Audio Unit // Children's Narrative Audio Books (Final Solo Piece)

Children's narrative books and children's picture books can be quite different. Usually narrative books are more wordy than the picture books, and provide a more in depth narrative. While both present some issues when creating an audio recording of them (for example picture books are made with the main focus being the pictures, meaning recording the book difficult to capture the attention of the listener), narrative books are something I haven't done before. I have a bit of experience with recording picture books, but none with narrative books. They could be difficult to do, because they might not keep an audience interested. The audience is children, and they have a relatively short attention span, so I need to keep them interested.




I was thinking of books I could read, so I went through the ones I had at home, and also researched some online. I wanted to have something that I could relate to, because I find it more interesting. I found a book called That's Why We Don't Eat Animals, which tells kids about animals and how they are used in the meat and dairy industry. While it had a more in depth narrative, it also has pictures, but not enough that without them the story would suffer. When thinking about ways to keep my audience listening, I thought of different ways I could use my voice. I could use voice inflection to differentiate between happy and sad points. For example, it talks about an animal in its natural habitat, then how living on a factory farm effects them. I know I can easily make this bit sad, mainly because it is anyway, but also by using my voice in this way. The story is for children, but not young toddlers. It is for more advanced children, meaning I don't have to be super slow.


I wrote out the bits I wanted to use, and read it through a few times to get used to it. After, I started making notes on how I wanted to say things. For example, I want to emphasise 'earthlings' in the sentence "We are all earthlings." This is because this is an important part, and I want people to pay attention. I've recording myself using these inflections, and I think it works quite well.


This is the link to the recording I did before.
This is the link to the final recording.


Honestly, I wasn't happy with the final recording. Because of my illness, it has altered the sound of my voice. I think I could have done so much better if I wasn't ill. But I can't change that. In the industry, it's really difficult if an actor is ill. In the worst case scenario, you may get recast. Hopefully, they will wait for you to get better, but that is not always the case. I believe I did what I could to preserve my voice before this recording (drinking certain liquids, going on voice rest), but there are some things that are out of my control. I added longer pauses between the good and bad bits of each animal, which helps make the comparison more obviously different, while also using a sadder tone to my voice. I think I did well in pronouncing all my words so that the intended audience could understand them, which is basically the aim of the piece - to help children understand how the world works.