What is a Voiceover?

A voiceover in the film industry is known as off camera or off stage comentary and is non-diagetic. Most film openings start with voiceovers as it is a great way to create enigma. It is pre-recorded and then layed over the top of a film or video.
We looked at voiceovers in the class and thought that it could be very useful in the film industry for these reasons:

-Creates imagery for the audience

-Makes them feel connected with the film

-You can relate to the character yourself therefore bringing you closer to the film

-Creates emotion and attacthment

-Draws you into the film and gets you inticed

-The audience makes a decision based on how they percieve the charater as to whether they like them or not.




Love Actually
the film we decided to focus on for the voice over is love actually as the film opening shows lots of people arriving at heathrow airport hugging family and friends and generally showing love, while a voice over is placed over the top saying;

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."

It was effective and heart felt as you saw the images of people hugging and being happy, it makes you connotate it with your friends and family and own personal experiences. Some of the clips were shown in slow motion which was more effective for the audience to watch, and was appropraite for the time it was shown. Sometimes the words of the voiceover overlapped with the visual, for instance when the voice says "mothers and daughters etc.." it shows a clip a mother and daughter or whatever might be in the screen. When the voice over mentioned about the twin towers, it contasted with what was being shown on the screen. As love was being shown and something drastic such as the twin towers incedent was mentioned. The final clip of the voice over shows the words "love actually is  all around" which is brought up word by word as the voice over says it. The colours connotated to the "is" being a heart for example, Blake <3 Vanessa. "love" is then the last word to fade out giving a hint that the movie will be something to do with love. The next scene shows a man recording him and his band singing in a comedic way which shows the audience that is also a comedy making the genre 'Romantic-Comedy'. Showing the comedic side to a rom-com quickly is important as you want to show the audience that it is a comedy as well.

Love Actually's film opening was very effective and inticed me from the very beginning.