Hi folks,
I’m taking another look this week at the advice offered by Erik Barnouw in his Handbook of Radio Writing (1947). The attention is focused on “shifting the scene” of a radio drama using a technique known as the “pause transition”. The techniques are common sense but nonetheless easy to overlook.
Routine Technique
Scene Shifting – Part 1
There are a variety of devices that can be used to transition from one scene to another. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
The Pause
The last few words of the previous scene are faded out, a pause occurs, and the first words of the new scene fade in. Generally the new scene is suggested in the closing words of the old scene.
A scene fadeout should be spread over four to fifteen seconds and, as a rule, the last few words in the fading of a speech should be confined to words of no importance to prevent important information being lost to people with their audio set low – words like good-bye, or repetitive phrases are good.
Likewise the fade in to the next scene should begin on an unimportant phrase.
The pause-transition works best at a moment of suspense, relying on anticipation for the next scene to maintain dramatic interest over the dead-stop of the pause.
It can also be a helpful device when there is a very close connection between the material faded out and in – as where an individual begins reading a diary in one scene and fades to the voice of the original writer narrating the events in the next.Disadvantages
A pause doesn’t announce the end of the scene in as obvious a manner as music does.
Many speeches do not make good fades (do not provide suitable unimportant words at the end to make the fade effective).
The dead stop of the pause can come at the cost of the listener’s continuing dramatic interest.Advantages
No music or sound effects are required to achieve the pause-transition. This makes it cheaper and less effort to accomplish.
It can create a more natural feel in a show (since it doesn’t introduce any non-natural elements such as sound and narration).
In our scripts we rarely use the pause transition but it does get used to good effect in “The Visitor from the Gloria Scott” during a flashback scene.
If you’d like to see some examples of how scene setting is handled in the scripts we publish be sure to visit http://weirdworldstudios.com/product-category/our-products/. We have some free samples you can download.
See you next time.
– Philip Craig Robotham
