Professional Voice Talent, Amateur Actor and Knitter

Month: May 2009

Separation

I originally had this in my last post, but I decided to separate it out and leave the Star Trek review in its own spoilery post.

I managed to record eight chapters for my Clara Vaughan project this weekend (it had been on hold for a while while I finished the Interior Castle, did Brigadoon, and then bought and set up a new laptop after my old one died). I’ll be working more steadily on this one as it’s due mid-June and I’m not quite half-way yet. I may be doing another project for Catholic Audio Company (the people I did Interior Castle for), a two parter by St Louis de Montford, True Devotion to Mary and the Secret of the Rosary. I haven’t signed a contract for this one yet. My three LibriVox projects have been sorely neglected for the past few weeks.

I’ve been watching Rosemary and Thyme via Netflix. I’ve been a fan of Felicity Kendall’s since I came across her as Viola/Cesario in the BBC’s Twelfth Night back when I was an undergrad, and after she appeared on an episode of Doctor Who, I saw that she’d done this murder mystery series a few years ago and decided to check it out. I’ve also been meaning to watch the Good Life (aka Good Neighbors in the US) because although it comes on PBS every so often, it’s quite sporadic, and I’ve never figured out the schedule.

Where no one has gone… (Star Trek Spoilers)

So I went to see Star Trek this weekend and I must say I enjoyed it. I liked the choices they made with the various actors; Karl Urban seemed to be channeling DeForest Kelley’s McCoy, which was fine for McCoy (he’s such a specific character), but I was glad the other actors did their own takes on the characters. I liked Scotty a lot (“Are you from the future? That’s brilliant! Do they still have sandwiches there?”); I found his accent to be more authentic than James Doohan’s – he tended to do a more stereotypical accent. I was a little weirded out by the Spock/Uhura thing, and I didn’t even realize that Winona Ryder played Spock’s mother till I got home and looked it up. Chekov was adorable, and seemed much more competent than in the original series.

As far as the plot went, I’ll bypass the fact that they used time travel as the main plot device (they comment in the film that this is cheating). I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept that Spock and Nero ended up 154 years in the past, but what really bothered me is that the way they got to the past was by passing through a black hole. I mean, isn’t the point of a black hole that the gravitational forces in them are so great that nothing can escape?? I mean, putting aside the passing through it, even if they could, shouldn’t the ships have broken up completely, or been crushed to teeny, tiny, dense lumps?

For the rest, there were quite a few things that made me giggle, a fair few in-jokes for the fans of the series and movies, and enough explosions to satisfy the most rabid mythbusters fan.

One down…

I finished the first of my two paid audiobook gigs last weekend. I just checked, and they’ve already got it listed on the website! http://www.catholicaudiocompany.com/current.html

This was actually the second gig I got, but it had an earlier delivery date, so I’d been pushing to get it finished. The other one, Clara Vaughan, is due by the middle of June, so it’s time to start pushing on it.

At some point the publisher is going to post my profile on their website, but as far as I can tell, they haven’t gotten that far yet. They have, however, posted the excerpt that was the first thing I read for them (it’s available from their front page: http://www.ipublishpress.com/).

One more weekend of Brigadoon to go. It did finally come together (like, the night before we opened!), and it’s going pretty well. Not the hugest crowds we’ve ever had, but not the worst either.

Off to the Amigos conference tomorrow morning. Just going for the first day, not both. They rented me a car from the library, and when I went to pick it up, they gave me a frickin’ Hummer! Not exactly the statement I’m interested in making in life. Still, it’s only for one day and then I can give it back (and thank goodness I get reimbursed for gasoline!!!).

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