Building a video from an uploaded voiceover

Creating a voiceover scene

First things first: upload your voiceover! To do that, click on the Voice tab on the left side, then click on Upload voiceover. Once your voiceover has been uploaded, you'll see it appear inside this tab, just like the Media tab:



To start creating your video, drag and drop the voiceover onto a blank part of your canvas to create a new scene. You can also click on the green + button and select Create a voiceover scene. This will give you a blank scene that you can drag and drop your voiceover onto, or give you the option to record a voiceover file inside Lumen5.



Once the scene has been created, we'll automatically transcribe the voiceover audio for you and add captions! This is the same thing that happens when you create a scene using a video clip with speech.

Adding overlays to a voiceover scene

Note: This works the same way as it does for talking head scenes! See this help center post for more detailed instructions.

Navigate to the Transcript tab that appears on the left side of the creator. You’ll also see a transcript button attached to the scene itself, making it easy to find your transcript anytime.

To add an overlay, click and drag to select the words in the transcript that correspond to the section of the clip where you’d like your overlay to appear. The transcript functions like a timeline, and you can take a look at the timestamp that appears in the top left for details about when this overlay will appear on your scene. This approach is a lot easier than having to listen to the entire audio clip each time- you can simply use the transcript to navigate around your scene!

Once you’ve selected when you’d like the overlay to appear, click Add. You’ll be prompted to select the type of overlay you’d like to add: a cutaway to a piece of media, a text call-out that animates on top of your scene, or an icon that emphasizes a statistic are some of the options available here:



Once you’ve made a selection, click on it to apply! You’ll see that a small preview of your overlay appears below your talking head scene, and there’s a gray highlight on top of the words in the transcript where the overlay has been applied.



You can add as many overlays as you need to to tell your story! Additional overlays will appear below your scene in chronological order, and you’ll see the text in the transcript outlined in gray to indicate where each overlay begins and ends. Click on the overlay thumbnail below the scene or the overlay icon inside the transcript to navigate around.

Finally, timing is important with overlays! You’ll want to preview your scene to make sure that your overlays are appearing and disappearing at the right spot. For any parts of the clip where an overlay isn't added, the screen will display the default voiceover waveform:

FAQ:

I don't see the Voice tab, what do I do?

You may need to activate our voiceover beta first! You can opt-in to the voiceover beta from your account settings.

Why don't I have the "Experimental features" section in my account settings?

If you don't see that section in your settings it means that you already have the beta version of voiceover! Some accounts were automatically selected to give this beta feature a try, and those accounts won't see the toggle in their settings. If you wish to use the legacy voiceover instead, contact Support to let us know.

Updated on: 19/07/2023