storytelling

Museum Narration: Musings and Insights

My Favorite Things...In Voiceover

 

A red, yellow and blue striped flowing background with 6 headphones hanging from the ceiling.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Be honest.

…There are certain aspects of your job that you love more than others, right?  It doesn’t matter whether you’re a teacher, engineer, farrier, or a voiceover artist, there are parts of your job that hold a special place in your heart.   Now, this isn’t to say that you don’t like other aspects of your work, it’s just that certain areas make you feel, well…warm and fuzzy.    While I can’t speak for other people or professions, I can say this is true for me, in voiceover.  Honestly, I find most areas of voiceover to be fun and interesting, but there are a few genres that I hold dear, one of which is museum narration. 

 

Museum Narration.

What do I like about museum narration?  Well, if you’ve read my previous blogs,  you know I’m all about telling a story, and museums do just that.  They are filled with stories about history, art, music, sport, science, and even cryptozoology!  (I’ve been to the International Cryptozoology Museum, it’s a very unique place!)  There’s so much to learn at museums, and narration offers additional engagement, freedom for visitors to explore at their own pace, and accessibility for people with visual impairments.  So how exactly can this be achieved?  Let’s look at a few specific types of museum narration.  

 

Audio Tours.

If you’ve been to a museum, you’ve probably seen the headsets that can be used to peruse exhibits with an audio guide.  Nowadays, these tours also come in the form of mobile apps.  Audio tours that come to mind for me are the Holocaust Museum, the Sixth Floor Museum and the Biltmore Estate.  I used these audio guides to explore the museums in my own time, as a tourist.   As an audio guide narrator, you’re speaking to one person with clarity, confidence and genuine interest in the subject at hand. So, are you interested in how museums are improving their technology and the overall audioguide experience? Check out this article by MuseumNext, which looks at how museums are using audio guides to attract and engage new visitors.  

 

Audio Description.

Next, there’s audio description.  Audio description is a different form of narration than an audio tour or guide.  According to the Audio Description Project, audio description in a museum describes the size, shape, color, texture, and details of an exhibit for a person who has low vision or a visual impairment.  The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston offers an audio description tour, as does the Mystic Aquarium, among many others!  Want to learn more about the importance of audio description in museums?  Check out this article from Vocal Eyes.

 

Museum Exhibits.

Apart from audio tours and audio description, exhibits themselves can have a narration component.  I recently narrated letters from the 1700 and 1800’s as part of two different exhibits for Strawbery Banke and the American Independence Museum.  These letters help bring the words of Colonial Americans to life and enhance the overall experience for the visitor.  Voiceover is just one tool that museums are using to engage visitors in specific exhibits.  MuseumNext has a fun article about six museums that are going above and beyond to increase engagement with their audiences and communities.  

These are just a few examples of the ways museums use voiceover to help tell stories and connect with visitors.  I, for one, love being a part of that experience!  Next time you go to a museum, keep your ears open for how they’re using narration.  Interested in collaborating on your next museum narration project?  Contact me and we’ll talk!

Until next time!

XOXO

Sarah

Voice Acting, Learning and Telling Stories

Adventures in Voice Acting

Storytelling, Voiceover, Voice Acting
Peregrine Photography

Looking Back.

I’m someone who tends to focus on the future.  I try to be better about being “present,” but it’s not easy.   I also don’t want to neglect the past…so in that spirit I’d like to share a memory of my first steps into voice acting.  As Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music would say (sing), let’s “begin at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start,” with a story about my first voiceover.

Kidding and musical references aside, it was part accident and part kismet.  In 2017, I worked full time managing a public health HIV services program, and I was looking for ways to incorporate personal stories to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities.   I found an opportunity to participate in a digital storytelling (DST) workshop with StoryCenter  and signed right up (after it was approved by work, of course – if you’ve ever worked in a bureaucracy you know what I mean).   In case you aren’t familiar with them, StoryCenter are the founders of the DST movement and have helped over 20,000 individuals tell their stories since 1993; they do great work – you should definitely check them out.

Finding Voiceover.

The DST workshop was an amazing, unique experience.  Here’s a very condensed summary: over the course of several days, participants (with the help of facilitators) write a first-person narrative story, record a voiceover of their story, and select images to appear with the voiceover.   They put it all together in a video, which results in a 2-4 minute digital story.

During my workshop, I went through this process, and without knowing it at the time, I recorded my first voiceover. A few weeks after the workshop, I was at home, shopping online (as one does), and the MP3 file from my voiceover started playing out of nowhere.  I was so confused.  I’m not sure how it happened (I must have accidentally opened the file without meaning to), but as I sat there and I listened to my voice play, I realized for the first time, that this was a field, a profession, and something I wanted to pursue.

Building Community.

Right away I began looking for training.  I have a theater background, so I knew I had the acting chops, but I also knew that voice acting is a craft all its own and I wanted to learn and develop my skills.  So, I started by doing research and took a few local and online classes; I got some good advice, made connections, made mistakes, listened to a lot of podcasts, found good coaching, and found a voiceover community.

Over time, I made friends, learned to edit audio, built my home recording space, and in 2020 (after lots of training and preparation) I had my commercial demo made.  I launched my website in January 2021, and I study my VO skills every day.  I am even working on several additional demos – K-12 narration and medical narration.  I have come a long way from that first voice over in my DST workshop and I will continue to grow and succeed because I am committed to excellence and quality in both voice acting and storytelling.

Telling Stories.

Yes, storytelling.  I see voiceover as a mechanism for telling stories.  Storytelling is an essential communication tool because it paints the picture of the messages we want to convey.  For example, in public health, messages are often framed in terms of statistics, graphs, rates, cases and maps.  While these are important pieces of objective, factual information – on their own they do little to impact individual behavior, thoughts, feelings or opinions.  Storytelling fills in the gray area in between the facts.  It offers a personal, humanized perspective on the public health issue, and puts the message into a real-life context for the listener.

As a voiceover artist, I do not tell my first-person narrative, as I did in my DST workshop, but I do communicate a message, a mission, a purpose and a story.  Thankfully, I am a natural storyteller, as well as an excellent listener, and to be a great voiceover artist, I need to be both.  As my friends at StoryCenter say, “Listen Deeply, Tell Stories.”