Researching voiceovers

As a voice is one of key and main things that we need in our documentary i began to research who we could use to present the opening of our film. We must consider who will it be; will it be male or a female, will our choice conform to our target audience? What pitch or tone of voice are we going for; again will this reflect our target audience?

I began researching different documentaries and looking at their voiceovers. One of them was Jewish Mum of the Year: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Whea7ScI8g&safe=active)

Jewish Mum of the Year has a female voiceover which is quite conversational and has a high pitch voice which is very inviting for the audience. From listening to her it makes me as a viewer want to continue watching. Also what she says (script) is written really well and is carefully thought out. This influences our thoughts on the documentary and again  makes us want to watch more.

Another documentary that I looked at was Planet Earth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ag2q094y8Y&safe=active) David Attenborough is an iconic voice in television especially documentaries mainly being Nature. What makes his voice so iconic is the way that he adapts it to the situations hat the animals are in. His voice is very deep and also inviting but it also allows us to put ourselves in the position that we are actually watching these animals up front in their surroundings. As he is such an iconic figure when it comes to voiceovers and documentaries, he appeals to the target audience of males more than females (same as Jewish Mum of the Year does with women)

In another documentary called Weight loss Ward (https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/weight-loss-ward), which followed various overweight people as they attempted to get help from hospitals. The voiceover in this documentary had a very mocking tone as well as sympathetic. The narrator is a male which I think was suitable for this kind of documentary. I think this tone of voice is more suited to our documentary as it creates the tone and response we would want from our audience.

From this research, I can conclude that our voiceover may have to be male just as our subject is male and the fact that a male voice can carry our message better than a woman.