In June of this year, a man came to me on Linkedin, who introduced himself as a producer of the Video Acquisition Editor team of a single technical publisher. This publishing house is actively looking for authors to publish books, and now it is also engaged in publishing video courses and, accordingly, searching for authors for them.
The producer wanted to discuss joint production of courses for two technical and related topics “JMeter 4.0” and “Jenkins Pipeline as code”.
I was delighted, because I know a girl, a technical author, published in this publishing house. And her experience, of course, inspired me greatly, as her career went uphill, including through published books.
In the evening, he sent me a contract template, a description of the ideas of the courses, a standard template for the publisher, using the example of a ready-made course. I had to adhere to this format, in case of confirmation of cooperation. Also, the letter described the joint work plan, video and sound requirements, fee size, course duration and duration of each section.
The process of selecting authors includes four steps:
- Sample recording, lasting 60 seconds. Sound quality and narration should be on par.
- Development and coordination of the course plan
- Creating a two-minute video for editors to familiarize themselves with the settings of my system and to help improve them, if it is technically possible.
- Approval of the preliminary schedule for the course.
Everything, further comes the signing of the contract for the production of the course and, in fact, the work itself!
I became interested in the idea, because I had long wanted to start sharing my knowledge with the general public and learn how to do it in the most effective way.
In the evening after work, I decided to record a sample for the passage of the first stage. First, I google everything, how to record the perfect sound, and what should be the recording room. I made some kind of recording studio out of a niche in the wall in the apartment, covered it all with a cloth, took the power bank for lighting and grabbed a laptop. Next, I downloaded a trial version of Sony Vegas Edit Pro and refreshed my skills. Well, this is a really good tool, thank you: anime virginity, video clips contests and parents for support and understanding.
After several hours of torment, information, playing with filters, the sample was ready. I tried to speak calmly and gently - as if reading a book to a child. In addition, the clock was already ten in the evening, and the neighbors could not like it. The finished sample was sent to the producer, and sent to friends for review and for feedback. Well ... the first negative feedback came at lightning speed, a friend advised me to overwrite in some small room or closet. He would have known about my built wilderness ...
He also said that there are a lot of noises on the recording and I speak with a special whisper effect. I saved the recording in .flac format, so as not to lose quality due to compression.
Friends did not check out my sound studio, having decided that I was kicked out in a closet. But most of all I was upset by the answer of the audio-video producer, who did not get tired of sending a feedback for about two more days. I will quote it here:
Thanks for sending the voice sample.
Actually, this is not a good idea.
Well, I was ready for it. I offered to make a new entry in the near future.
The man was very happy, and further feedback was filled with a barrage of advice and encouragement:
Also, the sample stopped playing after 29 seconds.
Hence, it would be a great deal. The words are clearly understandable.
A bit of a native accent is fine. But the main thing is that your word pronunciation is clear.
I really want to get you on board The process will become easier,
All depends on how well you narrate and sound
Read out from the project.
Sound of students
That should be your approach towards the sample :)
Will look forward to your revised sample. Make sure it's at least 1 minute long
Also, they were not so loud. Try to sound a bit louder. Thanks again for being open to our feedback.
Will look forward to it :)
I tried to gather strength, improve the pronunciation, understand how to put the accents in this text correctly. In the morning I received a few more messages from a hardworking producer:
Hi Tatiana, was like we discussed.
I am sure you can handle this.
So I can expect the revised sample by today
The audio quality that's all
It is easy and flexible.
What are you thinking about?
Give it a try
I'll look forward to your revised vote.
Narrate well, sound confident and lively. That's all. Once the voice of the process is approved
You send me a sample.
Make sure the audio quality is very clear with no noise. If you have a good mic, you can use that as well.
If you have an iPhone, it’s pretty good for a voice sample
You can’t get it contracted before 30th June
We can plan accordingly.
So nobody praised and supported me yet. Hmm, maybe I need a new iPhone? Ok, we do so far with what we have.
