Category: Media (Page 6 of 45)

CBC Rediscovers Audio Drama

Rebranding Audio Drama as “Fiction Podcasts” seems to be all the rage. Some time ago we called these “podficts” for short. Regardless, it’s nice to see the CBC taking the medium seriously again.

Check out Fiction podcasts are giving new form to the old art of the radio drama and maybe give them a nudge that the Sonic Society has been in their backyard for 15 years 🙂

Long before our multi-screen, multi-platform world existed, people used to huddle around a radio to listen to the latest episode of a drama series. Today, this old art form has been given new life in the form of podcasts.

Fiction genres — like drama or horror — are a booming area in the podcast universe, which so far has been dominated by reality-based offerings featuring true crime, news or interviews.

That they’re mobile and often free has also helped bring them to a larger audience than ever before.

New York-based podcast company Gimlet Media says fiction has untapped potential for audience growth in the podcast arena.

“Fiction really is our big bet for, like, groundbreaking new content that doesn’t sound like anything else,” says Nazanin Rafsanjani, Gimlet’s vice-president for new show development.Nazanin Rafsanjani, Gimlet Media’s vice-president of new show development, says fiction genres are ‘groundbreaking new content’ for podcasts. (Alice Hopton/CBC)
The bet has already paid off: Gimlet’s first scripted series,Homecoming, proved so popular that Amazon turned it into a Golden Globe-nominated TV series starring Julia Roberts and Canadian actor Stephan James.

“What’s exciting about fiction is that you can tell any kind of story … if you have the right talent writing it and creating it.”

Gimlet also produces the macabre tale The Horror of Dolores Roach and a comedy, Sandra, starring Kristen Wiig.

“The way you’d want to sit down and watch a movie or get super engrossed in a television show, that is how our fiction team really thinks about the projects that we take on,” says Rafsanjani.​

Homegrown theatre
A Toronto team has taken Canadian plays and turned them into serials on the PlayME podcast, bringing homegrown talent to listeners around the world.

“We want playwrights to become a household name,” says Laura Mullin, co-creator of PlayME and co-artistic director of Toronto’s Expect Theatre.

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After 20 years in the Canadian theatre industry, Mullin and business partner Chris Tolley set out to put a bigger spotlight on Canadian writers and talent.

“We just wanted to have an opportunity to take the great work that we were seeing and let a larger audience [hear] it,” she says.

Since its launch in 2016, PlayME has received more than one million downloads in more than 90 countries, and has ranked as high as #2 in the Arts category on the iTunes chart.

A recording session for What a Young Wife Ought to Know, for the CBC Podcast PlayME. Chris Tolley, left, with playwright Hannah Moscovitch, centre, and Laura Mullin. (CBC/Evan Mitsui)
“We’ve heard everything from people telling us that they’re listening to learn English [to] people that are going out to [see] shows because they had heard a play,” says Mullin.

She hopes programmers and artistic directors are also listening.

The PlayME catalogue, which is now on CBC’s roster, features a diverse range of stories from coast to coast, with 60 per cent of the writers female and 60 per cent people of colour.

‘Intimacy’ of radio drama
Hannah Moscovitch, a Dora Award and Trillium Book Award winner, says podcasts make Canadian theatre much more accessible because audiences don’t have to be local or shell out for pricey tickets.

“This way people can access the work all the time, whenever they want. I want people to be able to hear my work.”

A series of letters she discovered inspired her to write the story about a young wife trying to get legal birth control in Ottawa in the 1920s, which has been turned into What A Young Wife Ought To Know.

“I loved the intimacy of radio drama,” she says. “I’m happy that it’s coming back in this way.”

Bully for You

Social media is a blessing. Social media is a curse.

As a teacher, I’m faced every day with the reality of cyberbullying. The definition of which includes: “Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else.” For decades, these nasty rumour mongerings might have been contained strictly within childhood. That’s no longer the case. Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Youtube, Facebook and many social media platforms have become touchstone opportunities for bullies, and unfortunately, the audio drama community is not immune.

I was sadly a witness to social media bullying recently, the details of which are not important, but the intent was clear. I am saddened and hurt that members of our community could actively try to harm the integrity, brand, and even attempt to impede their ability to create art. Life is hard enough. Our medium is a small tribe, and we need to support, not sabotage each other.

