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, etc. does not, I think, prevent me from making some basic observations regarding sound from an audio-script-writer’s point of view – and in my imagination, and as I write on the page, my hearing is as good as anyone else’s.

Audio engineers and sound effects artists have expertise that I, as a writer, do not.  But my script should aim to provide these artists with appropriate guidance as to the way sound should be used in the telling of my stories.  Some of this guidance will be ignored (in favour of that expertise) but my own expertise as a storyteller is only enhanced when I understand and can use the spatial, psychological, and auditory qualities of human experience (hearing in particular) to more effectively tell my story.

It’s common, when thinking about audio drama, to focus, as a writer, on speech (dialogue and narration), sound effects, and music.  After all, these are where the storytelling happens.

However, that is not all there is. Speech, SFX, and music might form the canvas upon which we paint our stories, but a fourth (if somewhat abstract) element is essential to our understanding and our writing; that is, volume.

Volume

Volume is audio drama’s spotlight.  That which is loudest is most important.  Therefore, by controlling the volume, the audio dramatist controls and directs the attention of the audience.

A common mistake, even among experienced dramatists, is, in production, to fail to effectively separate background from foreground.  An immersive soundscape that is not sufficiently distinguishable from the dialog becomes an inaccessible and confusing jumble.  Where everything is equally loud, our brains attempt to treat everything as equally important.  And where everything is equally important, nothing is important, and so all is confusing.

From a writer’s point of view, the spotlight is controlled through the use of sound directions such as ESTABLISH, FADE UP, CROSS FADE, FADE OUT, FINISH, SOFT, LOUD, AT A DISTANCE, DEPARTING, APPROACHING etc.  Newcomers to audio drama sometimes fail to realize that the most effective use of sound cannot be accomplished without a little understanding of how our brains work when hearing and listening.

Selective Attention and Fading

Not all sound is equal.  The world around us is full of sound.  True silence is very rare.  Yet we don’t consciously experience all (or even most) of the sounds that are occurring near us at any given time.

As I write this, I can hear a fan running, the sound of my kids in the background getting breakfast, and the sound of some birds outside (it’s early morning).  There’s also some traffic in the distance as well as a dog barking.  But until I specifically stopped and listened, those sounds did not register consciously, or command my attention.  I was experiencing silence where there was none.  This experience of silence in the midst of sound is a function of the human brain.

There is, in our brains, an area known as the Reticular Activating System.  It acts as a filter, designed to select what we need to pay attention to from all the stimulus we experience.  It selects what it thinks is most important and weeds out (or silences) the rest. 

When I get up in the morning and get dressed I might, for a few moments, feel the cloth of my shirt against my skin, but the RAS quickly decides this is not important and silences that sensation so that it won’t distract me throughout the day.  Can I still feel the texture of the cloth?  Absolutely.  But my brain has filtered the sensation out – effectively silencing it.  This is also true of the sounds we hear. 

The sounds I mentioned before were all around me (and still are), but my brain was filtering them out (silencing them) because they were not important.  This is something the brain does automatically.  Registering new sounds, deciding whether they are important or not, and bringing them to our conscious attention (or suppressing them) according to its own inner logic is an automatic and unconscious feature of human experience.

In audio drama, the writer and the producer of sound seeks to mimic this through control of volume.

But if the brain is so clever, and does this naturally, why should it be necessary for us to try to take control of this process when writing audio-drama?

In part it is due to the technology of audio drama delivery – the speakers, headphones, etc. that the sound is being delivered to us through.  When the brain focuses on an audio drama, it treats the speaker(s) as a single source for the purpose of filtering and doesn’t attempt to filter out any of the background sound the drama supplies.

In the real world, we automatically filter the background sounds around us out.  But when listening to an audio drama, the producers must do this for us, mimicking what our brains would otherwise do naturally, effectively tricking the listener’s brain into believing the drama is a facsimile of reality.

How is this achieved?  Through the use of the fade.

When we enter a crowded restaurant, we hear the soundscape behind us (cutlery clinking, the murmur of many voices, perhaps some ambient music).  These sounds set the scene, but, in the real world, these sounds are of little importance and quickly fade out and are excluded from conscious notice while we focus on what we do feel is important; the voices of our dinner companions.

Audio dramas which continuously play realistic background sound under the action and dialogue, ironically, fail to create realism.  We instinctively know that we should not be continuously aware of the background, and so the scene feels off and slightly unreal.

However, when the audio drama plays the background sound at the start of the scene then fades it to nothing when the dialog begins, we notice nothing.  It simulates our ordinary experience and therefore both feels real, and is not noticed.

Likewise, footsteps.  Footsteps that play continuously under a scene are distracting.  Footsteps that are established and fade out, are not.

Note the importance of FADE rather than STOP.  If the background sound simply stops, we notice it and wonder why.  If the footsteps stop suddenly, we assume the individuals have stopped walking.  But by fading the noise out, the audience assumes the sound is still present (even though it is gone).

When we wish to reintroduce background sound, however, we usually bring it back sharply, mimicking the abrupt shift of our attention back to the soundscape (turning what was unnoticed, and therefore silent, background into foreground).

In our restaurant scene, we might have our characters enter the restaurant and establish the ambient sounds, quickly fading them out as their conversation gets under way. But when two gunmen enter brandishing weapons we bring the background noise back into focus as the patrons scream and drop their cutlery etc. in response to the changed conditions.

