The Choicer VoicerBrowser voice game

6 drills · Original prompts · Playback review

Audio Description Voice Over Exercises

Practice describing essential visible actions during a gap in dialogue. These drills separate observation from interpretation and test whether the listener can follow who acts, where they move, and what changes without the image. Narration must leave room for the original soundtrack.

Start the six-drill routineRead the original example

Controlled practice

Work through the routine one drill at a time.

Change one variable, listen back, then mark the drill. Progress stays on this device and carries across the language switch. The checklist stores completion flags, never recordings.

1

Silent clip inventory

Use a short clip you own and list only visible actions. Separate a camera-observable fact from a guess about a character’s motives.

2

Priority selection

Choose the two visual facts needed to understand the next story beat. Leave decorative details out if they displace information about an action or its result.

3

Dialogue gap mapping

Write down where speech and meaningful sound occur. Place your description in an actual gap rather than talking over dialogue to fit more words.

4

Name before action

Introduce the subject before the verb when the actor could be ambiguous. Keep a consistent name for each person, object, and location.

5

Concrete verb rewrite

Replace inferred emotions with observable movements. Compare “is furious” with a visible action such as “pushes the chair back,” without pretending the two are identical.

6

Audio-only check

Play the description with the original sound while hiding the picture. Ask someone to recount the action; revise any detail they misunderstand or cannot place.

0 of 6 drills completed. Self-review, not an audio score.

Original practice card

Use one fixed example for a fair comparison.

Imagine a clip with a three-second silent gap: Lena slides a blue envelope under a locked door, then walks away. Try “Lena slips a blue envelope under the door.” Compare it with “Lena secretly betrays her friend.” The second line invents a motive the pictured action cannot establish.

How should the first pass work?

Read the example and limits before starting, keep a baseline, and work through the six drills above. Make two takes with a recording device you control and note the specific change privately. On playback, check that information remains intact before judging expressive choices. Stop if uncomfortable; no audio upload is needed.

Limits and failure cases

Repair a failed comparison before continuing.

This is introductory practice, not a certified accessibility evaluation. Use an owned or authorized clip, and seek feedback from intended listeners for production work. Description cannot replace missing dialogue, captions, or other access services.

Too many simultaneous changes

Changing words, level, position, and pace together makes the comparison inconclusive. Return to the example baseline and retain only the variable specified by the current drill.

Impressions instead of evidence

A more attractive sound does not establish that the task worked. Apply the page-specific playback checks, and ask a listener unfamiliar with the example to recount the information before keeping a take.

Effort used to force completion

The completion record is not an endurance contest. Stop at discomfort, shorten the session, and return to comfortable speech; pain or excessive vocal effort is never a condition for checking a box.

Continue training

Choose the next exercise by the task you need.

Continue with Documentary Narration Exercises and Explainer Video Voice Over Exercises, or return to the voice imitation game. The game uses its own reference clips and imitation scoring; it does not automatically assess this original practice script.

How should I review audio description voice over exercises?

Pass when the listener identifies the actor, action, important object, and result without losing dialogue. Time the take against the actual available gap. A fluent sentence still fails if it overlaps speech or adds an unobservable motive. Keep a revision note explaining what you removed and why it was unnecessary.

What are the limits of audio description voice over exercises?

This is introductory practice, not a certified accessibility evaluation. Use an owned or authorized clip, and seek feedback from intended listeners for production work. Description cannot replace missing dialogue, captions, or other access services.