Voiceover Narration Tips from a Chimp flick

I had a voiceover narration lesson today, for myself, as a coach.

I went to see the movie Chimpanzee with my daughter.  For starters, I play a really mean game of “guess the voices in an animated feature.”  This time I failed.  Couldn’t do it.  But I was hooked.  The delivery was at times intense (chimpanzee tribes were physically battling for food territories), at times comedic (chimpanzees putting down a “tool” and walking away briefly and some other chimp casually waddling over to take it), and at times warm and endearing (too many spoilers here).  I was impressed.  The footage was truly incredible on it’s own but the narration brought us so much deeper into their “tribe.”  The intimacy with which the narrator spoke was so authentic, as if we’d known them for years and they were sitting in the seat right next to us relaying the story’s details.  Incredible.  I am often used to a more formal and traditional narrator – not necessarily robotic, but we can hear the “announcing”…..the “polished performance.”  In commercial casting the trend for a long time now for specs has leaned toward “conversational, relaxed, non-anncry.”  I’d hire this narrator in a heartbeat.  Okay, have you gotten it yet, my avoidance of even telling you the sex of the narrator?  I can’t hold it in anymore, and I hope you will be as pleasantly shocked as I was – Tim Allen.  Yes, Home Improvement guy.  I never watched the show and I didn’t have his voice memorized.  But I do now.