Scary Voice Over reading - Death in Samarra by GG Marquez - English version

Death in Samarra by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Artwork by Josh Riley

Narrated and produced by Jacqueline Vitali

The servant turns up at his masters house, terrified

Sir, he says, I saw the angel of death in the market and he gave me the death-stare…

The landlord gives him money and a horse.

‘Run quickly to Samarra’ He tells him and the servant leaves.

That same afternoon the master is at the market and bumps into the angel of death.

This morning you gave my servant the death stare. He says.

’It wasn't supposed to be a threat - replies the angel. but a look of surprise.. because i saw him so far from Samarra… were I am picking him up this afternoon.

On 28/10/2016 16:37, jacqueline wrote:

I’ve been getting more jobs recently requiring character voices and this piece I have chosen to read for Halloween is another great excuse to indulge my love for voice acting.

It is a very short story by the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ‘Death in Samarra’. It features three characters plus a narrator.

If I'm going to act the different voices in a dialogue, rather than just reading them plainly, I make sure I'm not going to be overwhelmed by a huge cast of characters. I find that more than five or six, it starts to get a bit hard to differentiate between them. It is possible to use tricks like pitch control with the software but the purist in me likes a reading to sound as natural as possible and I like the challenge of achieving distinct character voices without resorting to the effects menu.

After initially scanning the piece I try to imagine how the characters look in my minds eye. This is my only prep before I do the first take.

I always record my first read-through. It is surprising how often something good emerges from a spontaneous reading. Characters can appear seemingly by there own accord, fully formed. If I like what I hear in the playback I will try to keep as much of the first take as possible. Then I will work more on the other characters if they need pulling apart, to make them more audibly different.

When I'm voicing male characters as in this piece, I suppose I am lucky in having quite a deep vocal range. It's important to say that I'm not trying to do an impression of a male voice. The voice that comes out is more to do with the personality of the character as I see it rather than its sex.