Script issues can lose your client’s money…

In my years voicing different projects, from commercials to museum audio guides, one issue has certainly remained constant - not every script is written with the listener in mind. These can make listeners confused, embarrassed, and potentially disrespected. These listeners can become a lost sale, lost follower, or just lost!

I wanted to list three issues I've noticed over the years, and suggest a solution for each one.

TOO MANY WORDS

There’s only so much information a listener can take in (further reading: phonological loop). Listeners need time to actually process what they’ve just listened to, so there’s not benefit to packing in tons of information in a short period of time.

Solution: Cut, cut, cut.

There’s often a lot of redundant information that doesn’t need to be there, and if there’s a video with it, it likely already has some visual information which does not need to be specified (audio description is a separate genre).  

TEXT WHICH IS NOT WRITTEN TO BE SPOKEN

In my opinion, spoken word should sound like speech (crazy, right?). Written text and spoken are not the same. The fact that a script is written does not mean it should be written like an academic paper. A well-written script is simply a container of speech. 

Solution: Read it out loud.

Does it actually sound like someone talking? If not, change it. 

POOR TRANSLATION

This one hits particularly hard for me as a bilingual person (I’m British and Italian), as people don’t even realise they’re burning advertising, education or museum budget. 

You might think that companies actually do their due diligence and make sure it’s done right, but the truth is they rarely do. 

As we speak, there’s a massive campaign going on in Italy which was originally from the United States. They did not do this due diligence and the Italian is almost a word-for-word translation of the English. The Italian version doesn’t actually make any sense. 

This problem is likely to only get worse as more companies think that offloading translation to AI is an effective cost saving measure. 

Solution: Translate the idea, not the words.

You really should get a genuine native speaker of the target language to finalise the script, having read it out loud. 

In my opinion there is no shortcut to this.

That’s it! I hope this snippet of information was useful to you, and I’ve been considering the idea of making this a semi-regular thing, where I share information that is valuable, rather than a sales email. 

Anyway, have a good Monday!

Warmest regards,

Mark