VOICEOVER

Although the voiceover, a recording of your script, is the foundation of any digital story, recording it can make some people feel like they're going to crumble. Hearing their voices played back to them really drives home the realization that this is them, their voice, and their story. Before we launch in to the technical details, go back first and reread our thoughts on why the voice is such a special and important part of the digital story.

Now let's show you the tools to make sure the voiceover is of good quality.

You will need to plug a microphone into the computer's mic jack to record your voice directly into the computer. Some computers already come with a microphone. Experiment and see whether it will give you the quality you need. If you need to get another microphone, consider a larger one with its own stand. You'll eliminate extra noises if you don't have to hold the microphone yourself.

Special software exists for audio capture and playback. Just like a pixel image on a screen, audio is measured by the amount of bit depth that is assigned to each second of audio. The higher the bit depth (8, 16, 24), the better the audio. Audio is also calibrated by the dynamic range of information recorded, from low (11 kHz) to high (44 kHz). Capturing and outputting greater quality audio sometimes requires additional hardware, although the Macintosh AV machines ship with a high quality Digital Signal Processor chip that allows for CD-quality audio capture (16 bit, 44 kHz). Otherwise, most, if not all newer computers will allow you to capture some sort of audio signal.

We recommend that you record your voiceover at the same quality level that you record your musical soundtrack: 16-bit, 22.05 kHz. This combination seems to work well on the average speed home computer in Premiere. You can get higher quality, but you'll be giving up a lot of hard disk space for the privilege of those very large 44-kHz quality files.

Many software programs exist for capturing audio from an external sound source, like a microphone. We'll show you the procedure using Premiere since you'll be using that program later anyway to construct your movie. Premiere's audio capture capabilities aren't the best available, but once you understand the process and Premiere's limitations, you'll be in a better position to choose another audio capture software program for later projects.

Open Premiere. A New Projects Presets Window will pop up. Cancel it, because you aren't ready yet to start constructing your movie project. With Premiere open, choose File -> Capture -> Audio Capture.

An Audio Capture window will appear. Its controls couldn't be simpler, just a record button, a timer, and an audio levels monitor.
An Audio Capture pulldown menu has also just appeared. Check the sound input and be sure you're recording off the external microphone. If you are, a jumping yellow sound level will indicate that the microphone is picking up a signal. What it's picking up right now is background noise. Try to keep that at a minimum by placing your microphone as far away from your hard drive's fan as you can. Make whatever modifications you can to make your surrounding sound environment as quiet as possible.
Now shout into the microphone. You will see that loud sounds make the yellow levels increase to the red zone. Experiment with your voice to make your speaking volume loud enough to be just below the red zone.

Momentary volume increases into the redzone will not harm your voiceover, but too much will cause sound dis-tortion. When you're satisfied with the sound levels, set your sample rate to 22050 Hz, 16-bit, mono, and get ready to record.

Record your voiceover in small chunks. Your script will guide you in how best to break it sensibly into segments no longer than ten seconds apiece. In "A Recipe," no voiceover file is longer than about four seconds. After you're done each segment, test it to make sure the sound level coming over the computer's speakers is clearly audible and does not break up into distortion during loud passages.

The file Premiere creates shows sound in a waveform representation. You can compress or expand the time scale on the screen by clicking on the waveform button on the left-hand side of the controls. While listening to the sound is a good indication of how loud it will be in the final project, checking the height of the waves is a good double check. Here are examples too soft, too loud, and just right audio files:

You can boost the sound a little in Premiere, but it's best to rerecord much-too-soft clips. Too loud audio files have the tops and bottoms of the wave clipped off. That's what causes the distortions. There's nothing Premiere can do to improve these files; rerecord them now.

Save each segment with file names that will place each one in order in the structure of your voiceover folder. For example, files for "A Recipe" are named "A. Mix a bunch," "B. Add a pinch," "C. Stir some wonder," and so on.

Done with this step? Perhaps you still have haven't covered these steps:

Done all these steps?
Now you're ready for your
introduction to Premiere.