Monday, June 18, 2012

Pat Fraley and the summer audiobook narration event

This past weekend I attended the Pat Fraley summer master's class in audiobook narration. Pat is probably the preeminent voice over teacher/coach in the world. Hillary Huber and Scott Brick also coached us on our demo excerpts. Scott is an audiobook superstar with over 600 titles to his name.

It was a whirlwind, but I feel that I will have, after some professional editing and mastering, three incredible demo samples to post on my ACX profile and my website (which does not yet exist!). 

Because this was a master's class and seminar, the 10 students took turns working with the pros and recording their excerpts while the rest watched. Reason being, when you're in the hotseat, you can't absorb anything but adjustments and direction. When you're in the booth watching others go through the experience, you can absorb concepts and techniques. It was well worth the expense, which was for me, considerable, but after the fact, when you realize how much care and concern each of the pros (and that includes Andy, the sound engineer) showed to every student, it seemed like a fantastic bargain!  And of course, my peers, the other students! The talent, so incredible. But we're in Hollywood, in the thick of it, and talent's taken for granted. The blade is there; we're just honing the edge.
Pat Fraley's Summer Master's Event