Hear No Evil

Tag: narration

  • Woman In Horror Interview

    Woman In Horror Interview

    First off, let me say that I did not have the time to keep up with posts for many months. All of my free time went to my mom who was dealing with an onslaught of health issues. Since she passed away in November, I’ve spent a lot of time catching up with work, processing, and recovering my energy. Things are starting to normalize though everything has changed.

    Now is a good time to get back into the swing of things. Or in this case, the gallow swing of things. February was Women in Horror month and David Spell of The Scary Reviews and Erin Sweet-Al Mehairi of Hook Of A Book Media were kind enough to include me in their spotlight interviews. I’m not an author but I have narrated quite a few books in the horror genre and I’m glad someone noticed. So far they’ve profiled 26 women with mini-interviews, so please visit thescaryreviews.com and read them all!

    Here goes:

    Woman In Horror Interview – Spotlight #9 by Scary Reviews

    Lesley

    Lesley Ann Fogle, Narrator, Audio Specialist

    How do you define horror and what drew you to it?

    First movie I remember having an impact on me was “The Shining.” I covered my ears and figured out it was the sound that really gave me the creeps. I was sensitive to sound; if someone’s teeth were clacking or energy was directed at me then I would have would have to go somewhere isolated to read. But after that movie, I got my little hands on the book and the words made my mind listen intensely without any sensory interference. Horror helped me. Unsure why. Guess I’ll say effective horror makes my mind listen with impenetrable, macabre focus.

    I think the next book to command my attention was “Wasp Factory.”

    What sub-genre(s) do you read/narrate in?

    So far I’ve narrated paranormal haunted house and classic ghost, supernatural crime thriller, classic sci-fi, mythological madness, and psychological Victorian paranormal. I put a lot into my audiobooks and get great responses from the authors.

    What is your personal favorite part of reading horror?

    I like dark prose and character meltdowns and humor. It’s mostly all entertaining to read. And sometimes alarming, in which case we’re learning. Personal favorite…Fred Godsmarck; he is the boss of horror audiobooks and a joy to work with which is rare/important in a publisher. Is there a word limit here? I also really enjoyed working on the Out-Of-Tune anthology; the short stories kept me on my toes and I like studying the writing style of many authors at once. Speaking of short stories, I recently narrated the promo trailer for the upcoming Borderlands Podcast Indiegogo campaign. Yes, THE Borderlands series! It’s coming soon so be on the lookout.

    Lesley Anne Fogle Bio(hazard)

    Within my harrowing 40-some years, I’ve studied opera, sound, engineering. Worked as a jingle singer, voiceover talent, location field mixer, and audio engineer for soul-sucking commercials (and cool films and shows and installations). I’m the Nintendo GameCube girl, Vena Gore from the underground band Mal VU, and singer/engineer for After-Death Plan whose upcoming 2016 album “Literature” holds songs inspired by books. I like to narrate books and record accents and mimic people and casually workshop my characters on the unsuspecting public.

    TO READ MORE, please visit http://thescaryreviews.com/2016/03/04/women-in-horror-spotlight-9/

    And again, check out the 25 other short interviews and get to know some authors in the industry:

    Spotlight #1 author Chris Marrs, editor Sharon Lawson, author Sarah Read

    Spotlight #2 authors Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason, author Heather Herrman, author Suzi Albracht

    Spotlight #3 author Fiona Dodwell, author Sara Brooke, author Lori R. Lopez

    Spotlight #4 author Catherine Cavendish, author Stephanie M. Wytovich, author Kristin Dearborn

    Spotlight #5 author Rena Mason, author Nikki Hopeman, author Sarah Dalton

    Spotlight #6 author Lesley Conner, author Christie Stratos, author Andrea Zuvich

    Spotlight #7 author Ania Ahlborn, author Rebecca Anne Pate, author Elena Hearty

    Spotlight #8 author Sephera Giron, author Monica O’Rourke, author Latashia Figueroa

    Spotlight #9 narrator Lesley Ann Fogle, author Carol Davis

     

    Women in Horror Spotlight #1

  • Vocal Warmup Techniques For Audiobook Narrators

    Vocal Warmup Techniques For Audiobook Narrators

    You have to warm up your voice. Do not skip it! I warm up for at least 30 minutes on narration days. I start with moving the body: head and shoulder rolls, wrist and arm circles (I gesture a lot with fiction), side bends and reaches that get the rib cage moving. I’ll address breathing exercises in a future blog post, but they are a critical part of the warm up process.

