"D'jeat yet?"
"No.
D'ju?"
"Yup."
"Well, gotta go."
"See ya later."
"Yeah, g'luk."
d. This example may be a little exaggerated, but it was used in one
effective educational program.
The point is we want to make our spoken
audio as conversational as possible.
e. Naturally, some subjects require a more sophisticated approach.
Largely, the matter of conversational audio is common sense. Write for the
ear of the student.
3.
Voice-over and character.
There are two types of spoken audio.
"Voice-over" is audio that we hear spoken, but the person doing the speaking
is not on camera, we can't see him on the screen.
Character writing is
audio for characters; the person doing the speaking is on camera.
a. Character writing. No two people talk exactly alike. When writing
spoken audio for two or more characters, it is important to make a
distinction between their speech habits. This distinction between character
types is easy to take into account when writing, as long as you have a firm
idea what your characters are like.
If a character is a Texan, his part
must be written as a Texan. Accents may be annotated by parenthetical note
in the spoken audio.
b. Voice-over.
The tendency when writing voice-over is to make the
narrator sound like a narrator. In other words, often a narrator's spoken
audio has been written in an unnatural "learned" style. While your narrator
should be well informed, there is no reason why he should sound stilted.
Write voice-over audio so that it sounds natural and is easy to read. You
can check your success at accomplishing this by having several people read
the narrator's spoken audio, and see if it sounds stilted. Voice-over audio
must be indicated by parenthetical note, (V.0.), on the audio side of the
script.
4.
Sound effects. The use of sound effects can be very helpful in making
scenes more realistic. Sound effects are written in parentheses: (sound of
a dog barking). Special care should be taken however, to ensure that sound
effects are relevant and useful, not costly distractions. Music, one kind
of sound effect, must remain consistent with the visual action. Generally,
music is most effectively used when introductory, or as transition or
closing.
The selection of music for visual information programs is
regulated to some extent by copyright laws.
Generally, any recording
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