I took a short break from recording The Death in the Drink to do some industrial recording; Updates to training videos I voiced last year.
After book chapters that take between 10 – 40 minutes to record, often with three to ten voices per chapter, the “micro-clips” of content seemed SO EASY. I just had to “make them sound like the other ones.”
Famous last words.
There are learning moments hidden in every job, especially when you’re expanding to new things. In this case, stemming from what a client says they want and what they actually want.
Examples of Conflicting Direction:
Words-per-Minute, or Pacing. It’s not just for typing anymore. With my audiobooks, the pacing is mine. It’s the pace I read at, the tempo that sounds good to me. Sure, someday I should probably measure to figure out what my natural pace is, but for now, since I’m the producer, and it is matching the target rate of my distributor, that’s good enough.
Not so with the industrial narration. I listened to last year’s clips to get a sense of timing, and I did my best to recreate the pace. After turning in the first 5 clips, the feedback was that they wanted the new clips faster.
Not a lot faster. Only 2% faster. How do I know? Well, in order to try to get the client to tell me what “faster” was, I took the clips and edited a few of them with different speeds. The client liked the one I made 2% faster. I asked if it still sounded okay or if it sounded too high pitched at the higher speed. They said it was perfect.
In the end, I didn’t have to re-record clips, reading them faster. I just edited them to be exactly 2% faster. The client was happy (but it felt a little bit like cheating). On the other hand, magical editing to be slightly speedier was definitely EASIER for me. And since the client didn’t give me a target speed for the content, and wasn’t on hand to “direct,” editing was a good choice for everyone.
Layout. There’s a reason why newspapers and magazines are laid out a certain way. Columns make it easy to read stories and see advertising. Narration scripts come in all shapes and sizes and fonts and spaceing…but hopefully, they come easy to read.
Not this script.
I could have futzed with the file myself. I could have printed it out and cut and pasted so each clip was on one page, but the moment you bring paper into a recording booth you risk page-turning noise. Screen tapping to turn the digital page usually isn’t noisy, so I prefer digital scripts, readable on the iPad.
Luckily, I learned that this client’s format was problematic during last year’s job. And you can write pretty much anything into a contract. So the agreement for the new work stipulated a digital file that met my criteria for readability OR payment for my time to re-format.
The client was happier to re-format the script than pay me to do so. Tables got converted to text, and it all looked great on my screen…but the language stayed “Powerpoint Style.” Each clip had headings or titles, some description, and bullet points.
Some clients want to HEAR the bullet points because the audio is being synchronized to an actual animation. Bullet points might fly in or fade in. In that case, it is important to have a pause, considering each line as a separate sentence. When I see bullets or lists, I usually tick them off, one, two, three, one on my fingers as I voice the content.
Feedback came in that this client did NOT want those pauses. So I edited them out. After the signoff, I emailed to share an easy way to avoid this sort of thing in the future. First, we could do a quick rehearsal read anytime they wanted. Second, I wrote, “It sounds like you would have preferred that section of the clip to be read like a sentence.”
I showed them the formatting difference between:
The purpose of this course is to:
- CONTENT of CONTENT
- reduce the risk of CONTENT
- and describe CONTENT when CONTENT
“The purpose of this course is to CONTENT of CONTENT, reduce the risk of CONTENT, and describe CONTENT when CONTENT.”
With many clients, a narrator doesn’t have the leeway for back-and-forth conversation. I’m lucky that this is a repeat client and a local company that I anticipate doing ongoing work with. I have the opportunity to help them help me to provide exactly what they want. In this case, a change in formatting was the difference between a 24-hour turnaround and a 48-hour turnaround.
Consistency is key during a read, as is being able to take direction so that the client is happy with the result.
The clips had to sound consistent with the ones I recorded a year ago. (TIP: Archive old notes on jobs you think are “done” in case they need to update content. I’m thinking of starting a “log” of some kind).
When my client reviewed the first batch of clips and said to make them sound, “like you’re reading it,” and to “just read all with no emphasis,” that was an indication that my performance had too much variability (too much of my own personality). We should have done a few more sample reads before recording.
I instinctively (and according to my VO training) emphasize parts of the script based on what seems important. In this case, I tried to keep things conversational, but also with distinct pauses for punctuation, line breaks, and special formatting.
Nope. Not what they wanted to hear. By the end, the clips that met their needs were what I’d call emotionally “neutral” and predominantly “monotone.” That’s not my first choice when listening to training content, but the client is always right. My job is to give them what they want. Luckily I had an instructor at Voice One that made me practice exactly this. Clearly, there’s a market for it.
Because the clips were short, quick to record, and easy to send back and forth, none of this was a big deal, but it is a good reminder to be clear on guidelines and direction before recording, including:
Attitude: How does the voice/narrator feel? What’s the intent of sharing the information?
Audience: Who is this content for? Who do I imagine I’m talking to?
Speed: What is the target WPM? Do you want it to feel slow, standard, quick, fast?
Style: This could be anything, but if you don’t have a director with you for recording, try to get the client to give you at least three adjectives for what they want the content to sound like. Examples are, formal, conversational, critical, salesy, conspiratorial, friendly, helpful, suspicious, regulatory, breezy, sexy, or nutty.
I’m sure there are other ways to improve the direction and guidance I get from industrial clients, and I’m always learning.
Please share any tips or questions you use.
What do you think?