Spoken words carry information far beyond what is found in the words themselves. Written words cannot convey inflection, tone, and true meaning, so it is not surprising that a voice-over recording can sound very different than what scriptwriters originally intended. What if there was a simple way to write scripts for voice narration that increases readability, leading to improved accuracy in delivery and minimizing (even eliminating) time-consuming retake sessions?

In this session, you’ll find out how, through using a modified “video treatment” template, conveying information to your voice talent becomes easy! Utilizing simple scripting techniques in your writing will provide your voice talent with all the information they need to make their first takes “golden.” You will acquire easy-to-learn scriptwriting techniques used by broadcast copywriters for decades. You also will learn how to add greater emphasis, clarity, and warmth by writing in active voice and conversational tone. You’ll get tips on how to use simple written directives that assist voice talent, as well as your eLearning developers, in timing voice elements to match visual cues and other effects.

In this session, you will learn:

• How using a modified video treatment as a template allows you to outline and correlate video, image, and audio effects with scripted voice work
• How you can use broadcast writing techniques in eLearning narration to accurately and efficiently convey scripting and inflection information to your voice talent
• How implementing strategies for writing abbreviations, acronyms, and phonetics ensures they are pronounced correctly, adding clarity and minimizing retakes
• How differentiating active voice from passive voice makes your scripts more clear, concise, and authoritative
• How developing writing skills using conversational tone results in a more natural-sounding voice performance that leads to greater learner engagement

Audience:

Novice to intermediate designers and developers. Participants will benefit from any prior experiences writing scripts and/or recording audio from scripts, though neither is required.