[Studiotalk] Narrators for Westerns or other titles

Tue Jun 12 06:48:12 CDT 2018

Hey all,

It was nice seeing all the discussion that this question I posted brought out.  I can now see that there are some diverse ways of handling this issue of who narrates what and  also to see some of the strategies that are used.  As a one man show with a volunteer base of 13 narrators and three audio monitors as well as a handful of reviewers, I always appreciate hearing new ideas on how to approach things  I just wish there was a way of turning around our titles faster to get more into the hands of our patrons.   I guess this is a case of “ya just work with what ya got.”

Thanks for all the input.

Lin

Linden Coffman
Director
Indiana Voices
Indiana State Library
Talking Book & Braille Library
315 West Ohio Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
317-232-3683
E-mail: lcoffman at library.in.gov

From: studiotalk [mailto:studiotalk-bounces at islemail.org] On Behalf Of Nancy Gahagan
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2018 4:11 PM
To: TBBS Recording Studio Info <studiotalk at islemail.org>
Subject: Re: [Studiotalk] Narrators for Westerns or other titles

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Here you go all! I also attached a sample of how it gets filled out by my volunteer. You may have suggestions to improve so please feel free to offer them. I do find it helpful because it is so time consuming to go through each book. This has turned into a handy reference for us to narrow down the book choices for each narrator.

Best,
Nancy

Nancy Gahagan
Recording Studio Manager
Perkins School for the Blind

Perkins Library
175 North Beacon Street
Watertown MA 02472
P: 617-972-7362
Perkins.org

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On Mon, Jun 11, 2018 at 2:53 PM, Easter, Josh <Josh.Easter at state.sd.us<mailto:Josh.Easter at state.sd.us>> wrote:
This is a great topic!

Could you share the pre-production assessment paper you use. That’s a great idea!
Thanks,
Josh Easter
Equipment and Audio Production Manager
South Dakota Braille & Talking Book Library Program
SD State Library, 800 Governors Drive, Pierre, SD 57501
Phone: 605.773.5082 / 1.800.423.6665 (SD only)  Fax: 605.773.6962
Josh.Easter at state.sd.us<mailto:Josh.Easter at state.sd.us>     http://library.sd.gov<http://library.sd.gov/>
From: studiotalk [mailto:studiotalk-bounces at islemail.org<mailto:studiotalk-bounces at islemail.org>] On Behalf Of Nancy Gahagan
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2018 1:29 PM
To: TBBS Recording Studio Info
Subject: Re: [EXT] [Studiotalk] Narrators for Westerns or other titles

Hi Everyone!

We do try to fit the material to the narrator and not just by gender. We have a volunteer who goes through all of our books and fills out a pre-production assessment of the book so that we can have an idea of what is in the book before assigning it. We know we have certain readers who do better with non-fiction vs fiction because they don't handle dialogue well. Some do not handle foreign language well. Some don't have facility with long, complicated sentences. We do a lot of Red Sox books. We like to choose narrators for those books who are sports fans because it comes across in the reading.The style, vocal quality and delivery of the narrator all play into our decision about choosing books for them. We have heard from our patrons that the voice being suited to the material is important to them.

We usually give our narrators a choice of a couple of books that we think suits their voice best. We've run into problems with narrators choosing their own books because of some of the aforementioned things. We had a recent example of this, where the previous studio manager let one of our narrators do a book they really wanted to do, but it was full of long complicated sentences and foreign language, two things this reader does not handle well. So we ended up with many more corrections to do in post-production which took a lot of time and delayed the release of the book.

Thanks for bringing this topic up. It is interesting to hear how everyone handles this!

Nancy Gahagan

Recording Studio Manager
Perkins School for the Blind

Perkins Library
175 North Beacon Street
Watertown MA 02472
P: 617-972-7362
Perkins.org

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On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Coffman, Linden <LCoffman at library.in.gov<mailto:LCoffman at library.in.gov>> wrote:
Hi all,

I have a question concerning selecting books for narrator and in this case specifically westerns.  As I have more females narrators available would you see a problem with having some of them reading westerns.  I’ve always felt that the male voice is what goes best with this genre, but I was wondering if it really matters that much.  That also brings up another thought.   Does gender matter that much in regards to what you have you narrators reading or not if the book is non-fiction or fiction told in third person?  Haven’t run across any guidelines on this. I’ve just been doing what seems to sound right.  Suggestions?  Advice?

Linden Coffman
Director
Indiana Voices
Indiana State Library
Talking Book & Braille Library
315 West Ohio Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
317-232-3683
E-mail: lcoffman at library.in.gov<mailto:lcoffman at library.in.gov>

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