8 Tips to Keep in Mind When Directing Actors For Audiobook Narration
Recently, someone who works for me asked me about directing audiobooks. I’ve done it for more than twenty-five years, often successfully. So I shared some thoughts. Here they are:
8 Tips To Keep in Mind When Directing Actors For Audiobook Narration by Eljinproductions.com
What does it take to be a successful audiobook director?
There are five basic requirements for becoming an audiobook director:
You love books and read a lot.
You enjoy working and interacting with people.
You’re articulate.
You listen critically and with pleasure to spoken-word performances in your free time.
You read complex material and understand it.
These traits, skills, and habits are what the work demands. You might add You have an ear for accents and dialects, or You enjoy research, or You know a lot about pronunciation, or You’ve studied drama. But the major stuff is in the bullet points. These are the sine qua nons.
Directing tips: What to keep in mind when directing actors for audiobook narration
There are 8 top tips to consider when directing actors for audiobook narration:
Full disclosure: I’ve distilled these from many successes and mistakes, my own and others. See what you think.
1. Set the tone. As the director, you run the session. Ensure that everyone’s acquainted, that proprieties are observed (or not, if the tone is light and informal), that the performer is comfortable, and that lines of communication are open. Set goals for what you’d like to accomplish in the course of the day. Let inexperienced performers know that mistakes are a normal part of the process and that you’ll pick up any unresolved problems in a later pick-up session. Ask whether the performer has concerns that should be addressed before you start rolling.
2. Direct the hard stuff before the session, not during it. If you’re dealing with a work that entails obvious challenges, it’s best to discuss the tricks and tangles at the outset. This may include establishing a general tone or point of departure or handling demanding characters and scenes. Start teasing apart the knots early in the process, so you don’t bog down later. This also sets expectations, signaling that you’re well-versed in the material and will be an effective collaborator.
3. Stay out of the way. Perhaps the most important tip of all. Part of your task is to maintain the performer’s confidence in what they’re doing —and in what you’re doing. You will undermine that end with frequent interruptions to correct minor points with vague, long-winded, or tendentious notes. They’re distractions. If you must stop the performer, do so in a gap at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Make your notes specific and concise. Guide the narrator back to the point where the text should be picked up. To the extent that you can, establish and maintain flow. (If the performer can’t do that, well, that’s a next-level issue for another blog.)
4. Be sparing with line readings. A few years ago, the actor and narrator Dennis Boutsikaris shared this observation about Ed Herrmann’s excellence as a narrator: “I wouldn’t emphasize what he chooses to emphasize—but his choices always work.” The point: Performers have distinctive styles. Don’t feel obliged to mess with them. Don’t press performers to substitute your take for theirs, unless the reading is obviously wrong—and you can offer a clearly better alternative.
5. Acquire some technical know-how. Over the years, I’ve absorbed a lot from working alongside masters of audio tech. That knowledge can be extraordinarily handy in the studio. Learn as much as you can about recording technology. If you can protect your program from bad audio, you will have earned your fee.
6. Involve the engineer. Your best ally in the recording session can often be the engineer. Invite the engineer’s remarks and use them, unless they prove unhelpful. Another pair of ears is usually (not always) welcome.
7. Keep cool. Things can go sideways in recording sessions. Mechanical failures. Unexpected noises. EM and RF interference. Flaring tempers in the booth and the control room. Your job is to settle things down. Don’t get flustered and contribute to the noise.
8. Finish the recording. That’s the goal— even if it means abandoning some of the tips above. The program can be miscast, or the talent can be trying. The studio can be sub-par, and the engineer can be asleep. Do what you can to mitigate the problems within your control, and press on. You cannot solve rainy days or less-than-great readers or meh studios. Just do your best—until the impediments force you to stop. Then involve your client. Tell her what’s going on without drama or hyperbole. Sometimes you can’t make it work. Short of The Big Breakdown . . . put it in a box, wrap it up, and slap a bow on it. That’s the gig.
Can talent marketplace apps help with the casting process?
We’ve discussed how talent marketplace apps can help Producer X to cast audiobooks. Now, let’s take the relationship between talent marketplaces and casting a step further with a personal connection: Of the hundreds of programs I’ve directed, exactly five were abandoned in progress—three for miscasts, one for an author who decided against continuing, and another for 9/11/2001 (too near the Empire State Building for comfort). To underscore: 60% of the flat tires involved miscasts. (They were subsequently recast and recorded, of course, but at some expense of time, money, and anxiety.) Talent marketplaces might have helped!
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