ABSTRACT
Telling a Different Kind of Story Sales presentation, marketing videos, in-house training tapes, point-of-purchase videos, film documentaries, telephone messages, and many other projects all fall into the category of corporate and narrative. Frequently, these scripts are written to be read and not spoken. Writers of industrials-corporate and narrative-copy are often not experienced writers, or usually write copy for print. There are exceptions to this, but overall you can expect copy in this category to be pretty dry. Corporate and narrative copy is often full of statistics, complex names or phrases and terminology specific to a business or industry. These can be a challenge for even an experienced voiceover performer. As you perform a corporate or narrative script, you are still performing a character telling a story, just as for any other type of copy. You should know who your character is, who you are talking to, and what you are talking about. You also need to find a way to create an image of knowledge and authority for your character. What is it about your character that gives him the authority to be speaking the words? Is your character the owner of the company, a satisfied customer, the company’s top salesperson, or a driver for one of the delivery trucks? To create an image of credibility, figure out an appropriate role for your character and commit to your choice. A corporate or narrative script for a video project might have several performers on camera. These are often professional actors, but sometimes include employees of the business. There also may be several voiceover performers for different sections of the script.
