Trying to Find a Theater Stage/Voice for an Impossible Situation
January 14th, 2010 | Posted in blog 13 Comments »
In a recent design review meeting, I showed some of my screencasts to our team for feedback. We also reviewed some screencasts created by voiceover talents in our audiovisual department and screencasts created by trainers. In listening to my voice in the screencasts, it’s clear that I still have a lot to learn. I’m not even close to the personal, conversational-sounding audio voice that I want to achieve. It sounds like I’m reading a script. It’s slow and dull.
My teammates recommended that I read a little faster, that I add more inflection and maybe even switch to an outline rather than read a script.
I agree, but it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to develop that personal voice. It’s not a technical problem to simply figure out. It’s a theater art, and I have no background in theater. (Okay, in 8th grade I had a one-line role in Oliver Twist.)
As I’ve been reading voiceover books on Google, clearly the consensus is that you need to implement some acting. You have to imagine a situation, what character you are, who the audience is, and the situation you’re in. This theatrical situation is exactly what a local voiceover coach said the very first day of a workshop I attended.
Voiceover pro James R. Alburger also emphasizes the role of acting in voiceovers:
Remember, voice acting is theater of the mind, and you are the actor. When you become the character in the copy, you will be believable to the audience, and a suspension of disbelief will be created. When the audience suspends their disbelief in what they hear, they become more open to the message. This all starts when you discover the character in the copy. (The art of voice acting: the craft and business of performing for voice-over)
Voiceover professional Bob Bergen gives similar advice:
“Acting, acting, acting!!! No matter what kind of VO [voiceover] work you are trying to break into, it’s all about the acting. . . . The obvious trait that animation voice actors have is the ability to change their voice to match characters . . . you have to be believable. There is no such thing as a good voice! Everyone has a good voice! If you listen to radio and TV you hear very real, non-announcer-y, guy/gal next door reads. It’s oh so much harder to be real than it is to be announcer-y!” (quoted in Voiceovers: Techniques and Tactics for Success, by Janet Wilcox)
In other words, good voiceover involves acting. The problem is that in commercial voiceovers, the situations are more story-driven. Sure, they could take place on a stage in a situation with characters. But in instructional writing, you’re saying mundane sentences like click this, select that. Do this to create a new widget, and then save it, etc. I’m practically falling asleep writing this sentence.
Inflect your instructional script with some interesting pitch and emotion, add some drama and soul to it, twist a word here and there, and you end up converting the instructional script into a ridiculous soap opera. Click this. Now SELECT this button …. and when you’re ALL finished, go ahead and save the information.
On what kind of stage could an instructional script like that take place? I’ve said in past posts that you can imagine yourself sitting in a cafe explaining to a friend how to use a software application. But somehow that isn’t enough. You’re still yourself, the user is too ordinary, and the setting is mundane.
But perhaps it isn’t. The real problem in this situation is that a click-this, select-that script WOULD NEVER BE AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION THAT YOU HAVE IN A CAFE WITH A FRIEND. Can you really imagine yourself sitting across from Jim, a technical novice, saying Now Jim, in order to create a new group on your dashboard [sip your Coca Cola], you first click the Settings menu, then select New, choose the Group type, add the people you want to the group [take a bit of a Cuban sandwich]. Configure the attributes of the group you want by selecting the check boxes. [Chew food.] Then click Save. [ Wipe corners of mouth with napkin.] Refresh your page and you will see the new group …
No. In a cafe, you would give a conceptual overview of the application, briefly describing the basic idea of a group and how it functions on the dashboard and within the larger purposes of the application.
Doc Guy explained this same idea in our review. He said,
When I choose to watch a video about software, I expect it to be a general overview, not full of specific steps to take to walk through an entire procedure. If I want the specific steps, I’ll go to the written help material.
During our discussion, I showed a sample video from my favorite screencaster, Michael Pick of WordPress.tv. Here’s his screencast on Carmen, the latest WordPress version released.
Don’t focus on the pace (which is much faster than my screencasts). Don’t listen to the Jazz music, which always add to the voice’s appeal. Instead, listen to the script itself: it’s general. It’s an overview. It’s conceptual. Specific, granular steps are not narrated in painstaking detail. It really is something you might hear a friend explaining in a cafe.
So perhaps I doom my own screencasting efforts by creating impractical scenarios and then kicking myself for my inability to make it sound conversational. I can’t simply single source my screencasting scripts with my procedural help topics. The real first step in creating an engaging script, I believe, is to be honest about exactly the type of dialogue that might take place on the stage of your cafe.
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Tags: acting, doc guy, performance, Screencasting, screencasting, voice, voice acting, voiceover
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Interesting post, I like the way you highlight the critical elements of compelling communication. You need to know your audience, the medium, the context, and the subject matter. If any one of them changes, the communication needs to change if you want to maximize effectiveness.
You also nicely illustrate an often downplayed aspect of single-sourcing. It sacrifices a certain amount of effectiveness for efficiency. There are times when that is the right choice, but you should make that choice only after understanding and accepting the trade-off.
