legamus.eu

In this thread, SweetPea suggests a dramatic reading - a prose text, containing large amounts of direct speech, read with several roles. On LV rewritings of the text are not allowed. Shall we maintain that policy?

I will give some examples to make this clear. There are insertions like this:

“Yes,” said Ruth Twinter, “it was warm and stuffy under the snow.“

Imagine Ruth Twinter has been introduced before. Then this is an interruption of the direct speech, which does not add any information. Should it still be read by the narrator?

As soon as it gets more complex, I suppose it certainly should be read by the narrator:

“Foxes are hateful,” said Tibbie Woolstockit, stamping; “come here, you lambs, come here! You are straying too far off.”

Of course there are corner cases between, such as "cried X". One possibility would be to only allow the omission of "said X", and only after X has been introduced. Or a more complex set of rules. What do you think?

Personally I don't like DR. The end result does not justify the amount of work and time that goes into them in my opinion. I don't like listening to DR. I listen to plays sometimes, but only as PLer. Unfortunately different readers for the roles is the only sensible way to do plays.

The only sensible way to do a DR (in my opinion) is to completely rewrite the text into a script. Remove all "he says", even the "he says angrily" and rewrite all "he says while standing in front of the fire" into something that would give the listeners longer narrated parts and dialogue without interruption by the narrator. That would be even more work for the BC. And it would demand a great amount of knowledge and skill. I wouldn't feel able to do this even for a simple mystery story or a children's book, I certainly wouldn't dare rewrite a peace of world literature in such a way.

I don't see much danger for Legamus if we decide to go even that far, as long as the person who writes the script clearly puts it into the public domain or releases it under CC0. The only danger there might be being accused of damaging literature.

Therefore I would be happier without any DR. Let's concentrate on doing simple audio books. That's enough of a challenge.

I suspect that I am quite alone with this opinion and I know that some/many people enjoy doing/listening to DRs. So I simply express my opinion and don't vote for any proceeding. But I won't take part in a DR in any function, not as a reader, not as MC, BC or DPL.

After having said that, I'd like to make a suggestion. It would be worth a try to record the scenes together via Skype or similar. People really would interact and be inspired by the co-actors. Every reader could record themselves for good audio quality. Typically the dialogues are not so long and there are mostly only 2-4 people involved. It should be possible to find convenient times for most scenes. May by not all, but that can't be helped.

I don't listen to DR. I find that the changes in voices and the interruptions by the narrator disrupt my listening. I like the occasional play though. If well done, it does work quite nicely for some stories.
I have, however, read for DR before and am willing to help out, if someone decides to go ahead with it. I don't care either way regarding the re-writing. If someone really wants to do it, they might as well do it for Legamus.

Recording something together sounds fun - I think some English folks on LV have met up before in RL and recorded together.

It certainly is a lot of work, but the burden is mostly on the BC: rewriting - if permitted and desired, color-coding, and editing.

As a reader, I'd be happy to join in a common effort. We are still so small that we can have joint efforts where a majority of the active users participates! We should take advantage of that situation as long as it lasts.

A possible policy "decision" might also be: The BC has carte blanche - s/he can do everything s/he wants to, as long as the text read is CC0. Let's say, that's the reward for all the work

Sorry I took so long to post here.

Viktor wrote:It certainly is a lot of work, but the burden is mostly on the BC: rewriting - if permitted and desired, color-coding, and editing.

I agree. And I really like colour-coding and editing... though if I do end up BC'ing one I don't think I would rewrite it. I like listening to dramatic readings more than plays, actually. I know not everyone shares that opinion though I might take out some the "he said"s, but that's pretty much all.

A possible policy "decision" might also be: The BC has carte blanche - s/he can do everything s/he wants to, as long as the text read is CC0. Let's say, that's the reward for all the work

I like that idea.

Hokuspokus wrote:After having said that, I'd like to make a suggestion. It would be worth a try to record the scenes together via Skype or similar. People really would interact and be inspired by the co-actors. Every reader could record themselves for good audio quality. Typically the dialogues are not so long and there are mostly only 2-4 people involved. It should be possible to find convenient times for most scenes. May by not all, but that can't be helped.

As a former school theater player, I like your suggestion very much, Hokuspokus, and I'd like to build upon it. My problem is, it's easy to find a time for a conference call, but it's very hard to be available at a particular time with a good audio setup which involves, in my case, sitting in an empty office. At home there will be an enormous amount of background noise.

If others are in the same situation, we could still do a conference call as a rehearsal - as Hokuspokus said, one can get to know the others' voices and interact with each other. But one can still do the final recording in one's "studio setup", maybe while listening to the recorded rehearsal to find the best tone.

I don't think I'd be able to participate in something like that. Also I'm not in Europe