A Live Internet Reading of “A Christmas Carol” (part 3)
December 31st, 2009 Posted in blog
(Doug Welch reading “A Christmas Carol”)
On Sunday last, New Media Interchange Founder Douglas E. Welch, held his 4th Annual LIVE Reading of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and the audio is now available for your holiday pleasure.
It wasn’t your typical live reading of a play. Not a radio play or a televised reading. It was an internet play distributed through the internet’s U-Stream.TV. I had the opportunity to use my voice to be part of this holiday project. Top Warner Brothers sound engineer, Michael Lawshe and New Media Expert Doug Welch team up several times a year to produce these readings. I interviewed Doug about the production. In part 1 he talked about the genesis of the project and the recording process. In part 2, he talked about the editing process and U-Stream’s internet technology for a live show. In part 3 (below) he gives advice on how to produce your own live streaming show.
TJP: Any advice for others who want to produce a recording for the internet?
DW: First, have fun. This is the main reason we do our reading each year. We treat it like a small party with everyone bringing treats and we usually cook a big pasta meal afterward. Schedule your live show when the most people will be available to listen or watch. We chose the Sunday before Christmas at 3PM Pacific Time (6 PM Eastern) for just that reason.
TJP: What about glitches and technical issues?
DW: Don’t worry about stumbles and technical issues. This is part of doing a live show. Most issues can be resolved with some light editing, if needed, for the recorded version. We love introducing our non-theater, non-industry friends to the fun of performing a script, so we often have new readers who need a little coaxing and understanding. For me, this is simply another part of the fun. Invariably, after the show, they say “I didn’t know this was so much fun!”.
For the more professionally minded, you will nearly always be able to pull an excerpt from the show that you can use as a sample on your web site or reel, even if the complete show has some issues.
Record to multiple devices whenever possible. Had all our local recording options failed for some odd reason, we still would have been able to use the audio captured by uStream.tv to create a podcast afterward. That said, recording locally will always produce the best results.
TJP: Do you think this UStream technology could help voice talent. How will it impact their career?
DW: Live streaming services like uStream provide a method of making what you do, and how well you do it, accessible to the world at large. Even better, you can produce shows, readings, dramatizations on your own without the need for large budgets or large amounts of people. You can create more audio and video that can be seen by more people than might be possible otherwise. This provides you the freedom to do projects that you want to do, rather than only those for which you get paid.
-Tracy Pattin
On Sunday last, New Media Interchange Founder Douglas E. Welch, held his 4th Annual LIVE Reading of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and the audio is now available for your holiday pleasure.It wasn’t your typical live reading of a play. Not a radio play or a televised reading. It was an internet play distributed through the internet’s U-Stream.TV. I had the opportunity to use my voice to be part of this holiday project. Top Warner Brothers sound engineer, Michael Lawshe and New Media Expert Doug Welch team up several times a year to produce these readings. In part1 Doug talks about the recording process. In part 2 he talked about the editing process and uStream.tv technology. In part 3, Doug gives advice on how to do your own live streaming project.
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