I have looked at a documentary which has a voice over in it and I have decided I wanted to use a voice over in my own project to give the extra information that we don’t get from the interviewees. I know that voiceovers are one of the main theories used in documentaries and have been since after the silent film era ended. I did a brief summary of what and how a voice over is used in documentaries and when and how I will use it in my own work in Documentary techniques.
I watched a BBC documentary called The Empire State Story which is a 50 minute documentary on the construction of the Empire State Building in New York which was the worlds tallest skyscraper when opened in 1931.
The documentary has a montage of archive as it is a history one when it was being built with some dialogue from a short clip of a man and woman speaking.
The voiceover comes in after about 16 seconds later after the archive and begins to introduce the documentary and gives some information on the Empire State Building which gives the viewers an idea of what the documentary is about.
In my documentary, I will have my voice over come in after the montage about 8 seconds later and it will introduce my documentary and tell the audience what it is about. It will come over the montage after the music settles down and then more shots of Liverpool continue to show under the voice over so there is something going on rather than a blank screen with the dialogue over it.
Bbc.co.uk. (2019). BBC iPlayer – Timewatch – 2000-2001: The Empire State Story. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00lmsb0/timewatch-20002001-the-empire-state-story [Accessed 5 Mar. 2019].
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