Likewise, we might fade out the sound of footsteps while our characters are walking down the street, but when they stop, we might introduce the sound of their shoes scuffing to a standstill, signalling the end of the walk (even though the sounds of walking were not present for a significant period).

Microphone Position

The position of the microphone is another key element of sound design.  The microphone stands in for the audience member.  Each audience member is the unseen eavesdropper listening in on the action.  Part of the immersion created by audio-drama comes from this realisation.  When a character moves away from the microphone, they are moving away from the audience member.  When they approach the microphone, they are approaching the audience member.  And when the microphone follows a character, the audience member is, in fact, doing the following.  This allows us to create various levels of involvement and distance in the story.  A different emotional effect is created when actors approach and move away from the microphone to when the microphone follows them around (moving with them from one room to another, for example).

Spatial Quality

I also want to make a point with regard to reverb.  One of the unconscious cues we use to orient ourselves in space is the amount of reverb we experience.  We can tell whether we are outdoors, or inside a cavernous room, or inside a small box, based on the echo (or its lack) around us.  When the spatial characteristics of the locations we choose to present to our audience are ignored in the production, we create a sense of unreality.  Some writers argue that the inclusion of INT and EXT (interior and exterior) is unnecessary in audio drama scripts, but this is not the case.  The location has a distinct impact on the design and production of the sound.

Immersive versus minimalist sound design

One area I have deliberately avoided commenting on, at least until this point, is that of immersive sound-scapes versus minimalist sound design.  Here my hearing disability has a bearing and I’m fairly certain my perspective is skewed.  I am personally biased towards minimalism.  Like many folks with hearing loss, there are certain auditory experiences that are very unpleasant.  I dislike being in large crowds or crowded restaurants where there is a lot of ambient noise.  The sounds tend to bleed together into a white-noise haze that I cannot separate.  As a result, I go from being partially deaf to completely deaf in such environments (with all the sense of social isolation that involves).

I can still enjoy a multi-layered, realistic and immersive, soundscape – Gunsmoke comes to mind as the ultimate example of this – but beyond a certain point and volume, the soundscape becomes auditory mud.

That said, the selective nature of the psychological experience of hearing, means that a minimalist soundscape can seem just as “real” to a listener as something more immersive.  It is also cheaper and easier to take a minimalist approach, requiring fewer people and resources to achieve.  It is also, it should be said, more accessible.  Some folks, particularly audio engineers, aren’t aware that their own expertise and proficiency distinguishing sounds is not shared by the wider population, being in fact a fairly rare gift.  As a result, they produce soundscapes that are not readily accessible to anyone who does not share their finely tuned auditory sense.  It may come as a surprise, but many deaf people, like myself, enjoy audio-drama, but we do find simple soundscapes more accessible.

That is not to say that complex soundscapes should be avoided.  Build the show you want to build. Here I am merely stating a preference.

Stereo Sound

This leads me to the final, and least qualified, point I wish to make.  A final feature of realistic listening experience is stereo.  We are stereo creatures; we have two ears positioned one on either side of our heads.  We experience sound and detect where it is coming from based on the relative loudness of sound in each ear.  As a deaf person, I am an outsider to this experience.  I have only one working ear and so I cannot detect where a sound is coming from except by turning my good ear towards it and detecting the change in volume.  However, even though I am deaf in one ear, my good ear can still hear all the sounds around me.  Some will simply be softer because they are occurring on the other side of my head.

So, if by chance, an audio-engineer happens to be reading this article, I’d like to end this secton on a plea with regard to stereo recording (and panning).  Please, please, please, make sure you never place sound exclusively in one or the other stereo channel.  In the real world, sound can be heard by both ears all the time, it is merely louder in one than the other depending on the orientation of the listener to the sound.  If you place a sound exclusively on one channel you, firstly, create a circumstance in which the soundscape noticeably ceases to match what we experience in the real world, and, secondly, you exclude those of us who are deaf in one ear from detecting the presence of the sound at all.  Sixty to Eighty percent of every sound should be centered, while only 40 to 20 percent of the sound should favour a particular stereo channel (and from a deaf person’s point of view 20 percent or less is better).

Of course, given my own circumstances I would never provide guidance in my own scripts regarding panning and stereo, but your mileage may differ. 

I want to look at sound-effects and music before moving on to how this all interacts with the writer’s bread and butter (speech).

Types of Sound

There are several broad categories (or axes) of sound that writers should be aware of. 

Firstly, there is diegetic and non-diegetic sound.  Diegetic sound is sound that is natural to the scene, that a character in the scene would, normally, be able to hear (footsteps, the fan, a gramophone playing, etc.).  Non-diegetic sound is sound that is added to the scene that would not normally be heard by the characters in the scene (the ambient music of a soundtrack, the loud beating of a heart etc).  Sounds are generally placed on a spectrum between these two poles, but tend to cluster at the non-diegetic end in larger numbers.

Secondly, there is self-identifying and ambiguous sound.  Self-identifying sounds are readily recognizable sounds (such as a car engine starting, or the clickety-clack of a steam train hurtling along the tracks) while ambiguous sounds require context to be identified (the sound of crumpled celephane can be read as fire, twigs snapping, a note being crumpled up, etc.).  Again this is a spectrum in which the majority of sounds cluster at the ambiguous end.

Wherever possible the writer should try to identify the appropriate context for a sound before it occurs.

E.g :

EDDIE: Hey Joe, can you get a fire started?  You can borrow my flint.

JOE: Sure, Eddie.

SOUND: SPARKING OF FLINT, CRACKLE OF FIRE TAKING HOLD.

