Rupert Degas

Meet Rupert Degas.
Streaming our interview via SourceConnect to Ruperts home studio in Sydney, we get a sense of what it's like for Rupert's clients when they connect with him from around the globe.  After decades of recording audiobooks we ask Rupert how he works now, what gear he uses and what makes him so damn good.

LINKS
rupertdegas.com  
groversmillpodcast.com

Transcript

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spk_0:   0:00
holding my child my legs and have island feeling the pressure. She was a fully and bloody degrees out there. We're sorry if I said anything awful, hadn't he? Got up to chop? The captain was never a good reader, immaculately. Anyway, it looks like we do this now. We're not even supposed to use the word. Always like girls. We were very young. Back home in North Square Sound. You're listening to the audio book podcast for the makers and listeners of audio books. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Thie audiobook podcast on Justin Sloan Lease and together with Abby Hones Lovely to see you again. Good to see you too. We discuss what goes on behind the storeys in the production of audio books, and today our guest is Rupert Davis. Here's an extraordinary vocal artist who conducts his international career from his home studio in Sydney. So we'll be talking amongst other things about what it's like. Toe workers narrator, director and sound engineer all rolled into one. Yes, there's no doubt that Rupert knows voice. He has narrated an extraordinary 250 audiobooks for this is received 14 Golden Earphones Awards has been nominated for a couple of Audi's on, was named by audio file as best voice of the year 2008 and 2009. He also won the Odyssey Award for excellence in audio book production. Rupert has provided voices for video games on animated films and Siri's, including Bob the Builder, Linke Bil Chop socky Chuck's Kitty is Not a Cat and the upcoming Peter Rabbit, too. Occasionally, Rupert does venture out of a small, dark and boost to work on film, TV and stage here and in the UK, and you can cheque out his eight episode audio. Siri's Grovers Mill on iTunes, in which he and fellow voice actor Amy Horn plays some 50 characters between them in a dark and surreal true crime satire about a missing hairdresser, Orson Welles. And whether we really Did Learned on the Moon

spk_1:   2:10
Group, it's so great to have you with us except you're not actually with us. You're in your home studio in Sydney, and I'm in the square booth in Melbourne

spk_2:   2:17
booth to Booth

spk_1:   2:19
the magic of technology. So tell us, how did you get into audiobooks?

spk_2:   2:23
Well, it started because I was doing radio drama at the BBC, I was given the opportunity to be in a multi cast audio drama, which was going tohave the author Philip Pullman reading the narrative and then a cast of actors playing all the parts. We recorded that in London with Builder Freeze and Garrick Hagen fromthe Storey circle for coproduction between Random House and the BBC on DH. It just kind of stemmed from there. Someone said, Oh, you should get into doing single Reed Audio The first book I did was True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey. Yes, there was, Ah, Kiwi actress in London. Call Nicolette Mackenzie and she was asked, Do you know any Aussie actors in Lund? Young Aussie actors who can play young Ned Kelly? And she said, Well, I there aren't any, But there's this English guy who does this really awesome Aussie accent. So I kind of went in and met with them, and it quickly transpired that Ned Kelly would have had an Irish accent with all the characters in the book, would have had Scottish and Irish, but they want to the actual duration ofthe Ned Kelly tohave a slight Ozzie. I don't know why, but then I did that and it wasn't punctuated. And they had to punctuate the whole book because Peter Carey wrote it without any punctuation. So they punch and that was my first single read. And then I started working for Nak sauce. They just lead from there. Really?

spk_0:   3:40
So how did you

spk_1:   3:41
perfect an Australian accent? Because it's notoriously hard, isn't it? I've always

spk_2:   3:46
just done accents. I've always been doing accents all my life. I've just always lapped them up and copied them. Two Australian wives. Ah, yeah, it's, I don't know. Just do it, Really, you know, just comes out. There's no technique. It's just kind of listen and repeat, rinse and repeat, you know?

spk_1:   4:12
Yes. Now I mentioned that you were in your studio in Sydney. You do a lot of work yourself there on DH. Just want to talk about the process of self recording, because I understanding is that in the States, there's a bit of a trend that they liketo have audio book narrators record themselves, obviously cutting out a member of a team so it's cheaper by not having a dedicated director slash sound engineer. But what do you know about that? And What's your experience of it?

