“Carla’s Dinner”

I recorded another reading of a writing exercise this week. “Carla’s Dinner” is about a woman who is short on cash.

I got a new text to speech program this week: Balabolka. I ran into some trouble installing it because the computer flagged it as untrustworthy. I did some investigation and decided that I could trust it. It is free, but you have to get your own voices. It does let you access some of the free voices available on-line. I tried out some by IBM Watson. They were better than some of the others I’ve used in the past.

I decided to use some of the IBM Watson voices for the characters for the writing exercise I did this week. When I recorded the earlier exercises, I decided not to change what I wrote during the exercise. This time I decided to make a couple minor changes. I felt what I had originally put one of the characters in a worse light than I felt I should, so I removed a few words to ease up on him.

I wasn’t entirely happy with what I came up with. Partly I felt that my own performance wasn’t as good. Also, the text to speech voices sounded bland compared to my own voice. I went ahead and posted it anyway. Every project is a learning experience.

“Carla's Dinner”

https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/carlas-dinner

Keywords:

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“The Jolly Doll”

Our writer’s group did a writing exercise called "The Jolly Doll". I went with a detective story. In the old film noir movies the detectives often called the women dolls.

I recorded it and posted it here: https://soundcloud.com/dynamiclethargy/the-jolly-doll

I couldn’t come up with an idea for an image to go with it.

After I recorded it, I worried that it would be difficult to tell which character was talking. I have 999 fewer voices than Mel Blanc. I did some research on-line about how to make a man's voice sound like a woman's voice. Some places suggested shifting the pitch, others said that the differences between the two was more complicated than pitch. Some actors can learn to do that.

I used Audacity to adjust the pitch of my voice. The stuff I read suggested that you increase the pitch by 19%. When I tried that, the voice sounded weird. Then I tried 9.5%, but it sounded too much like my voice. Finally, I tried 12% and, while I didn't think it sounded too much like a woman, I decided that it did differentiate the two voices, which was good enough for my purposes.

Later I did a search on-line and there are programs that allow you to do that kind of modification to voices. One claims to alter your voice to sound like some celebrities. That might be a better choice for some of my NAWMAL videos than the artificial voices that I use. Of course, the best solution would be to hire actors. If I wasn’t such a cheapskate, I’d do that.

I’m still interested in recording more of the stories and writing exercises I wrote. If I do, I’ll likely add a page on my website with the links to the recordings.

 

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

(Lack of) Progress Report 2021 June 13

I didn’t get any work done on my creative projects this week. But I did some thinking about them.

“The Minions of Eros”

I need to completely rethink what I want to do with the story. As it stands, it is really just a framework for a story and not a story in itself. It is an interesting concept, but I don’t have a purpose that will drive me forward to finish the project. I need to have a point that I want to make. This is a struggle I have had with most of the projects I’ve started over the years. It has gotten worse in the last few years.

As I thought it over, I remembered that my initial impetus was to redo “The Barrier” using real actors to do the voices. (https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/ ) I found that very intimidating, so that led me to procrastinate and not make progress. To get past that I decided to do a short video with Nawmal that would allow me to experiment with the technology for adding real actor’s voices. I want to get comfortable with what I’d need to do for a redo of “The Barrier”.

I have kind of lost sight of that in the minutiae of developing story ideas. With the end of quarantine coming soon, I can see that I should be able to bring in some actors to record the voices later this year. So, I believe my focus now should be on developing a practice story I can use. “The Minions of Eros” could be that story.

OBS Studio

I downloaded and loaded a program called OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software) which people use for streaming video. It can also record video. I got it so I can capture video from a VCR. This was mainly to transfer some old home videos, but I can see it being useful for other purposes. The gizmo I got to capture VCR video came with software, but this OBS is supposed to be easier to use and better quality.

When I started to test it out, it looked different than the training videos I watched on YouTube. Eventually I found out that OBS was open source and there was more than one version available. What I had installed was Streamlabs OBS, which is actually the same basic program, but with a different interface. I got the original OBS Studio and installed it. I like its user interface better. I haven’t actually done anything with it yet.

Video Editing Software

I’ve been using Premiere Pro CS4 for over a decade now. It is an old system and I worry that it will stop working some day. Premiere Pro is now only available by subscription now, and I’m sure I’d use it enough to make it worth the cost. I’ve been looking for an alternative but haven’t found anything so far.

I tried out DaVinci Resolve and a program called ShotCut. I decided some time ago that I wasn’t interested in using those, but I didn’t get around to removing them from my computer this week. I started to experiment with a program called VideoPad Video Editor, but the free test period expired before I decided if I wanted to use it.

I’m interested in Vegas Pro Video Editor. Apparently, some of the versions can import Premiere Pro project files. Since I have a lot of Premiere Pro project files, this would make a switch much easier. Of course, this will require that I overcome some procrastination. I plan to do that tomorrow.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog