Week One

Motivation

I remember being unable to explain to my friends why I was in tears during our high school choir field trip to see The Nutcracker. It was just so much beauty. The otherworldly music with the snow queen almost floating onto the stage and all the ethereal blue and white of the set and the lights . . . it was too much. It HIT me, all the way to my heart. As an artist, photographer, filmmaker, or writer, the goal is always to get to that feeling—to hit my audience all the way to their heart. That audience starts, always, with myself. If I’m not feeling it, I don’t actually care if anyone else does. It has to pull all the right cords in my own heart before I even begin to think about trying to reach someone else. So as you work through this workshop, or do any projects or jobs or anything else, start there. From a promo video, to a commercial or client job, to your own personal work, start with your own heart. It is uniquely yours, the birthplace of your voice, and the only place you should look to find your own elements of style.

I won’t go too much here into finding your own voice and style. Odds are, you’re quite familiar with who you are and how you express it, even if you don’t realize it. In my experience, it is really hard to get away from myself in my work, even if I try. From the music you’re drawn to, the kinds of images you love to produce, to the words you create or choose, you will be uniquely you. Don’t try to be anyone else. Use the best parts of what you produce in any medium, and see if you can take it to a new level in the next.


Examples of well-done voiceover in popular media

You may be wondering what in the world this exact genre of filmmaking is as you begin on this project. What is the practical application? I mean, of course we all love to express ourselves and these short videos with voiceover will certainly provide a new opportunity. But where can we find these films in the wild, so to speak?

The easiest way to spot an emotionally-packed short film with voiceover is by watching ads. Promotional videos and advertisements are created by trying to get across a message, elicit an emotional response, and call someone to action based on those two things, and they do it FAST and effectively. Ads are 30-60 seconds long, and sometimes even shorter. Talk about intentional editing! The experts in these fields know exactly what kinds of images, sounds, and words work together in exactly the right combinations and timing to reach people on subconscious levels. Just watch a Carl’s Junior ad and try not to crave a burger. Even if you have no desire to buy a luxury car, you can’t help but be intoxicated by the idea when you watch a Lexus commercial. The ads now have to have even more impact because we can pretty much skip them. We have to WANT to watch them, or we will just scroll past. Have you ever been sucked into an ad well-past the time when the “Skip Ads” button appears? Yeah, me too. They did their job well.

Examples of ads (find better ones than what I used up there)

Take a personal example here. I had been trying to advertise a retreat for mom photographers and their daughters for months. I had beautiful images, I’d written heartfelt captions and talked about it at length in my Instagram stories. I had a few little bites of interest, but no one was signing up. I finally took the time to throw together a pretty poorly done promo video with some voiceover and footage of my interview with my daughter. I edited the text, footage, still images, and music together very thoughtfully, with the actual goal of making people cry. Not just people, but photographers with tween daughters. I had a very specific target. I am no expert, I just used my own feelings as a guide to what might work. (I am the target audience after all!) After all those months of trying to advertise without success, I sold out my retreat in 2 hours after I posted my promo video. Everyone who signed up (and many who didn’t) said the video made them cry. Sweet! Even with all the rookie mistakes I made while putting this together, people couldn’t help but be emotionally connected to my relationship with my daughter, all the emotions you have as a tween, and the idea of coming together creatively.

The next place you will find perfect examples is in cinema. Opening monologues and closing scenes of movies will often employ what could be a free-standing short film that introduces or wraps up the theme of the story. Sometimes this is the only time in the film they use voiceover, and sometimes they use it throughout. If done well, it doesn’t matter how often its used.

In this clip from the opening scene of Love Actually, Hugh Grant’s voiceover introduces the theme of the movie, while the images of non-actors greeting each other in an airport terminal lends a authenticity to the theme, an also introduces the idea of an ensemble narrative, as the movie employs 9 separate stories all linked by one theme. What a powerful few seconds! It also packs an emotional punch on its own with a few carefully chosen words that immediately connect us to our own experiences.

