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TV News Reporting and Production MCM 516

LESSON 37

BACK GROUND VOICE AND VOICE OVER

Natural or Raw Sound

"Raw Sound" is recorded sound that is not of a newsmaker speaking, such as the sound of an airplane

landing or a marching band playing or a crowd cheering; sometimes known as "Natural Sound" or

"Original Sound", as well as "Wild sound" especially when the source of the sound is from nature.

Sound Effects

The especially recorded sounds to establish a particular atmosphere are called sound effects. For

instance, Birds' chirping, typewriter's rattling, jackal's howling, Lion's roaring, chairs' dragging,

water pouring into glass, thunder of clouds followed by rain sound etc.

The mixing

The audio mixing is to add music and sound effects to a television programme during post production.

In music the process of mixing track and the singer's voice is called mixing. While mixing the

producer must be careful that instrumental level must not exceed vocalist.

Voice-over

The term voice-over refers to a production technique where "a disembodied voice is broadcast live or

pre-recorded in radio, television, film, theater and/or presentation". The voice-over may be spoken by

someone who also appears on-screen in other segments or it may be performed by a specialist voice

actor.

Voice-over is also commonly referred to as "off camera" commentary. The term voice-over can also

refer to the actual voice actor who performed the recording. The terms voice actor, narrator, voice

artist, announcer are all similarly used.

Types and uses of voice-over

As a character device

As a creative device

As an educational or descriptive device

As a commercial device

As a character device

Directors may add a voice-over late in the production because the plot or a character's motivation is

not immediately clear; for instance Francis Ford Coppola added voice-overs of Captain Willard's

character in Apocalypse Now to clarify Willard's thoughts and intentions. In the 1956 film version of

Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Richard Basehart, as Ishmael, narrates the story and sometimes

comments on the action in voice-over, as does William Holden in the films Sunset Boulevard and The

Counterfeit Traitor.

Voice-over technique is likewise used to give voices and personalities to animated characters. The

most noteworthy and versatile of whom include Mel Blanc, Don Messick and Daws Butler.

As a creative device

In film, the filmmaker places the sound of a human voice (or voices) over images shown on the screen

that may or may not be related to the images being shown. Consequently, voiceovers are sometimes

used to create ironic counterpoint. Also, sometimes they can be random voices not directly connected

to the people seen on the screen.

In works of fiction, the voice-over is often by a character reflecting back on his or her past, or by a

person external to the story who usually has a more complete knowledge of the events in the film than

the other characters.Voice-overs are often used to create the effect of storytelling by a

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character/omniscient narrator. For example, in The Usual Suspects, the character of Verbal Kint has

voice-over segments as he is recounting details of a crime.

Other examples of storytelling voice-overs can be seen The Shawshank Redemption and Big Fish.

The genre of film noir is especially associated with the voice-over technique. In radio, voice-overs are

an integral part of the success of the radio programme. Although the announcer holds the prestige and

claims all the glory, it is the voice-over artist that is the real drive behind the show. For example,

David M. Green's Summer Pow-Wow and his voice-over artist, Tim Wray.

As an educational or descriptive device

The voice-over has many applications in non-fiction as well. Television news is often presented as a

series of video clips of newsworthy events, with voice-over by the reporters describing the

significance of the scenes being presented; these are interspersed with straight video of the news

anchors describing stories for which video is not shown.

Television networks such as The History Channel and the Discovery Channel make extensive use of

voice-overs. Live sports broadcasts are usually shown as extensive voice-overs by expert announcers

over video of the sporting event. Game shows formerly made extensive use of voice-overs to introduce

contestants and describe available or awarded prizes, but this technique has diminished as shows have

moved toward predominantly cash prizes.

Voice-over commentary by a leading critic, historian, or by the production personnel themselves is

often a prominent feature of the release of feature films or documentaries on DVDs.

As a commercial device

The commercial use of voice-over in advertising has been popular since the beginning of radio

broadcasting. In the early years, before effective sound recording and mixing, announcements were

produced "live" and at-once in a studio with the entire cast, crew and, usually, orchestra. A corporate

sponsor hired a producer, who hired writers and voice actors to perform comedy or drama.

