luzula (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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podficmeta2011-01-28 04:50 pm
luzula) wrote in podficmeta2011-01-28 04:50 pm
Entry tags:
Podfics vs professional audiobooks
I've been thinking about the differences between podfic and professional audiobooks, and especially about whether podfic is developing its own styles of reading.
I listen to both podfics and professional audiobooks, and it happens much more often that I stop listening to a professional audiobook because I don't like the style. By this I mean that the reader sounds affected in a way that annoys me. It's like they're interpreting/acting out the text in a way that doesn't match the way I think of the characters or the way I want things narrated to me. They sound professional, but not in a way that I like.
OTOH, when I stop listening to a podfic, it's most often because it fails for me on a more basic level--there's too much background noise, I can't get the volume high enough, or the reader is going too fast for me. Obviously professional audiobooks don't have these technical problems to the same extent, and so the only thing that can put me off is the style. And of course, it does happen that the reading style puts me off a podfic, but never in the same way that the style in a professional audiobook does.
Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know my own thoughts are rather vague at the moment, which is why I wanted to discuss it with others.
I listen to both podfics and professional audiobooks, and it happens much more often that I stop listening to a professional audiobook because I don't like the style. By this I mean that the reader sounds affected in a way that annoys me. It's like they're interpreting/acting out the text in a way that doesn't match the way I think of the characters or the way I want things narrated to me. They sound professional, but not in a way that I like.
OTOH, when I stop listening to a podfic, it's most often because it fails for me on a more basic level--there's too much background noise, I can't get the volume high enough, or the reader is going too fast for me. Obviously professional audiobooks don't have these technical problems to the same extent, and so the only thing that can put me off is the style. And of course, it does happen that the reading style puts me off a podfic, but never in the same way that the style in a professional audiobook does.
Anyone else have thoughts on this? I know my own thoughts are rather vague at the moment, which is why I wanted to discuss it with others.
no subject
By wrongly-inflected I mean emphasizing the wrong things vocally, betraying a lack of understanding of what the text means: putting the stress in the wrong place in the sentence and not bothering to fix it with an edit.
It is amazing how often this happens in pro audiobooks, and it annoys the crap out of me.
I've run across this sometimes, and yes, it is off-putting. But it's not what most often puts me off a professional audiobook. I think you're on to something when you say that most often we record a text because we love it and we love the characters. I think something of that love often shines through.
Sort of related to this, I was watching a movie recently with some friends, and I didn't much like the movie because I wasn't interested in the characters and thus didn't care what happened to them. I usually want a close connection with the characters when I read/listen to a book, too, and if the reader is reading in a manner that I feel is distanced and sort of professionally slick, I won't like it. (Well, of course there are always exceptions where the story demands a detached POV.)