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Daz
01-02-2005, 09:51 AM
We all do it. There's no need to be embarrased. It's perfectly natural, harmless and will really help the process along.

But...

Should the director do it? In their high-pitched, over anxious squeak - at three times the speed of a normal reading? Not forgetting to start before you're recording. And to drift off halfway through the delivery as a wonderful new line occurs - and then disappears poof! like fog in a blast furnace. Or a fart in a snowstorm, which was probably more evocative of the line in the first place: "A single step showed swirls of synaptical pulses, sweeping all over my skull"

Or should the editor do it? In a bored monotone, at one tenth normal speed, guaranteed to drive a viewing inexorably to twitching comatosis. Perhaps in an over enthusiastic hyper-modulated newcaster-from-1935 tone? Which segues seamlessly into the Saturday morning grocery shopping list.

Then how could either party endure hearing their own tones, not to mention each others, after days, weeks, months in the cutting room? How could any rational judgements be made when the narrative glue produces the sensation usually felt when fingernails rake down a blackboard?

And that's without taking into account the screeching howl around of feedback every time the mike is switched on. Or the embarrasing silence after a ten minute take when it wasn't.

Don't you long for the Good Old Steenbeck days, when the hapless director fumbled 36 pages of the wrong printed out script while the sweating editor grappled vainly with the rust-encrusted volume faders on all two of his (her) soundtracks?

Oops! Must stop daydreaming now - the Guide Comm has finally been written!!

Hot tip1: plug your mic into audio tk3 input to avoid howl around
Hot tip2: Adrenalines 2.x require stable video input or they WON'T go into record, no matter how much the red light is flashing!

Jude
02-02-2005, 02:32 AM
I like to do them myself, and I always imitate the voice of the talent to get the timing closer.

It's embarrasing when they catch you doing it, though - especially since one of my regulars in a very deep voiced radio announcer. ;) How to look like a dork in one easy lesson...

Daz
02-02-2005, 08:55 AM
Ooh yes, I do a great Robert Winston, from The Human Body: "I'm going to take you on a journey...a journey to witness extra-ordinary wonders...wonders that that lie within each and every one of us"

Jude
02-02-2005, 07:54 PM
Ooh nice. I'd love to do a Dr Doolitle Attenborough. Or maybe a bit of the Cricket - they have some great voices to mess with.

A friend of mine was at a karoke night over here and he sang a song by a well known Aussie band while holding his nose to get the sound of the lead singer right. To his absolute embarrasment, the next person to get up to sing was the lead singer he had just been taking the .. erm .. urine .. out of. How bloody funny is that.

Daz
03-02-2005, 11:35 AM
Sons of Beaches?

Jude
03-02-2005, 02:05 PM
No - they're quite nice guys actually .. :)

I think it was the guy from Jebediah.