GROUP COLLABORATION 

CREATING AUDIO DRAMAS

  • Create a production schedule
  • Do lots of read throughs to figure out the character casting and portrayal 
  • Work on how to convey physical acting through voice acting, it can help to still do the physical movements in the studio 
  • Breathe!


SOUND EFFECTS

  • Can be recorded before, after or during 
  • Choosing which play to work on creates an assignment to record sounds and how to incorporate them 
  • Mix natural sounds with downloaded effects 
  • Be creative and use what’s around you


LINDA SLADE

ROLE OF THE DIRECTOR

  • Coming up with ideas for the scripts, working from a list of emotions
  • The 5 Ws – Who, What, Where, Why, When 
  • Working with about 5 or 6 themes
  • Working with different archetypes – heroes, villains, lovers etc.
  • Use of improvisation 
  • Overall conflict as well as internal character conflict
  • Overall decisions of what works and what doesn’t, needs to be objective 
  • See from the beginning of the story to the end overall 
  • Research – time period and subject material 
  • Conscious of rhythm – like music, what is the energy and how is it maintained? 
  • Map out the important words so that not every word is over emphasised


CASEY HALLAHAN

GETTING THE SCRIPT

  • Read it through to get a sense of the challenges, general vibe and how to get that across
  • Don’t divvy up the roles too quickly as audio is more flexible to swap and try different people as different characters 
  • Figure out whether your group would like to record quickly or spend more time exploring and researching first
  • Have the whole production in mind even in the early stages


EDITING

  • Editor should have a role from the very beginning 
  • Being experimental 
  • Spending time on it – not in the sense that it needs to be perfect but in the sense that you can play around with it and get a feel for what could work better

Different approaches to try: 

  • Roughly blocking it out first with the lines and sound effects then adding the ambience
  • Work slowly from the beginning and build it outwards 
  • Editing each scene in reverse order 


CHRIS CORNER 

SOUNDSCAPES

Our listening weekend is set against the dramatic landscape of Tirana which reflects how a good audio drama should be set against a good soundscape

  • Music, sound effects, drones, sound manipulation 
  • Suggesting vocation, mood/emotion, event/part of the plot 
  • Breaking up scenes and portraying lapses in time