Narration might very well be the lifeblood of your story. It's almost always used for documentaries and news; most information-oriented videos work well with voice-over narration. Voice-over narration is great for how-to videos and commercials.

Generally, voice-over narration is written before the narrator records it. However, there are a few tricks you can use to achieve the effect more easily.

NARRATION IN MOVIE CLASSICS
Occasionally, narration will be used in movies to great affect. The Christmas Story and Forest Gump both come to mind. Those movies are enhanced greatly by the creative use of voice-over narration. It's a great way to reveal character.

HOW DO I START?
When my high school TV production students used to whine that they “didn’t know what I wanted them to say” in their scripts, I’d tell them to pretend they were speaking to a friend. If you wanted to tell a friend your story what would you say? Write that down.

Revise it to sound a little more sophisticated. Move sentences around if need be. Think of better, more descriptive verbs or adjectives.

On the other hand, an interview with an expert is a great way to get a more impromptu voice-over narration without having to write it yourself. Interview an expert, let him speak off-the-cuff, and then use that. The more chatty the better.

Often, we would try to interview the expert while they were actually enganged in an activity, and not just sitting behind a desk. I even interviewed surgeons while they were operating.

Whatever the setting for your interview, you can either show the expert’s face or edit other video over his face and just use his voice. A combination of seeing the expert and seeing other video is usually preferred, especially if it is a desk interview and not an interactive one.

Adding video over your expert talking adds to your story-telling and increases viewer satisfaction. Generally speaking, “talking heads” as interviews are known in TV Land, are considered the most boring way to convey information. Spice up your talking head with other story-telling elements.

COMBINE BOTH METHODS
A third method would be to combine those two methods. Interview an expert and use short portions of it, known as sound bites. Intersperse these sound bites with written narration recorded by the host of your show.

The narration read by the host can simply be an organized paraphrasing of the information your expert gave you but didn’t say succinctly enough to form a good sound bite. Here's how i did it, I'd transcribe my expert interview, highlight the good soundbites and reword the rest.

A good soundbite is short, sweet, and to the point. I always picked out the portions when my subjects were the most articulate and interesting.

This third way is extremely common and is the format followed in 90% of all TV news, which is what I did the majority of my career.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SCRIPT?

PISS OFF MISS PRICKLY-PUSS!
A good script for a video might be one that would make your prim and proper high school English teacher scream. (Go ahead, be sadistic and think of the old bag popping with rage! That's one of the fun things about writing scripts!)

Seriously, video scripts often break every rule followed by academic style writing. Academics want impressive, complex sentences with flowery words.

Good scripts often use a minimal amount of words. Let your pictures speak. Use a conversational style with words that are simple to pronounce and understand. This is NOT the time to impress Miss Prickly-Puss with your vocabulary. Simple words. Few syllables.

Don’t worry about sentence fragments. Sentence fragments are conversational and easily understood by the audience.

Use contractions.

Keep it simple and direct.

Short sentences.

You don't have to describe what the video is, it's better to just allude to it.

This style is often called writing for the ear instead of writing for the eye which, of course, is reading. When you’re reading, “a thousand” obviously means “one-thousand.”

However, if you hear “a thousand,” you might think you heard “eight-thousand.”

READ IT ALOUD

The best way to judge a video script is to read it aloud and listen.

• Does it flow?
• Make sense?

A lot of meaning can come through voice inflection. A good actor can say “good morning” ten different ways, and say ten entirely different things.

Your narrator doesn’t have to have a “professional quality” voice, although it helps.

WHAT MAKES A VOICE PROFESSIONAL?

A good narrator reads slowly and each word is articulated separately. Read with enthusiasm and confidence. Inject some “I’m happy” emotion into your voice. No need to be shy!

Practice.

Read it again. Slower this time

Each word is said distinctly.

Breath through your mouth, stand up straight and smile.

If you don‘t want to narrate it yourself, hire a professional. Although you might be paying her $200 an hour, the narrator is a critical element for your audience and it might be money well spent. Handing your narrator an organized, completed script means she can be done in a half-hour session.

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