As a result, in a couple of days: several services were found for generating transcriptions from English text, including even in Cyrillic transliteration. Several types of transcription and its reading rules have been studied, in addition to school knowledge. The features of pronunciation of words in a weak position are studied. New terms have been studied, teleprompter (teleprompter), reverb. Tested reading texts to the sounds of the online metronome. A mediocre program for obtaining text transcriptions on the Windows Store was bought and angry letters were written to its author (two pieces). The sensitivity of the microphone is reduced (I used to always think that the more microphone sensitivity - the better, how wrong I was!). The result of the work was the .mp3 record, this time I decided to score on the .flac format, because before my eyes a friend could not open my first record at all in either the computer or the phone.
Received feedback from friends to the second record (author's syntax is saved):
D: (Sincere rzhach) I just hear how you get tired! You know how in photographs after 10 years of life, when you can see how people age. Do some pauses ...
R: well, already alive ... yes, naturally and expressive at the same time - it’s probably difficult, and you speak English as newer courses (as I’m shorter)
M: (after stories about my efforts, for issuing these pitiful two minutes) Do not feel like a loser! Everything will work out. By the way, try putting intonations and accents in the printed text. Even the usual speech on the record in any case sounds much more monotonous, so any intonation should be exaggerated. And at the end of the sentence, it is necessary to raise the voice a little, although usually the intonation before the point goes down, but on the record it is to be obeyed as if at the end you are dying. You can also monitor the voice display when recording. If the amplitude looks small, then most likely you are “dying.” Read about the theatrical production of voice, there just will be all sorts of exercises and tricks.
M: I think you end up spending more money and time on this project than you get from it.
K: replays a little bit. try to write many, many times
What, many, many times to write? And how many times I wrote down! By the way, I read one phrase about 20 times, first 10 times without a microphone, with a first grader's syndrome, and after removing it - already with a microphone. As a result, the recorded tracks were mercilessly cut, the successful ones were left and reduced to a single track, from which, after 5 hours of recording, a two-minute piece came out. Apparently from the nerves, I confused everything, and instead of 1 minute I carefully wrote two. Read the TK carefully and several times!
Already in the morning, my Drum & Bass producer sent me a message, the sadness of which was so great that it even forced me to stay at home for the day, drove my vulnerable soul into a painful and depressive state. Here is the message itself:
Unfortunately, it’s not true that these two reasons were: 1- Native accent 2-Pronunciation
You really tried very well, and I appreciate your efforts :)
What conclusions did I draw based on this experience?
- Remember the effect of a beginner, overestimate the time, leave yourself more time to sample.
- Tackle such projects unconditionally, regardless of the fee. Experience for the first time can be much more useful than money. It’s not a fact that things will go further somewhere, even if you get enough money for yourself.
- Better than bad. Do not send full slag. Make 10 seconds, but with high quality.
Yes, I tried, yes, I spent a lot of strength, gained a lot of knowledge. That I realized that it is necessary to work on this every day, it is hard and I like it. This is a challenge, a bright goal. To learn to speak beautifully, to feel relaxed in front of the camera, to pronounce the words correctly and to speak with less accent is what I want.
To achieve the goal, I certainly need a plan, and so far it looks like this:
- Take a course on pronunciation and study the subject of phonetics up and down, for example, here .
- Study the materials of Paul Gruber, a native English speaker who writes textbooks and leads YouTube channel on phonetics .
- Russian-language channel about sound recording and video production with artistic presenters and invaluable advice.
- Explore the online archive of English dialects
- Start putting intonation and accents in the texts.
- For recording and speeches, slightly exaggerate the intonation and raise the voice a little at the end of the sentence to remove the effect of "dying" at the end of the phrase.
- Monitor the display of the voice when recording, so that the amplitude of the voice looked moderate.
Ideally, I also want to find acting classes and other training materials / voice training courses. I would be grateful for the links in the comments.