If this seems to be an outlandish stance, please let me be clear. I don’t condone illegal activity of any kind, nor do I approve of bad behaviour.

Here are a couple of ideas to maturely handle your dislike of another human being in our community:

  • don’t patronize their work
  • present your concerns and work out your issues with directly and privately
  • if you can’t work out your issues- avoid and keep your personal opinions to yourself

Here’s what you don’t do:

  • attack them publicly
  • block them from seeing your concerns

If you’re considering making some public pronouncement of someone else’s character it may behoove you to consider one thing:

Your experience with another human being doesn’t equal the best or only experience of that person.

The Sonic Society is about inclusivity. It has always been. I’ve been proud to be a part of the Audio Drama community because we are a big tent. None of us is perfect. None of us has a lily-white past. And everyone deserves kindness. So don’t block people based on hearsay. Give someone the respect of earning their own good or bad reputation with you directly.

So next time you’re going to post something about someone ask yourself this- is it an argument you’re making, or is it a slur?
If you are aware of a crime please contact your local authorities.
If you witness bullying, speak up and help quelch it.
If you are a victim of bullying (cyber or otherwise) please be aware that you’re not alone and that people can help.

The Audio Life of Sam Donato

We were saddened to see from a post of the great Jerry Robbins of Colonial Radio Theatre the loss of his long-time actor and collaborator, Sam Donato Junior on the 2nd of this December. Among some of the favourite roles Sam played for CRT over the years, Sam performed Sheriff Wilkins from Powder River and most recently Corporal Sam from The Adventures of Sgt. Billy and Corp. Sam.

From Sam Donato’s obituary:

DONATO, Samuel J., Jr. “Sam” Age 70, formerly of Saugus and Wakefield, died after a long illness, surrounded by his loving family. He was husband to Kathleen M. (Stafford) Donato, with whom he shared 29 years of marriage. He was born in Malden to Samuel J Donato, Sr. and Phyllis E (Barratt) Donato. He was a graduate of Saugus High School, class of 1966 and he attended Emerson College.

Sam held many occupations, mostly in the field of entertainment. He began his career as a character actor at the Pleasure Island Amusement Park in Wakefield, from there he started his long tenure with Rex Trailer’s Boomtown.

In 1974, he went into the music business performing in various bands until 1980. He then formed the Class of ’66, New England’s Premier 60’s and 70’s Band, which lasted about 25 years.

He loved theatre! He performed with the Wakefield Repertory Theatre for 9 productions. Winning 8 EMACT awards. His favorite production was playing Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof in 1999. He also did many radio shows with the Colonial Radio Theatre as a voice artist.

He worked for the US Postal Service in Andover from 1994, until he retired in 2004.

Upon retiring in 2004, he and his wife, Kathy, migrated to central Florida, where he worked for Walt Disney World & Nickelodeon Hotel in entertainment. It was always his dream to work for Disney, and to be part of the Disney Family. He returned to Salem in 2016, where he worked at Pet Smart, until he retired in 2018.

Husband, dad, papa, brother-in law and friend were some of the most cherished roles Sam played during his lifetime. He was taken from us too soon.

Sam is preceded in death by his parents Samuel J. Donato, Sr. and Phyllis E. (Barratt); his brother Ronald “Jake” Donato and his sister Denise D’Anotuono.

Many loved ones will carry on his memory, including his loving wife, Kathy, his daughter, Jennifer M. Cheever of Wakefield; his step son, Ryan M. Chouinard of Burlington, VT; 3 grandchildren, Annabelle D. Cheever, Theo J. Cheever and Harry J. Cheever of Wakefield; his niece Tricia Morrison of Amesbury and his great nephew David Morrison of Amesbury. Also, his two brother-in-laws and wives, Michael F. Stafford and his wife Loretta Stafford of Danvers; Richard W. Stafford and his wife Perla Peguero of Salem and many friends.

In lieu of flowers, expressions of sympathy may be made to Care Dimensions, 75 Sylvan Street, Suite B-102, Danvers, MA 01923 or Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Philanthropy Office, 41 Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01805.

Visitation for relatives and friends will be held at McDonald Funeral Home, 19 Yale Avenue, WAKEFIELD MA on Thursday, December 6, 2018 from 3:00 to 8:00. A Celebration of Life will be held at the West Side Social Club, 4 Harrington Court, Wakefield, MA on Sunday, January 13, 2018 from 1:00 to 5:00. For directions/guestbook: www.mcdonaldfs.com.

