>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington DC.
>> Hi. I'm Celeste Lawson,
Recording Studio director
at NLS in Washington, DC.
In this video, I will
cover narration techniques.
The following remarks, while
directed to fellow studio directors,
may be of some interest to anyone
involved in the field of narration.
The goal of narration is to
translate the written word in a way
that is as consistent as possible
with the intent of the author.
The narrator should
skillfully convey the sense
of the text to the listener.
The art of narration can be
taught only to the extent
of giving guidelines and techniques
to one who has a talent for it.
If talent is present,
it can be enhanced,
but if talent is not
present, it cannot be taught.
The process of becoming a
skilled narrator is a long one.
They say it takes three years
and the process involves practice
and practice and more practice.
There is little else in our lives
that require these particular
muscles to be flexed.
Aside from reading aloud
to our kids, who don't care
if we have word burgers or
swallow in mid-sentence, we do not,
as a rule, spend much
time reading aloud--
certainly not for extended
periods of time.
Even very good actors of stage
and film may find it difficult
to sustain their energy in
telling a story in a small room
with nothing but a microphone.
So, what makes a good narrator?
Important attributes of the
voice, with respect to narration,
are quality, strength, and stamina.
Clarity and control are
necessary components.
A fabulous voice is
nice, but it is not
as desirable as an
interesting voice.
Being limited
to one pleasant-sounding vocal
quality can become tiresome
to the listener.
Knowledge of how to
effectively generate, modulate,
and manipulate the
voice are as important
as the vocal quality itself.
A huge plus is freedom
from characteristics
which might become
distracting with repetition
like a tic on intake of breath.
Relentless repetition of any vocal
quality can become distracting,
such as always ending sentences with
a downward or an upward inflection
or a lip smack before the
beginning of every sentence.
Like a dripping faucet, the
listener starts to be attuned only
to the distraction and
loses track of the story.
Vocal strength is necessary so that
the recording level doesn't have
to be pumped up so much that every
extraneous sound is captured.
And the narrator's stamina must be
sufficient for the voice to sustain
for the duration of a recording
session with no audible tiring
and with no audible degradation
in narration effectiveness.
However, the single most
important requirement
for a narrator is a great ear.
That is what helps the
narrator reproduce the rhythms
of foreign accents and
languages, discerns the subtleties
of the mother tongue, and keeps
dialogue natural and believable.
Listening to the voices in
life- of friends, strangers,
people on TV- all add to
the narrator's tool box.
Listening to other narrators
and choosing what to emulate
and what to avoid is invaluable.
And, the really difficult one,
listening to one's own narration
for at least a half an hour
without the print copy.
Ask your narrators to
judge how they would feel
if someone started
talking to them like that.
Is it stiff and stilted?
Bizarrely eccentric?
Or energetic and committed?
Are the transitions from narrative
to dialogue and back clear?
Are the different characters clear?
What about the changes in scene,
mood, subject, time frame, etc.?
The audition process for
finding narrators to work
in your studio should
be at least two-fold.
Applicants should submit
demo recordings of fiction
and non-fiction, usually
about five minutes long each.
This gives them an opportunity
to practice the material
and show themselves off
to their best advantage.
Then, call them into your
studio for a cold read,
to see how they handle material
that they have never seen before
and that may not be
completely suited to them.
Give them a good 15 minutes
to look over the material.
Don't rush them, make sure they
are ready to go, and let them know
that if they are not happy with
the way they did something,
they can stop and re-do it.
You will then have
samples of their narration
under various circumstances
and can assess how they
approach telling a story.
How does a narrator
prepare to read a book?
I would suggest that you
encourage your narrators
to read the entire book before
going into the booth to record.
Get it into their brain.
As they read it, they should jot
down any words they are
uncertain of how to pronounce.
An innate love of and curiosity
about language will serve a narrator
well in this part of the job.
They should write down anything--
street names, foreign phrases,
slang, restaurants-- all
are grist for the mill.
And they should check
out the book's index.
Then they should start researching,
using dictionaries, encyclopedias,
gazetteers, but above all,
these days, the internet.
The internet makes it
possible to contact authors
about how they want their sci-fi
characters' names pronounced.
Narrators can go on Forvo
and hear foreign names,
places and phrases
pronounced by native speakers.
They can go on YouTube and hear
author interviews wherein they say
their own names, presumably
correctly.
Then, the big important step: All
the pronunciations must be written
out phonetically with copies
for the monitor and reviewer.
We often misremember when we
are in the heat of the moment
and we need another set
of eyes and ears to ensure
that we are saying the terms
the way we intended to say them.
How does one keep narration
alive and avoid being boring?
Don't become a generic
voice without a person.
It is well-intentioned to say,
"I don't want to intrude upon the
text," or "I don't want to get
between the author and the
listener," but it blands
out the narration to the
point that it is unlistenable.
Simply stringing words together
with clarity will not cut it.
The narrator must bring his or
her own life experience, opinions,
anger, sarcasm, passion, and humor,
especially humor into the booth.
Making no decision about
how to approach a book makes
for a flat, uninvolved, deadly read.
The narrator must bring as
much vitality and interest
in the topic as the author.
And there will be the
occasional book they hate,
written by an author they detest, on
a subject which bores them to death.
In the unfortunate case of such
a mismatch, it is incumbent
on the narrator to fake
sincerity and fascination.
It has been said that a good
book requires a good narrator
and a bad book requires
a great narrator.
The narrator needs to have
faith in their audience-
that they understand English,
that they have read a book before,
and that they have listened
to a recorded book before.
And unless it is a children's
book, that they are not children.
So the delivery does not have
to be very slow and painstaking
in order not confuse them.
Every comma or quotation mark
does not need to be honored
with a pause you could
drive a truck through.
The sentence, "Steven Soderbergh
next directed Oceans 11,
starring George Clooney, Brad
Pitt, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts,
Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, Elliot
Gould, and Don Cheadle" read
as "Steven Soderbergh next directed
Oceans 11, starring George Clooney,
Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Julia
Roberts, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac,
Elliot Gould, and Don
Cheadle" kinda makes you want
to smack the narrator.
Every double letter combination-
Andrews sisters, black kilts,
summer rain, doesn't have to
be artificially separated.
The Andrewsisters wore blackilts
to celebrate the summerain.
In real life we elide them.
Listeners are no strangers
to conversational speech.
They hear it every day.
They use it every day.
We all know how human speech sounds.
Narrators are story tellers,
not diction teachers.
But does telling the story
mean that the narrator needs
to be a vocal contortionist?
Does all the male dialogue that
a female narrator voices need
to be boomed in her
absolute lowest register,
and do all the women voiced
by a male narrator need
to be pitched up in a falsetto?
Does the narrator need to have
a distinct and distinctive voice
for every schmo who
enters the story?
Distinguishing characters is
important and necessary for clarity,
but can be done with attitude
and without overdoing it
or taxing the narrator's voice so
that the listener becomes involved
with the quirky vocal choice and
loses the thread of the story.
Recording a book would seem to be
a pretty straightforward endeavor,
but a number of complications
can and do get in the way.
Finally though, it all comes down to
one basic premise- Tell Me a Story.
Tell the one the author wrote.
The way the author wrote it.
For more information about
selecting volunteer narrators,
assigning books, or
improving narrator techniques,
email me at claw at l-o-c-dot-gov.
That's C-L-A-W at l-o-c-dot-gov.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc dot gov.
