Introduction
A voice-over is a narration done by usually reading from a script prepared beforehand. The narrator's voice is recorded over a sequence of video clips that tell a story.
Generally you will write the script after shooting the video, or still photographs for a digital story, and then assemble the clips to fit the script. Most of the time, your voice over is recorded prior to assembling and editing the photos and video.
Reading from a script is an art that requires both smooth delivery and emphasizing the key points in the story. Here are some tips for doing these voice-overs.
Warm Up
Read through the script several times to get familiar with it and get over any bumps in your delivery during practice - not while you're recording.
Look especially for words that are going to be hard to pronounce or that you might stumble over. Repeat those words out loud to yourself until you feel comfortable with the pronunciation. Or try doing exaggerated pronunciations of a word several times to get more at ease with just saying it naturally.
Do some facial stretches - opening your mouth wide to loosen up.
Try humming or singing a song to get your voice alive and prepare it for using a range of pitches when you narrate your story.
Say some classic tongue twisters out loud - like "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" - and emphasize each of those words.
To loosen up and sound more conversational, try laughing through the copy. It won't make any sense but it will warm you up and get you to be yourself.
Go to extremes when practicing your script to compensate for problems you have with your voice. For instance, you might try reading the script in a very loud voice if your problem is having too soft a voice.
Do deep breathing exercises - breathing in quickly and deeply several times, and being sure to force out all the air.
Identify Operative Words
Read through your script and underline or highlight the "operative" words - the words that are essential to telling the story.
These are words which, if you only read those words rather than the complete sentences in the script, would still give the listener the gist of the story and what it's about. They're the words the listener needs to hear to stay with the story.
Usually they are the classic who-what-where-when-why-how words - nouns, adjectives, adverbs, titles, names.
Proper names in particular always should be identified as operatives the first time they appear in a script.
Once you've identified the key words that tell your story, you need to add emphasis to those words when reading your script.
You do that in these four ways:
- Volume - Increase or decrease the volume of your voice when saying an operative word. Emphasizing a word by making your voice louder is also called "punching" it.
- Pitch - Change the pitch of your voice when you say an operative word, going up or down the scale, high and low, falsetto to baritone.
- Rhythm - Change the rhythm of your voice - the space between the words - when saying an operative word. Pause before the word, or after the word, or both, to emphasize it. A pause is especially effective before a word that's complex or highly technical in nature. A pause is also effective when you're introducing a new idea in a script.
- Tempo - change the tempo or speed of your delivery to emphasize an operative word. You might pick up the tempo where the copy is less important, and then slow down when you hit a section with more operative words to emphasize them. Or you might stretch out a vowel in an operative word.
- Do NOT emphasis negative words, instead emphasis the verb right after. Also, don't emphasis pronouns, the sound becomes punishing after a while.
Delivery
Besides marking the operative words for emphasis, you also need to mark your breaths on the copy - where you're going to pause to take a breath.
Longer sentences are going to need a breath, usually taken where a comma appears in the script or where new information is introduced.
But don't be too obedient to punctuation. Punctuation in a script is for writing and reading, not speaking. Also, before you start your voice over, turn your head away from the microphone, take a deep breath, and start breathing before turning to the microphone and speaking. Additionally, don't pause for a breath after every sentence. Look for other places within a sentence where you can pause for emphasis and also take a breath.
Similarly don't just pause at the end of a sentence. Look for other natural places - such as the operative words within a sentence - to pause.
Try to sound conversational when you talk - not like you're reading from a script or lecturing to someone. Tell the story, don't read it.
Think about how you would talk with a group of friends and tell a story to them - then adopt that tone when reading your script. Be as animated as you would telling a story to a friend. Stay in the story while you're reading it. Think about what you're saying.
When reading a list of things, vary the pitch and the rhythm of each element of the list to add emphasis and make the list interesting. Don't sound like you're just reading a list in a monotone. Break the lists into threes (3). There is power in three, absolutely no more than seven (7). Three delivers the list most powerfully, after three people tend to get tired of listening. Larger lists can be combined or broken up into more lists.
Open your mouth wide - both laterally and vertically, like a singer. Your voice will be louder and richer if you do.
Don't close your mouth at the end of a sentence. When you're talking that will create a popping sound when you open your mouth again to say the first word in the next sentence.
Keep your chin parallel to the floor - don't look down as that affects the sound of your voice.
You might try frowning when you talk to add authority and credibility to your voice. If you frown you are more serious, and your voice subconsciously changes to a more serious tone, making you sound more credible.
Don't "throw away" the last sentence of your script by letting your voice trail off just because you're at the end of the script.
Be sure the script you are reading from is held up fairly high - just beneath your chin - so your head isn't tilted down, you chin should be parallel to the floor.
Stand up straight and don't slouch - it effects your breathing and the sound of your voice.
Don't breath in by moving your chest and shoulders. Concentrate instead on breathing through your stomach. This will make your voice sound less nasal.
Try holding your hand on your stomach to make sure that you can feel yourself breathing in and out from the diaphragm area, rather than the chest.
Keep your feet slightly apart and don't move them when you talk. Especially avoid shifting your weight from one leg to the other.
Keep your hands loose and at your sides - don't put them in your pockets or clasp them together. Also, don't put them behind your back, it strains your breathing and can be heard on the recording.
Avoid moving your shoulders. Instead put the energy from all that movement into facial expressions and hand gestures.
Gesture with your hands while you're talking. This is one way to make the story sound more conversational.
Use facial expressions, such as raising your eyebrows, to accentuate your face when you're emphasizing a particular point. This again is what you'd do in a casual conversation and comes across in your voice.
Be sure you are very close to the microphone, this will eliminate ambient noise. Wear the monitoring headset, on one ear only so you can hear outside noise, and still be capable of checking the volume levels of your voice.