spk_2:   4:40
Well, it's funny, you say, cutting out a member of the team because you'll remember as well that, you know, in the old days there were a sound engineer and a director on the publisher on generator there before of us in a session on DH. So we've cutting out three members of the team now, not just one, which is a little sad. But, you know, like the printing press and Kodak and VHS tapes, everything's changed. Things progress. It all started out of necessity for me because I do a lot of voice overs in the commercial world and pro mose and animation and cartoons and stuff on. I was finding that doing an audio book is quite time committed. Yes, you have to do sort of 4 to 8 hour full days sitting in the booth reading. My agent would be saying, Well, you've got thiss job, Cho Cho to commercial. You've got this Bob the builder thing, or you've got an audition for Hold the city or whatever it is because, you know, you're a jobbing actor car coming this audiobook. So I thought, right, I'm going to get myself my own vocal booth. Learn how to use pro tools on DH work evenings and weekends so I could literally fit the work into my schedule. I'm very lucky. I'm very busy, which is very, very fortunate. So it was a needs must really. I thought, Well, the only way I could do this on to keep doing something I enjoy which I love doing audio books is to do it myself. On DH, I started by recording with a great director in the UK called Peter Rainey, who I do a lot of work with. I've probably done 50 books with Peter on DH. Initially, he got source connected. We did a vice source connect. I was in London, he was in Gloucester and it worked a joy. And then when I moved to Australia again, we're doing about source Connect. But then with the time difference, it was quite tricky. So I found the best thing to do was just to get on with it myself on it has really given me a massive freedom. I'm quite proud of the fact that I'm quite self sufficient on DH. I kind of know in my inner air, if it sounds good or not, or from doing the right thing or not. You just know in your gut if what you're doing is good and you don't really need someone to go on, that sounds a bit off.

spk_1:   6:39
There was a very interesting article on The Guardian Online recently about audiobook recording, and the narrator's were saying, Get so sick of the sound of your own voice. You'd listen to yourself all day. And the only time you hear another voice is because pops unity ahead through the headphones, saying you made a mistake.

spk_2:   6:56
Yes, yes, that's very true. But normally what would happen is I would send thie completed chapters. I would upload it to Dropbox, the editor slash qc proof. A slash producer would listen through and then send me back any pickups. Yes, that I've made any mistakes I've made you know, said he's instead of him or, you know, horror instead of terror, which all those little things around instead of round those a little annoying ones, you know very rarely the go. It was this character that said this line you did the wrong voice for that line. That happens very rarely, but it can happen Obviously, when you're in a flow and you're performing on, you have the he said, she said. He said she said, Sometimes I wish the author would allow us to cut them out because a lot of them seem so redundant. But you can't touch the author's work. You know you can't make an edit yourself, so you just read it, you'd record it. And if they decide to cut it out later, that's up to the

spk_1:   7:49
I'm on record as saying that I'd love Teo, eradicate the dialogue tags.

spk_2:   7:54
No, it just loses the flow sometimes because as an actor, you get into this flow of. I'm doing a scene on DH, these characters arguing with each other and they have it or having a romantic scene, whatever. And then suddenly he said she said, she said softly, he shouted, We know we

spk_1:   8:09
heard the shot. Yes, yes, when there's an adverb attached to what you've got to go with the adverb but a za performer in an audio book, you're doing all those different characters, so mentally you're making that shift from character to character, and that's a challenge in itself because if you are performing on stage or in a film, you're just one character and so you can stay in that character. So doing that switch from this voice to that voice, and then when you have to drop out of that as well to do that, he said, it's tedious.

spk_0:   8:38
Do you ever

spk_1:   8:38
get lonely in your booth there?

