A GreenLight Motion film can have a voice-over and sound effects. The voice-over is written together with the shots, so you read and approve its words on the storyboard or in the preview, and it is recorded only after you approve the preview. Sound effects come from the app’s Sound Library and are placed on what happens in the film: a key click for each typed letter, a pop when something appears, a whoosh on a big move. The render mixes the two into one soundtrack.
Voice-over
Written first, recorded after approval
Whether the film gets a voice-over is set in the brief (Voice-over: Yes, No or Agent decides), or the agent asks you. The agent writes the lines with the shots, at about 2.5 words per second, in the film’s language:
- On the storyboard, each shot shows its part of the voice-over under its copy.
- In the preview, each scene in the Scenes list shows its line, and the timeline’s voice-over lane shows where the lines fall. Until it is recorded, the preview marks the voice-over written, not recorded, and a note says the agent asks about recording it once you approve the preview.
Change any line by telling the agent before it records.
Long, continuous takes
The voice-over is recorded in long takes, never as one short clip per scene. A text-to-speech model reads every request as a complete sentence: it starts fresh and lets the voice fall at the end, so eight scene-sized clips sound like eight separate announcements. One take over several scenes reads as one continuous voice, with real momentum, emphasis and breath.
- A take usually covers one part of the story (the problem, the product, the offer), or the whole film when it is 30 seconds or shorter. The agent splits takes only where a real pause belongs, such as before the call to action.
- The lines are written as flowing speech, with punctuation that sets the rhythm: a comma is a breath, a full stop is a pause.
- A short line of its own is kept for a deliberate beat, such as a single word on a hit or the tagline on the end card.
After recording, the agent finds the pauses between the parts of each take and cuts the picture to the voice: every scene ends in the pause after its part, and a scene that is shorter than its line is lengthened.
Recording
Inside the app the voice-over is recorded with the board’s text-to-speech models, the same ones as in Audio, Speech and Music Generation:
- The agent shows you the lines.
- It lists the available text-to-speech models with their options and prices. The provider bills them, usually per character, and the agent tells you which model it will use and roughly what it costs before it records. Pick the model and voice with it.
- It records each take as one generation and saves the clips in the film’s board folder.
You can use your own recordings instead: give the agent the audio files, one per take or line, and it places them on the film the same way.
Recording is saved line by line. If something fails partway, the finished lines are kept, and a new run records only the lines that are missing or whose words changed. To re-record just some lines (a new take, or new words), tell the agent which scenes.
When the voice-over is recorded, the agent rebuilds the preview so you can hear it, and the Preview step asks for your approval again. In the preview, recorded clips appear as bars in the voice-over lane, and the Voice button mutes and unmutes them.
Sound effects
Where the sounds come from
The sound effects come from the app’s Sound Library (see Sound, Music and Assets Libraries). If the library has no sounds at all, the agent first installs the free Motion Design Pack (608 sounds in 21 categories, about 230 MB) through the app’s own pack installer, then carries on.
The agent asks once whether you want sound effects; for promos the answer is usually yes.
What gets a sound
The agent reads what happens in the film and places a sound on it, with its peak landing on the moment itself:
| In the film | Sound |
|---|---|
| A letter is typed | A key click (fast typing becomes one typing texture) |
| A button press or a cursor click | A click |
| Something pops in | A pop; many small things at once get a tick |
| A camera move or a long, fast move across the frame | A whoosh on the fastest frame |
| A shape floods the frame, or a scene changes world | A transition hit |
| A counter or timer runs | A data texture while it runs, and a tick where it lands |
| A fade between scenes | A quiet whoosh |
Then the agent reviews the cues like a sound designer. It cuts clutter (one sound that carries the beat rather than ten in a second), leaves silence before a big moment, and adds what the animation can’t show on its own: a toggle flipping, a result landing, a low hit under the logo, a soft whoosh as the film opens. In scenes it designed from scratch, it places the sounds itself from what it animated.
Every cue stays editable. Ask the agent for fewer or more sounds, a different sound for one moment, or no sound on a scene.
In the preview
The preview plays the sound effects with the voice-over, and each effect shows as a tick in the timeline’s voice-over lane. The preview plays every effect at its own level; the ducking under the voice happens in the render.
The mix
| Output | How the sound is delivered |
|---|---|
| Render | The voice-over and the sound effects are mixed into one soundtrack. The effects duck under the voice, and the whole film is normalised to −16 LUFS, −1.5 dBTP. |
| Video Editor project | The voice-over is on a Voice-over channel and the effects are on Sound effects channels (overlapping sounds on separate channels), each clip at its own level. The editor doesn’t duck the effects. |
| After Effects package | The voice-over and effects come with their start times, and the agent places them on audio layers in the main comp. |
Where to go next
- Editing the Film Preview — hear the film and make your own changes
- Rendering and Exports — the mixed render and the exports
- Sound, Music and Assets Libraries — the Sound Library and its packs
- Voice Channels and Transcribe Editor — work with the voice-over in the Video Editor
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