the.com/voiceover

A disembodied voice that gets to narrate your life without ever living it.

means A voice track recorded separately and laid over footage or performance, narrating, explaining, or supplying dialogue the viewer never sees spoken aloud.

from A 20th-century compound from film and broadcasting jargon, literally 'voice' placed 'over' the visual or musical track. It emerged alongside radio and cinema sound technology, as studios needed a term for narration added in post-production rather than spoken on camera — the word just describes the physical act of laying audio over picture.

origin
Started in 1920s radio and newsreels
economics
Pays per word, not per hour of effort
paradox
Most persuasive when speaker is invisible
trade secret
Warm tone sells more than loud tone
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