Because most sounds are ambiguous, we want to prevent the listener from having to revise their interpretation after hearing the sound as this tends to break their immersion.

If we provide the interpretation for an ambiguous sound immediately following its introduction, it will usually be okay, but it’s far better to provide it ahead of its introduction wherever possible.

Musical Soundtracks

Non-diegetic music (background music) is intended to support or highlight the emotion of a scene.  Not everyone uses music in their productions, but there are some general guidelines that should apply for those of us who do.  Sometimes as writers we are aware of the exact piece of music that would support the scene we are writing.  If you have a precise vision of what you want to use, then name the piece in your script.  However, copyright, licensing, expense, and or the preferences of the producers may render the piece unsuitable or unavailable.

More important, you should identify the mood or emotion you want the music to express (and then add the title of a suggested piece that captures that mood).  As a non-musician, even though I am fully aware of how much value is added by a good musical score, I rarely bother with musical cues (leaving that to those who are more gifted than I), but when I do, I make use of Hevner’s adjective circle.  This construction may not hold much water as a means of classifying music, but I find the adjectives helpful when I am trying to describe the mood I wish to communicate.

Here they are…

1 awe-inspiring dignified lofty sacred serious sober solemn spiritual

2 dark depressing doleful frustrated gloomy heavy melancholy mournful pathetic sad tragic

3 dreamy longing plaintive pleading sentimental tender yearning yielding

4 calm* leisurely lyrical quiet satisfying serene soothing tranquil

5 delicate fanciful graceful humorous light playful quaint sprightly whimsical

6 bright cheerful gay happy joyous merry

7 agitated dramatic exciting exhilarated impetuous passionate restless sensational soaring triumphant

8 emphatic exalting majestic martial ponderous robust vigorous

Tips for Integrating Dialog and Narration with sound

Audio drama is an auditory medium.  The audience constructs the visuals in their minds in response to what they can hear.  But, as already noted, not every sound is clearly able to identify what is happening for the audience.  The context, and here I mean the speech that provides the context of the scenes, must assist the audience to understand the sound.  We often intuitively believe that the sound supports the story telling (and it does) but the majority of sound is not readily identifiable (and therefore cannot do its job) without the context provided by speech. 

Speech, in the form of dialogue and narration, is essential to conveying a large amount of what cannot be seen, and interpreting the sounds that add to the realism of the play.

In a film, when two gunmen enter a room brandishing pistols, it is obvious to all.  But in audio, the audio must assist the listener to “see” what can only be heard.

Sometimes this results in dialogue that would in a stage play or cinematic setting, be a little on the nose…

SALLY: Look out, George, those men are carrying guns.

Or…

GEORGE:  Take it easy, fellas.  Put the guns away.

Another feature of audio that is important BECAUSE we only hear the action is the repeated use of names.  Characters in audio, refer to each other far more often by name than they do in other mediums.  This is because voices are not nearly as distinctive as images.  We can see George came through the door in a film, but in audio, it helps if someone says “Oh, hi, George” and identifies the character by name, even if he speaks on entry.

And while we’re on the topic of names, try to avoid giving character’s names that are difficult to distinguish from other words.  For example, “Hugh” and “you” are too easily confused to make it a good name to pick for an audio-drama character.

Characters are easily forgotten without a visual reminder of their presence, so when a scene contains more than two people, it is important to regularly have the extra characters contribute something to the conversation.  Otherwise they will not remain alive and present in the imaginations of the audience members.

Voices

And at last we come to the final topic that it is helpful for a writer to understand.  Audio drama is a more intimate dramatic form than many others.  We do not have the advantage of visuals to help us distinguish characters and therefore rely on vocal quality.  In the days of old-time-radio, casts were deliberately selected on the basis of vocal characteristics.

Bass: Heavy/Elderly male

Contralto: Elderly female

Baritone: Leading man

Mezzo-soprano: Leading woman

Tenor:  Juvenile

Soprano: Ingenue

Trebble: Child

Along with identifying accents, these seven vocal types – E.g GEORGE (Elderly Male shopkeeper with a BASS voice and a Dixi accent) – can be very useful (and provide a great deal of variation) when describing and defining your characters.  Characters who sound too similar to one another will easily be confused.  And limits on human memory tend to make confusion even more likely when a cast exceeds five to seven main characters in total.

As advice to writer’s go, I’m aware that this was fairly eclectic.  What other advice regarding sound would you add for those who are engaged in writing audio scripts?

Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2020 .

The post The Deaf Writer’s Guide to Sound and Silence in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

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, there are some good reasons to do so (and some methods that are far better to use than others).

The older we get the more difficult it is to remember things and in a world that overloads us with information on a regular basis, it can take even young audience members a few moments to reorient themselves to where a particular story and story-world is up to. You can help the members of your audience plug directly into the story at the point an episode takes it up again by doing a little of the heavy lifting (in terms of remembering where everything is up to) for them.

Okay, so it’s probably a good idea to provide a recap, but how should it be done?
That’s a valid question. Especially in light of the following fact: Recaps are BORING.
While it is no bad thing to help your audience out with an occasional (or even a regular) recap, it is essential to make sure the recap is short! Five-sentences-or-fewer short, if possible. And there are some specific beats to hit that are worth keeping in mind.

A suggested content model

Here’s a simple 4-part model for what needs to be included in a recap.

