Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Audiotour Intensive - 7/09

This was a four week class, given by new instructor Peter Dunne of Antenna Audio. It is a new class for the Voicetrax catalog, geared at more advanced students. It's assumed that you have some background in narration techniques. There's probably no other voiceover discipline which is as immediate and intimate as audio tours found in museums, heritage sites and galleries. You literally are one-on-one with the listener and join them for an extended period of time.

This was a great class - a rare chance to work with one of the sound designers and directors for the Antenna Audio projects. As such, this class was more "session like" than anything else. Time in the booth came in longer chunks, and the feedback was both subtle and specific. Over the four weeks, Peter brought recent scripts from a variety of museum exhibits and tour sites - some basic, others with the complexities of foreign language pronunciations and finally a few that were less common - true character roles and very "challenging" art. He would usually supply these to us a few days before class, let us read through them and choose a few "stops", then suggest or supply others in class based on our vocal qualities.

It seemed as though everyone caught on to his directing and really raised their game through the class sessions. Peter was a pleasure to read for - the specificity of his feedback and interest in the subject matters came through with every student. I enjoy narration in general, but this was really a very challenging and interesting means of speaking. Great information.
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