PANAcademy

Speech and Accent Toolbox

September 21 • $100

4am PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST • 90 minutes

This webinar provides an overview of the elements of speech needed to achieve greater fluency in the speech patterns, accents, and dialects we use in performance. Attendees will learn how to: better analyze a character’s speech pattern, accent, or dialect; identify the major constituent parts of speech patterns, accents, and dialects; identify how syllable stress and vowel and consonant changes combine to create accent patterns; and understand how to use phonetic transcription for greater accuracy in pronunciation.

This class is for narrators of any experience level.

Lester Shane‘s many directing credits range from Shakespeare to premieres. He wrote for Biography, AMC and Discovery. His one-man show, Mortal Coil, in which he portrays thirteen characters in a hospice, played across the country and in Oslo under his direction. Lester works extensively as a speech and dialects coach.

Financial Literacy: How to Make Your Money Work as Hard for You as You Do for It

October 3 • FREE

4am PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST • 1 hour 45 minutes

Understanding how money works is crucial to saving, growing and keeping it.  By demystifying how money works, this webinar explains different ways to make your money work for you. Participants will leave better prepared to assess their current financial situations and plot a path forward to wealth creation and greater financial security.

By the end of this course, participants will understand what Financial Literacy is and why it’s important, ways and vehicles for saving and growing money and wealth, and how to assess their current financial situation and set goals.

Wendi Miles-Boykin is an accomplished executive-level professional and leader with over twenty years of experience in financial services, marketing and sales. In 2014 Wendi pivoted from her corporate career to entrepreneurship and joined Wealth Wave whose mission is to end financial illiteracy, to help individuals and families save and invest their money and create generational wealth. Prior to her consulting and financial businesses, Wendi worked at Western Union for 21 years reaching the level of Vice President, Marketing with responsibility for product management, strategic marketing, retail marketing, creative services, client relationship management, advertising and promotion. She is also a patent recipient.

Twisted Wave Basics and Tips

October 5 • $100

4pm PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST • 90 minutes

Audiobook narrators no matter where they work can use Twisted Wave for trouble-free intuitive recording.  This course will show many of the tools at Twisted Wave for in-the-booth audio recording and simple editing prior to post production work.

This class is for people who want basic knowledge of Twisted Wave and for those with some basic knowledge and who want tips and tricks to take full advantage of Twisted Wave’s tools and features. Students should have Twisted Wave on a laptop or desktop computer, which can include the free demo version.  A Mac computer is optimal, though Twisted Wave now has a PC version.

Jack de Golia, “the Voice of Character,”  has narrated some 200 audiobooks for ACX, Spoken Realms, Tantor, Blackstone, Audible Studios, Deyan, and Findaway.  His recording tool of choice: Twisted Wave.  Jack has long shared his skills with Twisted Wave at conferences and in classrooms.

Jack has won AudioFile magazine’s Earphone Award, been a SOVAS nominee in 2018 and 2021, and a SOVAS winner in 2021 for Best Audiobook Narration of a History.  Jack holds a BA in Dramatic Art from UC Davis. A veteran stage actor, public relations professional, and native of San Francisco, Jack lives near Las Vegas.

Casting Your Audiobook

October 17 • $50

4am PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST • 2 hours

Erin will discuss the things you need to think about when casting your book… with…well you. You will learn about the different Point of Views (POVs). This will help you understand what to do with the protagonist (aka YOU… most of the time). Erin will then share what she calls the “Family of Leads”. She will explore the way we can mine the text for how and why these characters are in the book to begin with, their significance in the story and the protagonist’s journey and how all of this informs our decisions in “casting”.  Then Erin will look into the different choices and qualities of voice we have available to us to create these real people. 

Making truthful and diverse storytelling character choices is the way to make a book rise to the top and honor, as best we can, the world the author has diligently provided! During and after the presentation Erin will open up the floor for questions. Feel free to be specific about current projects and maybe even be willing to play!

Erin Moon is a classically trained actor, long time educator, award winning narrator of over 450 books and has been in the audiobooks industry since 2005 wearing many hats on both sides of the glass. She is a member of the Ed Committee (PANA), has taught at Acting and VO training programs in the US and Canada for well over a decade, as well as being a frequent panelist, workshop leader and podcast guest.