Published in The Boston Globe on Dec. 2, 2018

To Foley or NOT to Foley

For the longest time I’ve held a secret dislike for the term “Foley”. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a perfectly good description for someone who makes sound effects for a movie. But since radio drama and thus audio drama has been around for a lot longer than sound in movies, I think we should have our own terms. I’ve been lobbying for Farnby for sound effects digitally put together for audio drama (in honour of the amazing Stevie K. Farnaby) and Ely for live audio theatre creations (for the wildly enthusiastic live designer of sound for Wildclaw Theatre Ele Matelan).

Certainly, there are and have been many more amazing practitioners of the sound of the audio universe, for example Mike Martini and Mark Magistrelli who have their own thoughts on the use of “Foley Artist”. From http://www.mediaheritage.comMedia Heritage:  Sound Effects Guy: Don’t Call It Foley

This weekend, MH’s Mike Martini and Mark Magistrelli will be performing live sound effects on stage for a radio recreation of a script entitled The Canterville Ghost for a Cincinnati theater company. It’s the sixth production for Martini producing the sounds of doors closing, footsteps, thunderclaps, horse clops, etc., for this theater company. Mike has been a bit of a “sound effects nut” over the last decade or so, studying techniques of the artists from radio’s golden age and finding new “sounds” for modern ears. Just, please, don’t call him a Foley Artist.

It’s not that a true radio sound effects person has anything personal against a Foley Artist—indeed, on the surface they seem to do the same thing. And yet, not really. The original “Foley Artist” was none other than Jack Foley, himself; a sound technician from the silent film days of Universal Studios. When the “talkies” came about in the late 1920s, Foley struggled to have early film stars heard on film because of the primitive nature of carbon microphones and sound horns. So Foley devised a way to add or “augment” voices and sound effects synchronized to early sound-on-film. That his name has been immortalized for the process he invented is a tribute to his skill and creativity. Today’s film Foley Artists work strictly during the post-production part of filmmaking. They still sometimes make sounds by hand but mostly those sounds are digitally pre-recorded in a huge sound board. Still, the all of the sounds are added “after the fact.” This allows a Foley Artist to “get it right” each and every time.

A “real” (read: radio) sound effects artist didn’t have the luxury of post-production. They did it “live” alongside the actors. Although some effects were on prerecorded discs, they still had to be performed live. Like walking on a tightrope, it’s that vulnerability, that possibility of a very audible mistake, that separates a sound effects artist from a Foley. And mistakes did happen, too—guns misfired, equipment broke, etc., but the sound effects artist was responsible for an important part of the broadcast. Just how big a part? A radio program without sound effects is like a painting without a canvas. It’s the picture painted in the listener’s imagination that gives the dialogue width, depth and breadth.

With the death of the golden age of radio, many sound effects artists probably became Foley Artists—however, if you ran into them in the studio commissary, my guess is they probably took umbrage to being called a “Foley.”

So, what do you think? Do you call yourself a “Foley Artist”? Why or why not. Let us know in the comments…

Texas Radio Theatre and the Ed Wood of Audio

We’re loving the return of Texas Radio Theatre’s feed into the world of activity. Some shows you love podfade forever, but Rich Frolich has brought back TRT with new vigour. In case you haven’t heard, TRT is one of the great originals of the modern audio drama movement- and to just kick up their qualifications a notch or two, most of their shows were live performances.

Most recently, Rich has reintroduced a whole new generation to the decade gone now Schlock Audio Theatre by Charlie Pratt (sometimes misidentified as Chris Pratt’s more talented brother). As well as the B-flick bonanza that Schlock provides on the feed, and the marvellous original content he’s still catching his audience up with, Mr. Frolich also gave us a listen to Judson Fountain. The man they are calling “The Ed Wood” of radio drama. It’s more fashionable to call something so awful that it’s good- “outsider art”- mostly because if you painted such abominations you would be locked outside until the paintings were destroyed in the rain- Fountain’s work is a glorious ode to what was radio drama. Listeners can hear his love of the art form. Judson Fountain pressed his own vinyl recordings, and if you own one of these fractured gems they are worth a pretty penny today.

Luckily for us, the Internet can provide for us what our vinyl collection lacks.