The industry expanded very rapidly with the advent of television in the 1950s and the age of highly

produced serial radio shows ended. The ability to record high-quality sound on magnetic tape also

created opportunities, as has the proliferation of home computers capable of recording, often using

inexpensive (even free) software and a microphone of reasonable quality.

The human voice consists of sound made by a human using the vocal folds for talking, whispering,

singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. The vocal folds, in combination with the lips, the tongue, the

lower jaw, and the palate, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound. The tone of voice

may be modulated to suggest emotions such as anger, surprise, or happiness. Singers use the human

voice as an instrument for creating music.

Voice types and the cords themselves

Men and women have different vocal cord sizes; adult male voices are usually lower-pitched and have

larger cords. The male vocal cords are between 17 mm and 25 mm in length. Matching the female

body, which on the whole has less muscle than the male, females have smaller cords. The female vocal

cords are between 12.5 mm and 17.5 mm in length.

The cords are located just above the trachea (the windpipe which travels from the lungs). Food and

drink does not pass through the cords but is instead taken through the esophagus, an unlinked tube.

Both tubes are separated by the epiglottis, a "flap" that covers the opening of the trachea while

swallowing. When food goes down through the cords and trachea (usually happens when the person

inhales while swallowing) it causes aspiration (choking).Cords in both sexes are ligaments within the

larynx. They are attached at the back (side nearest the spinal cord) to the arytenoids cartilages, and at

the front (side under the chin) to the thyroid cartilage. Their outer edges are attached to muscle in the

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larynx while their inner edges or "margins" are free (the hole). They are constructed from epithelium,

but they have a few muscle fibers on them, namely the vocalist muscle which tightens the front part of

the ligament near to the thyroid cartilage. They are flat triangular bands and are pearly white in

colour--whiter in females than they are in males. Above both sides of the vocal cord (the hole and the

ligament itself) is the vestibular fold or false vocal cord, which has a small sac between its two folds

(not illustrated).

The difference in vocal cord size between men and women means that they have differently pitched

voices. Additionally, genetics also causes variances amongst the same sex, with men and women's

singing voices being categorized into types. For example, among men, there are basses, baritones and

tenors, and altos, mezzo-sopranos and sopranos among women. There are additional categories for

operatic voices, see voice type.

Vocal registration

The human voice is capable in most cases of being a complex instrument. Humans have vocal folds

which can loosen or tighten or change their thickness and over which breath can be transferred at

varying pressures. The shape of chest and neck, the position of the tongue, and the tightness of

otherwise unrelated muscles can be altered. Any one of these actions results in a change in pitch,

volume, timbre, or tone of the sound produced.

One important categorization that can be applied to the sounds singers make relates to the register or

the "voice" that is used. Singers refer to these registers according to the part of the body in which the

sound most generally resonates, and which have correspondingly different tonal qualities. There are

widely differing opinions and theories about what a register is, how they are produced and how many

there are. The distinct change or break between registers is called a passaggio or a ponticello. The

following definitions refer to the different ranges of the voice.

Sound

Sound is what can be perceived by a living organism through its sense of hearing. Physically, sound is

vibrational mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave. For humans, hearing is

limited to frequencies between about 20 Hz and 20000 Hz, with the upper limit generally decreasing

with age. Other species may have a different range of hearing.

As a signal perceived by one of the major senses, sound is used by many species for detecting danger,

navigation, predation, and communication. In Earth's atmosphere, water, and soil virtually any

physical phenomenon, such as fire, rain, wind, surf, or earthquake, produces (and is characterized

by) its unique sounds. Many species, such as frogs, birds, marine and terrestrial mammals, have also

developed special organs to produce sound.

In some species these became highly evolved to produce song and (in humans) speech. Furthermore,

humans have developed culture and technology (such as music, telephony and radio) that allows them

to generate, record, transmit, and broadcast sounds. The mechanical vibrations that can be interpreted

as sound can travel through all forms of matter: gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas.

However, sound cannot propagate through vacuum. The matter that supports the sound is called the

medium. Sound is transmitted through gases, plasma, and liquids as longitudinal waves, also called

compression waves. Through solids, however, it can be transmitted as both longitudinal and transverse

waves.

