{"id":533,"date":"2022-03-31T18:08:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T18:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/?p=533"},"modified":"2022-04-01T03:59:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T03:59:06","slug":"sos-im-running-out-of-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classapps.chass.ncsu.edu\/com304\/?p=533","title":{"rendered":"SOS, I’m running out of content"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Kurt<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the past two and half months\u2014despite a slurry of personal engagements, deadlines, and responsibilities\u2014I’ve listened to seven audiobooks. And throughout this journey, the one thing I continue to ask myself is: Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have I discovered an overwhelming love for literature and storytelling? No, not really. Do I live by some incredulous belief that reading improves your vocabulary? Hogwash! I don’t even know what incredulous<\/em> means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best explanation I’ve got is this: The reason I’m so obsessed with audiobooks is that the people who read them are just so darn<\/em> funny\u2014especially when they’re not trying to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take, for example, the differences between recording methods. Two weeks ago, I listened to a Kurt Vonnegut story called Sirens of Titan<\/em>. Total classic. What made it even better, though, was the story’s narrator Jay Snyder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snyder offered perfectly crisp audio, a wonderfully active way of storytelling, and stellar voice work\u2014to the point where you could hear Snyder pause just a second longer for all the comedic paragraph-breaking moments. Which makes sense. As a professional audiobook, you’d at least expect the audio<\/em> category to be up to snuff. But I’ve since learned that’s not always the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Sirens of Titan, I listened to the first half of Breakfast of Champions<\/em>. Same author, but read by some different this time. John Malkovich. The John Malkovich. And, who could’ve guessed, the audio was terrible! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heavy static and clipping filled the background. A monotone Malkovich read the entire first chapter without ever adjusting his volume or tone. But in a way, as described by one NY Times reviewer<\/a>, it worked. The drab narration fits the bleakly comedic mood of Vonnegut’s piece perfectly. Here, the words are allowed to stand alone, devoid of character work or vocal interpretation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it goes. After a month and a half of reading, I’d learned that audiobooks don’t need perfect recordings to be compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the cat out of the cradle, I listened to a few more books. This time, paying close attention to how different voices and audio production methods interacted with the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found one more fascinating aspect of audiobooks that relates to our class: Character voice acting. Imagine listening to a completely normal telling only for the narrator to break their voice while telling dialogue of a secondary character\u2014adjusting their pitch and tone perfectly, without any digital help. As I work on the ADR porject I’ve become good friends with the pitch adjusters, so it amazes how people can naturally make these voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s just so much we could talk about when it comes to listening to and recording audiobooks. So, I leave you with a recording of The Old Man and The Sea<\/em> read by American Actor Charlton Heston. Listening to the guy who played Moses in The Ten Commandments <\/em>repeat “the fish, the fish, the fish” in a desperate fisherman’s voice is bound to make you laugh. Or it won’t, i’m going mad, and I’ll be darned if I don’t drag you down with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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