GKN Weekly Update 7/26/10

Good morning, everyone! I hope your weekend was as fun as mine. Friday night I attended a cancer fundraiser at the Shannon Rose in Clifton which turned into a mini-Applebee’s reunion (I worked there for five years). Saturday we celebrated my best friend’s 40th birthday at the Greenhouse in Wayne. Sunday I helped my other best friend load in a huge pile of furniture and boxes into her new apartment. Whew! I’m beat but very happy…

Last I narrated the audio book “The Political Officer” by Charles Coleman Finlay. This was not like the other sci-fi stories I’ve done. This was a thriller and the fact that it took place in space was almost incidental. There was a pretty large cast in this one so I had to figure how do make the characters distinct. Do I throw a different accent of each of them? Most of the characters have Russian names so I could go that way. There were too many so that wouldn’t work. On top of that there were no references to any one’s citizenship or ethnic background. What to do?

I decided not to give any of the characters an outright accent. The main character Nikomedes is slick & smart and the crew is terrified of him so I smoothed out all of his lines and gave him sort of a smarmy quality. There was only one female role so I lightened her tone. The captain of the ship was tall, commanding, and well-respected so I give him a little bass. The rest of the crew sounded basically the same. It was fun!

TIP OF THE WEEK: I LOVE doing accents! It’s so much fun to dive into them and I feel it gives an audio book that much more texture and depth. This time I resisted the temptation to do so. It’s not about me showing off my range. It’s about telling a good story. I know it sounds cliche, but sometimes less is more.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Man is a little bit better and a little bit worse than his reputation. Al Pacino

STUFF!: I saw “Despicable Me” and it was adorable! It was a pretty simple story and Steve Carell is brilliant as always. Go see it!

From Tom Dheere’s apartment this is Tom Dheere, GKN News.

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