    From there, I might move on to lip trills and tongue trills (at the roof of the mouth, then with the tip of the tongue at the teeth, then again with the tongue sticking out). Add humming to those trill drills. Remove your mask by moving every muscle in the face, blow out your cheeks, trace your teeth with your tongue, gargle, lift and stretch the soft palate, strike a lion face (From yoga’s lion pose. I highly recommend starting a yoga practice and learning Alexander Technique; these have been crucial tools of mine for work and play for the past twenty years. Will write about the benefits of both in future posts as well).

     

    Lips

     

    After trills and face exercises, I might move through the vowels seamlessly; then again with various inflections (Statement. Question? Adamant question?! Demand!). Then I might move to consonants, listening to projection points for each. To keep the humors going, I like to make up tongue twisters on the fly using names of friends. Here are a few:

     

    Bob bid Bilbo Baggins: Build the badlands!

    Quit quick kisses, Costa. Kick quick kiss quips!

    Mikhael must murmur misfits. Mantic Matt must murder mold. Meal milk meek meat.

    Narrow noodles neurally nauseate Nikki. Nikki needed unique new innumerable noodles.

    Punk Patrick probably purposely punctuated pit-pat-polly-pack.

    Suzie said she’d surely stay sleeping, slumbering on the sloping slide of somnambulistic sleep.

     

    My tongue twisters change according to need. One of the most important things I do is to find and work on my weaknesses. I copy and paste sentences I stumble over into a list. Here’s one from last week:

     Daniel was feeling agitated that the detective kept ignoring his questions. 

    I practice that list of stumblers to identify transitions that are tricky for me, working those sound transitions into tongue twister exercises or drills until they are no longer a problem. “That the detective” made it into my list of drills for agility, keeping the tip of the tongue forward behind the two front teeth. Some twisters stick around; for years I have used this odd little gem to correct my sibilance issues: The wrists, they twist like cysts in the mist. I’d just needed to move my “s” sounds back a bit – though that little insight took time to master. Ironing out weaknesses is an important exercise for me in maintaining a sharp reading pace during hours of cold reading audiobooks. It would be easier to slow down to read ahead but I personally can’t listen to slow audiobook reads. If I can think thoughts in between a narrator’s words, then the read is too slow.head view

     

    On to relaxing the throat. I try to keep a very open and relaxed throat during a session (insert joke here). This is very similar to the space in the back of the throat created when singing opera or using ujjayi breath in yoga. It is the “ha” position often described as holding an egg in the back of the mouth or fogging up a mirror. There are words you can drill with to work on the position of an open throat for the sake of practice. I make up my own amusing drills to keep the humors going: THE THICK FAT BAT SHAT DARK DRAB CRAP. HA, HA, HA. Say this five times: THE THICK FAT BAT SHAT DARK DRAB CRAP, HA, HA, HA.

    thickfatbatshatdarkdrabcrap

    If that doesn’t make you smile then I cannot help you. Try Googling “humorless drills.”

     

    Lastly, I always warm up character voices. Locking in and shifting voices is a strong point of mine and there’s a lot to say about it on another day. I need to get back to work.

     

    Warmly, Lesley Ann Fogle

     

    p.s.  I haven’t been on Twitter long and would like to connect with people who might be interested in this topic or have things to say that might help unlock more insights into the voice: @LesleyAnnFogle

    And if your name starts with an X or Z, I’ll write you a twister.

     

     

    Lesley Ann Fogle is a Narrator, Voice Artist, and Audio Designer. Visit her website at www.hearnoevil.us