Recording Voice-Over Dialogue
When acting for a short film, many years ago, I was given direction to record some voice-over as if I was leaving a voicemail for someone, but late at night – and so speaking in a slightly hushed tone. I really liked this direction at the time, and the quality of the dialogue that was subsequently recorded. This was in my mind therefore as I considered how to approach reading the loose script I had written.
A slight side-note, but relevant to my process in this case: I have recently become the owner of two, pet rats – rats are nocturnal, so of course, this proved a bit of a new issue for my usual night-time, bedroom, recording sessions as my pets make a considerable amount of noise. With some more thought, and following a friend’s suggestion – I took my iPhone and Apple AirPods outside, at 1 o’clock in the morning on a Thursday, to some benches situated at the end of my road and tested out recording the first section of scripted dialogue. It sounded ideal (in my opinion); as though I was in a pretty air-tight booth, bar the occasional bit of traffic noise which I also deemed acceptable, because – it is London after all.
Being happy with the first section of dialogue I’d recorded – I excitedly recorded the next two that same night, on the benches at the end of my road. I broke them down into three sections, just as I had in three stages previously written the script.
I really enjoyed the moments of peace I felt whilst I read over what I had previously written and considered more relaxed ways of speaking it aloud. It felt quite in-keeping with my project as a whole to be so defiantly sitting on a London street in streetlamp light only, and being the only person there. I say ‘in-keeping’ as a lot of what I had by that point written was about how peaceful, and calm I feel in London, despite its noisy, polluted reputation.
There were a few times I stumbled over what I was saying, or lost my train of thought – so in these moments I took a breath and went back over what I had just mentioned, before continuing, all the while making efforts to sound as though I was speaking off-the-cuff/ spontaneously. To toot my own trumpet a bit – I think I did a pretty good job of sounding natural whilst recording mostly scripted dialogue. I even made efforts to ‘up’ my London-isms when I remembered to and leaned into my East London dialect accent. Saying this, I was unaware of just how often I say “you know”, but I quite liked this subconscious interjection every so often.
Filming
As I began the process of journeying to each town centre from another, borough by borough, day by day – I began with Haringey one Saturday morning. I set out quite early, approximately 7am, and was at my first town centre within 30 minutes. I had set a rule to only get public transport, or walk between each destination. Another decision I made initially was to not film at any point in between the town centres on the London Plan – this was so that I did not confuse footage I felt I needed, with footage I just happened to like. However, by the time I got to documenting the town centres in Westminster – I changed my mind on that one.
I arrived at Pimlico station to begin my journey to the first listed town centre on my route of Westminster, at before 6am on a Wednesday. It was so peaceful inside the station building, that I couldn’t resist getting my camera out and filming what I experienced. I was completely alone, which in a London underground station is rare. The only other person present was a member of station staff sat in a little booth by the barriers. As my journey through Westminster continued I felt in awe of how silent central London was in that moment. By that point I had to stop myself from filming just non-stop as I walked, and to pick more specific moments to film – otherwise traipsing through my captured footage would be a nigh-on endless task. I just about managed to stick to that compromise, and as I was filming in between sections of my route, I considered whether the shots I was capturing would make it into the final film. Then the deal-breaker came – I caught the sunrise just as I entered into Hyde Park, ready to walk across it from South East to North West, the golden light was beautiful. I instantly got my camera out and filmed what I experienced in the first proper sunlight of that day – pretty much total serenity is what I felt. I hadn’t, at that point, written any more of the dialogue than the first section – but I knew that a shout-out to London’s morning sunlight was going to have to be given somewhere, as I willingly accepted the sunlight was making me happy.
Update – If I could go back and change one thing about the process of my FMP (other than to have achieved visiting every town centre on the London Plan), I would have begun filming in between moments from the start. I won’t bother sending too much time wondering what I might’ve missed out on capturing, but it’s a note for if/ when I revisit this project – film everything! And complete Barnet in one go, for satisfaction’s sake.