spk_2:   8:41
Don't get lonely. No. E. As I said, I do a lot of advertising on DH. You know, maybe I shouldn't say this, but quite often I just want the creatives, and the copyright is just to leave me alone. You've written a script. Just let me read it on. Then you get 10 opinions and 10 people give you. Can you just emphasise the little up on? It's just, for goodness sake. I like being on my own doing it. It's very meditative and contemplated for me. I'm a bit of a control freak, I suppose. I like to do it my way, not be told how to do it by anybody else on DH. So far I've had no complaints, but also it sze very nice sitting in a booth on your own and just getting on with it, and it's time just goes by, and it doesn't feel like work when you're on your own. I'm just feeling like I'm in bed reading a book, whereas if you got a producing areas like you're in bed with a stranger reading a book, which is odd

spk_1:   9:37
e set up here, it's square. We are myself as director engineer. I'm out of the line of sight of the narrator, so the narrator can't see me, and I think that's helpful. Certainly I try to keep my interventions down, you know, and not hit the talk back button unless there's a really good reason, too, because it just breaks that flow. But I think it's fair to say I mean, you have a huge body of experience and you kind of know what you're doing, but probably for a newcomer. If they were asked to self record, it would be quite intimidating, having to worry about the sound levels and questions of direction and interpretation by themselves.

spk_2:   10:20
I wouldn't advise it for a newcomer. Absolutely. I think for a new camera would not advise that it all you need to have experienced ah, lot of experience don't sound cocky, but you need to know what you're doing. First, you learn everything and it takes years. I mean, I didn't self record. I think the first book I self recorded was, Gosh, when would that have been 2000 13? And I've been doing audio books. 2000 won 12 years. 12 years of having a producer with May

spk_1:   10:50
tell us about your studio.

spk_2:   10:52
My booth is a vocal booth from a comical vocal booth dot com, which are made in Bend, Oregon, on I Had It Made. It's a six by four foot box with eight foot high ceiling. It's a solid wood with Jim Brock and foam on the inside. It's a beautiful burgundy colic, a star like wine. So it remains me that I feel like I'm in a glass of vino. Andi, it's gotta producers window and a door, a very heavy door. Inside my booth, I have a small screen which has got a wire going to my iMac, which is on my desk, which is in my study in my office, which is the booth is in it on my MCA on my control room. I have protocols with my oven M box pro Tha Jen as my pre EMP, then I have a wireless mouse and a wireless keyboard, which I take in on. Then I screen share into the into the booth. So everything on my desktop is now on my boot so I can sit in my booth going to e mails and look at YouTube and do everything. I could do everything from in my booth. It's just that I can't hear anything outside. It's my little womb. Then I have a Norman You 87 which I'm talking to you on now, which is a great mike. And then when I moved to Australia, I was encouraged to buy a 416 is Anheuser for 164 other work, and I very, very rarely used the 416 only from doing film a tr a pre sonus HP for headphone amp in the booth. That's it on a webcam so I could do skyping and stuff like that

spk_1:   12:28
when you're describing your vocal booth. When you said it was all Burgundy are sinking, it sounded sort of, you know, in utero. And then you said how womb like it wa so that was amusing that Norman Mike, that's a kind of good industry standard for this kind of work.

spk_2:   12:44
Yes, look, it's not cheap. No, but it's paid for itself over the years. Ah, lot of people would be very scared when they look at the price tag of Thisbut. I have done audio books on a road NT two, and it could not cope with the dynamic nous off my performing a perform audio books. I'm an actor. I don't just narrate them. I performed them as if I'm doing a movie. All my characters are based on actors and movie stars, and that's how I remember who I'm playing is okay, This guy's Harrison Ford and this is Morgan Freeman. And this is just how I do it. Simon Impressionist. So I all my characters are based somewhere in voices that I've heard in the past in whether it's in the Black Adder or Star Wars or Formula One or Downturn Abby, Whatever it might be, whatever the cultural zeitgeist is of the day and like that voices in my head, I'll put that into a book. You know,

spk_1:   13:35
it's a very good hack, and I know of other people who use that or even someone they know. You know, I commented once on voice someone was doing for a character and they explained they were doing their mother. Yes,