Go check out The (Sort of) Dark and (Mostly) Goofy World of Judson Fountain and enjoy.

Oh, and subscribe to Texas Radio Theatre today and as Rich Frolich would say- “Watch more radio!”

Oh, and Rich… what’s the chances of a live Schlock Audio Theatre/Texas Radio Theatre performance for Mad-con.com?

Radio Ain’t Dead Yet

This Spectator article wants to point out to those enamoured with the latest craze of podcast-madness, that radio hasn’t exactly been overwhelmed by the downloading RSS feeds.

Podcasts, too, have yet to master drama; it will surely become established, challenging the corporation to maintain its commitment to what is for many of us the USP of BBC Radio. Roy Williams’s modernisation of John Wyndham’s 1957 sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos, on Radio 4 at New Year, was a chilling reflection of the original. Directed by Polly Thomas with Jenny Sealey and her theatre company Graeae, which is led by disabled actors, the drama suggests a link between the cuckoos of Wyndham’s novel and that sense of being different, ostracised by a society that does not understand you. Some of the cast members are profoundly deaf, which you can hear in their voices, some are black, adding levels of meaning to the text. The sound design (by Eloise Whitmore) and specially composed music by Oliver Vibrans added to the strange atmosphere. This was properly creepy.

Check out the detailed article by Kate Chisholm for more!

How Do I Create and Audio Drama?

Recently, this question came up in Quora. And since no one provided an answer for a year, we took a crack at it. How’d we do?

Audio Drama (Radio Drama to some) has become a kind of hot topic for those in the know more recently. My weekly podcast/radio show “The Sonic Society” features new audio drama from around the world now for fourteen straight years. Creating audio drama is so much easier than filming movies, and has become a favourite entry-point for many storytellers because you really need to focus only on three key things- telling good stories, utilizing excellent acting, and integrating effective production, sound effects and music.
1. Good stories- Writing audio drama is script writing. Keep in mind the following things:

  • Look for a good scriptwriting programme. Celtx is what I use now, but they no longer offer the desktop version that was free. I’ve used Final Draft and Fade In. There’s a number of ones that are excellent. Make sure you use one that follows a radio drama format of some kind and can number your lines for actors. Some people use a word processor like MS-Word. I recommend against it because the formatting will slow your writing down. Whatever your selection make sure that your actors will be able to read your script without buying into your choice. Make sure that the script itself can export into txt, rtf, doc, or pdf formats.
  • Make sure your story is something worthy of audio drama. In this, I mean that you should make certain your story isn’t just a film that you write as an audio drama- not that I don’t believe that you can’t adapt nearly any work, but especially as a beginner understand the constraints and freedoms of audio drama storytelling. Make your story something that is richly understood in the audio form. For example, the classic Suspense play “Sorry, Wrong Number” takes place entirely in the apartment of a woman confined to a wheelchair. While trying to call her husband, the phone lines get crossed and she overhears two men plotting a murder. The entire play is her desperate to get someone on the line to help her stop it. I’ve written two plays myself that use the phone as a conceit “Right Number, Wrong Party” and “Messages” early to get the beats and the feel of phone dialogue down.
  • Limit your narration. The main difference between audio drama and audio books is that audio books tell you a story, audio drama puts you in the thick of things. Imagine if you watched a movie of Tolkien reading “The Lord of the Rings” and then watched Peter Jackson’s trilogy. You may decide to use a narrator to set the scene or scenes, but the more you tell people your story, the less you immerse them in it.
  • Use sound effects to tell your story. Keep your sound effects as a way to explore and deepen the world you’re designing. Some folks like to use every sound effect in the book in each scene for a rich tapestry of sound. Others keep their sound effects minimalized. The Rule of Thumb here tends to be, to use enough to enhance your play but not so much that it confuses your listeners.
  • Limit the number of characters in your script. Too many characters will confuse and turn off your audience. Consider using just two or three characters for your first script. I try to keep it down to less than six.
  • Make sure your dialogue is not hackneyed. Many people say that you need to keep your dialogue realistic, but the truth is you can be stylized if it sounds realistic. Truthfully, Tarantino’s dialogue isn’t actually an authentic discussion. Most people don’t talk like that. But, it is stylized and interesting enough that we don’t care as an audience. Give your actors something meaty to work with, and your audience something believable to lean forward into. Be clever with your listeners. Don’t talk down to them. Avoid things like, “John! What are you doing with that gun?!” when you could write, “John! What are you doing?!” and the sound effect of a cocking pistol tells the tale.

