Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama
Drama for the dinner table
As a person who has a hearing loss (deaf in one ear) I always feel a little awkward sharing thoughts on sound. After all, there are whole bands of sound-frequencies that I can’t detect that are available to everyone else, so who am I to express an opinion? However, my inability to detect certain pitches, […]
Complex and involved stories with many plot threads can quickly become confusing for the audience. The deeper the story gets, the more likely it is that the audience will get lost. Some producers like to provide a quick opening recap to bring their audience up to speed. And while not everyone goes down this path, […]
Every tool has its purpose, and when it is being used in the right way (to accomplish that purpose), there’s no problem… but… where it is being used inexpertly, or for a purpose that it was not designed to meet, it creates more problems than it solves. I can’t help feeling that a lot of […]
Three Key Skills There are three basic skills (fundamentals if you will) that every beginning GM must have… 1. Narration – the ability to set the scene, roleplay the world, report the results and consequences of actions, and transition to new scenes. 2. Querying – the ability to draw out of players their goals and […]
Scripting Audio Drama In our last lesson we worked on preparing and presenting a radio play live before an audience. In particular we looked at the skills of voice acting, preparation of sound effects and musical cues, and the actual performance of the play. This lesson takes approximately x hours to complete. There are no […]
Hi folks, I’m taking another look this week at the advice offered by Erik Barnouw in his Handbook of Radio Writing (1947). This time it’s only a very short entry. The attention is focused on “the first narration” of a radio drama. The techniques aren’t ones I have used, but are probably worth a try. […]
Hi folks, I’m taking another look this week at the advice offered by Erik Barnouw in his Handbook of Radio Writing (1947). This time the attention is focused on narration. I don’t use a lot of narration in my plays generally (occasionally to introduce the play and in my Fantasy Noir serial I make use […]