Twisted Wave: Audiobook Post Production

October 18 • $50

10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST • 90 minutes

Narrators who work at ACX, Spoken Realms, and Findaway Voices are responsible for completing the post production work on audiobooks so that their audio meets publisher specifications.  This work can be outsourced or the narrator can do this work. This course will use many of the tools at Twisted Wave to edit, proof, pickup, and master audiobook audio to meet these specifications. The instructor will present a set of steps that build a finished audio product, which the instructor will call a “workflow.”  The workflow is like a recipe, and like any recipe, once mastered, will allow the “chef” to adapt to specific needs and discoveries.

This class is for people with basic knowledge of Twisted Wave and who have Twisted Wave on a laptop or desktop computer, which can include the free demo version.  A Mac computer is optimal, though Twisted Wave now has a PC version. You should be able to start and stop recording, start and stop playback, set recording levels, and gauge your room tone.  You should also know how to read the two level meters on either side of the main Twisted Wave screen so that you can set your audio to peak between -6 and -4 dB.

The instructor will provide a short audiobook script.  You’ll be asked to record at the levels just mentioned and include 15 seconds of room tone.  The instructor will send you instructions for uploading the audio sample.  You will be asked to not do any editing.  Please do not remove or adjust breaths, nor process this audio in any way.

Jack de Golia, “the Voice of Character,”  has narrated some 200 audiobooks for ACX, Spoken Realms, Tantor, Blackstone, Audible Studios, Deyan, and Findaway.  His recording tool of choice: Twisted Wave.  Jack has long shared his skills with Twisted Wave at conferences and in classrooms.

Jack has won AudioFile magazine’s Earphone Award, been a SOVAS nominee in 2018 and 2021, and a SOVAS winner in 2021 for Best Audiobook Narration of a History.   Jack holds a BA in Dramatic Art from UC Davis. A veteran stage actor, public relations professional, and native of San Francisco, Jack lives near Las Vegas.

Feldenkrais Lessons

November 6 – December 11 • $50

5:15pm PT / 8:15pm ET / 1:15am BST • 6, 1-hour sessions

Audiobook narration is a physically demanding job—-despite the fact that it looks like we “just sit and talk”. Ease and comfort as you spend hours in the booth, creating characters, enlivening text, is crucial—both for your own well-being, and for the easy-to-listen-to, exciting end product. These lessons direct your attention to how you organize your body as you do your work…where you can reduce habitual tensions and improve breathing and comfort. Feldenkrais lessons enable you to feel simultaneously grounded and free as you enter the world of your book, so you emerge from your booth invigorated, rather than exhausted. Suitable for all experience levels.

Suzanne Toren is a multi-award-winning, Golden Voice narrator, and is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner.

Prepping, Tuning, and Pimping Out Your Home Studio

November 14 • FREE for PANA members

4pm PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST • 2 hours

Now that genuine professional quality audio is a baseline expectation of publishers and production houses, your home recording studio’s setup can make all the difference. This is a comprehensive session designed to equip narrators at all experience levels with the essential knowledge and skills necessary to honestly understand and optimize their recording environment for outstanding audio and visual quality.

Byron Wagner (he/him) has been doing voice-over since the age of 13 (a very long time ago), implementing (& patenting) the first ISDN codec for Disney in ’92. He enjoys crafting memorable results for global audiobook clients from his world-class multi-room Abaton AirBnB/studios in Los Angeles & Ra’anana, Israel, and travels extensively.

Introduction to Spreadsheets

November 21 • $50

4pm PT / 7pm ET / 12am BST • 2 hours

This course will provide students with the basic skills necessary to create and edit simple spreadsheets suitable for use in organizing and tracking information required in business and in life. The attendees of this small group, hands-on class will apply the skills presented in real-time by working on supplied practice materials as well as by creating and manipulating new spreadsheets of their own design.

Dawn Harvey (she/her) is an actor, VO artist, multi-award-winning audiobook narrator, and audiobook director. Having taught law and psychology classes in a prior life, Dawn began teaching audiobook narration almost a decade ago with students from across North America. Dawn is also a private coach with clients from around the globe.