1. Start by identifying the protagonists’ current goal and the reason for it.
2. Have you noticed that TV shows never say “last episode on [[show name]]”, but instead say “previously”? As stories have grown more complex, knowing what happened in the last episode is simply not enough. The audience needs to be brought up to speed on all the important things that impact the current episode from the past.
   It’s also okay (while not recommended where you can avoid it) to throw in the occasional outright lie. You might be amazed to discover just how common it is in television to add things to the recap that didn’t actually happen (or juxtapose things in such a way that they lead the audience to a conclusion that was never there in the previous episodes that are being referred to – Farscape was notorious for it. Recap whatever is needed to make sense of the story.
3. Outline the major beats from the most recent episode. Make sure you identify key character moments as well as plot events.
4. Lastly, transition into the current episode (whether by segueing into the titles or via a short connective narration).

Some recap techniques

There aren’t that many techniques used to provide a recap. Here are four that are particularly common.

Firstly, the recap can be provided by a flashback pastiche, a series of connected soundbites from previous episodes that bring the audience up to date. This can be a very effective technique, but can also be very inefficient. It is REALLY important not to let the pastiche drag on. Pick the lines you want to borrow from past episodes very carefully… and make sure they communicate what you want to say. It may be necessary to record some new lines that make your intention clear.

A second common technique is to simply use the dialog from one of your characters to introduce the episode. This also can be an inefficient form of delivery. It can be hard to put the words needed for a recap into the mouth of your characters and keep it sounding natural.

A third common technique is to supply the recap through a narration. This can be as simple as scripting the five lines from the model. I prefer it for its simplicity, but it isn’t the most fashionable technique in use.

Lastly, in the days of Old Time Radio it was fairly common for a serial to replay the last scene of the previous episode at the beginning of each new episode as a means of keeping audience members oriented to where the story was up to.

An example narration

Let’s imagine our show (The Heights) is about a mother (Karen) trying to find her son in a post-apocalyptic world (referred to as the Heights because the lowlands are too radioactive to be safe). Lets further imagine she works as a mercenary in order to have the freedom of movement needed to search for her son and that the show has a recurring villain, a kidnapper of children, who is about to rear her head once more in the current episode. Let’s assume our villain uses kids as slave labor but her labor force has been decimated by some kind of new disease. The current episode will concern itself with the villain’s attempt to kidnap the community’s doctor in order to deal with the outbreak.

We would need to establish in the first paragraph the setting, who our protagonist is, and what she wants.

NARRATOR: The human world has been reduced to a wasteland of swirling radioactive particles in the aftermath of a war (referred to as “the burning times”) most survivors never even knew was coming. Small groups of humans scrape out a hand to mouth existence in highland areas that were less affected by the global calamity. Karen Ross, a mercenary, uses her skills to stay mobile and search for her son among the scattered communities.

We would need to remind viewers of the last run-in between Karen and the villain (and the villain’s aims and activities and any reason she feels particular animosity towards Karen).

NARRATOR: Two years ago Karen and her team came across a raiding party that was kidnapping children from survivor communities, brutalizing them and turning them into child soldiers to be sold to the highest bidder. They destroyed the gang’s training facilities, earning the ongoing enmity of the gang’s leader, Tanya Small.

We would need to remind viewers of any key character moments and plot moments that have an impact on the current episode (Karen’s unrequited attraction to the community’s doctor for example, and how rare and prized individuals with medical training are among the survivor community).

NARRATOR: Dr. Jim Cameron has been part of her team for 18 months. He’s a skilled medic, one of the few to survive “the burning times” and, despite their growing attraction, Jim has been reticent about forming any sort of ongoing attachment with Karen.

We would need to bring to mind the events of the most recent episode.

NARRATOR: In the last episode Tanya and her team took part in an attack on a group of nomadic bandits that had been raiding outlying settlements and threatening the community’s food stores for the coming winter. The food supplies were successfully secured but her Lieutenant, Terry Smith, was badly injured and is now recovering (leaving her slightly short-handed).

We would need to add any information that had not been previously revealed that is necessary for understanding the current story.

NARRATOR: Tanya Small has begun raiding again and recently killed a doctor who had been showing a little too much sympathy towards her young prisoners by attempting to smuggle them out of her camp. She is now starting to feel the lack of medical expertise within her community…

And we would need to transition into the story (perhaps with a teaser scene).

TEASER: Tanya’s camp.

At 260 words the above (when all put together) is a two-minute long introduction to the current episode (and therefore, too long).

A Better, More Succinct Version

Here’s an edited down version.

NARRATOR: The human world has been reduced to a wasteland of radioactivity. Karen Ross, a mercenary, uses her skills to stay mobile and search for her son among the scattered survivor communities. Two years ago her team destroyed the training facilities of a gang of child abductors who were selling child soldiers on the black market. In the last episode, despite the way her growing attraction to Dr. Jim Cameron is complicating her life, her team secured the community’s food supplies against bandits, but now the leader of the child-abduction-gang is back, in search of a doctor to fill out her ranks…

This version clocks in at a much more reasonable 45 seconds and still hits all the required beats.

A Pastiche Example

Pastiche (stringing together a series of clips and scenes from past episodes, perhaps with a sound transition between each, can be an effective alternative to narration as a means of providing a recap…

NARRATOR: Previously on ‘The Heights’…

COLONEL JIMINEZ: No-one even remembers what the world was like before it was blanketed in radiation.

SOUND: SCENE BREAK (WHOOSH)

KAREN ROSS: I’m Karen Ross. This is my team. We’re mercs for hire. We’ll do whatever job you’ve got!

