Forum Discussion
Dialogue bubbles and narration
Hi all...this is more of a design question. Here are the details:
Static video (mix of images).
There is a conversation between two people, currently reflected with dialogue bubbles. (First, is that a recommended practice?)
Then the audio narration repeats in different voices representing the static characters on screen basically says everything that is in the dialogue bubbles.
I don't like this approach...what is a better way to do this? Should there just be a basic narrator that speaks to the conversation on the screen, highlighting key points?
What strategies have you used? Examples would be awesome.
Thanks so much,
Michele
9 Replies
Hi MicheleIsrael-c — this is a really interesting question! It strikes me you might find this related conversation from just a couple of days back here interesting: Dialogue with characters.
Also tagging in DavidNowlin-f8a and AndrewBlemings- who were chatting on that thread to see if they can add any insight to your specific scenario here.
My go-to answer is the ever unhelpful "it depends." Everything you describe can be its own optimal design choice in at least a few different projects, with particular scopes and deadlines and capabilities. I see this kind of content as living on a continuum, from super static on the left (perhaps a wall of text in a slideshow with a single portrait of a person) to fully dynamic (a video of characters emoting narrative performances.)
Speech bubbles are often fine, and most people are already conditioned to understand their meaning, so that can make development easier. Instead of reinventing every wheel, incorporate what people already know.
Typically a disembodied narrator passively describing what's happening in a scene is considered even worse, so stay clear of that where you can't go without some kind of audio engagement. It's so hard to do well in narrative structures that it's considered a major red flag when reviewing film script submission.
I wonder if there aren't more criteria you're working with, or perhaps some other part of this that could be framed as a problem or obstacle? The method you describe can succeed purely on style and art, so I'm curious where you see its gaps.
Thank you for the thorough reply. Your answer is very helpful.
This is something that I am making for my portfolio. For the content, I am fairly sure how to present this in a corporate training way (2 AM, words hard). I have training material that I am going to present prior to the dialogue discussing best practices. After the dialogue, I have a branching multiple-choice scenario quiz. i.e., Option 1: Do nothing. Option 2: Intervene immediately.
• Layer 1: Initial Discovery – The Argument
Scenario:
You overhear Jordan and Casey arguing about task fairness during a shift. Other team members are visibly uncomfortable.
• Choice A: Ignore the argument – it’s probably just a bad day.
• Sublayer A1: Later in the week, another disagreement breaks out, louder and more public.
Next Step:
o A. Continue to observe.
o B. Address the entire team about professionalism (without naming names).
• Sublayer A2: One team member requests a transfer due to "tense atmosphere."
Reflection Trigger:
o What are the risks of inaction when managing interpersonal conflicts?
________________________________________
• Choice B: Intervene immediately and tell them to calm down.
• Sublayer B1: Jordan snaps, saying, “You always take her side!”
Next Step:
o A. Deflect and postpone the conversation.
o B. Calmly state that this will be addressed in a private discussion.
• Sublayer B2: Casey walks off visibly upset.
Impact:
o Trust diminishes. You sense hostility from both employees in the days following.The majority of training I have done in the past three years has been with Storyline, creating slides with multiple layers in a single step (DoD), e.g., "Step 3. Turn the outer dial clockwise to ACCESS."
I would appreciate some guidance on creating this type of dialogue presentation. I also have been in Adult Education (GED), and I have seen several, less than optimal" presentations from the students' online programs. I would like to have a better idea of creating presentations than what I experienced years ago with my students. I want to provide something that is engaging and not have the students wanting to use an auto clicker to progress through the drudgery.
Would you mind expounding on this: "Typically, a disembodied narrator passively describing what's happening in a scene is considered even worse, so stay clear of that where you can't go without some kind of audio engagement."
Thanks
Thanks for your patience, I wanted to respond completely. Let me know if I'm assuming anything regarding your project or Storyline and I'll bridge what I can.
I see a couple different major areas of focus to create the branching situation you describe. The first will relate as I see it to maintaining the branches. As educators, a lot of what we do involves restructuring information for others, and something like Twine might help a lot depending on the complexity of your scenarios. I tried to mock up your example as best I could understand it here: Example If you're not able to see it for some reason, let me know and I'll host it somewhere.
As for the narrator, this'll also touch a bit on how to make a good "movie." Narrators are very good tellers, but rarely are they good showers, and an unfortunate pattern of new writers is to leverage narrators as an author-as-Virgil guide to the story, unintentionally paving over plot holes, bad character design, and ineffective dialogue. I'm sure you can appreciate how silly it would be to watch a war movie from the perspective of a front-line soldier, and while they're pinned down in an intense scene we hear the soldier's disembodied voice come overhead "man, I didn't like that much!"
It could be done for comedic effect, but as viewers of the content, aren't we supposed to more experience and see that the soldier is unhappy? Should the sound design and scenic design and location and camera angles and color grading and on-screen performance kind of communicate all of that without Captain Obvious piping up from the peanut gallery? I have made many assessments and quizzes so I understand the necessity of "You overhear..."-type quiz questions, but the reason they're so prevalent is because it is in fact harder to rewrite the scenario as a believable argument. To make scenarios more engaging interesting, they will on some level need to mirror the more polished content people compare ours against.
The other major area I'm understanding is presenting things on-screen in such a way as to be less boring. You mention using layers which, unless you really need to condense this conversation to one single slide for some arbitrary reason, I'd avoid in this situation personally. Instead, if you're not familiar with each slide's Timeline, I'd put that as your primary canvas.
The Timeline is what allows me to Insert characters and animate them acting or reacting. It's also what allows me to have a speech bubble "wait" its turn to appear. A significant amount of this resides in "film language" and principles of animation so those may be good places to start if this is new, but certain Entrance and Exit Animations can be attached to characters to suggest they're entering or leaving the scene. A simple horizontal motion path timed to either an audio clip, the entrance of the textbox, or any other event, can simulate a character "walking" across the slide. The challenge of course is that adding motion and timing to content itself requires we spend time, so it's about finding where the diminishing returns become too strong for you.
Audio goes a long way too, so while everyone says there's never time for it, if interest is your goal, that will be a big part in my opinion.
Are you interested in interaction as well or more for now just trying to present a scenario/story?
My initial reaction is that it makes less sense to me to have an audible narrator and have to read the dialogue of the characters - I would actually flip-flop that approach. Alternately, it might help to ask whether or not audio is engaging in the first place. The way I look at it, character audio really only makes sense if the learner is expected to learn something from their tone.
By leveraging the audio channel, we increase the "remember-ability" of our content significantly. I've only ever found the time-expense of audio insertion to be the limiting factor, not pedagogical efficacy. The more channels of communication we can incorporate and harmonize into what we teach, the longer it will last.
AndrewBlemings- and EricFederspiel- these are both really interesting points — on the one hand, wanting to make sure that any added element like audio has a really clear impact, and wondering whether tone makes a big enough difference; on the other hand, hypothesizing that both hearing and reading the information will allow the learners to ingest and remember the information for longer.
I wonder if this hypothesis is testable, or whether it differs depending on the audience?
EricFederspiel- That is a good point. In my case, the dialogue is between two employees who are upset over a lack of communication. So, that does not apply to this dialogue, but I will definitely remember it for upcoming eLearning projects. Thank you.
