- In this video,
I'm going to show you how to achieve an authentic,
conversational voiceover.
(chill beat)
My name's Chris.
And today I'm gonna look at why so many people are asking
for voiceovers to be conversational,
and how this can best be achieved.
It's probably easiest to start
by what isn't meant by a conversational voiceover.
And that's typically known as the announcer voiceover.
This is when someone is talking at you,
as opposed to to you, like this.
(beeping)
- [Announcer] Unclaimed freight notice this weekend
at American Freight, over 1000 truckloads
of living room furniture.
Seven piece living room groups
that include a sofa, loveseat, coffee table,
two end tables, and two designer lamps.
- Over the last decade especially,
there's been a clear shift from talking at someone
from a place of authority,
to talking to them from a place of authenticity.
Essentially, it's about being a real person,
about sharing your personal testimony.
And this is why the analogy of talking to a best friend
is often given when trying to direct a voiceover
to be more conversational.
Because those frank conversations that we have
with our friends are most trustworthy,
most authentic, and most credible.
It is a personal offering of experience, and advice,
not a transaction.
Check out this advert, for Rightmove.
(calm music)
- [Woman] This is the place we are happy.
This is where we--
(painting)
(hose spraying)
And where we--
(alarm beeping)
(brushing teeth)
- [Man] This is where we bring home--
(baby crying)
- [Woman] And where we bring home--
(cat meowing)
- [Man] This is where we grow up.
(calm music)
- [Woman] And where we don't.
- [Man] This is where she--
(calm music)
And where she--
And where we--
- [Woman] This is where we are us.
(calm music)
- Now I'm currently in the process
of actually searching for a house myself.
So this probably did strike a particular chord for me,
but essentially what I'm talking about
is completely born out by this adver.
There is no authorial voice telling you
how great the platform is.
It's steady, it's understated,
it's almost confessional, it's heartfelt, and it's real.
If you think of voiceover as a spectrum,
with the hard sell being on one side,
then the other extreme isn't conversational.
The other extreme is completely flat
without any intonation or emotion whatsoever.
So it's a balancing act
that you have to navigate from project to project.
So rather than asking a question,
is a script conversational or not?
You've gotta place it's somewhere
on that spectrum, to some degree.
So let's start my 10 tips on how to get
a more conversational delivery.
Tip one, don't get too loud.
If you're talking to loads of people,
then obviously you're gonna be projecting
to a certain degree.
But if you're actually having a conversation
with a friend in a pub, or any kind of similar scenario,
then you're rarely gonna get too loud,
unless you're particularly angry with them.
So if you find yourself getting loud,
or projecting too much during a conversational read,
you know that it's something that you'll need to adjust.
The essence of a conversational read
is sharing information with someone,
engaging their reaction, and responding organically.
Then if you're being very loud,
then you're not really monitoring their response
to what you're saying in the first place.
So if you find yourself getting loud,
and you're not supposed to be angry,
then it probably means that you're pushing too much.
Tip two, make a clear choice
about who you're actually speaking to.
And I don't just mean a friend.
Quite often, a voiceover will be told
to imagine they're talking to their
best friend about a particular subject.
But the problem with that is that the voiceovers'
best friend might not actually be interested
in the subject of the project.
Instead, it is much more useful to imagine
that the person that you're speaking to
has a vested interest in the subject
that you're talking about.
Tip three, have an emotional state.
And I don't mean a heightened emotion,
but have an opinion about what you're talking about,
and how that makes you feel.
The vast majority of scripts set up a problem,
and then introduce the product,
or service, or brand, as the solution.
And you need to have a very clear idea
about how each one of those stages makes you feel.
You might start frustrated, and then feel relief.
You might start angry, and then feel ecstatic.
The important thing is to be clear
about those emotional stakes and invest in them.
Step four, speak from your throat
rather than from your diaphragm.
Especially if you're a trained actor,
you quite often want to get on voice and start projecting.
And that's fine if you're actually acting on stage,
but generally, and this combines
with what I was originally saying about volume,
it'll end up being too much on a microphone.
Instead, you really need to imagine
that you're speaking very very close
to the other person next to you.
Like you're in a pub for example.
In real life heartfelt conversations,
we tend to speak from our throat
because otherwise really resonating from the diaphragm
becomes a bit too forceful.
It essentially goes back to projecting at someone,
rather than talking to them.
Tip five, if you're listening through headphones,
then take them off.
Or at least take one of them off
so that you can actually hear your own voice.
Listening to our own voice through our headphones
as we're speaking, makes us even more conscious
of the sounds that we're making.
So conversely, if you take the headphones off,
you'll have more energy and focus to spend on the person
that you're actually talking to, rather than how you sound.
