Tag: New York Times

A Psychotic Podcast

March 21, 2017 / / 0 Comments

At the beginning of 2017 a new audio drama based on the crimes and passions of Hollywood was released and named appropriately: Hollywood & Crime. It’s success spawned a new podcast Inside Psycho. Read more and listen to an exclusive teaser at Fangoria:

Neither documentary nor straight narrative. Neither radio drama nor true crime story. Inside Psycho is a biopic without the pictures. It’s a movie with sound only. Every word is either true or tells a larger truth about the making of this classic movie. This is, first and foremost, an entertaining tale of creation and destruction, birth and death, success and failure, awards and notoriety, fear and loathing, firsts and lasts.

If you thought you knew Psycho, hear it with all new ears.

Inside Psycho weaves an entertaining tale of the horrible mass killings that inspired the movie Psycho and the extraordinary struggles involved in making a movie that, against all odds, became one of the biggest hits of all time. A movie that was the biggest risk of Alfred Hitchcock’s career. A movie where the star dies after only 47 minutes. A movie its studio hated. A movie the New York Times called “a blot on an honorable career.” A movie now regarded as one of the finest ever made. A movie that changed…everything.

This is not just a show for film-buffs or horror fans. It’s a show for anyone with a love of entertainment who wants to hear about the rollicking adventures behind the scenes of a great motion picture. It’s a show for anyone who has ever created something great but was still full of fear and doubts. It’s the creative journey, and the hero of that journey is the famed filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

What’s Up with the Way We Sound?

March 11, 2017 / / 0 Comments

This New York Times article answers the age long question every audiophile says after hearing their voice: “Do I really sound like that?”

According to William Hartmann, a physics professor from Michigan State University, there’s multiple ways you get to hear your own voice. More often than not, you sound higher. Check out the original article and see how many parts of our ears and noggin bones (that’s a technical term) affect the way we hear ourselves.

 

His Voice was “Magically Delicious”

April 12, 2016 / / 0 Comments

13Anderson1Obit-master675Great loss to the world of radio drama and voice acting on April 10th, when Arthur Anderson passed away at the age of 93. The New York Times article reported:

Arthur Anderson, who performed on radio as a teenager with Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater and appeared on Broadway, in films and on television, but whose most enduring role was as the voice of Lucky Charms cereal’s leprechaun, died on Saturday in Manhattan.

As the last of the Golden Age of Radio begins to fade into the distance, I find myself thinking back as to how much of an impact they made, not just on those children who grew up with radio and radio drama, but the grandchildren, and the great grandchildren. My parents loved radio plays and bought LP’s for me to listen to in my formative years. Even now, archive.org keeps putting more and more old time radio shows into the public domain. Go through the available Mercury and Campbell’s Playhouse Theatres and have some time to listen to Anderson’s salad years.

Rest well, sweet prince!

And the Award for Best Audio Fiction Journalism Goes to…?

April 2, 2016 / / 0 Comments

02SARAHS-master675If you talk to people who have been making audio drama for years there are two things that frustrate them the most:

  • people who think that they have single-handedly brought back radio drama from the grave
  • people who don’t recognize the amazing trailblazers in the audio drama movement

We read this time and time again from Audio Drama Talk and the Facebook group we created back in 2009, the Audio Drama/Radio Drama Lovers Facebook Group. Member Jodi Ellyn brought us this New York Times article: And the Awards for Best Audio Fiction Go to…

The article refers to the Sarah Awards from Sarah Lawrence College to honour the best in Audio Fiction.

We love more light shone upon the audio drama world, but you can imagine our concern when the author, Joshua Barone made some erroneous assumptions about AD.

For example, Mr. Barone said, “…Sarah Awards, billed as the first award ceremony for audio fiction.” but long time listeners know that The Audie Awards and The Mark Time Awards are two far more well known awards.

We hope that Ann Heppermann, a founder of the Sarah Awards will take some time to listen to what’s out there, and realize we have a very robust community of audio drama already happening in the 21st century, and we welcome your participation.

 

Alice May Be Unwell

March 7, 2016 / / 2 Comments

aliceisntdeadThe folks who brought you Welcome to Nightvale are at it again with Alice Isn’t Dead, available for downloads tomorrow. Podficts or “podcast fiction” seems to be the latest rage with so many previous shows becoming wildly popular. Similar to mockumentaries, these serialized stories are meant to appear to be factual events but are told in a fictionalized scripted form. I’ve seen many audio dramaphiles frustrated with this latest turn of the podcast screw, but we at the Sonic Society think it can only bode well for audio drama’s rise.

The more people listen to audio fiction, it’s only a matter of time before their ears turn towards audio dramatic entertainment.

In the meantime, enjoy the ride and tune in! After all, ink in the New York Times isn’t going to hurt their exposure.

Aurotica

November 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

When I created the Audio Drama Ratings System for audio producers everywhere to be a helping hand in identifying various content warnings for listeners, I was aware that audio drama is the most intimate of mediums. Just try listening to the sounds of movie lovemaking scene at some point, you’ll notice its far more X-rated in your head than it is when you open your eyes and match the visuals.

Aural Sex is not something new, and actually has a pretty large audience. as AuralS describes in this New York Times article.

Whatever way you make your audio, even if it’s Aurotica (TM), give your listeners a clue as to what to expect, and they’ll appreciate it!

 

Tending the Garden

June 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments

podcastIt’s been a slow ride through the RSS feeds and the gentle eddies of subscription space, but as we wind down our tenth season of the Sonic Society and a pretty busy one with three shows a week (Sonic Echo, Sonic Speaks and of course the Sonic Society) it’s important to see how far we’ve gone and where we’re actually going to be.

Witness in case of point, the article in the New York Times by Farhad Manjoo entitled Podcasting Blossoms, but in Slow Motion. Podcasting is very much like gardening. You have to constantly tend to your feed, weed out the flubs in your recordings, and let the listenership bloom. Manjoo says that after ten years the growth is still slow, but it is continually growing. We’ll get there, together.

An Audio Drama Only Release

March 14, 2015 / / 0 Comments

audiobooks1-articleLarge-v2Famed mystery writer Jeffrey Deaver, author of such blockbusters as The Skin Collector, The October List, and The Kill Room, among others has decided that his latest story won’t be released as a novel ever. That’s right, you can only get The Starling Project as… you guessed it… an audio drama!

According to the New York Times article, Audible and others are betting on the power of the audio story, and what was once just good enough for simple narration is becoming more and more “enhanced”. In other words, radio drama lives again. What a lovely release!

 

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