I’d Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson

At the last voice workshop I attended, the instructor (Scott) gave us scripts to read and then critiqued our performance. I tried to imagine myself talking to a friend rather than reading the script, but it didn’t come across with much effect. Scott said I was being too reserved, too monotone.

I realized that my conversation technique with voice overs, which I wrote about with such praise last time, was flawed. When I converse naturally with others, I speak in a boringly flat tone. My colleague has the same problem, only he says he sounds like Eoyre, the donkey on Winnie the Pooh:

I tend to speak in a quiet monotone, so doing voice over takes some extra effort. I have to shut myself in a room so that as I read the script, I can speak up loud enough to get varied tones going. That went all right, but it still didn’t sound natural. (”A Couple of Things I Learned About Captivate Demos Last Week“)

Scott encouraged me to put more energy to it, to inflect more, and add more emotion and feeling. A background in acting would have been helpful.

This week while watching TV I’ve been listening closely to the voices (separating them from the visuals on the screen). I can see what Scott is talking about. Actors aren’t soft-spoken, reserved people. Actors inflect all over the voice spectrum. They have a lot of energy and drama in their voices. Read the rest of this entry »

Whereas an announcer just reads a script, a voice-over performer imagines who he is, who he's talking to, and where.

A few weeks ago I tweeted about an interesting voice over site, and my friend Kevin, who runs the Short Cummings Audio podcast, replied that a local voice-over guru in Salt Lake, Scott Shurian, gives workshops on voice.

I wanted to improve my voice-based video tutorials, podcasts, training, and presentations, so I thought I’d check it out. Scott is a nice guy and was willing to trade a blog install/design for the cost of the workshop (which lasts several weeks).

A voice over is a voice narration from a performer whom you can’t see, who reads a script in an engaging way according to the context of the script. For example, many commercials employ voice overs from professionals.

The difference between voice-over performers and announcers, Scott says, is that voice-over performers get outside of themselves, whereas announcers merely read a script. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a guest post by Ryan Schmid. Ryan has worked as a Senior Technical Writer and Information Developer in St. Louis, Missouri for nine years. He has previously been published in Intercom. Contact: schmidr@gmail.com.

The August 2008 issue of Technical Communication analyzed the growing domain of virtual worlds. I contributed an article about the large amount of written text they contain. This seems surprising, given their reliance on visual and three-dimensional presentation. Even the most “action-oriented” worlds are forced to use text to express concepts such as location names, character names, and the representation of currency. They also use text for chat windows, instructions, signs, and advertisements. One must conclude that written text is an essential method of communication in these environments.

I asked Tom if he had ever explored this topic. He sent me this link.

While I can sympathize with Tom’s comments about Second Life, it’s just one of many virtual worlds. Many others in development have not yet been released. We shouldn’t condemn an entire medium and potential field of work because of one example. Second Life and other worlds like Twinity are designed to promote socialization and commerce. Others, such as Everquest II and World of Warcraft, provide deep gaming experiences. The different categories of virtual worlds are blurring as users create games within Second Life and withdraw real cash from Everquest II and its “Live Gamer” trading system.  Read the rest of this entry »

Did you see the STC’s call for proposals for the next annual conference in Atlanta? Last year I presented on podcasting. The 55 people who commented on my session rated it higher than average (the rating was around 4.6 as opposed to the 4.3 average). I think my presentation was good, but most people wanted me to connect it more to technical communication. They wanted to see how technical material could be presented as a podcast, I believe.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Duration: 20 min.

In this podcast, rich media specialist Todd O’Neill explains how to add video to your training and documentation deliverables. Many technical writers are intimidated by the learning curve, equipment costs, and software they think they need to create video, but actually you can create engaging videos with minimal equipment (e.g., $150 for a Flip video camera) and using software you probably already have (e.g, Windows Movie Maker or iMovie).

In this podcast, Todd lays out the basics for those who know nothing about video. He explains the equipment you need, techniques for minimizing editing time, ways to publish the video online, filming techniques to focus on, and creative ways to package your video for your users.

For more information, see Todd O’Neill’s blog at http://doingmedia.net.

Note: I recorded this podcast at Doc Train 2008 in Vancouver, Canada.

I watched a couple of interviews this week that spiraled downhill. The first is a Luke Burbank interview with the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. The second is a Sarah Lacy SXSW interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m proud to announce that Camtasia Studio is a new sponsor for my blog. I’ve been using Camtasia Studio to create video tutorials for the past month, and I really like it. I was converted to voice tutorials rather than caption-based tutorials when a user told me he preferred voice 10 to 1. I also prefer voice rather than captions, and voice-screen-demos are a lot easier to create, too.

Read the rest of this entry »