AUTHOR'S NOTE: "The Mother Serpent's Daughter" is probably the most challenging of my stories for a narrator, with characters as young as four and ancient Maya, Inca and Aztec names that few people I know would ever attempt to pronounce. Thanks Brenda, for giving it another layer of depth and life!
Welcome to Brenda Villanueva, a professional voice over actor in the San Francisco bay area. Brenda is currently represented by MDT Agency and has a young, quirky, smart and engaging voice. Recent projects just completed: Competitive Mom Radio spot for Footlocker, Announce for Humblebundle.com, Announcer and Characters for Video trailer for Wattle & Comb Egg Farms and the audiobook "The Mother Serpent’s Daughter" by T.W. Fendley.
www.brendavillanueva.com
Tell us about your training and next steps in your voiceover & acting career? My adventure in voiceover began years ago when I used to work in advertising. I had a Creative Director stop me one day in the hallway and asked me “Have you ever thought about doing voiceover?” I remembered I had no clue what he was talking about but he encouraged me to look into learning more about the industry. That conversation was in 2007 and in 2008 I started training in voice acting at Voicetrax of San Francisco. I trained in acting as well as various genres such as TV and radio commercials, character development for video games and animation, narration and industrials as well as audiobooks. I also take additional voiceover classes in Los Angeles and improv sessions at B.A.T.S. in San Francisco. Moving forward, I would like to continue producing more audiobooks as well as continuing my training in voiceover.
 Why/when did you decide to do audiobooks? I decided to pursue audiobooks because I enjoyed the flexibility of performing and the time frame needed to produce the audiobook. You don’t have to record and produce an audiobook in a tight turn around. One can work on it a few hours every day including editing and flush out some great characters within the time frame you are given. I felt really connected to the characters in my most recent audiobook “The Mother Serpent’s Daughter” and even missed them when the audiobook was completed. That’s how it should always feel when you finish an audiobook.
Recently a friend received several auditions on her book. She liked their voices, but thought the inflection was wrong (too little, too much) and one gave more of a dramatic reading than a narration. Is it appropriate to give that feedback and ask for "reauditions?" It is definitely a great idea to ask for “reauditions” after hearing several auditions that were not close to what the author was looking for. Voice talent usually interpret the script based off their extensive or limited training and usually we are only given limited direction. If an author wants the talent to “reaudition” the book with additional and new direction, we the voice talent are more than happy to oblige.
Hear a sample of "The Mother Serpent's Daughter": Audible | Amazon |
Showing posts with label narrator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label narrator. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Brenda Villanueva: Enjoys flexibility of voiceover, audiobook career
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Narrator Laurel Schroeder shares the "other" side of audiobooks
Welcome to Laurel Schroeder, narrator of the audiobook of my novelette, JAGUAR HOPE. I didn't want to pass up a chance to get "insider" information about doing audiobooks from the "talent."
With an MFA in acting and a BA in Theatre, what is the next step in your acting career? The next step for me is putting those degrees to good use! As an actor, the training I've had has been an invaluable part of shaping who I am as an artist. I like to think of creativity as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. My graduate program was very intensive, and definitely strengthened my creative muscles! I also got a lot of vocal training in school, which is infinitely useful in recording audiobooks.
What advice would you give authors about how to solicit auditions for their book? For instance, ACX gives choices such as female/male/male reading as female, Spanish/British accent, brooding/storytelling/etc. Some of those categories are a lot easier to sort through than others. It's pretty easy to decide if you want a male or female voice for your book, or if you're open to either. Same with accents -- you pretty much either want one or don't, depending on where your book is set. But the 'vocal style' category is a little trickier. I think of it as a jumping off point, or a way to help the narrator understand the main tone of the book. But it always seems to me that a well written story will require a number of different vocal styles!
You've produced a variety of audiobooks -- from nonfiction to genre, short stories to full-length. How do you choose which books to narrate? I really just look for work that is well written and interesting to me. As a narrator, I spend a lot of time with whatever project I'm working on at the moment, so the process is much more enjoyable if it's a book that I love! Jaguar Hope has such an interesting story, I was really intrigued after reading the sample Teresa posted on ACX. I partly hoped I'd get the job just so I could find out how the story ended!
With an MFA in acting and a BA in Theatre, what is the next step in your acting career? The next step for me is putting those degrees to good use! As an actor, the training I've had has been an invaluable part of shaping who I am as an artist. I like to think of creativity as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. My graduate program was very intensive, and definitely strengthened my creative muscles! I also got a lot of vocal training in school, which is infinitely useful in recording audiobooks.
What advice would you give authors about how to solicit auditions for their book? For instance, ACX gives choices such as female/male/male reading as female, Spanish/British accent, brooding/storytelling/etc. Some of those categories are a lot easier to sort through than others. It's pretty easy to decide if you want a male or female voice for your book, or if you're open to either. Same with accents -- you pretty much either want one or don't, depending on where your book is set. But the 'vocal style' category is a little trickier. I think of it as a jumping off point, or a way to help the narrator understand the main tone of the book. But it always seems to me that a well written story will require a number of different vocal styles!
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| $4.86 at Audible SAMPLE available |
How long does it take you to produce an audiobook? It takes about 6-7 hours for me to complete one hour of finished audio. That includes recording (sometimes multiple takes of tricky passages), editing, and mastering the audio. It's time consuming, but I'm really happy working as both narrator and producer of the audiobooks I've done on ACX. I get attached, and I have very high standards, so it's nice to have my hands on all aspects of the project, rather than passing it off to an editor.
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LAUREL SCHROEDER graduated from the MFA Acting program at the University of Houston.
In the summer of 2012, she worked with the Peterborough Players in New Hampshire, where she played Jo in Little Men and Agatha in The Admirable Crichton (for which she received a New Hampshire Theatre Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress). At the University of Houston, she recently appeared as Masha in Three Sisters and Scilla in Serious Money.
After graduating, she joined the cast of Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club at The Alley Theatre in Houston.
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