2. Excellent Acting

  • Discover actors who know how to act and not “read”. There are fantastic actors who are used to using their voice but may not be effective at audio acting. A lot of voice work people are used to voice-overs or audio books. You can tell the difference as they sound like DJ’s and not characters in a movie.
  • If you don’t have money (and you’d be silly to go into audio drama production thinking you’re going to make it rich. NO ONE has. Even the best in the business can eke out a life for one or two people in their company group. The closest would be the Doctor Who Radio Drama folks, and I have no idea how small that organization is.), then go looking on university campuses. Go seeking out Little Theatres. Put up posters in libraries, at community centres, and send out ads through Kijiji or Craig ’s list or what have you. Make it clear that you’re looking for people who want to come together and have fun acting in audio dramas.
  • Follow through with auditions. Make sure there’s at least two or three of you. (I did this once by myself because my partners ducked out and it was one of the most stressful nights of my life). If you can partner with a community radio station (see Production below) then you can have a neutral place to meet, a waiting room often, and the facilities to record people professionally to listen to their voices. Have several pieces for various characters- men, women. About a page and a half of dialogue is usually enough. Pick pieces that are either monologues or two characters where you can help prompt them for their parts. Make sure you have posted the audition pieces electronically on a webpage or distributed through email, and printed out some copies in the waiting room for people to peruse and practice while they wait.
  • Make sure you pick actors with differing voices for each performance. I’ve found to my chagrin that many women actors I’ve selected in the past can sound the same to the audience. THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO EVER IS CONFUSE THE LISTENER AND LOSE THEM. So, make sure if you have multiple men together in a scene or multiple women that you contrast their parts with pitch, cadence, style, accents, or what have you.
  • Provide snacks and transportation to and from the recording sessions. Give specific details about start and end times and stick to them as tightly as possible. Three-hour sessions are standard. Any longer and you won’t have the actors at their best. Any shorter and you won’t get enough takes or preparation for the best product.
  • Have actors sign agreements. THIS IS KEY. Take it from me as I learned it the hard way. One of my ex-actors demanded I take everything down she was in. This was petty and ugly, and you could most likely win in a court case as you could prove malice on their part when they agreed originally, but as much as verbal consent is recognized by the law, written consent is much more binding.
  • Don’t be afraid to direct. This hurt me a lot in the beginning. I kept thinking, “Who am I to tell these actors how to do their parts?” You’re the director (and most likely the writer). The last thing you want to do is have your project recorded and discover that an actor or more didn’t give you what you need. A bad performance hurts the actor as much as you, and if they’re serious about their profession they will want to do great work. Be kind and patient and be prepared to describe what kind of voice, what kind of emphasis, what kind of emotion, what the scene and the setting is. Whatever it takes to place the actor into the experience at the time. Most serious actors really appreciate the direction. Always praise their efforts.
  • Provide snacks and transportation. This bears saying twice. You’re not likely going to have the money to pay them scale or anything. So, the least you can do is offer rides, nominal gas money, and baked goods and drinks. I provide water as well for the pipes, fresh bread I bake myself, cookies. I’ve even made pizza. Sometimes, I’ll go out and get doughnuts but I want to provide the most personal touch I can. Fresh fruit is another great option.
  • Be interested and promote and support your actors’ pursuits. If you want someone to be a part of your art, support other artists. Most of my actors also write/produce/act in many other plays. I try to go at least once a month to actors’ works or meetups. Fringe Festival is now on here in Halifax, and I regularly see 4–6 plays and praise my actors specifically on Facebook and encourage others to see them. I rarely get this kind of attention back in return. But, you’re wanting to make audio drama. We’re respected somewhere above mimes. Hold your head high and realize your brilliance may be appreciated long after you die.
  • Get experienced with microphones and direct your actors to record their lines in the mikes as best as you can. There’s an old adage, that the better you record voices, the less work you have in post-production. This was a very hard lesson for me to learn. I’m still learning it. But, MAN it makes all the difference in the world.
  • What if you can’t get actors locally? Or don’t have a studio? Well, you have a world full of satellite actors ready to jump into your production. If you go to my Facebook group “Audio Drama/Radio Drama Lovers” you can post requests for actors there. There are also other places like Voice Alliances and other Facebook groups like “Audio Production”. Be clear as to what the name of your project is. What the expectations of the actors’ involvement (is this a series or a single feature?). What they need to send you in the form of an mp3. What their contact information is. Your email and website for further questions. Deadline for auditions and the like. Be sure that your satellite actors have a great recording studio of their own to work from, and that their voices are perfect for your project. While you can’t provide transportation and food, praise and support will be hugely appreciated. The audio drama community, by and large, is a great big family and we all love each other’s work. That’s starting to change now as the community has taken on various characters and types. But, for the most part, we’re still really supportive.
  • Use headphones when you record. Studio expensive headphones if possible for you and regular headphones for your actors. You need to hear EVERYTHING they record, and they should get used to listening to themselves in their ears to modify their performance.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask the actors to redo scenes where they don’t work. If you need to have them come back for second recording sessions to fix lines that don’t work in post-production. Once again. The more you get it right in recording, the less pain you’ll have in post.
  • Listen for the hard consonant popping. In the business, these are called “plosions” and they occur often with p’s, d’s, b’s and the like are too close to the microphone. Use pop-shields to provide as much cursory protection as possible.

