how to voice over a screen recording, pausing as you talk

how to voice over a screen recording: play it back, pause where you need to explain, and record yourself talking over it, with every pause and jump kept so the picture lines up with your words. underway's watch me work now does exactly that over a time-lapse of your working day, and gives you back the note you spoke at each moment you flagged.

the short version

the take in watch me work, the part where you talk in front of your time-lapse, is now a proper player. you can watch it at the speed you chose before you record. while you record, a click on the screen pauses it so you can talk over a still frame, and the timeline under it drags to any point. every flag you marked while you worked is on that timeline.

and a flag is now a spoken note. when you press mark this while you work, you say what is happening. that becomes a short note, and when your take reaches the flag, the note is above the screen, so you remember what you wanted to say about it.

why it changed

rich, who builds underway, filmed his first watch me work with the new setup and went to record the take. the slider said how long the time-lapse would run, but there was no way to see what that meant before pressing record. the time-lapse just played from start to end once recording began. there was no pause, no way back to a moment, and nothing to say where the flags were.

the flags had their own slider, for how many seconds of each played at real time. nobody wants to speed up their own moment. and a flag that carried your voice from the session would put a second you into the take, talking over the you on camera. two people at once.

so the take is now what you would expect of any video you talk over: play, pause, scrub, jump. and the voice from the session goes where it is useful, into a note, instead of into the episode.

how to voice over a screen recording in underway

• record a watch me work session. when something happens, press mark this (or m) and say what it is
• make the time-lapse. on the episode page, your take is the first thing on the cut
• set how fast it plays, then press play to watch it at that speed. flags play whole at real time, with their notes above the screen
• press record my take. you get a count of three you can see, then you are on camera in a bubble and the time-lapse plays from the start
• click the screen or press space to pause it and talk. press again to carry on. drag the timeline, or use flag and the arrow keys, to jump
• when the time-lapse ends you can keep talking. stop the take, then use this take

pausing and jumping are kept in the episode

when you voice over a screen recording, the hard part is keeping what you say on what is on screen. if you pause the picture to explain something and the edit carries on playing, you end up pointing at the wrong thing.

underway writes down every change while you record: where the time-lapse was, how fast it was playing, and when you paused or jumped. when the episode is made, the time-lapse is played back exactly that way behind you. a pause holds the frame you stopped on for as long as you talked. a jump lands where you dragged it. nothing drifts.

the notes

the microphone is on only while a flag is marked. what you say is heard, boiled down to a line or two in your own words, and the recording is deleted. the note sits on the flag. you can rewrite it under the player, in your flags, before you record.

the note never goes in the episode. it is a prompt for you, the way a presenter has a line on a card. you still say it in your own words, on camera.

on the phone

the session itself is recorded on a computer, since a phone cannot share its screen. the take works on the phone: the same steps, the same timeline and flags, the notes above the time-lapse, and a tap on it to pause while you talk.

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