Award winning voiceover artist Johanna Parker recently visited Zone Recording Studio to voice the audio book Autumn Bones, Agent of Hel by New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Carey. Autumn Bones, Agent of Hel is the second installment after Dark Currents in Carey’s suburban fantasy series.
Johanna Parker is an Audie Award Winning, Earphone Award Winning actress who currently lives and works in Sonoma County. Parker narrated her first audiobook in 2002 and has since earned high praise for her voiceover work in multiple genres, including the young adult Mediator series by Meg Cabot, Earlene Fowler’s Bennie Harper Mysteries, and her portrayal of Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire books.
“It was a thrill to hear her record,” said Zone Recording Studio owner Blair Hardman. “The way in which she would transition so flawlessly from male to female, from human to supernatural was very impressive.”
Autumn Bones, Agent of Hel clocked in at 100,000 words and took 30 hours to record. The 30 hours of recording was edited down to about 10 hours of listening.
“For every 1 hour of audio book listening, it takes about 3 hours of recording,” said Hardman. “Voiceover sessions average about 4 hours per day. Anything more, and the brain and tongue begin to fatigue.”
As the engineer, Hardman was tasked with following along closely to ensure that no mistakes were made throughout the 30 plus hours of recording. If a word was missed or a name was mispronounced, Hardman would stop the recording and back up to the beginning of the sentence to have Parker start again.
“At the end of recording only three mistakes were found,” remarked Hardman. “Just 3 words out of 100,000 is pretty good!”
Blair Hardman has also performed his own audiobook work, most notably for Dr. Phil’s book Real Life: Preparing for the 7 Most Challenging Days of Your Life and Michael Lewis’ Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity.
Zone Recording Studio enjoys teaching voice acting, performing casting for voiceover projects, and producing VO demos. For more information, please email Zone Recording Studio at blair@zonerecording.com or call them at (800) 372-3305 or (707) 664-1221.