The Books of the Dead is a podcast dedicated to the reviewing of books with people who have passed on at their center. This could be a work of nonfiction of an historical figure or a work of fiction centered around a ghost.
Credits:
81 BPM Industrial Ambient Loop #871 by looplicator from Freesound used under CC BY 4.0
Old Owl Witch by septahelix from DigCCMixter used under CC BY-NC 4.0
telethon cheering2m57s060213 by John Sipos from Freesound used under CC0 1.0
Timeless Books by Lin Kristensen from Wikimedia used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
Hey Sara, I would edit the intro so that the volume is lower than your voice, as it transitions to your voice I had to turn the volume up to hear you. I liked your choice of intro music as it fits with your theme. There was a good ambient loop during your voice over audio, but when you inserted your other sound effect it blasted the volume in my ears. The tone of your voice is also engaging as well. If you adjust the volume of your voice, I think this would be great! I enjoy your cover art and your use of the grave stone for emphasis on the word ‘dead.’
Hello Sara. Nice choice using the Timeless Books image for your podcast cover. It gives me the feeling of old literature and times past which supplements your books of the dead and ghosts concept. I also liked the intro music clip choice. It reminds me of an old Nintendo Castlevania game which dealt with vampires, ghosts, and other supernatural things. After review of your lab, I have a few suggestions. First, would be to balance the audio levels across the sample, as well as use of fade in and fade out techniques. The music clip was at a good volume level, I then had to raise my headphone volume to hear the spoken word. When the applause sound effect played it was a little jarring for me since I had the volume up to hear the spoken words. Instead of using the applause effect, you could probably take that out and instead, after the intro music fade out, fade in with a ghost cackle or laugh to further set the mood. From there, you could continue on with uninterrupted spoken words. Regarding the cover image, you could implement the rule of thirds with the placement of your title. Also, I love that you used a separate font and the color red to emphasize “Dead”. For me this is enough and you wouldn’t need the image of the headstone. Good job!
Hi Sara! I’ll echo what the others in our group mentioned about the volume, there seem to be big jumps between sound effects and your voice. I’m not sure which editing software you used but on Garage Band it’s made pretty easy to adjust the volume of tracks individually. I feel like it also sounds as though you recorded your voice far away from the mic, so I might consider re-recording with a more appropriate set-up. Though I love the idea of this podcast, I wasn’t sure if the vibe was supposed to be creepy or quirky, but I think the tone of your voice suggests the latter. Lastly, I really enjoyed the intro music, but I would utilize a fade out so that it ends less abruptly!