Major Project Production Unit - Voice Over Record Day

Voiceover is very important when it comes to this project. I want the viewer to hear the words of the poem as they are watching the visuals on screen pairing the two together creating an unconventional narrative. Since the voiceover is really important in driving the story forwards, I wanted it to be professional sounding and as clear as possible. I arranged a date with Claudia to come in and record with myself and Andreya before we started filming as I also feel its another way Claudia can really hear how I want the story to be delivered in terms of style and tone with her voice.

I picked Claudia up after lunch and brought her to the maidstone studios. I decided to book out the sound recording room as I feel this will enable us to get the best possible sound making her voice as crisp and clear as possible. In the morning, myself and Andreya had a lesson with Fergus on the mixer and audition software to ensure we both knew what we were doing and that we were getting all the levels right when recording. I also felt it was important to do this before Claudia got there so we could go straight in with the recording and minimise time for her.

When Claudia got there I went through the script with her again. I had also printed the words seperate from the script making it easier for her to read line by line without all the descriptions around it. We made notes on each line so she knew the sort of tone I wanted. From previous research I read that the way the character speaks is really important so I made sure I was paying attention to the style of accent that I felt was right. Once this was done we then moved into the recording booth and carried out some tests to make sure all the levels were right. This took a couple of tries but I wanted to make sure the quality of the sound would not be compromised. We then went through the poem line by line doing several takes in different speeds and slight variations in tones to make sure when it came to overlaying the voice over we had different options. This took a while to do but I felt it was vital that this was the way to do it. After the line by line recordings we then went on to record a whole read through twice just to ensure we had a back up of pace and flow incase some of the lines did not work seperatly.

Once we finished myself and Andreya went through all of the voiceover on the computer to ensure that we were happy with the quality and all the lines were clear. We re recorded a couple more lines just because I felt a couple were a bit fast but when that was done we were all finished. I am very happy with how the voiceover day has gone and Im excited to begin filming next week.