Category: Media (Page 13 of 45)

By George We’ll Miss You!

December 27, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

Chances are the name George S. Irving isn’t rolling off the top of your brain as quickly as George Michael but one day after the Wham! star passed, a giant in the area of character acting took his own last bow. And it was grand life on film, screen, stage and through voice work. Winner of Tony Award in 1973 for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, you might remember him best however as the voice of the embittered Heat Miser, in a Year Without Santa Claus animation.

Go check out the Playbill for a more detailed list of his long accomplishments.

There Is a Great Disturbance in the Force…

December 27, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

If you grew up in the seventies or eighties, you couldn’t avoid the iconic presence of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in Star Wars. Many post modernist reviews of perhaps the first modern blockbuster series in movie history dwell on the dearth of women in the original trilogy. The fact was, it would have been hard to share screen time with Fisher who commanded the screen despite her inexperience beside veteran actors Harrison Ford and Sir Alec Guinness.

Princess Leia was, perhaps, for many kids growing up the first truly strong female character who was also a sex symbol solidifying the understanding that women were as capable as men in driving the story and holding their own.

She died today, ostensibly from a heart attack that occurred a few days previously. The world mourns her loss, but not just as Princess Leia, but as a powerfully established novelist and screenwriter. Her book Postcards from the Edge became a hit movie of its own, and her battles with addiction and depression echo the human struggle. A struggle that has now sadly ended.

I’m going to go for a walk and listen to The Princess Diarist, something I’ve put off for far too long. And while she’s not featured in it, I’m going to relisten to The NPR Star Wars because I’ll always see Princess Leia- my princess- when I’m hearing the series. Just as I would watching it.

May the Force be with you… all.

Bored House-listeners

December 25, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

Using the illusionary trick of two microphones to create a surround sound playback, Mills & Boon intend to take their romance novels into the audiobook world. We’ve long lamented in the Sonic Society that while there’s no end to speculative fiction, horror and mystery shows (and we’re fans of all those), there aren’t a whole lot of new romance audio dramas out there. It’s our eclectic nature that wants to hear every genre in the sonic rainbow.

So maybe someone can take a cue from Mills & Boon and as this Telegraph article suggests mine the rich resources of ready-to-listen housebound lovelornaphiles (okay maybe that wasn’t a word but it is now! TM)

Why Love Audio Drama?

December 24, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

Reginald Nelson wrote a perfect post about his love for Audio Drama that mirrors many others, including this author. His show The Primordials sounds like a phenomenal story we’d love to hear on the Sonic Society someday. Audio Plays have the distinct ability to be the closest sibling to movies, or to stage plays, or even novels. There’s something incredible about how radio drama sparks the most vivid pictures in the mind. Mr. Nelson’s article in The Medium does better justice of his experience. Go have a read as we approach the end of the year and consider what your reasons are for the love of “the medium”. Make sure you let us know at the gmail sonicsociety email account for episode 500!

Digital Digressions

December 21, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

The Nepascene has a series of digressions in this article which thrills in the memories of old time radio. Among the great musical hits the author, Tim Thumb, remembers, there’s these fine gems of OTR:

Then, in junior high at a brand new apartment building my mom and I moved into, I discovered “CBS Radio Mystery Theater,” with host E.G. Marshall.

You can listen to many episodes (of varying quality) here. I highly recommend that you do.

Having listened whenever we could find a classic radio show with my gramps – “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Shadow,” “Buck Rogers” – I’d already developed a pretty intense love of radio plays.

But “CBS Radio Mystery Theater” was new! It was a first-run show and current! It featured stars like Fred Gwynne (whom I knew from “Car 54, Where Are You?” and “The Musters” and you’ll know as the judge from “My Cousin Vinny”), Ed Ames, Ralph Bell, Joe Campanella, Richard Crenna, and tons more as voice actors. It was a glorious discovery, and the station it was carried on was a country format in the evening leading up to the show, which aired at midnight (I’d have that earphone in, sneaking a listen to avoid an ass whoopin’, and fully prepared to be draggin’ ass the next morning!). Since I always tuned in early so as not to miss the creaking door and “BUM BUM BUMMMMM” opening, radio is also where my love for outlaw country was born.

This and so much more in the Nepascene story. What are your remembrances of days of yore when we prepare for Christmastime?

It’s Murder I Heard!

