I’ll make reference samples of voices I want to use for each character on a handheld recorder so I can refresh my memory on a character during the reading, which on a big book, can take weeks. If it’s nonfiction I troll YouTube for clips of the actual personages speaking, to get a sense of their rhythm and sound when speaking. If it’s fiction I make choices with character voices, looking for simple hooks that will help the listener navigate passages of quick dialog easily and clearly. I’m also making notes to myself about the arc of the story, where tension mounts, what patches are drier than others, what I’ll do to sustain the listener’s engagement through those patches, etc. I read it through with a yellow pad handy, noting and looking up unfamiliar words and names, foreign language pronunciations, etc. Hopefully (and it’s often not the case) you’re assigned a book with enough time to prep it. What happens from there? What do you do, step by step, through the finished product? J.P.: So what, exactly, is the process for you? You’re assigned a book. But we got burned by our distributor, they went bankrupt, we lost our shirts and our house, and I now refer to that time as a “character building experience.” The filming experience was a gas and it turned out well … wound up winning a few awards including Best Feature at the Burbank Int’l Children’s Film Festival, rave review in Time, a couple of “Best of …” lists. Yes, I acted in it as one of the evil Darklings. We turned the first book of that series into a film, raised the money to produce it. They’ve sold about 8 million or so copies, and one of the most successful was a series for young readers called The Jewel Kingdom. M.H.: My wife Jahnna and I have written some 130+ books for children and young adults. I’m sure there’s a story behind this-do tell … J.P.: You appear once on the IMDB database-for “The Ruby Princess Runs Away,” which you wrote and appeared in. Best of all, you as narrator are in total control of what the listener will experience, you’re the madman at the controls of the carnival ride. That’s the pleasure, the satisfaction-bringing an writer’s work to life in a context that’s as old as humanity. ![]() M.H.: My first audiobook, I was pretty nervous going into the studio and was sitting in the booth trying to settle my nerves when the disembodied voice of my engineer Raymond Scully came over my phones and said, “OK. Am I off on this? What-besides money-do you get out of the process? I say this with all respect, but it strikes me as very isolating, very dull work. J.P.: I don’t have to exact figure, but it seems as if you’ve narrated dozens of audiobooks. And when the author lobs you a softball down the middle (“Kissinger never lost his guttural, thick German accent”), you go with it. I don’t try to impressions per se, I’m not good at that but I do try to suggest a figure’s personality tonally, and with rhythm, if for no other reason than to help the reader keep the characters distinct and clear. In the audiobook biz the prevailing mode is to go for voices and characters at will in fiction but stay voice neutral in non-fiction. MALCOLM HILLGARTNER: It’s not an odd one, it’s a big one, and one I’m still trying to work out in my work. My question is-how do you figure out how to do voices? When to go for an impersonation, when to just sound like yourself? What goes into such thinking? You tried doing his voice-high, a bit of a Southern twang-and I was initially a bit uncomfortable with it whether it came off as more mimic or imitate (ultimately, I came to appreciate and like it). You read the audio version of Sweetness, my book on Walter Payton. ![]() ![]() JEFF PEARLMAN: Malcolm, I’m gonna start off with an odd one. ![]() Malcolm Hillgartner, welcome to the Quaz … Now, however, meet the guy behind the sound. Malcolm is also an actor, director and writer-as well as a man who prefers Dave Winfield to Public Enemy. He read my last book, Sweetness, and did so with such skill and precision and vigor that I found myself dazzled and moved. In a word, Hillgartner’s vocal skills are awesome. Although odds are you’ve never heard of Malcolm Hillgartner, odds are very good you’ve heard Malcolm Hillgartner, one of America’s most prolific readers of audio books. That, to me, is the fun of it all.Īlong the serendipity line, today’s featured guest is no exception. Week to week, you never, ever, ever, ever, ever know what you’re going to get. If life is truly like a box of chocolates, the Quaz is a REALLY big box of chocolates. John Oates, a KKK leader, Miss Black Iowa, Phil Nevin. The Quaz has never been about headlines or showstoppers or making people say, “Dang, you got Walter Mondale/Spike Lee/Will Smith’s sister’s cousin’s uncle’s barber’s friend to do a Q&A!” No, there are few Mondales here.
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