Category: Radio (Page 3 of 12)

Mediumship

May 26, 2017 / Jack / 0 Comments

So many great actors work in the medium of audio drama/radio drama these days, every little bit of wisdom and experience can help. Consider the article in Spotlight by Katie Redford who gives great advice on how to break into radio:

When I was little, my parents always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. I don’t think they thought I’d take it quite as literally as I did when in one of my first ever jobs in radio, I played a t-shirt. Yes, I was the voice of a t-shirt. I was a bit thrown by the Director’s notes too:

“Yeah, we’re not feeling it. Can you sound a bit more… like a t-shirt?”

Radio is a fascinating genre and I feel extremely fortunate to currently be a part of it. It’s a medium that so many established, highly respectable actors such as Sheila Hancock, Amelia Bullmore, Daniel Mays, amongst many more, work in time and time again. When Bill Nighy was recently awarded an award for his services to radio drama, he said: “I am as proud of my involvement in radio as of anything in my professional life. Long may it provide its unparalleled service and entertainment.”

The thing is though, how on earth do you crack a career in it? It’s tricky enough to break through this industry anyway, but radio almost seems to be in its own bracket. Here a few suggestions that hopefully will help get the ball rolling for you.

Read more of the article and get your ode to audio working for you today!

A Grand Actor- Chris Wiggins

February 25, 2017 / Jack / 1 Comment

As a young lad just developing my love for Audio Drama, one of the fun CBC shows I listened to was Johnny Chase- Secret Agent of Space. It ran weekly for a time on Saturdays. Johnny fought all kinds of evils and even set a kind of Battlestar Galactica like fleet quest to look for a new Earth for humankind to settle on. But no hero is complete unto themselves and Johnny had Dante- his insufferably brilliant computer voiced by the incredible Chris Wiggins. Chris had the kind of singular voice most actors dream of. While voice acting was certainly a skill, it wasn’t his only. He also played the father in the Canadian series of Swiss Family Robinson in the seventies. Furthermore you might remember him in his later years in the Canadian X-files like series Friday the 13th.

Since Mr. Wiggins had settled in my old hometown of Fergus in his retirement, I tried through many channels and his personal email to arrange an interview for the Sonic Society to no avail. Apparently, his health has not been the best in the last ten years.

According to a recent post from Bloody Disgusting Mr. Wiggins passed yesterday at the age of 87. What a huge loss to Canada, and to drama. According to the article:

Of course, we’re barely scratching the surface of Chris Wiggins’ contributions to the entertainment industry by focusing on “Friday the 13th: The Series.” He has over 142 acting credits on his resume, appearing in countless television shows and TV movies dating back to 1956. Just a small handful of the shows Wiggins starred in and lent his voice to include “Mighty Thor,” “Spider-Man,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “Star Wars: Droids,” “The Care Bears Family,” “The NeverEnding Story,” and even the animated series “Tales from the Cryptkeeper.”

Rest in Peace good sir, we barely knew you.

Snobbish Sonic

January 10, 2017 / Jack / 4 Comments

Someone said to me recently that they felt that audio drama folks weren’t as snobby as podnovel folks.

That was a strange comment to make. Looking back, I do notice that Audio Drama has been seen as the ugly step-child of the podcast community somewhat. Through the years there’s even been some suggestions that audio dramatists could “graduate” to audio novelists if they were good writers. It made me wonder if there were similar ideas between stage playwrights and novelists. Or television writers and movie scriptwriter writers.

Is there a kind of hierarchy of writing and production?

When I think of it I have witnessed some strange behavior through the years. Now, I’m the first one to admit I’m a literary snob of some sort. I enjoy story beyond and above everything else. Good story, for me, is key to any writing in any genre.

I have heard some various forms of audio snobbery though from various quarters:

American audio drama is more valued than Canadian
British audio drama is more respected than American
New audio drama is accepted as better than Old Time Radio
Podficts is more edgy than audio drama
Heavy narration is worse than no narration
Lots of special effects (the “Every Blade of Grass” folks) is seen as modern compared to a limited soundscape
Horror and Comedy is more popular than drama
Podcast is better than radio, and streaming is better than podcasts
Social awareness trumps social commentary

These are the forms that come to mind for me. What snobbery do you see in the art form? Is it justified?

Someone Sonic

January 9, 2017 / Jack / 0 Comments

I’ve been a listener of CBC Radio all my life. I miss the heady days of Peter Gzowski, Vicki Gabereau, Michael Enright and Alan Maitland duo and Lister Sinclair‘s dulcet voice and gentle hand on the wheel.

CBC has gone through a lot of changes, some of them great, some not so. The not so great has been the loss of radio drama which has been stellar through out the years. But maybe some forms of podficts are coming back. Thanks to NPR’s famous Serial, CBC has started a couple more innovative story telling shows. The latest is Someone Knows Something. This documentary first person style series- like Serial- follows a tale all season about a missing person- unsolved cases. The first season it was Adrien McNaughton. Season two it’s the story of the disappearance Sheryl Sheppard.

The episodes are compelling like only crime mysteries can be. That they are true, brings out the very iciness in the veins. Let’s hope that someone does know something and these mysteries can be solved.

Casual Coral Saturdays

December 31, 2016 / Jack / 1 Comment

Looking for some new audio to listen? One of the things Jeffrey Adams from Icebox Radio used to speak about was the casual way radio drama had an appointment with its listeners. With podcasting and other audio on demand, the days of must listening times have come to an end. Or have they? Sound Stages Radio and now Coral Island Adventures are some of the must listen radio for your ear. Get a chance to sneak in an episode of new Coral Island Adventures each Saturday at these locations.

Netflix of Spoken Word

December 28, 2016 / Jack / 2 Comments

Whether you’re a fan of Moonlight Audio or Audioflix one thing is certain, audio plays and stories are on the rise. In this article from The Conversation, BBC has declared its intention to target the world as the new “netflix” of audio. The question is, who will eventually reign as king?

BBC Radio has declared its intention of targeting an international audience with a “Netflix of the spoken word” with the intention of finding ways to better exploit it’s vast archive of professionally produced audio.

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.

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…

Beyond the Electric Pasture…

October 10, 2016 / Jack / 0 Comments

sheep I will admit to having certain goals as a writer. The first is that my stories connect with an audience. The second is that my stories have meaning for an audience. And the third is that my stories last the test of time. Few writers in the science fiction genre can check all three of those goals better than Philip K. Dick. PKD had a unique way of challenging conventional reality for his readers, and the BBC is now streaming a new adaptation of his famous Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? that was made popular as the Ridley Scott powerhouse Blade Runner. As fantastic as the movie was, it veered far from Dick’s original vision. The audio drama is much closer. Have a listen to the free stream on BBC 4 while you’re still able and marvel at a master of the mystic arts of storytelling.

Mathew Kresel in WarpedFactor has a great review on the show as well.

Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? is a novel that is perhaps best known for being the inspiration behind Ridley Scott’s now classic film Blade Runner, which famously built itself on top of the concepts Dick created, taking character names and a few situations before largely running off and doing its own thing to some extent. Dick’s novel is thus a different beast from the film it inspired, something that makes the two part BBC radio adaptation from 2014 that has recently been re-broadcast on Radio 4 Extra all the more intriguing.