SOUND: SCENE BREAK (WHOOSH)

JOHNNY ANGLE: That’s Karen Ross. She’s spent the last few years searching for her son. She’s never given up, despite everything. She never lets up. You sure you want to join her team, doc?

DR. JIM CAMERON: I’ve got my own reasons, but yeah. This is the team I want to be part of.

ROSS: So, you’re a doctor are you Cameron? Welcome to the team.

SOUND: SCENE BREAK (WHOOSH)

MOTHER: (TEARFUL) They took our children. They make soldiers out of kids and sell them to monsters.

ANGLE: If we destroy that training camp, we’ll only have destroyed an arm of the monster, not the head. And we’ll have made a powerful enemy.

ROSS: I don’t care. Tanya Small’s stealing kids. She’s going to pay.

SOUND: SCENE BREAK (WHOOSH)

SFX: Explosions

TANYA SMALL: Who’s responsible for this.

LIEUTENANT: Ma’am, the word is this was Karen Ross’s team.

SMALL: She’s cost us all of our profits and then some.

LIEUTENANT: She’s long gone, Ma’am.

SMALL: Yeah, well. I won’t forget this.

SOUND: SCENE BREAK (WHOOSH)

LIEUTENANT: Ma’am. Somethings happening in the compound. The kids. They’re sick.

SMALL: How sick?

LIEUTENANT: Real sick. Too sick. One died last night, and another this morning.

SMALL: Damnit. I’m not losing my investment. We need to find ourselves a doctor.

LIEUTENANT: That’s not going to be easy.

SMALL: Easier than you think. And it might earn me a little revenge at the same time.

MUSIC: OPENING THEME – LET IT FINISH.

This example is also approximately 2 minutes long and made up of pieces put together from previous episodes (separated by quick transition effects – in this case, a whooshing sound). Because it is a pastiche of dialog, it can get away with being longer than a standard introductory narration.

A Dialog Example (using Character Exposition)

A scripted scene is a third technique that can be used to provide a recap.

SOUND: OUTDOOR AMBIANCE – BREEZE, BIRDS ETC. – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

GRUNT#1: It’s not going to work.

GRUNT#2: You tell her that

GRUNT#1: No way. You think I want to end up like the Doc.

GRUNT#2: (SARCASTIC) What? You got an objection to getting your brains splattered all over the floor? (BEAT) Besides, he had it coming. Trying to smuggle those kids outta the camp right under Small’s nose was stupid.

GRUNT#1: A lot of good killing him as a punishment did her, though. We’ve got a major epidemic in the camp. It’s cutting into her profits. And now she wants to raid Ross’ team to nab their doctor? It ain’t gonna work, I tell ya.

GRUNT#2: You always say that, but Tanya Small’s no dope. She’s thought this through and they’ll never know what hit ’em. (BEAT) Besides, she’s been aching for an opportunity to hit back at that bitch, Ross, since her team blew up our training compound.

GRUNT#1: Yeah, I heard they didn’t even get paid for that one. That makes it personal.

GRUNT#2: Yeah, well. We missed out on plenty of paydays when we couldn’t sell any more of those kids to the warlords. Small’s got a good thing going here, training kid soldiers. It’s taken us a long time to get back on our feet. Ross’ got no call messing with our business.

GRUNT#1: Which one’s Ross?

GRUNT#2: See down there by the hospital hut? The tall blonde standing just a little too close to the doctor? Another one of her team’s in there.

GRUNT#1: Yeah, I see her. So that’s why Small picked a doctor so far from home. She wants to hurt Ross.

GRUNT#2: That’s about the sum of it.

GRUNT#1: They say she’s got a soft spot for kids too. Spends all her time trying to find her missing boy.

GRUNT#2: That just shows she’s nuts. The boy’s dead alongside the million or so other corpses created by the war. He died down in the low lands of radiation poisoning like everyone else.

GRUNT#1: Yeah. You got that right. (BEAT) Why do you think they’re looking so relaxed down there?

GRUNT#2: Everyone’s been celebrating. Ross’s team just got back from securing their winter food supplies. (BEAT) You ask me, that’ll be one of the first places that Small hits on her way here.

GRUNT#1: C’mon, let’s get outta here. We gotta report back.

GRUNT#2: Had enough reconnaissance have you? (BEAT) Yeah, I guess it’s time.

MUSIC: OPENING THEME – LET IT FINISH.

This introduction comes in at just under 3 minutes. It’s longer than the other two (and a little clumsy, since it’s just a hastily thrown together example) but it draws the audience into the drama, and hits all the beats, by enacting them. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to hit all the beats necessary to bring new (and old) audience members up to speed without it sounding overly expositional and clunky. Audiences tend to be more forgiving of a quickly completed introductory narration than they are of ham-fisted dialog.

Replay the Last Scene of the Previous Episode

One last technique worth mentioning is the replay. A common choice in the days of old time radio was for a serial to replay the last scene of the previous episode at the beginning of each new episode. While this may be enough to help your regular audience members get back into the story it does nothing to connect them with important developments from episodes prior to the last one and introduce new listeners to the story. That said, it can still be helpful from time to time.

My Own Preference

Generally speaking, I want to get to the meat of the story as quickly as possible. The old rule of “start the story at the most interesting point possible” is a good one. A quick couple of lines of narration can let me hit the beats of a recap with as much economy as possible and then, having got it out of the way, move on to what matters most (at least to me). As a result, a short piece of narration tends to be my first preference, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the other recap techniques, and lots of producers make very effective use of them.

