An Interview with Helen Llloyd, Audio Producer
Just to give you a little context: Helen first provided an amazing audition for the production of Money Farm, a book about the future of finance. It has been described as the Brave New World of Finance. What astounded me about her was how she switched between numerous accents and had such power in her tone when she delivered. What's more, she completely engages readers,which has been mentioned in the numerous audio book reviews.
Once Money Farm was complete Helen noticed I had written some comedy chic-lit books called Love Hunt. The premise is simple: two women are hunting rich men to remove them from their mundane office lifestyles. One woman is a tick-list fanatic and the other is a self-confessed Russian gold-digger. The pair are living secret dating lives and engaging with wealthy men in hope to live a better life. They email each other at work about their escapades and the happenings in the office. Of course there is an issue - nothing is good enough for Gracie and Eva, the Russian bombshell, intends to get her debt paid off and increase her collection of shoes.
When Helen provided me with her audition I was actually blown away. The Russian accent was astounding and in terms of portrayal of the Russian character, well she had me in absolute states of hysterical laughter. Honestly she was brilliant. When Love Hunt 1 was finished Helen went straight into Love Hunt 2 and delivered a performance so excellent that I am proud to have written the book. Anyway here is her interview and I have to say she is so humble considering her phenomenal talent.
As I said I before, I feel it is a real joy to be able to work with such talented people.
Please enjoy!
Q: How did you get into producing audiobooks?
I recorded my first audiobooks way back in 1980s … recording in a professional recording studio onto tape and the books were distributed on cassette tape – so my involvement with audiobooks goes back a long way – though there was a long gap in the middle when I was working as a television producer, when I just didn’t have the time to continue with something that is so time intensive, so audiobooks took a back seat until I took redundancy from ITV and set up my personal studio.
I have always
read for pleasure – and I guess heard characters in my head right from the very
beginning of reading stories. I read to my son … and now read to my
grand-daughter. I also think that
moving into audiobooks was in many ways a natural progression from my initial
training as an actor and the first two decades of my working life as an
actor. Audio training and voice work was
part of my drama school course (I trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama)
and always felt quite comfortable in front of a microphone. I have done some
radio drama as well and have played a wide variety of roles on stage in theatres
up and down the UK and in the West End and also doing bits and bobs on
television, so I am well used to interpreting other people’s words and creating
credible characters.
In the early
1980s, I moved into television as a presenter and began to do VO work, then
moved sideways to behind the camera and eventually became a programme producer
making documentaries for ITV and digital TV channels, while at the same time
doing quite a lot of corporate and commercial voice over work as well as
narrating over fifty broadcast television programmes. I learned about production technically and
artistically … and also how to edit (pictures as well as audio) and how to meet
deadlines – all transferable skills, invaluable in audiobook production.
I took
redundancy from ITV and returned to my roots – I went back into theatre briefly
as a producer and director, also as a youth theatre leader and company manager
and even worked as an actor once more. Eventually, I set up my home and got
back into full time narration and VO work – often working remotely with Audiobok
producers and production houses from my own studio, and I realised that this
was something I really wanted to get more involved in. ACX was not at that time
available in the UK, however it was increasingly seen as an additional opportunity
for narrators in the US. I joined forces with an independent US based producer
who, acting as a third party ‘producer’ gave me direct access to ACX in the US
and I produced my first three independent reads through Push Play Audio in
2013. When ACX opened up in the UK in
2014, I signed up and started looking for books to narrate and produce myself
while continuing to narrate for audiobook publishers remotely through various
producing houses in the UK and US.
Q What so you look for when choosing to work on an audio
book?
It takes a lot of hours to produce an audiobook – and if a book does not engage me, how can I hope to engage the listener? I am unwilling to spend hours and hours producing something that will always be substandard because however well it is read, if the writing is poor, it will never really work - you just can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear I’m afraid. So quality of writing is what I am looking for … always.
Q What are some of your funniest/ weirdest and most awkward
It always has
to be about the writing and the story for me, and I enjoy working in almost all
genres of books. I don’t feel comfortable reading erotica – or overtly political
or religious books. My favourite kind of read are those with a great storyline
and a clear narrative voice combined with vibrant and original characters that
move the story forward in an interesting way. I like multi-layered books where
there is more going on beneath the surface – where there is scope for real
character and emotional development. If
a book is badly written and poorly constructed, has clichéd characters and
stilted dialogue, then that is a real turn off. It is just not worth the effort
and time involved.
It takes a lot of hours to produce an audiobook – and if a book does not engage me, how can I hope to engage the listener? I am unwilling to spend hours and hours producing something that will always be substandard because however well it is read, if the writing is poor, it will never really work - you just can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear I’m afraid. So quality of writing is what I am looking for … always.
I narrate all
genres of book - heavyweight histories and non-fiction reads, short stories,
lots of romances, fantasy, comedy, classics, horror and just about everything
in between. I prefer to work on books
that offer a fee payable per finished hour (PFH rate) or at least offer a
stipend if they are royalty share (RS). As a full time narrator - I don’t have
another day job – narrating books and doing other VO work is how I earn my
living – and as well as the time it takes and the investment in equipment
that have made, there are other costs
involved. Though I am very happy to edit my own work, I prefer to hire a
professional audio proofer. This makes such a difference to the quality of the
finished read and it is notoriously difficult to proof one’s own reads. I need to know that those costs will be
covered. On a royalty share deal, there is always the chance that I will end up
being out of pocket.