3. Production- Post producing your audio drama

  • Good DAW (digital audio workstation) is key. Look around and see what might be in your price range. Lots of folks begin with Audacity or Garage Band but move into things like Adobe Audition or Protools as their skills become more advanced. I’m currently using Reaper which has an incredible price point. You can actually use it perpetually for nothing, but I recommend purchasing it at about fifty bucks. Really powerful and fast editing capabilities.
  • You’ll need to understand how to break down your actors’ recordings separately and isolate them into separate tracks.
  • You’ll need to work to get rid of any extraneous noises in the actors’ recordings as well as normalize their voices to sound like they are all in the same environment (room or outdoors)
  • You’ll need to cut and edit their separate tracks so that their dialogue mixes naturally and well together adding pauses and beats for reactions to the conversation as well as having each work tightly off each other in other situations. Natural dialogue is often the best sounding. Your job here is to make sure the actors don’t sound like they are acting their lines but engaged in a moment.
  • You’ll need to consider which sound effects are needed in this scene to tell the story. Are they on a porch in the countryside in the evening? You’ll need crickets, a light wind, and the creak of your porch swing. You might also need a screen door opening and closing and the creak of floorboards as they walk up and down steps. Is someone lighting their pipe? Is someone else pouring a cool glass of lemonade? What of these sound effects clarifies, and what might confuse the audience?
  • You’ll need to consider whether you need music or not. Look on the Internet for free to use music. Ask the musician/composer if they will lend you the rights for your performance, or pay if you can the fees (musicians need remuneration too). Or have a friend or yourself compose music. You’re going to want to consider several TYPES of music: themes, stings, and mood. A. Theme music is what you’ll want to start and end your show or series with. Theme music can also be reflected in your other types of music to have a coherency to your story. If you listen to the Star Wars suite from John Williams you can pick out the most famous Star Wars theme in many of the pieces. B. Stings are used often for transitions between scenes. You don’t NEED stings to transition, but they often provide a strong notice to your audience that one scene has ended and a new one- perhaps in a different time and place- has begun. And remember, one of the most important goals is to never confuse your audience. C. Mood music is an often overlooked important piece of music. It is often designed to be low key and not draw attention to itself. Slow and/or few notes can provide a mood that the audience feels more than hears and that can really provide good suspense or pathos to a scene. I’ve reused excellent mood music that my chief musician Sharon Bee (www.sharonbee.com) has provided for me through the years again and again. Oh yes, make sure you promote your musicians as much as possible. They provide so much emotion to your shows. I love Sharon to death. I really enjoy collaborating with her and she’s been with me from the very beginning.
  • You’ll need to consider how to blend your voices into this new audioscape you’ve created. If someone is outdoors, they sound different than they would in a closet. Make sure your audience doesn’t think your actors recorded in a sterile environment. Isolation was excellent to get you to a place where you can immerse your action in a scene and a setting.
  • You’ll need to modify the loudness and pan your characters and sound effects. If someone is coming in from outside, they are usually entering from either left or right. Don’t make the mistake of panning too far all the time because if you’re successful a lot of people listen to their audio dramas on commutes in cars and car speakers may not capture the full range of your panning.
  • Consider the use of VST plugins and other plugins that are available. I’m really only learning about how great these tools can be now as I delve more into the production side myself. So many really powerful plugins will save you time. They could EQ a voice to give someone with a higher register more depth. They could help remove sound artifacts which take away from the sound. They could help remove the popping “plosions” we’re so afraid of as producers. Some plugins are free and are a good start. Some of the very best (iZotope for example) are really expensive but get on their mailing list and look for deals. I found one suite normally for 500 dollars for twenty-six bucks. Thank heavens a fellow audio drama produce emailed me right away and I snagged them when I could. They are magic!
  • Edit on your speakers. While you record with headphones, it’s important to use speakers to edit. Some folks like to create fully immersible 3-D sound and all power to them. My job is to try to make an audio drama that everyone can hear everywhere. Whether someone is listening in their car, on their radio, in their earbuds, or through crappy speakers, I want them to hear my stories. Why limit your already limited audience?
  • Mixdown to the best sound quality you can. My minimum is 44100 Hz, 192 kbps, joint stereo mp3 for podcast/radio broadcast. I keep a wav file for a higher bit rate in my files. You can go 256 kbps but that’s usually overkill for mostly vocal tracks.
  • Decide how you want to distribute your project. Set up your own podcast (there’s a number of providers and even archive.org for free), place for direct download as a link on your website, partner with a radio station for release (you’ll need a whole lot of shows if you want regular release or find a show that will play your feature occasionally), create as a CD or (gasp) cassette tape for your grandparents, or render into a youtube or other such stream. Even get your feature played on The Sonic Society (www.sonicsociety.org)
  • Market, market, market. Share with others. Talk about your show. Go out in social media and provide links and excitement.
  • Wait for that one email you get from a fan who in breathless text tells you how brilliant you are.
  • Organize all your files, especially your sound effect files and actor auditions and contact information.
  • Identify what went wrong, and what you can improve for next time. Challenge yourself to do better and stick to it.
  • Start your next project!

