No Woman, No Cry

[kozikowski]

This might work. It's still not five minutes, but it's a narrative and I can hear it in your voice. It's also © me.

Here's how this works. This is a biography completely made up from the rhythm, style, and structure of a person's name. Actual facts are irrelevant. The trick is to maintain a plausible timeline and setting without committing accuracy anywhere else.

jeremyBartelWines.txt

(3.5 KiB) Downloaded 33 times

Koz

[James H]

I believe I can make that work just fine. Thank you, sir.
Just need to make the text a little bigger.
Anything in particular you'd like me to put into the tag sections when I rip down to .mp3?
-JH

[kozikowski]

Nothing I can think of.

Koz

[kozikowski]

You may have a hard time breathing. I wrote that for reading with your eyes (the best way, I found) and it has some pretty serious run-on sentences. I'm interested to see what you do with that. I guess the up side is being able to handle almost anything if you can crank through that.

Koz

[Trebor]

You may have a hard time breathing ...

That's another reason graduates of Philip Morris University, should try short*-form,
e.g. a 30 second commercial, computer-game character, or an instructional voice-over which is only a few minutes long.

[* IMO don't bother auditioning for telephony/IVR jobs :
your bass-voice will be less intelligible than an average voice after it's gone through a telephone system ]

[kozikowski]

Hudson Valley milk is fortified for strong bones and teeth.....

Koz

[James H]

You may have a hard time breathing. I wrote that for reading with your eyes (the best way, I found) and it has some pretty serious run-on sentences. I'm interested to see what you do with that. I guess the up side is being able to handle almost anything if you can crank through that.

Koz

I read the entire script out loud a couple times last night, and yeah, that first paragraph is one very long sentence; I was utilizing my diaphragm muscles pretty seriously to keep an even volume and tone, while leaving some room for emphasis where needed. There are some other long passages and some tricksy sibilance/fricative turns as well. You ain't the only one who wants to see how I am able to motor through it.

You may have a hard time breathing ...

That's another reason graduates of Philip Morris University, should try short*-form,
e.g. a 30 second commercial, computer-game character, or an instructional voice-over which is only a few minutes long.

[* IMO don't bother auditioning for telephony/IVR jobs :
your bass-voice will be less intelligible than an average voice after it's gone through a telephone system ]

Definitely concur with you Trebor. From what I've seen you guys post, ACX understands that humans need to breathe, they just don't want to hear someone gasping for air like they are trying an Everest ascent sans oxygen. I can deliver up probably an octave into baritone, and perhaps down half an octave, but it doesn't sound like "me."

-JH

[kozikowski]

I can deliver up probably an octave into baritone, and perhaps down half an octave, but it doesn't sound like "me."

Which snaps us back to ACX's insistence that your presentation sound natural and with no distractions.

That's how they publish it, but that's not exactly true. You should sound natural and pleasing. Not everybody can read out loud. The company where I used to work had an artist who was really good at this. The joke was he could play to standing room only by announcing he was going to read the phone book.

That's the ideal.

I wasn't paying enough attention at the time to record him and see how he did it.

I attended a Voter's Info presentation at the local library. It was given by two women who both knew the work and used the same words, but only one was pleasant to listen to.

There is another extreme. There was a post from a clinically asthmatic who wanted to read. Probably not the best match.

So. ACX wants five minutes, the instructions say nothing over ten and 'Jeremy Bartel' is unreadable by normal humans. Anything I write is going to have the same problems and almost all of the older stuff is shorter.

Have a happy day.

Koz

[kozikowski]

You don't have to be broadcast perfect, either. One of my favorite audiobook readers is Sarah Vowell. She has a quirky delivery I like. I have four of her audiobooks.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/Pr ... onList.mp3

Koz

[kozikowski]

that first paragraph is one very long sentence;

There are ways around that. There is a VLOG presenting technique that has no breathing. I'm sure this is a genetic failing on my part, but I like several shows that run at 110% forward speed and nobody takes a breath for 12 minutes.

You can't arbitrarily do that. The basic podcast has to be terrific and dense with entertainment, meaning or both. You can't make mistakes. I'm crystal clear that editing those is a nightmare and your content vanishes 10% fast.

Not for the easily frightened.

Purists and ACX would be understandably horrified, but I think the opposite is an abomination:

Let's present slowly with mistakes and make the viewer sit through the mistakes. I'm getting pretty good at recognizing those in the first few seconds. NEXT!

Koz