Scientific and Medical Narration
Scientific and medical narrations are two of the most challenging genres in the voice-over realm, due largely to highly specialized scientific content that is quite unfamiliar to most voice-over artists. As a result, only a small number of voice-over actors have the desire plus the appropriate skills and background to tackle these two highly demanding narration niches.
Types Of Scientific And Medical Narrations
Scientific narrations, and its largest sub-category known as medical narrations, have become important ways to share knowledge between subject-matter-experts (e.g. scientists, doctors, health-care professionals) and their peers (e.g. other scientists, doctors, etc.) OR to general, non-scientific audiences. Some examples of peer-to-peer narrations include e-learning videos for advanced students in academic settings or an explainer video to help a pharma company describe the mechanism-of-action for its new drug to potential prescribing doctors. Examples of scientific or medical narrations that are geared to general audiences include pharmaceutical ads, explainer videos on how to use your new medical device or understand your new medical condition, and documentaries on space and our environment.
What Attributes Are Essential For The Highest Quality Scientific and Medical Narrations?
The highest quality scientific and medical narrations contain the following attributes:
1. Clear enunciation and accurate pronunciation:
Scientific and medical narrations often contain tongue-twisting words and detailed, arcane terminology. In this highly specialized space where “- ectomy” and “-otomy” describe two very different things, it is vitally important that every word is clearly enunciated and accurately pronounced. These types of narrations demand voice-over actors who already possess a strong command of scientific and medical vocabularies.
2. Voice-over delivery that forms strong connections with the listener:
As with all forms of narration, it is important that the voice-over artist form strong connections with the listener to enable effective comprehension of the material. This is especially important with scientific and medical narrations because the content can be highly technical and dense with information. The narrator must first understand the content and then use their voice skills to emphasize the important points and make associations clear, while delivering the overall tone (e.g. authoritative, compassionate, conversational, etc) desired by the client.
3. Successfully maintaining the “veil of believability” as a subject-matter expert:
In many cases the voice-over artist must quite convincingly assume and maintain the role of the scientific/medical subject-matter-expert. He/she must convey the gravitas and garner the respect that a physician or highly accomplished scientist possesses so that the narrative content accomplishes its objectives with the audience.
Maintaining this “veil of believability” is difficult to do well, especially in peer-to- peer narrations where the intended audience is often quite familiar with the underlying science. Emphasizing the wrong word in a scientific concept, weak confidence in the delivery, or mispronunciation of a scientific term destroys the voice-over actor’s veil of believability as a scientific subject-matter-expert. If the scientifically savvy audience thinks that the voice-over actor doesn’t really understand what he/she is talking about, then they have no reason to believe the other parts of the narrative content and will quickly tune out. As a result, the goals are not achieved.
Warren Kati, a True Scientist And Male Voice For Scientific And Medical Narration
Warren brings a compelling background as a scientist to his scientific and medical narrations. He earned B.S. degrees in both biology and chemistry as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biochemistry, and enjoyed a successful 30+ year career as a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. Those incredibly difficult, tongue-twisting scientific and medical terms found in these types of narrations – they are his mother-tongue!
Warren is not only quite familiar with the technical terminology but, importantly, he also UNDERSTANDS the scientific and medical content in these narrations. This expert level of scientific proficiency enables Warren to easily and accurately identify the important points in the narrative script to confidently deliver a smooth, natural read in whatever tone the client desires. It is no problem for Warren to maintain the veil of believability as a subject-matter-expert because HE IS a subject-matter-expert in many scientific and medical fields.
Whether you need someone with a deep background in science, a “Science Doc”, to do voice overs, or you simply need someone to voice over “Science DOCuments”, then please strongly consider working with Warren at Science Doc Voice-overs. Warren is comfortable with narrations in any field of science or medicine. He is eager to bring his passions for science and VO together to create a voice-over product that you will love. So check out his demos at the top of this page and see if Warren is right for your project!