Richard, thanks for your comment. You’re definitely right about the single sourcing trade-off. In my efforts to use what I felt were ready-made scripts, I overlooked the fact that they didn’t quite fit the new environment. I know this discussion has a lot of applications in other help materials outside of screencasts. It’s a good point to keep in mind.
If you listen to the podcast you recorded in the car driving to speak to your old STC chapter in Florida…that is your voice. It is natural and comes from inside. Use that voice and you will be fine.
Thanks Bruce. It’s nice to know you remember that podcast. One difference there is that I’m not reading a script, so I’m more natural. I will have to experiment with an outline, but it seems like when I record company podcasts, I feel safer reading something.
Almost a year ago I joined Toastmasters to learn more about public speaking. Based on that experience and a lot of reading about public speaking, my suggestion is; Don’t read a script.
You can write one, you can read it aloud while editing, you can rehearse it, but don’t read it. Reading a script tends to flatten your delivery. The next word that you read is no more or less important than the last. The keyword here is “rehearse.” If you write a script, rehearse it over and over until you know it. Don’t worry about memorizing it, which may get you hung up on insignificant errors that no one else will notice.
You’ll really feel safer when you understand the material well enough to explain it without reading a script.
One of the reasons the WordPress dude sounds great is his accent (adds a touch of class that we North Americans can’t match). But for me it’s distracting; I’m hearing his lovely voice instead of his message.
Your video is excellent. The pace is slow, but that might be what a novice user requires. Have you ever asked your audience what they think? They might be happy with it just the way it is.
Maueve, thanks for your feedback. I hadn’t thought of accents as a distraction, but you’re right. We try to be invisible to the message. (Of course if I had a cool British accent, I wouldn’t hide it.) I think in the UK, there is a slight preference for American accents.
I still need to gather user feedback. The videos are too new to really evaluate. Mostly users are just excited to actually have a video (rather than just written documentation). Thanks again for your comment.
Very interesting, the issue of (instructional) video is just coming up in my job. The video you include sounds more like a sales pitch than a manual, I think… and that is probably why it’s effective and spoken naturally. It’s a difference in perspective: the user doesn’t want to hear about a bunch of steps to learn about the outcome, they want to hear about the outcome and oh yes, so how do you do that?
Going back to your conversation analogy, it’s interesting to explore what kind of conversation you _could_ have about a GUI. E.g. you would say, ‘Did you know that GMail has a word processor? It’s at the top of the screen.’ (Meaning the link that gets you to Google Docs is at the top of the GMail screen –GMail doesn’t ‘have’ a word processor.) But you wouldn’t spell out every step of the procedure.
This is like someone in the street asking you the location of the nearest gas station; if the description goes beyond 3 or 4 turns and crossings, it’s pointless to get them to remember, and all you can do is just wave in the general direction and mention the street name.
This is perfectly reflected in this video: when a task is described, it’s expressed in a single interaction (“You can edit the image by clicking the Edit image button”). The video even often avoids mentioning a control at all (I had to pay close attention to find out what you need to do to rotate.)
On the flip side, the video is not very instructive. There is zero information on how to navigate from one screen to another, and after watching the video I (who am unfamiliar with this app) would have serious trouble performing the tasks described. All I know is that there is a control that does X for me; where to find it is another matter.
Zeptimius, thanks for your comment. I like your analogy of getting directions to the nearest gas station. You’re right — I usually stop listening after the third “turn this” step.
I think the video can’t replace written instructions entirely. Perhaps the video should refer users to step-by-step instructions if they need it. (Maybe even a link could appear in the video that users could click to find more specific detail.)
In the case of the WordPress Carmen video, the audience is mainly users who are already familiar with the application. They’re just learning about the latest enhancements to something they already use. But yeah, I would still like a step-by-step reference somewhere.
How i could get the books like “voice over books” in Google, does i can buy that ?
“How i could get the books like “voice over books” in Google, does i can buy that ?”
wow…i can has cheezburger? in the wild
An interesting tip I came across recently is to look at your script and sing a few sentences to the tune of a familiar song. Take Happy Birthday for instance, sing as best you can some lines of your script and then try recording your speaking voice. Mostly you should find it helps your delivery.
There’s an interesting book by Roger Love called Setting your Voice Free which I also recommend. He starts off by helping you to analyze your voice and provides targeted exercises to help you improve. (http://www.rogerlove.com)
Tom,
As a soon-to-be graduate of a technical communication program (master’s program at Auburn University in Alabama), this post was very interesting yet terrifying to me at the same time. In my two years of tech comm coursework, the thought of someday having to record an instructional audio file never crossed my mind, if you can believe that! I guess because, like you said, I can’t imagine having to use voice inflections (not to mention tone down my Southern accent) while reading directives such as “Click here to open X file” and “save early and often!” Not to mention, I have never like the sound of my voice when played back to me.
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the wake-up call and that I think you are so right: you are not narrating your experience on an African safari and shouldn’t be expected to sound like it.