Spatial Audio Voice Acting Workshop

I’m offering a free, small-group remote workshop for voice actors interested in exploring performance and storytelling in spatial audio.

We’ll explore how performance changes when characters don’t simply speak into microphones, but inhabit a physical world, where movement, breathing, exertion, reactions, distance, and interaction with the environment can all become part of the storytelling.

What You’ll Get Out of It

Perform. Work with other actors on scenes written or chosen specifically for your group.

Experiment. Explore how movement, proximity, physicality, environment, and other performance choices work differently in scenes designed for immersive audio.

Get Directed. Work live with a director approaching your scene with the needs of a finished production.

Hear the result. Most scenes will be edited, sound designed, and mixed in Dolby Atmos afterward, giving you a chance to hear how your performance choices translate into a finished spatial production.

What is Spatial Audio?

Spatial audio allows dialogue and sound effects to be placed and moved around the listener in three-dimensional space. Unlike strereo, that positional information isn’t limited to left and right or tied to a specific playback setup. It can be experienced in a Dolby Atmos speaker system, or spatially over headphones.

From a creative standpoint, it allows producers to break out of the left/right mindset of a stereo mix, and think more spatially in the construction of a scene. For example, do you design a scene where a group of people sit around a campfire and tell stories from the position of one of the people sitting by the fire, from the perspective of the fire itself in the center, or perhaps from the point of view of a pipe being passed around as the people talk?

How the Workshop Works

Workshops are held remotely in small groups of 3 or 4 actors and will typically run two to three hours.

Based on the responses to the application below, I’ll write original short scenes specifically for the group. During the workshop, we’ll perform and record scenes together, with live direction and discussion.

Afterward, I’ll edit the performances and sound design the finished scenes in a Dolby Atmos spatial mix. Participants will receive most finished scenes at a later date and may use their performances as reel material. Some scenes may be cut in post if they don’t come together well.

Finished scenes may be released publicly. Selected portions of the workshop process may also be shared as educational material with participants who are comfortable doing so.

I’m not an acting coach, and I won’t be teaching you a new acting process. I’m approaching this as a producer/director: working with the process you already have to get the performance the scene needs, while exploring how that performance interacts with movement, environment, sound design, and spatial storytelling.

What You’ll Need

A home recording setup capable of producing clean, professional-quality voice recordings. This should include a good microphone and a quiet, acoustically treated recording space, along with headphones, a computer, and reliable internet for the remote session.

You should already be comfortable recording locally, as well as managing your own recording software and files, while participating in a remote-directed session. This workshop assumes you have an established home recording setup; it is not intended as an introduction to home studio setup and recording technique.

You do not need any special spatial-audio or Dolby Atmos equipment.

Why I’m Doing This

I’m developing new work in spatial audio drama and exploring how performance, direction, and sound design interact with immersive storytelling.

These workshops give me a chance to develop and produce original spatial-audio scenes while working with talented voice actors. The finished work may become part of my portfolio and be shared publicly.

Also, I hope to build relationships with actors whose performances and home recording setups I know firsthand for potential future projects.

Apply for a Workshop

To be considered for a workshop, please fill out the application below, even if we’ve already discussed your participation. This isn’t a competitive audition. It helps me assemble compatible groups and develop material around the actors participating.