About Narrative Voice Over in Documentary

[Grinner Hester]

too many melon dings. I have no use for drugs, Sheesh, could you imagine???

[Alberto Mendez]

You should decide if you are going to use V.O. (narration) during the preproduction phase. If you decide against it, you will have to be extremely prepared in the field to ask the right questions to the interviewee. Without all of the relevant info/bites you will have gaps in your story-line and the ultimate goal should always be to progress the story.

It’s a lot harder than it seems because 9 times out of 10 you may change the direction of the story in Edit and then you realize, you needed a follow up question to make some stories connect. It’s easy to write a track line to solve this issue but wouldn’t you rather hear it in their own words.

I always love when Producers/writers state the obvious in V.O. tracks. “They ran for their lives” and on screen you are watching archive of a tornado coming at them while they run away. Does that track line make it more dramatic? Nope. Let the audience wonder if this family is going to make it out alive. It’s the WTF factor.