Obviously during directed live sessions,
you can't completely take your headphones off
because you're gonna be getting feedback
live from the person on the other end of the line.
So rather than being dependent
on taking the headphones completely off,
just try taking the one headphone off
during your day to day recording.
Tip six, play with elisions and contractions.
Sometimes the script really does need to be incredibly clear
and specific, and that's absolutely fine,
but sometimes that runs the risk of sounding a bit robotic.
And that's not how we sound in real life.
That's not how we sound in real life.
(clicking tongue)
So it's always worth checking with the client in advance,
if you can make little adjustments like changing
a you are into a you're,
to make it all flow a little bit better.
Tip seven, play with rhythm.
If the authoritative voice,
the announcery voice is generally quite consistent
in tone and rhythm,
because it knows exactly where it wants to go.
Conversational voice has a lot
more ebb and flow to it, generally.
Sometimes we know exactly where we want to go
to make a point, but often we're searching.
So you have all of these suspensions and stumbles.
I wouldn't recommend just inserting lots of ums and ahs
to try and represent a form of authenticity.
But I would say, be aware of the ebbs and flows
of normal speech and try and replicate that,
rather than just being consistent and definite.
Tip eight, think in terms of thoughts, rather than words.
Quite often, especially in announcery reads,
we're thinking about the how,
rather than about the why.
In other words, how we're sounding
rather than why specifically we're speaking.
In more conversational reads,
the focus is really on the why,
why we're sharing this with our friend.
It's not about the exact words that we choose, but how.
So having a clear understanding about the actual ideas
that you're trying to communicate
is much more important for a conversational read.
Tip nine, try a lead in.
Sometimes you can be so concerned about sounding right
from the very first word,
that you can barely even speak
when you get to the microphone.
So try improvising a bit of the conversation
that you might actually be having with the person
that you're speaking to,
so that the copy comes organically from that exchange
rather than just starting.
And tip 10, physicality.
When we're talking to our friends, then we gesture.
We express ourselves through our hands, and our physicality,
as well as with our words.
Essentially, you're sharing your emotional state
and therefore you need to be expressive both physically
and vocally, rather than instructive or objective.
Going back to tip three about having an emotional state,
this must be reflected in how you are
whilst actually delivering the text.
Even if it's a very simple imagined activity,
like the frustration of putting on a watch
that doesn't quite fasten,
or the relaxation of lying back and having a cigarette.
These will all subtly change the way
you actually engage with the listener,
without you having to focus on how you're sounding.
Even thinking in terms of the different clothes
that you might be wearing,
could influence your physicality in a useful way.
For example,
if you're wearing something quite formal and restrictive--
(upbeat music)
Then that could give you a certain sense of status
and authority, as opposed to just sitting in a tee shirt.
All of these things might adjust
your performance only fractionally,
but they're useful to be aware of.
Just to give as an example,
I'd like to share two different readings of the same script.
One, which has a bit more weight to it,
and one which is closer to a more conversational tone.
First, let's try a quite standard corporate read.
(upbeat music)
Work.
Life.
Balance.
Three tiny words.
An impossible equation that humankind has tried
to solve for centuries.
What would it mean to your life
if you could achieve all of your goals?
If family, fitness, and personal finance
could come together with career progression
and big promotions?
Introducing Wequilibrium, a productivity app
that seamlessly brings together
your personal and professional goals
into a streamlined schedule
that puts your dreams within reach.
Download it for free at Wequilibrium.com today.
So physically, I'm gonna think about being less on voice,
taking one of my headphones off, speaking from the throat,
rather than going down into my chest resonance.
And rather than speaking to a generalized audience,
I'm gonna imagine that I'm speaking to someone
who shares exactly the same problems as me,
that they're struggling to get the work life balance right.
As a result, maybe the physicality
is gonna be a little bit more fidgety to begin with.
I'll try and play with the rhythm a little bit more.
As if I'm discovering these thoughts
as I'm actually having them,
and I might also try a couple of lead-ins,
which can then be cut out in editing.
I tell you, work.
Life.
Balance.
My God, they're just three tiny words.
An impossible equation that humankind
has tried to solve for centuries.
What would it mean to your life
if you could achieve all of your goals?
If family, fitness, and personal finance
could come together with career progression,
and big promotions?
Well, there is something that worked for me.
Introducing Wequilibrium, a productivity app
that seamlessly brings together your personal
and professional goals into a streamlined schedule
that puts your dreams within reach.
You can even download it for free at
Wequilibrium.com today.
Okay.
So I'm not saying that one read is better than the other,
but I am saying that there are some very clear variables
that we can adjust depending on how conversational
we actually want the script to sound.
Thanks so much for watching.
And if you did find this video useful,
then please do like and subscribe,
and I'll bring you something new next week.
Take care for now.