And that’s all you need to know. Easy right? So, get out there and produce the next great Audio Drama. Then contact us at the Sonic Society and let us showcase it for you!

Howelling Wisdom

Recently, our Sonic Echo team have been talking about the classic Nightfall horror suspense series from CBC Radio in the eighties. Bill Howell, the senior producer had a fascinating take on the challenge of getting an audience in Radio Drama. From the Theatre Research in Canada Journal. 1990’s article Bill Howell from Canadian Radio Drama in English: Prick Up Your Ears:

According to CBC producer Bill Howell, however, such numbers do not really constitute an audience (even though, of course, the word ‘audience’ derives form the Latin verb audire, ‘to hear’).
They represent individual listeners, simply because there can be no interaction between them and the performers. The experience necessarily is subjective and internalized.
The play is created in the imagination of the listener. This is both the weakness and the strength of radio drama. It precludes the communal experience, the interaction of stage event and audience response so vital to live theatre; but it creates a condition of intimacy, a personal voice in the ear, which live theatre cannot replicate.
Bill Howell considers radio theatre a kind of paradox: ‘It comes out of a sense of community, but finally radio drama is a community of two’ – the radio whistling into the listener’s ear. Most importantly, it develops the art of listening – listening as active and participatory. And in this age of visual stimulation, listening has become almost a lost art.
Rarely is the whole concentration focused on sound. The general assumption in our hurried society is that listening is secondary and passive; it fills in the background during more important activities such as ironing and washing the dishes. The result is that most of us hear very little. We tend to hear what we want to hear, what we think we hear.
We become closed to new perceptions. Only the strident and shocking sounds cut through – what television announcers now call ‘sound bites.’ Radio drama, however, is foreground listening.
It works only if it commands the whole attention of the audience, and this is a difficult thing to do.

Almost forty years later and the challenge is still real, Mr. Howell. Thank you.

SyFi’s Uncharted Regions Gets A Familiar Face

SyFy is getting into the Audio Drama game with Uncharted Regions and bringing in some familiar faces- John Billingsley from Star Trek- Enterprise joins the cast for an upcoming episode. Billingsley speaks with great reverence in this article from SyFi about his love of listening to audio drama growing up. His favourite was Bradbury-13 and many other classics. Uncharted Regions has wrapped producing its first season. Release date to be announced.

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