. "[dry]", "[she already knows the answer]". |
| /slash/ | A breath or a beat. More useful than a comma, which a reader will interpret as grammar. |
| phonetic in {braces} | {NAN-da-KOO-mar}. A rhyme is fine and IPA is not required; what matters is that somebody decided. |
| Line numbers | Every line, even in prose. Pickups reference them and a script without them costs ten minutes per note. |
| Version and date | In the header. Two people reading different drafts is the most expensive thing that happens in a session. |
The pronunciation list
Five categories. Every field has three ambiguities the people inside it have stopped hearing.
- Proper nouns Product names, place names, people. The most common single cause of a pickup, and free to prevent.
- Acronyms Said as letters or as a word? "SQL" has two correct readings and your audience has a preference.
- Numbers 1,200 is "twelve hundred" or "one thousand two hundred". Both are right; only one is yours.
- Foreign words Anglicised or not. Say which — this is a brand decision, not a performance one.
- Anything ambiguous in your industry Every field has three of these and the people inside it stop hearing them.
What comes back
- Format
- WAV, 48 kHz / 24-bit
- Unless your pipeline wants otherwise, in which case say so before the session rather than after.
- Processing
- None by default
- Raw takes, no EQ, no compression. Ask if you want it processed; it is easier to add than to remove.
- Structure
- One file per line, or one long file
- Games want the first, narration wants the second, and nobody wants both later.
- Naming
- PROJECT_SCENE_LINE_TAKE
- Agreed in advance. A folder of 400 files called Audio 001 is a day of somebody's life.
- Takes
- Two per line unless directed
- A safety and a preferred, with the preferred marked. Three is rarely better and always slower.
- Delivery
- Transfer link, 14-day expiry
- Download it. A link is not an archive and it is not a backup.
Pickups
Most of them are free, and that is a commercial decision rather than a generous one.
- Free inside 30 days, for script changes Scripts change. Charging for that makes clients avoid asking, and a compromised take in the final mix costs everybody more than the re-record would have.
- Free, always, for anything I got wrong A mispronunciation I was told about, a direction I missed. This is not a concession; it is the job.
- Charged for a new scene or a rewrite New material is new work. The line is whether the words existed at the session, and it is easy to see from the marked script.
- Same-day if the file is under ten lines Most pickups are two lines. Treating them as a scheduling event rather than a favour is what makes a deadline survivable.
6 ways a session runs long
- An unmarked script, and twenty minutes of a two-hour session spent agreeing how to say a product name.
- Nobody reachable during the session, so every ambiguity becomes three alternates and somebody picks badly a week later.
- A file spec agreed after the record, and a re-export on the day it was needed.
- Line numbers omitted, and every pickup note starting with "the bit where he says".
- Two drafts in the room, discovered at take fourteen.
- Pickups charged by the hour, so the client lives with a take they do not like.
Written for character and games work with a home booth. Broadcast, dubbing and union sessions each add requirements this pack does not cover, and a spec borrowed from the wrong kind of session is worse than a short one written for yours.