I was asked to record a voiceover narration for a corporate video for a shipping company based in Malta. Since I was recording alone in my booth I asked the client for a reference to give me some idea of the style of voiceover delivery they wanted for their video.
I was given a You Tube link to a video for another maritime company – it indicated that the kind of VO they wanted was quite deep in tone, slightly dramatic, designed to give authority and gravitas to the commentary on the client’s video.

While I was listening to the audio on the reference video my eye was drawn to one of the videos listed down the right hand side of the You Tube page. The videos were all about launching ships.
I thought I knew a little bit about launching ships – as far as I was concerned it usually involves some kind of specialized slipway where, after bashing a bottle of bubbly on the hull, the newly constructed craft slides down into the water.

There were a few “fail” videos where ships were launched only to keel over and sink within minutes. But the video that really caught my eye was one involving launching a ship in China using “rolling air bags”. I watched the video that basically shows this massive ship being launched from a sloping concrete beach by rolling it on sausage shaped air bags.

I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The moment I love the most is where you can see these 3 guys just standing around – like on a station platform as this massive ship rolls by like some leviathan steam locomotive and train. It’s a massive ship, weighing thousands of tonnes, rolling past them on…. dry land and these guys are watching in a slightly detached way – like its a real run of the mill event.
I’ve done a lot of health and safety video voice-over narrations – I don’t think any of them have covered a situation like this. Usually workers would have to think twice about things like using a ladder – here a massive ship rolls past just a few metres from some guys who may or may not be having s smoke at the time!