These days, we are conditioned to interpret ALL CAPS or BOLD text as yelling or anger. Well... in the VO world, it doesn't mean what you think it means. In this video, Gabby talks about how to handle bold text in a script.
How to handle BOLD text in voice over scripts. - 4:12
Hey guys, its Gabby. Thanks so much for joining me on another edition of The Gift of Gab. Today we are going to talk about what to do with bold copy. Why am I yelling?! Well, because the copy is BOLD so isn't that what you're supposed to do? I don't know! Let's find out!
I'm gonna have way too much fun with this guys. It's just amusing to me. It's amusing because I've seen it for so long. All right, so let me give you a little bit of a history lesson here. When I started back in the 1800s, it was really common for scripts to be written in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME, and to be perfectly honest with you, it was just copywriters being lazy. Straight up, that's all it was. Sentence case took longer than was necessary and copy was written and spit out at such a rapid rate that everything was just done in bold. Unfortunately, as technology moved on and the advent of digital and things changed text became the norm and we developed a new way of communicating in a new language and of course text etiquette became a big deal and now the age we live in the era we're in when people type things in all caps --- what does it indicate? I'm mad, I'm yelling, I'm doing this for emphasis -- they are trying to get a point across and we have a very specific emotional or visceral connection to that process. Well, of course this has influenced a whole new generation of voice actors who don't know about the old days.
For all my youngins out there -- yeah, this is for you guys, right? When you see a piece of copy and you encounter bold text and bold words and things that are in all caps, your gut reaction, the almost immediate reaction, is to yell the word that's highlighted. It's to get loud, it's to become voluminous... it's weird and it's off-putting and it's strange and in the course of your recording, honestly and truly, all you're doing is making an audience go, "Why are you yelling at me? What did I do? I don't deserve that!" I want to help you think of it a little bit differently. In actuality, in truth, when those clients are putting words in bold and in all caps what they're really asking you to do is they're asking you to italicize the word. They're asking you to lean into it, they're asking you to give it meaning, they're asking you to give it movement.
Got it? Good. That's what I want you to do, okay? Awesome. Thanks again for watching. I hope this helps. If you want more tips and tricks like this here's something to check out. Thanks guys!
704-674-8294 / GabrielleNistico.com / gabby@voiceovervixen.com
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