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podficmeta2010-02-03 11:06 pm
luzula) wrote in podficmeta2010-02-03 11:06 pm
Entry tags:
Review of podfic_lover's recording of "Death-Defying", by Keerawa
Podfic title: Death-Defying
Reader:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
podfic_lover
Author:keerawa
Fandom: due South, Fraser/Kowalski
Length: 1 h 39 min
Volume/sound quality: Both are good! Nothing to criticize.
Editing: The editing is good--I can't hear any of the cuts, and I can't remember hearing any mistakes which should have been edited out. The podfic is divided into three separate files, which I appreciate. My mp3-player can't make bookmarks, so if I lose my place in a long file, I have to either fast-forward through the whole thing, or import the file into Audacity and chop it up into smaller parts myself.
Intro/Exit: The information given at the beginning is title, author and reader, which I think is fine. I think it would be good with a longer pause to mark the change between the intro and the beginning of the fic, because it feels a little bit abrupt. There is no info at the end, which is all right by me. But I think it might be good with a longer pause at the end, too, to give the listener a chance to shut down the mp3-player before the next song/podfic comes on (I often want to digest a podfic for a while after listening to it).
Music: There is music as an intro to the podfic, and I think it's a good choice of music--it matches the dark, gritty quality of the story. The transition between music and speaking is handled well, with the music fading away and the voice being of comparable volume. Possibly the music is a bit too long, at 1 min 20 seconds.
Metadata: This is something I'm particularly bad at doing in my own podfics, so it's interesting to see what I'd like from a listener's POV. In the metadata, we have the title, the author's name (twice) and the title and artist for the music in the beginning. The latter could be useful if I particularly liked the music and wanted to find the full song. It might be good to have the reader's name there somewhere, as well.
Sound effects: There are some sound effects, for example a metallic quality to a voice which is heard over a police radio. I think they work well.
Pronunciation: The reading is mostly clear and understandable, but occasionally I have to concentrate to make out a word. It could be that I'm more sensitive to this because I am myself not a native speaker of English (it also happens sometimes on podfics by native speakers of English where the pacing is especially fast and the words slightly slurred).
Pacing: The pacing, overall, works well--not too slow, not too fast, and I'm never confused about what is dialogue and what's narrative.
There is a melody of speech which is used fairly often, where the beginning of the sentence is read slowly and with emphasis, then it speeds up in the middle part, and the ending is again slow. This can distract me sometimes because it means that the emphasis might not always be on the words which I think of as the important words in the sentence. For example: the sentence He was assigned to the parking lot, out of harm's way. is read with an emphasis on "He" in the beginning, then the next words are read in an even flow, with an emphasis on "harm's way" at the end. If I read that sentence, I would make a slight emphasis on "assigned" and "parking lot", then a small pause at the comma, and then a slight emphasis on "harm's way". Another example is The kid grinned at Fraser which is read with a pause after "kid", which I would probably not do. Of course, this is quite subjective--other people may find that this way of reading works very well for them.
Acting: I can tell that the reader is emotionally engaged in the story, and this comes through in the reading--I feel that she really cares about what's happening. She's not afraid to raise her voice if the dialogue calls for it, and for the line Drake whispered, "You promised." she goes down low and whispers the dialogue "You promised", which I really like. Another example of a line I particularly liked was God, he smelled good, which is read with a kind of sighing pleasure.
Choice of story: "Death-Defying" works very well as a podfic--it has a clear narrative and POV, and it's a plotty story with a lot of tension.
Reader:
podfic_loverAuthor:
keerawaFandom: due South, Fraser/Kowalski
Length: 1 h 39 min
Volume/sound quality: Both are good! Nothing to criticize.
Editing: The editing is good--I can't hear any of the cuts, and I can't remember hearing any mistakes which should have been edited out. The podfic is divided into three separate files, which I appreciate. My mp3-player can't make bookmarks, so if I lose my place in a long file, I have to either fast-forward through the whole thing, or import the file into Audacity and chop it up into smaller parts myself.
Intro/Exit: The information given at the beginning is title, author and reader, which I think is fine. I think it would be good with a longer pause to mark the change between the intro and the beginning of the fic, because it feels a little bit abrupt. There is no info at the end, which is all right by me. But I think it might be good with a longer pause at the end, too, to give the listener a chance to shut down the mp3-player before the next song/podfic comes on (I often want to digest a podfic for a while after listening to it).
Music: There is music as an intro to the podfic, and I think it's a good choice of music--it matches the dark, gritty quality of the story. The transition between music and speaking is handled well, with the music fading away and the voice being of comparable volume. Possibly the music is a bit too long, at 1 min 20 seconds.
Metadata: This is something I'm particularly bad at doing in my own podfics, so it's interesting to see what I'd like from a listener's POV. In the metadata, we have the title, the author's name (twice) and the title and artist for the music in the beginning. The latter could be useful if I particularly liked the music and wanted to find the full song. It might be good to have the reader's name there somewhere, as well.
Sound effects: There are some sound effects, for example a metallic quality to a voice which is heard over a police radio. I think they work well.
Pronunciation: The reading is mostly clear and understandable, but occasionally I have to concentrate to make out a word. It could be that I'm more sensitive to this because I am myself not a native speaker of English (it also happens sometimes on podfics by native speakers of English where the pacing is especially fast and the words slightly slurred).
Pacing: The pacing, overall, works well--not too slow, not too fast, and I'm never confused about what is dialogue and what's narrative.
There is a melody of speech which is used fairly often, where the beginning of the sentence is read slowly and with emphasis, then it speeds up in the middle part, and the ending is again slow. This can distract me sometimes because it means that the emphasis might not always be on the words which I think of as the important words in the sentence. For example: the sentence He was assigned to the parking lot, out of harm's way. is read with an emphasis on "He" in the beginning, then the next words are read in an even flow, with an emphasis on "harm's way" at the end. If I read that sentence, I would make a slight emphasis on "assigned" and "parking lot", then a small pause at the comma, and then a slight emphasis on "harm's way". Another example is The kid grinned at Fraser which is read with a pause after "kid", which I would probably not do. Of course, this is quite subjective--other people may find that this way of reading works very well for them.
Acting: I can tell that the reader is emotionally engaged in the story, and this comes through in the reading--I feel that she really cares about what's happening. She's not afraid to raise her voice if the dialogue calls for it, and for the line Drake whispered, "You promised." she goes down low and whispers the dialogue "You promised", which I really like. Another example of a line I particularly liked was God, he smelled good, which is read with a kind of sighing pleasure.
Choice of story: "Death-Defying" works very well as a podfic--it has a clear narrative and POV, and it's a plotty story with a lot of tension.