When, however, producers of ongoing serials don’t make use of recaps in some form – especially if the story they are trying to tell is complex and layered – they make it much more difficult to keep their audience up to date and ease new listeners into their world.
What do you think is essential to include in a “recap” and what are your preferred techniques for recapping the content of your serial episodes? Let me know in the comments.

This article is © 2018 by Philip Craig Robotham – all rights reserved.

So, what’s your opinion on recaps and how they should be used?  Do you agree with our point of view?  Do you disagree?  Let us know in the comments below.

The post The Art of the Recap appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

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 the popular hate levelled at narration amongst modern audio-dramatists arises from its misuse (or from its inexpert use) rather than from a genuine problem inherent in narration itself.

I grew up listening to old time radio. Narration was a constant feature of those stories (and I am very used to it, so perhaps I am conditioned to not notice it as much). In my view, it can be a very efficient tool in the audio-dramatist’s tool-box. A moment or two of narration can introduce a story, set a scene, and/or shift a scene very quickly… and where brevity matters (and it almost always does), that can be helpful. It can also clarify a soundscape that would otherwise be ambiguous or difficult for the audience to decode.

THE REASON FOR NARRATION’S BAD REPUTATION

For some modern listeners, it has to be admitted, narration can break the fourth wall unnecessarily and destroys their sense of immersion, but, delivered quickly, in a single sentence or two, it can achieve its intended effect with barely any notice being taken. When delivered with immediacy (in the present tense) and via a character (either in dialog or voice-over) it can be even less intrusive.

More often than not, I believe, narration gets its bad name from being done badly. Bad narration takes a megaphone and draws attention to itself (breaking the sense of immersion created by the story). Usually, this is a function of length (too many words) or overloading (too many details).

For narration to work it must be brief and evoke rather than describe.

EFFECTIVE NARRATION

Audio drama can’t spend a lot of time painting scenes in the minds of its audience. It needs to get underway quickly and hook its listeners fast. We can, in our writing, rely on the audience’s imaginations to help us create our scenes, so few words are needed.

The words “in an office downtown…” are sufficient to bring a detailed downtown office to life in the minds of our listeners. These four words of narration can evoke the office, without describing it, and move us on to the action of the scene quickly. If the narration is short and the action starts right away, the audience will have forgotten the preceding narration before it has time to consciously register it (but it will have still accomplished its scene-setting purpose).

As noted earlier, this can be really helpful where time is a factor in our storytelling.

We could also set the scene through sound and dialog, of course (showing rather than telling), but it will usually take longer. There’s nothing wrong with this, but there is a trade-off at work and we need to understand that, when we avoid narration, we often sacrifice pace in order to supply the same information in a different way.

Badly handled narration, however, is far more problematic than poorly executed or slow-paced drama. Describing the decor, and the way the light filters through the begrimed window, and the fly that buzzes nearby the overhead fan, while evocative in its own way, is more likely to intrude in a drama and draws attention to itself as prose and away from the story.

Poor narration, clearly, has many problems, but I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Narration can still be used very effectively as a tool for scene setting, clarifying action, and pacing (so long as brevity is emphasised). If you narrate no more than is strictly essential to your purpose, and if you use it to quickly focus attention on the drama, it can be helpful. Overuse narration, or indulge in long detail-laden monologues, and it will distract from the story it is trying to serve.

THE UNIQUE NEEDS AND LIMITATIONS OF AUDIO DRAMA

On the issue of “show, don’t tell”, I had a long discussion with a novelist friend of mine not long ago. In the novel, description is helpful, but you want to reveal detail through action (character interaction etc.) wherever possible. This is equally true of audio-drama. However, audio-drama has a number of unique features and challenges that the novel does not. Likewise, it differs significantly from live theatre and film/television in some unique ways.

The audio drama, regardless of its reach, has an audience of one. The action plays out behind the audience member’s eyes, on the viewscreen of their imagination. In this regard, it is much more like a book than it is like a play or tv performance. We don’t get the benefit of crowd psychology (the engagement that occurs when viewing something with a crowd around us), but the writer doesn’t need to do as much work setting scenes either.

The fact that we tell our stories to single audience members rather than groups means we don’t have to command attention in the same way as public performances do. We don’t have to signal that it is time to begin listening. We can just begin. And we don’t have to dress our sets with rich detail and spend time describing them in order to convince our audience members that they are real – the audience member builds our sets for us.

We do, however, have to make the action clear without the aid of the visual sense. Sometimes, therefore, showing is necessarily a function of description – and that description can be fairly artificial – after all, no-one in real life says “Look out, Pam. Charlie’s got a gun”. In real-life (or on the silver screen) its apparent to everyone that Charlie has a gun and the event requires no such pronouncements. For this reason characters in an audio drama often verbalize actions that would never be spoken aloud in the real world or that would simply be shown on screen.

Likewise, the audio-dramatist needs to provide narrative cues for those sounds that are ambiguous. And many sounds are ambiguous. Crackling cellophane can be used both to indicate a fire, and a thundershower. What makes the difference? The listener’s imagination, prodded by the scriptwriter!

Ambiguous sounds require “stage-setting” or guidance from the writer. This stage-setting should generally occur before the sound is introduced to prevent confusion. If the listener is thinking “conveyor-belt” before the sound is identified as a “waterfall”, then confusion will result.

Generally, the identification of a sound is made through dialogue or narration, but occasionally through other sounds. It doesn’t need to be explicit; an implied identification is often all that is required.

In many cases, sounds become clear through context (through the plot itself), via perfectly natural references in dialogue and narration.

