Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Ears Have It . . .


I started work on recording the audiobook for Outcast, and though I'm just a sliver of the way through--just four chapters recorded out of thirty-six--I have already learned a few things:
1. I swear I'm forgetting how to do accents, something I'm generally particularly good at.
2. Ten pages of text equals around thirty-five minutes of recording.
3. This project is going to eat up a lot of time, and a lot of CD's.

I'm breaking each chapter into sections, recording and then checking and then recording. It helps my voice not get too strained, and it's easier than taking long stretches of text. I don't have anything like profesional equipment and I'm not in a studio, so every loud sound gets picked up and means I have to stop and record over it. Then, there's the simple misreads or stutters; every once in a while, my brain just sees a word or phrase wrong and I have to rerecord that dialogue. It can get pretty exhausting, and I've got a long way to go.

Still, there's something really satisfying about setting my words down in my voice. I'm not a professional voiceover artist; I don't have the voice for that, my own being a little too high and nasal. but, it feels a little like having your own radio show, like telling your friends your story around a campfire. I became an actor to tell stories, because I liked performing my own work for an audience, and this feels a bit like that (even though right now it's just an audience of one).

If things progress, I should be able to have the audiobook ready for Christmas, and several of my friends will get a copy in their stockings. Yes, it's not the highest quality recording, but I still hope they like it.

On to the next chapter . . .

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