SLIS 600 Post #2 - Storytelling Reflection - With the Book

Having just completed my first storytelling experience, I am going to run through my process from beginning to end. Below is the video of the experience.

The first step was selecting the story. I wanted a story that I thought would be humorous and fun. I have always enjoyed Jon Scieszka's fractured fairy tales because I like the way that they subvert what you think you know about well-known stories and show you them from a new perspective. I chose The Frog Prince, Continued because of his first three books, it was the one that I was the least acquainted with, having only been read it once in elementary school. I wanted the story that I was going to tell to be fresh to me, since I knew I was going to be reading it man

Another reason for choosing The Frog Prince, Continued was because of the number of characters in the story. I knew that I wanted to do different voices for each character and this story has only six characters, which I thought would be a manageable number to keep track of. I wanted to use different voices so that there would be variation between the characters because normally my voice is pretty monotone, and I wanted each of the characters to feel distinct from one another.

After selecting the title, I read through the story several times aloud, trying to figure out what each character sounded like. At first, I made the Princess sound horrible, because she starts the story off nagging at the Prince, but by the end she needs to sound concerned, because she actually does love the Prince. After a couple of passes with her being horrible, I tried to soften her up and make her just sound more exasperated.

For the Prince, the voice I used grew out of an imitation of a ghost voice from the show Courage the Cowardly Dog (included below is a clip of that ghost). It is a type of voice that feels like it comes from the throat, which I thought was appropriate for someone who used to be a frog. I think that he ended up sounding kind of drowsy though. The first witch is an impression of Katharine Hepburn's kind of staccato cadence. The second witch's voice was influenced by some of the absurd voices that Jason Steele does on the Film Cow YouTube channel. The third witch, being the one who eats Hansel and Gretel, I tried to give her the cadence of Hannibal Lecter, with emphasis on the last word or two in a sentence. The Fairy Godmother was difficult to nail down, and I ended up trying to give her a rapid delivery, because I felt like she was easily distractible.

After settling on the voices, I continued to read through the book many times to practice with them and to try to figure out the rhythm of the story. I also practiced looking away from the page to the audience. At first, I would look away when turning pages, then during certain lines that I had memorized.

For the recording, I do not really have any blank walls in my home, so I moved a chair over in front of my bookshelves and made sure that I was facing the light source in the room. I have a car mount for my phone that I used to hold my phone up on my laptop cart, which I used because of its adjustable height. I then set the self-timer on the phone so that I could take photos to figure out if myself and the book were in frame and in focus. After I finished setting up, I recorded a couple of practice readings to feel more comfortable and to hear what the audio sounded like. Through that, I found out that I had to angle the book slightly downward or the light from the ceiling lamp would create a glare that covered the page closest to me.

I recorded a couple of read-throughs and selected the one that I felt was the best. I was nervous at the beginning because I wanted the recording to be perfect. There is one particular section of the story that I never got right though. When the Prince meets the third witch, he says three sentences in one long breath, which is indicated after the third sentence. I would get to the end of that third sentence, having taken a breath at the end of each sentence, and think, "Oh no, you messed it up again." I should have spent more time on practicing that section over and over again. Also, just for the aesthetic of the recording, I wish that I had taken a longer pause at the end before getting up to turn the camera off, so that I could have cut while I was still sitting down.

After posting the video, I nervously awaited feedback. I very much appreciated Jeri Rogers positive comments on my post. It was satisfying to find out that I came off as being comfortable with the telling of the story. Calling the voicing of the characters entertaining and funny also boosted my confidence in the choices that I made. I am looking forward to taking what I have learned from this experience and using it to improve the next one.

Additionally, this week, I read the following seven myths:

Perseus

Theseus

Daedalus and Icarus

The Labors of Hercules

The Curse of the Ring

The Death of Baldur

Ragnarök

References:

Scieszka, J., & Johnson, S. (1991). The Frog Prince, continued. Viking Penguin.