Voice over recording

SHEN YUN

I arrived about 3:45 pm at the ISU Bone Student Center parking lot, not far from the library. I noticed the parking lot was full of cars so I had to park three blocks away and walk. 

THE TICKET

As I walked past a woman getting into her car, I paused and asked her what was the big event this evening. She said Shen Yun Performing Arts are here from China. She had to leave at halftime and wanted me to have her $50 admission ticket for the second half. I accepted and stayed for three delightful scenes, then handed off the ticket to a curious ISU student to enjoy the remainder of the show. 

THE SOUND BOOTH

I finally arrived at the library about 4:30 ready to go with audio production on the sixth floor in the sound booth. 

THE VO

The text for the VoiceOver (VO) for our 90 second trailer / intro was inspired by an interview with Dave, but written by a third party. Though it's Dave's story, we are realizing the writing is not Dave's nor ours, and it doesn't entirely fit our purpose. I felt like a rewrite was important before I could voice it. But the team was pretty much in love with the existing text. 

So we have gone from VO2 - 60 seconds (the original copy) to VO3 -  75 seconds (that I've written), to VO2 Edit, which another team member edited but it's not significantly different from the original. I'm not sure what happened to VO1. Did it ever exist?

The trouble with the VOs above is that they are too short. We really need a 90 second piece. So while I was supposed to be recording the VO, I was writing instead. Well congratulations. A full 90 second VO4 was born. But taking a second look at it the next day would reveal work still needed to be done. 

THE WRITING

Wow--writing about writing is so boring. So why would I even bother? 

I'm now ready to print the VO scripts, but I learned printing is complicated at the library when you're not a student. I am alum however and felt right at home. 

1000 PRINTING STEPS

1. Try to print wirelessly from my laptop but can't figure it out. 

2. Pack up gear and head to lobby floor to get answers. 

3. Get sheet to help me download printing software from librarian but it can't be done. 

4. Get login card to sign in as guest after emailing myself the VO Scripts. 

5. Print email to librarian's printer. 

6. Have librarian pay for my copies because all I have is a checkcard that won't work with...

7. The print card machine where you pay a dollar for a reloadable card. 

8. Get VO2 and VO3 printouts and breath mark them for breathing pauses. 

9. Go upstairs to sound booth and practice read. 

10. Oh dang, these really are too short. 

11. Write VO4. 

12. Repeat steps 1 - 9 above. 

13. Practice read them about five times. 

14. Record 15 takes of both VO2 and VO 4. 

15. Import them from iPhone iRig app into my MacBook Pro and transfer them to the shared team DropBox folder. (When you sign up and give them my name, we both get more FREE disk space).

Listening to the sound files the following day my partner and I both think it's a bit lack luster and the writing is not great (though I think there is evidence on this page that I'm a decent writer).

My conclusion is to collaborate. Brainstorm a list of things we want in the script. Put the list in good order. Re-voice it.