spk_2:   13:47
totally. But you have Teo

spk_1:   13:48
good way of just locking it into your brain isn't you've got to

spk_2:   13:51
remember it. You can spend ages writing notes on I just think that's what's the point. Just keep keep it in all in your head. Just have that hack have that little hook. You know that quick reference? I started using that hack system very, very early on because I needed extremely quick mental reference, and it's whatever floats your boat. But if you're the type of person that relies heavily on note taking and notes that will go on into years and years and years and then you will your brain will be programmed to rely on notes on. I didn't want that to happen, So why started? Because I knew that I just wanted that quick reference, that quick mental thing. I'm very fortunate in the fact that recently I'm doing a lot of new books, that air just coming out and the author's air alive, and I have asked the publishers to put me in touch with the authors so I have been having email correspondence with the author's saying, I can you send me a character list off backgrounds of these characters where they're from, what their social status is, what their gender is, what their ages. You know what accent you see them having etcetera, etcetera. I do a lot of fantasy novels, you know? How do you pronounce thes these names? You know, the sort of game of Thrones type names gimme pronunciations on. The authors have been fantastic in giving me or these little hooks. And sometimes I say toward us. I see if you could cast this in the movie in your mind with money. When I object, Who would you cast in this role? I think I love that. And then it makes them think I want Brad Pitt, right? Great, you know, but Brad Pitt doing a Scottish accent. Okay, let's write, you know, So I get inside the hopefully get side the author's head, and it helps them to at least be happy with the end result. And that's really awesome. To do that.

spk_0:   15:29
Any other

spk_1:   15:30
suggestions? Hacks for people who want to get into audio book narration.

spk_2:   15:35
Just keep keep listening and keep working and keep honing your skills and sight reading on DH. When you're reading a book in bed, read it out loud, Tio, have your lips move your mouth. Move Just constantly be practising, practising, practising so that when you get in the booth and you've got to read a script, you know, take a snapshot of the page with your I don't read one word after the word. You know, I'm reading, like, two sentences ahead with my eyes. So I'm like knowing what's coming on them. Also, the Mohr audio books you do, the more you can actually guess. Your brain guesses the next word. It knows sentence construction so well that you don't just know where it's going to go, because the more you do, the more you read them. We become a master of the English language and the written word so that you just know that flow. And you can almost guess when, whether sentences going do you mean

spk_1:   16:27
Yes, I think with experience, people just become so much more fluid. I had someone recently who should be in reading away reading away, and then she stumbled and she said, Look, I'm really sorry. I said, Don't worry. No need to apologise to, You know, Actually, I am really sorry because I wasn't thinking about what I was reading. Has actually think about what I wanted for dinner. Just gobsmacked should go to my house. Very honest consensus. That's right. She was very honest. If

spk_2:   16:50
you want to get into audio book narration, be a really good sight reader. I just think flow Tell the Storey Miss might sound unfair, but I listen to a few clips of audio books on Audible just to see what's out there and especially from America on so many of them. Son like Droney, gps, satin our voices. How can you listen to something that really sounds monotonous like this? It just would drive me crazy on. I'm wondering if there's a conspiracy that they're trying to make audiobook narrators sound like the A I so that we're going to be replaced by eye anyway, No one. I know the difference when we get replaced.

spk_1:   17:27
My husband subscribes to that theory. Well,

spk_2:   17:29
there you go. So what I try and do is make the audio books of performance on, you know, you're not going to please all the people. I'll admit I don't wantto audible and have a look at the reviews of my books, you know? Sorry, but I do on you Got some hell going really annoys me when the character whispers and the narrator whispers and the guy's shouts and he shouts,

spk_0:   17:48
Just read

spk_2:   17:48
it like, Are

spk_0:   17:49
you serious? What a

spk_2:   17:51
troll. You know, if you want someone to read you a storey that sounds like a GPS go from that's not going to be May I'm no, I'm going to give you whisper, you know, had one goes. So it's really hard to listen to your books in the car because some bits are really quiet. Yeah, because it's a quiet scene, and so it's a really loud have to turn the volume up because it's a battle sequence. Guess what you know. So if anybody wants to get into audiobooks, I would say if you want longevity in this business, be a good actor, because if you're just going to read the book like sounding every every sentence, sound has the same cadence. Did you hear books where the every sentence has exactly the same cadence? It's really boring. Be a computer's going to replace you.