December 20, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

We’ve always wondered about radio drama outside of the traditional sources in North America and the United Kingdom. It seems like there are solid traditions in places in Africa and some nations in South America, now China has perhaps the beginning of a new renaissance in the medium (one can only hope) with the production of Murders on the Pacific Ocean. This crime suspense was written about a real-life murder case and represents a shining light in the burgeoning Asian radio drama industry. This Global Times article tells more…

Voice Appropriation

November 16, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

I’m going to have to call myself a Futurist. Thirty years ago I had the insight that in the future, there wouldn’t be anymore actors on television. We’d get to a point in our computer animation and voice work that we could take the very best actors from the past, and using 3d modeling create entirely new virtual movies with new plots. Imagine new comedies starring Marilyn Monroe or Jack Lemmon, or a new dystopic science fiction thriller starring Charlton Heston and Raquel Welch. I saw “live” or “studio” recordings to be relegated as part of the art school, and most actors who wanted to express their craft would have to go back to a kind of vaudeville act on stage.

In my original assessment the visuals would come first, maybe beginning with the actors voicing their own lines like they do in animation. But according to TwistedSifter Adobe Audition project VoCo has just leaped in front with text-to-voice capabilities. How capable this technology is yet, it hard to tell. But in the demonstration, the editor can type text and create brand new audio the speaker never said. Admittedly, these would be short pieces, but long will it be before those expand to full scripts?

So what does that mean? Imagine scanning the recordings of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, and James Doohan. Suddenly the classic stories of Trek go on long past the lives of the original actors. And who owns the voice that never recorded these recordings? One could argue someone’s image can’t be used without their permission, but how can you legally argue someone’s voice that is manufactured electronically can’t become the lead in brand new audio dramas? And don’t get me even started on the possibilities of slash fiction.

It appears we’re entering not just a new age of technology, but a new age that questions the very uniqueness of one of our most personal attributes. Our voices.

Brave New Worlds indeed!

Light a Candle for One of Ours

November 11, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

bgoyetche His name is Bob Goyetche and back in 2008, my co-host and I ventured to Kingston, Ontario to the Podcasters Across Boarders conference. If memory serves I spoke at either that one or the next or both. I remember that I had convinced the crowd I was British. My accent was decent enough that someone told me later I sounded passably Canadian. Bob and Mark Blevis were our connection to a series of other podcasters back then. It was our first conference of podcasters in Canada. We didn’t end up going to all the PAB conferences, but we really had a good time when we went. It was with sadness that I learned that Bob passed away November 10th. Bob was a loving father, a loyal friend, and of course, a forerunner podcaster.

To all of Robert Goyetche’s family and friends, from all of us at the Sonic Society our best wishes through this difficult time.

New Podfict Starring Oscar Isaac Coming

November 1, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

oscar-isaac-a-most-violent-year Oscar Isaac is starring in Homecoming, a new six-episode series that is described as a “psychological thriller that takes place at an experimental facility.” according to this Nerdist article. Isaac’s character is a soldier struggles with finding his place off the battlefield. Podficts are becoming common fair in the podcasting world, and while not technically radio dramas, they take on the trappings through fictional tales in a straight forward documentary or “reality TV” style.

One By One

October 30, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

One of our fan favourite shows has a new listener. Laurence Raw reviews One by One in his Radio Drama Review site.

Darker Musings Anthology, 30 October 2012

This disturbing tale, with more than a distinct echo of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds, concerned Dan Cummings (John Bell), the self-styled ‘Old-Tmey Man’ of a local Canadian radio station, who is about to retire after having spent a long career in broadcasting, and built up a loyal following.

One Hallowe’en night be begins his nightly programme as usual by exchanging platitudes with a caller, even though it becomes slightly embarrassing when that caller refers to his wife. However the entertainment is abruptly interrupted by a newsflash: an accidental crash in the locality of Halifax, Nova Scotia has caused widespread panic. Cummings tries his best to make light of the news, and introduces an archive broadcast of a 1980s radio classic of horror, especially for the occasion.

Despite his valiant attempts to create a nostalgic – and perhaps comforting ambience – painful reality keeps intruding. The broadcast keeps being interrupted by worse and worse news; eventually leading to panic and violent death.

One by One is a consciously intertextual piece, designed to remind listeners that horror stories are not just for pleasure; they can intrude in our lives. We have to be vigilant and guard against complacency so as to protect ourselves. John Bell gave a chilling performance as the elderly host, whose smooth-as-molasses voice gradually became more and more panicky as he discovered the reality of what was happening around him. The director/ writer was Jack J. Ward.