Having said
that, there are rare occasions when a book just jumps out at me and I just feel
I have to do it … even if it is a Royalty Share. However, I can only afford to
do that a couple of times a year – and at periods when there is no paid work in
the pipeline.
Q What are some of your funniest/ weirdest and most awkward
experiences within audio production?
I have
discovered that I have a particularly noisy digestive system - I rumble
when I am
hungry and also for an hour or so after eating, especially if I eat bread or
wheat based cereal – so grabbing a sandwich is not an option when I am working.
Fortunately porridge doesn’t seem to cause such a repertoire of rumbles!
That aside, I
cry at the drop of a hat. Anything remotely sad and I sob. I have
wept buckets
at a baby alien saying goodbye to its master (! Yes really). Things always
go wrong in books, a hero is killed or injured, people get sick, a relationship
comes to an end (or ends happily … I still sob); animals or people are shot,
hurt, maimed, hunted, haunted, frightened lost.
You name it, anything remotely sad, and I cry. As you can imagine, this
causes major problems - sniffing is not allowed – and when you really cry it
makes your throat hurt and your voice sounds snotty for a considerable
time. I have also been known to get the
giggles. Sex scenes can also be particularly problematical
–highly educational they may be but mostly I just find them funny, especially
at ten in the morning. There I am … old
enough to know better, shut away in isolation in my little box, essentially
talking to myself – and when things get steamy I am often struck by the
silliness of the situation and get the giggles.
Then there are
the days when your brain and your mouth just won’t talk to each other. Even the
simplest phrase becomes gobbledeygook and nothing sounds right … the only thing
to do at this point is to give up for an hour or so … walk the dog, hoover the
stairs, do something totally different, switch off and try again later.
Q: What was it about Money Farm and the Love Hunt books that
appealed?
I think the
thing that drew me to Money Farm was the fact that the book was so inventive
and so multi-layered. It also echoed the
real life situation where the Global banking crisis had made most of us
ordinary mortals feel disgust and mistrust at the financial system – and the
heroine of MF was so cynical, so tough and so anarchic that she instantly
appealed. Also Money Farm was so original, unlike any other book I had come
across … it was full of inventive characters and there was the full gamut of
worldwide accents specified in the book. It posed a real challenge to come up
with believable and original voices for so many people. I really enjoyed that
and some of the reviews have commented on the range of voices in the read– very
gratifying.
Although The
Love Hunt books have a similar financial theme (the heroines are definitely
looking for guys with money) these books come at things from a completely
different angle – and one which again I found original and challenging.
The Love Hunt books are purely character voices … there is no narrative
voice at all – there is also a lot of humour in the books as well as a lot of
common sense. I found the two main women really interesting to play and particularly
warmed to Eva the crazy Russian blonde bombshell. She just had the best
lines!
Q What are your favourite bits of Money Farm and the Love Hunts
that the readers should listen out for?
I don’t really
have any favourite bits that jump out at me. I think taking any section out of
context is almost impossible to do. That is why it is so difficult to find the
right sample section to go on the ‘Audible’ listing … choosing any individual
section is really difficult. Hopefully
people will be grabbed in the early pages and will just want to go on
listening!
To hear Helen's Brilliance!!!:
How do you feel about the value of your life being based on the amount of money sitting in your bank? If we are all inter-connected by money, then why do so few people pay attention to how money works? Fear and denial are perfect for generating debt and that is what the world is run on. Now imagine, if in the future, one financial institution became so powerful that it could choose to eradicate the present monetary system. Then what happens?
Come on admit it - as much as we deny it - we ladies like a good love hunt.
We have tick lists, ideals, and we hunt in high-heeled packs. Of course, we're all hunting for that elusive right man who ticks every box and even has tidy nostril hair. Okay maybe not you, but you know other ladies who love the hunt.
Well, it's time for Eva and Gracie to love hunt, and their "targets" are rich men - the golden sperm. Such exciting escapades would provide the pair with entertaining discussions during their dull office hours - or so they thought. What they did not anticipate was the discovery of the "booby man"; humorous but very hard truths about wealth, themselves, power; and the RichIdiot.com phenomenon.
The question remains: can love really be hunted?
The Love Hunt has returned. Gracie is back on the dating horse after a huge fall in her first tick-list-tastic love hunt.
Her new dating adventures take her and Eva into the depths of "the love game".
In the meantime, Eva, the ultimate Russian gold digger, has come to the conclusion that her poor "village idiot boyfriend" will never be enough. He will certainly not pay off her accumulating debts. She needs a rich man, and that means rich idiot dating.
In The Love Game, Eva and Gracie travel the journey of extreme love learning. On the way, they will discover their love and lust lists, their intrinsic issues, and experience some hilarious and jaw-dropping dates in pursuit of the wealthy ideal.
All of this in the pursuit of love.
The Love Hunt II is on!
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