Voice-over

The voice off (False Anglicism, the English term being “voice-over” ) is a narrative process used in the field Audiovisuel and consisting in utilizing a voice which does not belong to the Scène. The General police station of the French language recommends the use of the term “Voix out-field”; however, strictly speaking , the term “Out-field” renvoit with an element present in the scene but not with the image, whereas the voice off does not form part of the scene.

It is distinguished from the interior Voix which represents the thoughts of a character.

Employment

The voice off can be that of an omniscient narrator (for example in the Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain ), or of a protagonist of the account which reconsiders last events (ex: Apocalypse Now ). It can be used either in support of what is shown, in order to clarify the history or to specify events Out-field, or in counterpoint, taking the opposite course to the image and giving him a different direction.

The voice off is in particular useful to compensate for the temporal ellipses. It makes it possible to inform the spectator about events which were not shown and to thus ensure the continuity and the clearness of the account. It also makes it possible to briefly evoke scenes of which the length would have night at the rate/rhythm of work and thus maintains the interest of the spectator. These is moreover an economic process which makes it possible to evoke events that it would have been complex to film.

This method of narration is particularly appraisal in the black films and forms almost part of the rules of the kind.

The voice off can also be used apart from the field of the Fiction. One can consider the cinema news as having been at the base of the appearance of this process. The documentary , publicities, the television channels for their sound preparing, call today thus largely upon this method. (see hereafter)

It is a voice off which constitutes the intrigue of the film the Incredible Destiny of Harold Crick : the main character and éponyme are tormented by a voice of woman who describes each one of her acts, before announcing his death.

Critical

The voice off is sometimes regarded as a form of handling. Indeed, this Commentaire takes by its aspect désincarné the appearance of the Objectivité. It is however the expression from a point of view (that of the narrator) which can introduce a skew into the perception of the images. A fortiori , it can impose a point of view initially absent from film envisaged: thus the producers of Blade Runner have re-installed the film - without the agreement of the realizer Ridley Scott - by adding a voice off in order to “allow the spectator to better include/understand film (?) ”. In this precise case, it forces the spectator to be identified with the main character, of which it knows the thoughts, and by consequence not to keep the distance necessary to all the comprehension of film. The realizer could go up film according to his own directives, and the voice off was removed Director' S cut .

It is interesting to note on this subject that certain television channels of continuous information diffuse from now on video passages without any comment (example: the sequence “ No how ” on EuroNews).

One should not confuse the current events (thus reports) with the documentary ones. The Documentaire is a category of cinema with whole share. If it acquired a recognition, it is partly due to the voice off and the manner of using it. The choice of the type of voice off is determining in the end result of the documentary one. It is it which will give him its rate/rhythm and will make it possible to the spectator to be interested about the documentary one.

In a fiction, the use of the voice off can be regarded as a facility taken by the scenario writer. The cinema being an art before very visual, of aucuns consider that a good scenario writer must manage to transmit the necessary informations to the comprehension of the account in a way more visual and more subtle than by the use of a voice off . This one must have a real role in the construction of film and not camouflage the idleness of the scenario writer and his incapacity to visually transmit information such as the feelings of the characters, the ellipses, the changes of places,…

The voice off in all its forms

Section in the course of drafting

The cinema

See also: Voice-over with the cinema

The radio

The radio uses obviously much voice off . Those have the role “of equipping the radio” from a sound point of view. Thus an actor voice off can make the sound preparing of a radio, conferring an original sound image and an identity to him.

In a radiophonic fiction, the voice off is made necessary to ensure the description of the scene, following the example didascalies.

Television

As we saw, it is appreciably the same process as for the radio.

Publicity

The voice off is very current within the framework of the Publicité because it makes it possible to very quickly introduce a context or problems, which is often a delicate task in assigned time, often very short (a few seconds). The voice off is thus an aspect running of the trailers to the cinema where it in a few words exposes the main characters and the intrigue.

Others fields of application of the voice off

(services audiotels, responders, trailers, video games, speaking clock, etc)

Voices off or famous out-field

In France

See too

References

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