A friend and I thought of this a few months ago, and we actually recorded the first chapter. Then we calculated how much time the rest would take and concluded that we simply weren’t willing to make the investment.
That said, would you be open to collaboration, to defray the huge time requirements?
Sure, alternating, or spreading the load among anybody who has a microphone and wants to contribute.
This would introduce issues of quality control—you might have to tell someone that their reading was just not very good.
The consistency between tones and character voices might also be jarring.
On the other hand, a little variety might be a fun exercise. Has there ever been a “community audiobook?” (Cursory googling suggests not.) We could be the first. Anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of people who couldn’t stomach twenty-plus hours of reading into a microphone, but would be happy to do twenty minutes, or one hour.
I’d be willing to do a specific character’s voice or two. As long as someone edits the audio there’s no reason it has to be recorded sequentially. (If anyone wants to know what I sound like, I did the voice of Meri Lin (first voice heard) on this Youtube commercial for a friend’s webcomic; it’s not a good-quality recording, and the timing was awkward to pace with the video so I think I sound stilted, but there it is.)
Thank you! :) You have a nice voice, and I would love to have a woman for the female parts. Unfortunately, for the reasons I laid out in my reply to moridinamael, I’m going to decline for now. If things change I’ll send you a pm to ask if you’re still willing. Thanks!
For a while I had a dream of having a different person for every major character, but for an amateur project this presents many problems. The first being geography, it’s unlikely we can all meet in one place for this. The second being scheduling, it’s hard for many people with other full-time obligations to meet regularly and consistently without “it’s my job” working as a good excuse. The common response/solution is to have different parts recorded separately and sent in to be recombined, but that leads to two new problems.
First, tone. Without people there in the same room to play off each other the different readings can be jarringly out of character with each other. Secondly, it’s vastly more post-production to recombine everything (which I’ll get into next).
Alternating chapters would be great, but I think I’m going to decline for now, partially for the reasons you mentioned. Having a consistent tone is probably a good thing, and I would have a very hard time telling someone I couldn’t use their reading. For someone to spend $100 (or more?) on recording equipment and several hours reading and be then told it’s no good seems… cruel. But also for two other reasons (I’m all about two’s today)
Post-production. This is the majority of the work. It took me about 2 hours to put together the 17 minutes of the pilot. I expect this to go down drastically as I get better with the tools, but post-production will always be more than half the total time spent because I have to go back and re-listen to the audio in it’s entirety while pausing repeatedly and making tweaks/changes/removing flubbed lines/inserting clips.
Reading is the fun part. I really enjoy the actual reading into the mic part of this. :) So while it’s time consuming, it’s something I would consider to be fun in it’s own right. If someone else were to send in audio of them reading then I still get all the work of post-production without the fun of reading aloud to compensate for it.
Hopefully this isn’t burning any bridges, and in the future if I’m able to work things differently or realize I really need help I’ll still be able to come back and ask for some. I do appreciate the offer.
No bridges burned—it’s your project, and if me and my friends had intended on doing it, well, we would have done it. I agree with all of your objections. If you want this done “professionally” then you had better do it yourself.
If you change your mind and decide you want help, please do ask!
A friend and I thought of this a few months ago, and we actually recorded the first chapter. Then we calculated how much time the rest would take and concluded that we simply weren’t willing to make the investment.
That said, would you be open to collaboration, to defray the huge time requirements?
I think so, but I’m not sure how that would be done without taking up even more time. Unless you meant alternating chapters?
Sure, alternating, or spreading the load among anybody who has a microphone and wants to contribute.
This would introduce issues of quality control—you might have to tell someone that their reading was just not very good.
The consistency between tones and character voices might also be jarring.
On the other hand, a little variety might be a fun exercise. Has there ever been a “community audiobook?” (Cursory googling suggests not.) We could be the first. Anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of people who couldn’t stomach twenty-plus hours of reading into a microphone, but would be happy to do twenty minutes, or one hour.
I’d be willing to do a specific character’s voice or two. As long as someone edits the audio there’s no reason it has to be recorded sequentially. (If anyone wants to know what I sound like, I did the voice of Meri Lin (first voice heard) on this Youtube commercial for a friend’s webcomic; it’s not a good-quality recording, and the timing was awkward to pace with the video so I think I sound stilted, but there it is.)
Thank you! :) You have a nice voice, and I would love to have a woman for the female parts. Unfortunately, for the reasons I laid out in my reply to moridinamael, I’m going to decline for now. If things change I’ll send you a pm to ask if you’re still willing. Thanks!
For a while I had a dream of having a different person for every major character, but for an amateur project this presents many problems. The first being geography, it’s unlikely we can all meet in one place for this. The second being scheduling, it’s hard for many people with other full-time obligations to meet regularly and consistently without “it’s my job” working as a good excuse. The common response/solution is to have different parts recorded separately and sent in to be recombined, but that leads to two new problems.
First, tone. Without people there in the same room to play off each other the different readings can be jarringly out of character with each other. Secondly, it’s vastly more post-production to recombine everything (which I’ll get into next).
Alternating chapters would be great, but I think I’m going to decline for now, partially for the reasons you mentioned. Having a consistent tone is probably a good thing, and I would have a very hard time telling someone I couldn’t use their reading. For someone to spend $100 (or more?) on recording equipment and several hours reading and be then told it’s no good seems… cruel. But also for two other reasons (I’m all about two’s today)
Post-production. This is the majority of the work. It took me about 2 hours to put together the 17 minutes of the pilot. I expect this to go down drastically as I get better with the tools, but post-production will always be more than half the total time spent because I have to go back and re-listen to the audio in it’s entirety while pausing repeatedly and making tweaks/changes/removing flubbed lines/inserting clips.
Reading is the fun part. I really enjoy the actual reading into the mic part of this. :) So while it’s time consuming, it’s something I would consider to be fun in it’s own right. If someone else were to send in audio of them reading then I still get all the work of post-production without the fun of reading aloud to compensate for it.
Hopefully this isn’t burning any bridges, and in the future if I’m able to work things differently or realize I really need help I’ll still be able to come back and ask for some. I do appreciate the offer.
Geography isn’t a problem. Skype can be used to get everyone “together.”
No bridges burned—it’s your project, and if me and my friends had intended on doing it, well, we would have done it. I agree with all of your objections. If you want this done “professionally” then you had better do it yourself.
If you change your mind and decide you want help, please do ask!