Puppet Kaos - a blog by Kelvin Kao about puppetry, video-making, and other randomness

I am about to start a series of experiments around here about my own voice.

When I recorded and listened to my own voices (plural because I do multiple characters), I couldn’t help but think in general I talk more slowly than in other puppet shows. I am not sure if it’s true, and if it is, I don’t know if it’s because of my generally never-in-a-hurry personality, or the fact that English is my third language. I also think, there’s a difference in speech rhythm and tempo in different genres, be it puppet shows, talk shows, or soap opera. This is something I’ve been wondering, and what better way to find out about it than actually recording things and then visually or digitally analyze them? (Did I just sound incredibly geeky? Oh well.)

The other thing I’m interested in is, why do characters sound different? I know that people sound different because they are physically different, but why do Mac and Cheese, Bottle Monster, Bobby, Moostifer, and Charlie (though he preferred to remain nameless but it was just harder to refer to him that way) sound different? What am I varying?

These are the questions I’m interested in answering. I’m going to do a little bit of research on these things. I might discover something about my voice, or it might turned out to be inconclusive.

So the first thing I am going to do, is to find short video clips of scenes. And then I will transcribe the lines and then record the lines again after some days. It should be something I’m not familiar with, so I don’t get influenced too much by the original recording. If you have any scenes to recommend, send me links!

This should be fun, in a very scientific geeky kind of way.

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