If you know me, I am a hard core advocate for voice over, voice over talent, voice over marketing, voice over soup, voice over wrapping paper... You get the idea, I love voice over.
However, when a voice over doesn't fit the project or sounds fake, forced or even worse, Fiverr'd, I am not a fan. I got to thinking about the relationship between voice over and video this weekend and while, we need each other more often than not, there is something beautiful about a video that can escape the voice over.
To do so, a producer and director have to have a clear cut plan in place, a very powerful story to tell and all the right people working in harmony to create the masterpiece. Enter, John Lewis and Partners. If you haven't seen this wonderful piece of film featuring Elton John and his life in reverse, take a second to watch and you'll see why I am writing this.
I mean, holy F-in Cow. The story is simple. It is sweet and it's under 3 minutes. Of course it's Elton John and we are all extremely familiar with him, but how his brilliant life was captured in such a short amount of time and the message conveyed here, is astounding. It's not selling us anything other than to give... and of course the bad ass-ness of John Lewis and Partners, but I digress.
I played this for my wife and she cried. I played it for my mom and she cried. I played it for my 5 year old son and HE cried. The point being, as a voice over talent, it is my job to add human emotion to the project and help the video relate to the viewer but sometimes, just sometimes, the video doesn't need us. This is one of those times. See? Just look how happy I am watching this video.
