3 Critical Tips for Talent Re-Use in E-Learning Voice-Over & Dubbing

Talent re-use is one of the best ways keep costs down on e-Learning voice-over projects – especially when the courses have scenarios which require lip-sync dubbing. But giving talents multiple characters to play – sometimes in the same video – can also cause problems with the final deliverable, and even lead to pick-ups. What can you do to avoid these issues?

This post will list the three things multimedia localization professionals must do to ensure proper talent re-use.

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Why re-use voice-over and dubbing talents?

One simple reason – courses can have many different characters, some with very few lines, and talent re-use is critical for keeping e-Learning localization costs down. This is particularly true when courses have scenario videos, the short narrative scenes in which an educational concept is acted out. These videos are usually only 30-60 seconds long, but they can have multiple characters – and a course that contains a few videos can end up having 6 to 10 characters total.

Moreover, most courses are part of a learning suite with scores of modules. That means a full e-Learning project will often have as many as 20 to 30 distinct speakers. Casting one talent per speaker is not only prohibitively expensive, but can also be tricky for languages which have smaller native speaker populations – and correspondingly smaller professional voice-over talent pools. Talent re-use is critical for cost-effective and manageable e-Learning localization.

But it can also have a serious drawback – that your audience may notice it, or even be distracted by it. If someone taking your course figures out that the same talent is playing two characters in a scene, for example, their engagement level will decrease, and they may even be confused as to what’s going on. It’s critical to avoid re-use that becomes noticeable by an audience, especially situations in which talents voice multiple characters in the same scene – especially if those characters talk with each other.

So what can video localization producers do to help their partner studio re-use talents during production? How can you ensure that your talent re-use is as cost-effective as possible, but doesn’t affect quality or engagement?

These three tips will help.

1. Remember the limits of audience voice memory.

Viewers don’t really remember a voice after 30 or 40 minutes unless it’s particularly distinctive. When they hear that voice coupled to a different character, and giving a different performance – perhaps with a different overall tone and pitch – it’s safe to assume that a viewer won’t recognize it. This idea of maintaining a healthy “voice separation” is one of the key tricks to re-using talents during casting.

Fortunately, e-Learning has a key advantage when it comes to voice separation – that most people don’t take multiple courses at once. Instead, they take breaks between them, or often take a series of courses over a period of days or weeks. Because of this, voice separation is often really only critical within a course, and much less so over a suite of them.

2. Prepare a full character breakdown for your entire e-Learning suite.

As on all voice and dubbing projects, this breakdown should contain the character names, ages, defining characteristics, and prominence (whether they’re the main character, a supporting player, a small part or a “one-liner”).  For large e-Learning projects, it’s also good to divide characters by course – and by scenarios within the course – to give your post-production studio an idea of who’s talking with whom. This will help them assign talents quickly but still ensure good voice separation.

Finally, be sure to provide a picture of each one of the characters. Why? Because large e-Learning developers re-use actors during video production, often on as many as half or more of the courses in a suite. Having the picture for each character will quickly tell a voiceover producer which actors are re-used, and on which courses. Not only will the producers be able to line up VO talents quickly to specific on-camera talent, but they’ll also get a quick snapshot of voice separation problems that may arise in the larger suite of content.

3. Rely on your voiceover studio.

Once you’ve provided the casting breakdown and general guidance on casting, let your professional studio partner do the heavy lifting. Remember that they know each talent’s particular strengths – whether they can do long stretches of difficult lip-sync or consistent narration, or even how radically they can change their voices – all of which are critical to determining how to best re-use them across a large suite of content. Your studio’s casting directors will also have a good idea of who’s a good fit within each language context – for example, which Japanese voiceover talent sounds right as an overly stern manager, and which one as a disrespectful co-worker.

More entertaining and complex e-Learning ahead

E-Learning content is getting more sophisticated every day, with intricate stories and much higher budgets. Course developers are adopting TV and film production and narrative techniques to ensure audience engagement. Many e-Learning suites, in fact, now feature recurring casts, with full character bios and stories that develop over multiple “episodes” – much like what you’d find on a series. Of course, that means e-Learning localization projects with larger casts and much more rigorous character requirements. Now more than ever, smart talent re-use is critical to keeping your project on budget – and maintaining a high level of production quality.