Narrating and producing audiobooks is probably like a lot of activities where the lay person doesn’t or can’t fully understand the amount of work and expertise that goes into to producing something that (ideally) seems so effortless and easy. That’s something I try to keep in mind when paying for other people’s services having negotiated with clients who did not understand my process.

I think Xavier’s estimate of 6.2 hours of work per finished hour of audiobook is pretty accurate. Of course that does not count the additional time the professionals involved spend running their own business (most everyone in the profession is a freelancer or self-employed). Plus, the narrator is also increasingly used as the producer which comes with its own set of challenges and rewards.

Why audiobooks? Well I’ve got a set of fun ones in the pipeline now. Hopefully with the first one rolling out in the next several weeks. Stay tuned!

In all seriousness can storytelling accomplish anything as meaningful as even changing a lightbulb? In an attempt to answer that question I participated in the 2011 Global Storytelling Institute held last week at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN. The institute was led by Dr. Hannah Harvey as well as Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang of Eth-Noh-Tec. The week centered around three case studies: Dr. Harvey’s ongoing work with a community of coal miners in southwest Virginia, Eth-Noh-Tec’s on-going cultural exchange to the Chinese storytelling village of Gengcun (part of their Nu Wah program), and the Bhutanese cultural exchange trip represented by Dr. Sobol of the ETSU Storytelling program.

It was a week of lively discussions and presentations about ethics and responsibilities of storytelling globally. As part of the institute participants received some stories from storytellers in the village of Gengcun, which is designated as a storytelling village in China, where hundreds of villagers are recognized “master storytellers” being able to tell over a thousand stories. Each institute participant then came up with a response story, either personal or a folktale, to the Gengcun teller’s story they got. These response stories were then crafted into a performance put on as part of Johnson City’s Umoja Festival which (appropriately) celebrates diversity in the region. Our response stories were recorded and will be taken and shown to the Gengcun storytellers later this year when Eth-Noh-Tec returns to China.

Photo by José Ramón de Lothlórien

1. They are programmed by the company that provides the phone system; they must change the programming if you would like the Director to be Option 1 instead of option 2.
2. Keep it Simple – if you have more than 4 or 5 options you’re going to lose folks or force them to “press 0″.
3. Offer a “Press 0″ option – remember the people calling you have or are trying to help you generate business
4. Commit to the options and keep them
5. The voice should be clear and accent free if possible – think mid-west accent
6. Professional voice artists are available to help you get a professional sound
7. Repeat the options twice or offer an option to replay the options!

-AAC Blog

OK, some seem a little obvious but it is amazing how easy it is to make a menu more complex or to justify changing an option which throws off and frustrates a long term customer. Point #6 is of course something near and dear to my heart. AAC even has a link to an example of professional vs. just-someone-around-the-office recordings. I can’t say if its real or not but listening to them back-to-back it becomes clear which one I’d want representing my business!

Sometimes I tell myself the darndest things. . . (photo by: Justin Scott Campbell)

Last April Fool’s I blogged about a project I voiced that got mentioned in the New York Times. A friend read that post and thought it would be funny to download the app and then use the audio to “call myself”. Luckily he recorded the whole thing.

Download audio file (prank_call.mp3)

Earlier this month Brook Mecham invited me to be a presenter as part of her Living Room Lecture series. It was a fun evening about voice-overs and the voice-over industry with lots of great participation from everyone. For those interested in learning more, check out their Facebook group and blog.

Just to be clear (and as troll deterrent) it is uncertain whether unlock/jailbroken the Apple TV is actually showing the 1080p source at its full resolution or scaling it down the device’s native 720p. Since I’m not doing color correction or full-blown editing anymore this doesn’t bother me, but it might bother some people.

source: Handbrake forum

“Knowledge gained from failure lasts longer”
-University of Colorado Business School Study

It may seems self-evident when we are sitting in a safe place surfing through cyberspace but a recent study completed by the University of Colorado’s Business School seems to confirm the common notion that organizations can learn more from failures than successes. Or, perhaps I should say we tend to learn more from our failures but that is far from a given. Too often we are prone to over fixing or over correcting problems. I believe that failure where we can step back, acknowledge the problem, learn from it (thereby freeing ourselves from a fear that the problem is permanent), and avoid over correcting is failure that will eventually turn into a success. Failure where we become quick to blame and slow to learn is a failure we are surely doomed to repeat.

In the world of voice-overs the pressure to perform can quickly sour into a fear of failure. This fear develops into stagnation. That stagnation can manifest in a performer’s abilities, style, the type of work they’ll do, or even their marketing efforts. I had a teacher once who would force us to occasionally practice a bit of text “wrong.” In other words, she made us do all the mistakes we were afraid to make. While I hated the exercise at the time, it was insightful both how difficult it could be (fear is after all rooted in the unknown) and how often great insights and new tactics came from the experiment. I wouldn’t recommend trying it out in booth on a client’s time, but the next time you feel yourself stagnating in a rehearsal session give it a try.

Note about the picture: this is actually pre-engagement. Gini is camera shy but wanted a picture of my socks. I said yes, but only if she was in the photo with me.