spk_1:   18:31
E think that to

spk_2:   18:35
be the harbinger of doom

spk_1:   18:36
E. I think that part of the fashion for that in the States because I think, yes, there is a bit of that in the States. And it came from things like this American life and podcasting, where there was a very distinct performance style of really sitting back on the text and and not actually being performative. And I think that that have influenced a lot of people due to the popularity of this American life.

spk_2:   19:01
Absolutely. So I think that's a really good point. So I would say anybody just find what you do well, find your niche, find what your style on DH. Don't be influenced by trends in what people are listening to our liking. I think that's probably thinking about it is probably a quite a good piece of advice is just stick with what you're good at, stick with what you do. And if people don't like it, well, then tough. But one day someone will go that are

spk_1:   19:32
thought. This go does this

spk_2:   19:33
following trends and trying to adjust what we do in order to please other people. I think is a slippery slope because I think just stick with the guns, stick with what you do on eventually your rise to the top.

spk_0:   19:45
And I think

spk_1:   19:45
also this issue of voice casting, you know, trying to find the right voice for the right content. And it might be certain types of books that you might not do because people know he's not the field that we want for this book. And that's fine. You know, that's part of the industry, you know?

spk_2:   20:02
Well, there's nothing worse than getting a book on DH. The content is so unbelievably dull. You can't hide that in your voice. I've done a few books where I listened back and her God I sound board because I wass Yes, it was the hideous. It was like polishing a turd. I'm thinking this is awful, you know, But you do You give it 100%. But even then you listen back and go. Gosh, I still sounds like I'm not into it, you know, on DH, then you have to cheque yourself. Okay, Next time I read a book that's really, really awful. Just turn up the gas a bit, you know, tell that Storey. I have turned down a few things recently because I just didn't They don't attract me. I really need to be a sort of attracted to do a book. Now, again, I'm very lucky. I'm one of the lucky ones. I know, you know, I get offered books and I can turn books down. And I'm very fortunate. I love working that I absolutely love working, but sometimes you get a book and go. I really I don't want to do this. And you've got to sort of gently sort of sound Sorry. You know, it's just you can't say it's not my thing. You guys haven't got the time and I showed you all or whatever, you know. Sorry, little little trick there, but yeah, but to begin with, do everything Say yes to everything.

spk_1:   21:16
Do you have a particular narrator that you love listening to?

spk_2:   21:20
I confess I don't listen to audio books. I don't enjoy listening to audio Everyone else peeps. So many people ask me what audio

spk_1:   21:28
e. I don't

spk_2:   21:29
have time because I'm too busy, but I just I can't listen to another person read this storey because I'll be set. There's like a Busman's holiday. Someone go to the theatre If I see a bad performance in the play. It's just like all it takes is one person. Teo. Just be to not be good. Oh, I'm out of the storey. It's broken, the magics broken. Yeah. I can't imagine an accountant going home and really enjoying sitting on the calculator on that, You know, it's like, Get me away from numbers, you know? No, sorry. I just get on with

spk_1:   22:02
it. No, look, I want I like Netflix. I spend all day listening intensely. So the last thing I want to do is a form of recreation is listen intensely. You know, people asked me what I'm just into What? Podcasts and listening. Teo e. I just want to listen to the black bird in the tree outside the window.

spk_2:   22:19
Exactly. Exactly. I wear earphones as you do all day long on when I'm in the car. Got no music, no radio on at home at night. It's if I'm on my own, there's no music on. It's just like the peace and quiet. I like listening to. The cooker borrows and it's pleasant. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Good luck with everything

spk_0:   22:44
you can get in touch with Rupert at Rupert Vegas dot com You can also cheque him out on Instagram. Lots of funny photos there. Have a great day, and I hope you can join us for our next episode. You've been listening to the audio book podcast brought to you by Square Sound. If there's something that we haven't covered in our audio book, Syria's that you'd like to know about sent us a message at studio dot square sound dot com dot you. Thie Audiobook Podcast was produced by Marianne Plaza, together with Abby Homes and Justin Sloan. Lease with Special thanks to all our guest speakers. Square Sound is an audiobook and podcast studio in Melbourne, Australia. Thanks for listening.