My favorite example, from the film About Time is almost a mixture of a family film and a documentary montage like the one in Love Actually. While the first section wraps up the moral and emotional lessons of the story as we follow our main character through a typical morning with his family, the second half brings the lessons home by reminding us that these lessons can be applied to anyone, and specifically, to us. Again, the last minute can stand completely on its own without context. I tear up every single time I watch this clip, and that’s a pretty amazing feat for a movie about time travel, wouldn’t you say? But I especially want you to watch how the voiceover allows us time to think about the words, gives the music and images time to speak for themselves, gives us context through which to experience it, isn’t necessarily poetic, and isn’t at all cheesy. You can also take note that the footage in the scenes from both these movies isn’t all that artistic or technically difficult. Many of them almost have a smart-phone feeling to them. Impact does not necessarily depend on technical skill.

Television series also use this technique when wanted to add a deeper level of emotional understanding. The series The Goldbergs could work on its own as just a comedy about a family in the 80s, but having the voice of the adult Adam reminiscing about his childhood years adds a nostalgic element that pulls the series into our modern understanding, along with allowing us to step into our own childhoods and realize how much we learned from our experiences. It brings the series from cheesy and silly to powerful in the blink of an eye.

And finally, what I consider the ultimate example of perfect voiceover with the most beautiful cinematography and storytelling I’ve ever seen, the entire series My Brilliant Friend is absolutely dependent on voiceover to get to the emotional crux of the series. It doesn’t hurt that the series is based on a beautifully written book series and has endless material to draw from. Even though I’m sure it’s tempting to use as much text as possible from the novels, the pace of the voiceover is expertly timed for maximum impact. If you can, watch the opening scene of Season 1, episode 6 “The Island,” as Elena overcomes her hesitation to swim in the ocean while she visits Ischea—her first time outside of her post-WWII, poverty-stricken suburb of Naples. Although this scene does not stand alone as a story, the way it is put together can teach us so much about how to use all the elements together in the best way.

The scene starts just with the sounds of the ocean, and as the focus of the images is on Elena’s first contact with the water, we are allowed to see her reaction to it, and puts us in the moment, allowing us to remember our own experiences with the ocean. Next, the music starts, bringing us into the confidence and peace she is beginning to feel, growing stronger with her until she is floating and paddling as the intensity of the music grows. Then the voiceover comes in and gives us insight into her memory of learning to swim and remembering the skill now, and her delight in this new experience. The voiceover stops as the music crescendos further and we move to an overhead view that widens until we see Elena swimming in what seems like an endless expanse of deep turquoise ocean, bringing home the theme of space and total awe—the complete opposite of the closed in, dirty, colorless spaces Elena has come from. Just a few sentences of voiceover along with all the other elements, perfectly timed, to bring us into the freedom and independence that may be Elena’s first experience with those feelings. It’s powerful.

So, why all these examples? I just want you to get a taste of how voiceover can be used in so many different ways to add emotional connection to the viewer. None of these examples use specifically poetic words. You don’t have to be a fantastic writer to write something that can create a powerful effect. What you DO need to do, is tap into your own experience, and reach out to the experience of your audience. This is about providing context, creating connection, and bringing home your images into the hearts of the viewers.

So, in order to create these short films, we need three things:

Footage

Copy (text)

Music

In this workshop, you will be asked to work on all three separately before putting them together. You’ll also be asked to do exercises in filming and writing every single day. (This should take a good 10 minutes, don’t worry.) I promise you, if you ONLY do the 10-minute exercises each day, you will have more than enough material to put together a powerful film by the end of this course. But you know I’m going to give you plenty of work that you can use to dig deeper if you choose. You can make this workshop as simple or as complex as you want to make it, which depends on the kinds of films you want to make as well. Remember, this isn’t a competition--you be you. I gave you examples from The Goldbergs to My Brilliant Friend on purpose. Everyone has a different life experience, reason for creating, and voice. So just keep at it, trust yourself, and watch the magic happen.