Sound is further characterized by the generic properties of waves, which are frequency, wavelength,

period, amplitude, intensity, speed, and direction (sometimes speed and direction are combined as a

velocity vector, or wavelength and direction are combined as a wave vector). Transverse waves, also

known as shear waves, have an additional property of polarization.

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Sound characteristics can depend on the type of sound waves (longitudinal versus transverse) as well

as on the physical properties of the transmission medium. Sound propagates as waves of alternating

pressure deviations from the equilibrium pressure (or, for transverse waves in solids, as waves of

alternating shear stress), causing local regions of compression and rarefaction.

Matter in the medium is periodically displaced by the wave, and thus oscillates. The energy carried by

the sound wave is split equally between the potential energy of the extra compression of the matter

and the kinetic energy of the oscillations of the medium. The scientific study of the propagation,

absorption, and reflection of sound waves is called acoustics.

Noise is often used to refer to an unwanted sound. In science and engineering, noise is an undesirable

component that obscures a wanted signal.

Speed of sound

The speed of sound depends on the medium through which the waves are passing, and is often quoted

as a fundamental property of the material. In general, the speed of sound is proportional to the square

root of the ratio of the elastic modulus (stiffness) of the medium to its density. Those physical

properties and the speed of sound change with ambient conditions.

For example, the speed of sound in gases depends on temperature. In air at sea level, the speed of

sound is approximately 343 m/s, in water 1482 m/s (both at 20 °C, or 68 °F), and in steel about 5960

m/s. The speed of sound is also slightly sensitive (a second-order effect) to the sound amplitude, which

means that there are nonlinear propagation effects, such as the production of harmonics and mixed

tones not present in the original sound.

Equipment for dealing with sound

Equipment for generating or using sound includes musical instruments, hearing aids, Sonar (Sound

Navigation Radar) systems and sound reproduction and broadcasting equipment. Many of these use

electro-acoustic transducers such as microphones and loudspeakers.

Television Sound: The Basics

Until rather recently, far more attention was paid to video in television than to audio. "Good sound"

was when you could make out what was being said; "bad sound" was when you couldn't.

This has changed and now audiences have much greater expectations. Before we can discuss some of

the basic audio production concepts, sound itself must be understood.

Sound has two basic characteristics that must be controlled: loudness and frequency.

Loudness

Although sound loudness is commonly measured in decibels (dBs), that term actually refers to two

different things.

First is dBSPL (for sound pressure loudness), which is a measure of acoustic power. These are sounds

we can directly hear with our ears.

Musicians who must be around high-level sound use musician's plugs -- special earplugs that attenuate

sound level without distorting the frequency range.

These decibels go to and beyond 135, which is considered the threshold of pain and, by the way, the

point at which permanent ear damage can occur. If your ears "ring" after being around a loud sound,

this should be a warning sign that you have crossed the threshold of potential hearing damage. (The

damage, which is irreversible, often goes unnoticed, which probably explains why the average 50-

year-old in some countries has better hearing than many U.S. teenagers.)

Various sound pressure decibel levels (in dBSPL's) are shown here.

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Sound

dBs

Jet Aircraft Taking Off

140-150

Rock Concert / Gunshots

135-140

Jackhammer at 15 meters / Subway

85-90

Average City Street / Restaurant

70- 75

Quiet Conversation / Phone Dial

60-80

Tone

Office Environment

Whisper at 3 meters (10 feet)

"Silent" TV Studio

The second use of the term decibel, dBm (for the milliwatt reference level) is a unit of electrical

power.

These decibels are displayed on loudness meters. In audio production we are primarily interested in

dBm, which represents levels of electrical power going through various pieces of audio equipment.

Two types of VU meters for measuring the loudness of sound are in wide use: the digital type and the

analog type.

Below are three examples of digital meters. The scale on the left side indicates modulation percentage

(percentage of a maximum signal), and the scale on the right is in dB's.

Contrary to what logic might dictate, 0dBm (generally just designated 0dB on a VU meter) is not "zero

sound" but, in a sense, the opposite, the maximum desirable sound level. (Granted, that's a bit

confusing, but, then again, we didn't make up this system!)

The 0dB point on the meter is just a reference point. Therefore, it's possible to have a sound level on

the meter that registers in negative dBs, just as it's possible to have a temperature of -10 degrees

Centigrade or Fahrenheit.

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