A great voiceover is one that not only gives information to the viewer, but also gives them a sense of your brand and conveys emotion. You might want the viewer to feel reassured that they’ll be in safe hands with your services, or that they’re hearing about a new product from a trusted friend. The delivery of the script will frame how the viewer thinks about the information they’re given.
At Casual Films, we get the most out of our voiceovers by directing sessions as a team with our clients, keeping the message on brand.
The sound mix is where your video really starts to come to life and becomes a polished product. We take the dialogue recorded on set and clean it up, correcting for an echoey room or removing background noise. We apply EQ to make things sound more natural and improve intelligibility. If there’s music in the video we smoothly lower the volume when there’s dialogue so that two elements aren’t fighting for attention.
Edits that have been made already by the editor are looked at in much more detail. For example, we might very subtly change the speed of the music so that key hits match up precisely with the visuals.
We’ll also add sound design at this point, particularly if it’s an animation. This means placing in extra sound effects like whooshes to lend more weight to movement or rising tones to increase tension. We’ll also put in sound effects for things visible in the video that didn’t have sound recorded for them on set. Adding in footsteps and suitable background atmospheres like the hubbub of a cafe or gentle birdsong can really heighten the authenticity of the video for the viewer.
For animation, sound design can really complement the visuals and bring them to life. We have a blank canvas, and the sounds we choose to add don’t necessarily have to be realistic. We may want to use sounds that have a more playful quality or that evoke cutting edge, futuristic technology.