Thursday, September 04, 2008

My Audiobook Adventure - Day 2


Sorry I didn't get to post last night about my day. It was just so busy yesterday.

I spent pretty much all day at Audible.com reading the book I was cast for. I left at 4:00 or so which left me about two hours to run home, feed my dogs, let them out then dash to a rehearsal for Jekyll & Hyde.

I feel like SUCH an actor!

One cool thing is I saw Roscoe Ormon, the actor who plays Gordon on Sesame street in the lunch room at Audible. Apparently he was there reading a book as well. I would have loved to chat with him for a while but he was having his lunch, talking on the phone, and on his laptop at at once. I didn't want to disturb an obviously busy guy! Perhaps I'll see him today and he's not too busy, we can chat for a bit.

The response to my performance was very positive yesterday. My engineer / director, Charles, kept telling me what a great job I was doing. We got through over 100+ pages yesterday. Charles commended me on my stamina, and believe me reading audiobooks does require stamina. You've got to be "on" for the entire session unlike a commercial where you've only go to be on during the 30 or so seconds it take to do each take. Charles told me that most first timers usually don't get past page 70 or so their first day.

I truly appreciated his feedback and of course, I like positive feedback better than criticism though if I am sucking the big one, I really want to know about that too!

Anyway, I gotta run for day 2.

More later!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cannot imagine the energy required as a professional audiobook narrator. I'm certainly not a pro, but am recording my own writing in weekly "episodes". It takes me about 45 minutes to record enough material for a 20 minute episode, and that's draining enough. My biggest problem is my voice is not accustomed to speaking continuously for that much time, so it begins to get rather croaky if I end up taking much longer to record.

Anonymous said...

Congrats, 'mano! You SHOULD feel like such an ACTOR... because you ARE. Anyway - looking forward to hearing your work. "Gordon" lives/lived near me and his daughter went to high school with my "baby" brother.

PEACE.
-Anthony

Anonymous said...

Joe,
Thank you for recounting your experience here. I am happy to learn this adventure is going so well for you.

To my delight, I was "booked" this week to read for a children's animated audio book for a major publisher, and will finish today. I've done two other audio books, but it was about 10 years ago. I believe the genre is very much alive and well, and has a very bright future.

I look forward to hearing your work!
All The Best,
Bobbin Beam- Voice Actress

Anonymous said...

Hey Joe,

Congrats on the gig. Glad to hear you're doing well and not feeling swamped.

My own little experience of reading audiobooks taught me to start early in the morning, not to take too many breaks, eat little at lunch and don't overdo the water drinking.

100 pages a day is a good rate and it's a testament to you that you keep the concentration.

Well done and keep going.

James