Sounds which always need identification include rain, a waterfall, a river, manufacturing noises, thunder, an automobile, and an aeroplane.

Despite the surface similarity to the novel that arises as a result of the “audience of one” phenomena, the immediacy of audio drama results in a faster pace. Long scene building introductions, physical descriptions, and verbal explorations of emotion and inner life, are not merely unnecessary but tend to turn our audiences off.

The reader of a novel can skip about and control the pace of the work themselves (skipping boring sections entirely, if they so choose). This is not true of (or at least much harder for) the listener to an audio-drama. They must follow the story at the pace it is presented (and for this reason, the pace of drama is necessarily much faster than that of the novel).

The story contained in a novel that takes twelve hours to read, can be dramatized in less than one-third of that time. A dramatization is expected to present the action with economy and to not waste its listeners’ time. If the pacing is clunky, audience members will abandon the story rather than skip forward. As such the action must be continually moving forward with economy (even in a contemplative work).

Narration that slows the pace unnecessarily (and there are times when slowing the pace is necessary) and draws attention to itself rather than moving the story forward, is our enemy. But where it moves the story forward, clarifies the action, is delivered with brevity (without an unnecessary word) and harnesses the imagination of the audience to quickly evoke details, mood etc., it is our friend.

USING NARRATION WELL

There are at least three places where narration can be helpful. It is not essential to use narration in these locations, but short narration can be a good fit here.

1. The Opening of the Story.

   A typical audio drama needs to establish who, where, and when as quickly as possible. A quick narration is among the most economical ways of dealing with the opening. The introductory narration may be carried by one or more voices or it may be dramatized, but there’s no denying that two or three lines of narration can establish the opening faster than a dramatic dialog.

   NARRATOR: Deep in the Kentucky Woods, two men creep from room to room in the darkened Westerley mansion, unaware of the dark presence that haunts its halls…

2. The Opening of a Scene and its Transition.

   While rarely necessary, a narrated transition between scenes can save time, establishing the new scene (time, place, mood etc.) in a sentence or two without feeling like clunky character exposition, essentially moving the story forward more quickly than would occur if the scene had to be established through dialog alone.

   NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Sam returns to his down-at-heel rented office in search of a fresh shirt and a bottle of rye…

3. The Closing of the Story.

   Once the climax of the story has been reached, there is often little in the denouement to keep the audience’s attention. For the story to feel complete, of course, there must be a denouement (an opportunity to see our characters enjoying the fruits of their victories). This can be dramatized, but, for the sake of brevity, can also be covered quickly via a few lines of narration. The clear advantage of this is that it allows the listener to quickly exit the story after the moment of highest dramatic interest, maintaining the climax as the focus of the story.

   NARRATOR: A few days later, Alice and Jim sit on the balcony overlooking the park and toasting the memory of the friends they lost to the monster of sixth street…

In each case above, narration is useful as a means of establishing context and then getting out of the way of the key elements of the dramatic presentation. It is effectively a time-saving way to get to the most interesting (from an audience’s point of view) moments in the story by compressing the least interesting (descriptive) elements. Where time is not a factor, a more leisurely approach is of course quite legitimate and the scene setting, transition, and closure can all be handled with sound and dramatic dialog. But, even here, it is no crime to opt for brevity through narration. After all, our audiences are hardly likely to object if we use the tools available to us to quickly focus their attention on the most interesting dramatic moments in the story and minimize the time spent on less important things.

CONCLUSION

Does narration destroy the illusion of immersion? Sometimes, but often no more than a clunky piece of scene-setting dramatic dialog, or a difficult to interpret soundscape. The extent to which immersion is broken varies from listener to listener as well. Perhaps I’ll leave the last word to Erik Barnouw, who wrote, back in 1947, …

Some producers feel that a narrator injected into the middle of the program “spoils the illusion.” This is doubtful. An illusion, after all, is not something foisted on the listener against his will.

Some debates are, simply, never-ending. As a writer, I feel its best to choose the tool that I feel is right for the job and wield it with as much expertise as I can, without discarding it simply because it has been used badly in the past.

This article is © 2017 by Philip Craig Robotham – all rights reserved.

What’s your view on narration?  Do you agree?  Do you disagree?  Let me know in the comments below.

The post In Defense of (limited) Narration appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

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 the means by which they are attempting to achieve them when they set out to declare actions.

3. Adjudication – the ability to determine the difficulty, skill to be employed, and the result of an attempted action and the consequences that follow from success or failure.

These skills must be mastered to run a game and, thankfully, they are pretty easy to learn. They basically require you to explain the current situation to the players, ask the players for their actions (and roll dice if necessary), and explain the results of those actions to the players – that basic exchange again. Not hard at all (especially if you have a pre-published module with all this information readily at hand). The more you practice this basic exchange the better you will become at it. The remaining skills (discussed in the remainder of this section of the guide) explain and build on these foundational skills to help you become a better GM.

Game Fundamentals

The fundamentals of running a game are fairly straightforward. The key skills are narration (including roleplaying), adjudication, and pacing (and a bunch of special cases such as introducing scenes, transitioning scenes, concluding scenes, and communicating the results of actions). A further skill is that of improvisation – an essential though advanced skill for managing those moments where the players depart radically from the game you had planned. Each of these skills is considered in detail in future sections of this volume. For now, it is enough to master the basic game interaction…

Tell the players why and where they are. Start at the first scene of the game and describe what happens (Introduce, Narrate, and Role-play).

