Each step is a potential ‘single point of failure’ that can threaten success. Worse, if something goes wrong, no one may spot the problem until the error is seen in the performance at the other end. For communications concerning food safety, the consumer could become the ultimate victim of any miscommunication.

A better approach is to ask the subject expert to demonstrate some part of the procedure in front of a video camera. It takes little, if any, training to use a low-cost video camcorder in this way. Ideally, someone knowledgeable would attend and ask probing questions. Later, if required, the expert’s commentary can be transcribed and translated and displayed online.

In this method, the visual part of the message remains constant through every stage of the process and into every language version that is produced. In other words, the video portion is immune to error over the entire transmission process. If a translation mistake occurs in the voiceover or in the companion text, iPOV expects that most viewers will believe what they see in the video – as they should. Even better, they may ask for a clarification. The video helps to protect the accuracy of the entire communication.

Finally, most technical experts won’t be fluent in the target language. This means that they won’t know if their words are translated accurately until the observed behavior at the destination confirms success or raises a suspicion. If the expert and the recipient can both view a video clip on a web server, the expert will at least be sure that the video portion arrived intact.

The value of multiple voices

For small or one-off projects, it is reasonable to try to use one really good voice per role or language. As project size increases or the project is likely to evolve over time, however, it is often better to source 2 or more voices per role and alternate them among the individual clips. This practice requires more setup and project management (you have to coordinate 2 or 3 times the number of voice talents), but it can pay big dividends down the road:

• If you expect to make changes and edits, there are risks to designing with a single-source voice talent. If you lose access to the talent and have to bring in a replacement, it can be very jarring to the listener to suddenly hit a new voice when most of the project is done by one person. If, however, the project uses multiple voices from the outset, another voice will cause little comment.
• If you only use one voice, there will always be some listeners that find that voice unsettling. It’s ultimately a matter of taste. If you alternate voices, however, listeners are more likely to view them as simply ‘different’. This makes it easier to source voice talents that are very good – but need not be great. That little bit of leniency in voice sourcing can substantially speed production and restrain costs.

Adjusting the pacing of the underlying animations

If you are putting one voice on an animation or movie, you would expect that you would have to align the speech with the action. However, that generally occurs fairly naturally as you build the animation and edit the movie.

When you try to take the same movie and apply a voiceover in a different language, however, the new speaker will likely have a different timing and cadence – and possibly overall duration. For example, it can take 20-25% longer to express a given thought in German than it does in English. German has a lot of multi-syllabic words and more complex grammar constructions.

When the audio structure changes significantly, it is usually necessary to adjust the timing in the underlying Flash movie or animation to allow a bit more time or to cut out dead air. iPOV now does this on all of its work as a matter of course, and we have developed proprietary tools to help us manage this process. The tools include a web-shareable script editor with built-in Flash viewer, teleprompter, and voiceover recorder utility. We have found that small changes to pacing and cadence can make a surprisingly big difference to perceived quality.

Dynamic switching of languages

iPOV has developed a unique Flash player control (www.cosolvent.biz) that allows for on-the-fly switching of media. This can be used to give users the ability to select video clips and languages dynamically at page load. You can view a demo of our capability at this link.

In theory, we can post one video clip to a site, supply any number of scripts and audio tracks and let server logic or JavaScript determine what the viewer sees and hears. In practice, we generally change the Flash movie clips as well as the script and audio. We use different video clips because we usually adjust their timing (see above) to align with their respective audio.