The Problem with Speaking Conversationally in Video Tutorials

November 27th, 2008 | Posted in blog 4 Comments »

At the last voice workshop I attended, the instructor (Scott) gave us scripts to read and then critiqued our performance. I tried to imagine myself talking to a friend rather than reading the script, but it didn’t come across with much effect. Scott said I was being too reserved, too monotone.

I realized that my conversation technique with voice overs, which I wrote about with such praise last time, was flawed. When I converse naturally with others, I speak in a boringly flat tone. My colleague has the same problem, only he says he sounds like Eoyre, the donkey on Winnie the Pooh:

I tend to speak in a quiet monotone, so doing voice over takes some extra effort. I have to shut myself in a room so that as I read the script, I can speak up loud enough to get varied tones going. That went all right, but it still didn’t sound natural. (“A Couple of Things I Learned About Captivate Demos Last Week“)

Scott encouraged me to put more energy to it, to inflect more, and add more emotion and feeling. A background in acting would have been helpful.

This week while watching TV I’ve been listening closely to the voices (separating them from the visuals on the screen). I can see what Scott is talking about. Actors aren’t soft-spoken, reserved people. Actors inflect all over the voice spectrum. They have a lot of energy and drama in their voices.

Here’s a graph that reflects that difference in voice inflections.

My natural inflection versus the inflection of voice-over performers and actors

Jane says I can still keep the conversation metaphor, but I have to pretend that I’m talking to the president of the United States.

Ben says that gesturing with his hands helps him inflect more:

I started gesturing a little with my hands while recording. Interestingly, it made a large difference. My tone sounded much more relaxed and conversational. Tonal changes happened in better places. I also read the script with fewer mistakes. So there’s a trick for my bag.

I’m supposed to practice voice overs, and right now my practice is limited to reading children’s books in creative ways to my kids. But if you and I run into each other at a conference sometime, and I’m moving my hands in strange ways, over-inflecting my voice talking about mundane things, bear with me, I’m practicing.

Additional Resources

The Art of Voice Acting, James Alburger
Word of Mouth, by Susan Blu
The Voice Actors Guide to home Recording, by Jeffrey Fisher and Harlan Hogan
There’s Money Where Your Mouth Is: An Insider’s Guide to a Career in Voice Overs, by Harlan Hogan
The Voice Over Bulletin Board
Voice 123
Voices.com

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Stephanie Ciccarelli says:

November 28, 2008 at 8:36 am

Hi Tom,

Thank you for writing about your experiences with coaches and also your journey as a voice over artist.

Another way you can rehearse is to read copy (for practice) off of the back of cereal boxes, print ads, pretend news reports, narrate articles online and also experiment with narration for audio books by joining LibriVox.org, a community I often recommend when voice actors are looking for experience and a supportive group to network with when getting their feet grounded in audio book narration.

Reading to your kids is a great way to rehearse and stretch your skills. I wrote an article about that myself within the last few weeks on my blog VOX Daily ( http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/ ). Keep doing it! It’s good for you but even better for them.

Also I’d like to invite you to check out Voices.com. I’m a little biased but I am confident that if you are finding our competitor’s site to be a good resource, you will love Voices.com.

Thank you again for writing this and I hope you’re having a good holiday.

Best wishes,

Stephanie Ciccarelli
Co-founder of Voices.com

Harry Miller says:

November 29, 2008 at 12:05 pm

I had a small epiphany in high school about energized speaking. I was sitting behind a friend in a row of desks in a classroom, and I made some comment. He didn’t just turn around and flatly say “what?” Instead, he turned, cupped his hand behind his ear, leaned forward and in a high tone said “Ehhhh?” I was just struck by the image of him with his hand behind his ear, something no one actually does, and for which there is no real purpose, and thought how fun it was — he didn’t try to just communicate; he put on a tiny little show. So I try to put that same energy into what I do whenever possible.

Holly says:

December 1, 2008 at 8:36 am

When I travel on business, Delta Airlines always shows sitcoms on the shorter trips instead of movies. I don’t always listen, but I can’t help watching the screen. It’s amazing how demonstrative and animated the actors are. Your friend’s suggestion on using gestures make a lot of sense.

Your voice-over work is another great example of the variety of activities technical writers are drawn into in the course of our work!

Mark Rudden says:

December 3, 2008 at 8:57 am

>>I started gesturing a little with my hands while recording. Interestingly, it made a large difference.

If you’ve ever watched the “behind the scenes” videos of actors doing voiceover for animated movies, you’ll notice that they often gesticulate and move around when speaking. They have facial expressions, too, appropriate to the content. This is a common professional technique for making your voice sound natural and “real”, and anyone doing voiceover will benefit from using it.

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