Ask the players what they wish to do (Query). Make sure you understand what they are intending to accomplish and how.

Figure out the results (Adjudicate) and communicate what happens to the players (Resolve).

Describe the new scene that results (Transition) and keep doing this over and over (Maintain the pace and tone).

When the game reaches its conclusion (the players have achieved what they set out to – or failed) sum up what has happened, thank everyone for coming, and bring the game to a close (Conclude).

Your very First Session

If you are a brand new GM, then this section is specifically for you.

Without meaning to discourage you inordinately, you need to understand from the outset that you will run a bad game to start with. This is perfectly normal and should take most of the pressure you are feeling off you. The first time you ride a bike it is wobbly and you have a high chance of crashing. The first time you run a roleplaying game, it is likely to be bad (at least by comparison to the games run by people with experience). The good news is that your players will probably have a good time anyway. Most players are highly forgiving of someone sitting down in the GM’s chair for the first time.

To make your first game manageable, give it a limited duration – a single session (of three to four hours) with an endpoint that you are not going to go beyond – and tell your players.

Provide the players with pre-generated characters. For your first game, you don’t want to be looking up rules relating to character abilities on the fly. By using pre-generated characters you avoid this frustration and can concentrate on running the game for characters whose abilities you understand and have had time to prepare. The process of creating a handful of characters can also be a good way to introduce yourself to the rules and how they work. It also helps the players keep from getting attached to the characters (making it easier to limit the game to a single session).

Lastly, use a pre-published module or scenario (like “The Temple of the Vetalla” included in this volume) for your first game. If you’re a new GM you want to make it easy to concentrate on learning the fundamentals of running a gaming session. The design of a game from the ground up is an advanced skill that you don’t want to be distracted with, the first time you sit down to run a game. And a pre-published module lets you do this. Players are also more likely to blame the module for the quality of the game than they are to hold you accountable. And it will be easier to say “no” when players deviate too far from what you can manage during the game.

Make sure you communicate all of this to your players (limited time, pre-generated characters, and pre-published module) so that they are committed to playing the same game you are going to run.

The next point is obvious. Get to know the rules of the game and get to know the module you are planning to run. Understand the rules in their basic form, but also revise a few areas in detail. Specifically, revise the section on getting things done, combat, and magic.

Be sure to read the module through in detail. Read it all the way through at least once and be sure to skim it as near to the game’s start as you can. You’ll know you’ve read it enough if you can explain to yourself, out loud, the basic run-down of what happens in the module during play.

This volume relies heavily on the work of Scott Rehm, Justin Alexander, Brian Christopher Misiaszek, Mike Bourke, Blair Ramage, Saxon Brenton, Robin Laws, John Wick, Wolfgang Baur, Ken Hite, Monte Cooke, Kevin Crawford, Phil Vecchione, and Walt Ciechanowski.

This chapter of the Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama RPG and all associated content (except where noted above) is © copyright weirdworldstudios.com and Philip Craig Robotham 2016 and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written permission of the author.

HYOOTRD Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide – Part 1 – Running a Game

• Chapter 1: The Job of the GM (gathering a table, player types, and ensuring fun)
• Chapter 2: Preliminaries (the three fundamental skills, and your first session)
• Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 1 (the opening scene and narration)
• Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 2 (querying and adjudication)
• Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 3 (resolving actions, managing tropes, transitioning, concluding, and preparing future sessions)
• Chapter 4: Managing the Mini-Games (combat, chases, and social actions)
• Chapter 5: Maintaining Pace and Tone (managing time and policing the tone)
• Chapter 6: Improvising (improvising the story and the rules – for all the times the players do something unexpected)
• Chapter 7 & 8: Getting Feedback and Conclusion (improving your game)

HYOOTRD Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide – Part 2 – Designing Games

• Chapter 9: Scene Design
• Chapter 10: NPC, Monster, Faction, and Villain Design
• Chapter 11: Dilemmas, Obstacles, Exits, and Clues
• Chapter 12: Plot (scenario, sandbox, critical path, and the interaction between story and choice)
• Chapter 13: Structures: The five-room dungeon (and variations)
• Chapter 14: Structures: The sandbox (the town or city)
• Chapter 15: Structures: The sandbox (the wilderness)
• Chapter 16: Structures: The Scenario
• Chapter 17: Structures: The Campaign

The post FUNDAMENTALS – CHAPTER 2 – HYOOTRD RPG GMs GUIDE appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio 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 pre-requisites for completing this lesson.

You will need a group of short summaries of well-known fairy-tales, fables, and myths.

At the end of this lesson you will be able to…

·        Adapt a story (familiar fairytale, fable, or myth) into a 3 act radio script

·        Develop each scene around its central conflict to give the story interest and pace.

·        Format your script to include directions regarding casting, narration, dialog, scene transitions, sound effects, and music.

• Introduction to speech (in particular narration)
  • Avoiding long narrations
    • Proxy listener
    • Split narration
  • First person narration
    • Stream of consciousness
    • Types of third person narration
  • The narrator in the script
• Introduction to speech (in particular dialog)
  • The vanishing character
    • The vanishing character utilised for dramatic purposes
    • The vanishing character utilised for comedy
    • Summary on the vanishing character
  • The number of characters
  • Dialog positions
  • Script length
  • Choice of words
  • Choice of names
  • Dialog Directions
  • Dialog Punctuation
  • An Experiment in radio dialog
• Routine Technique
  • The opening
    • The first narration
      • Multi-voiced introductions
      • semi-dramatised introductions
    • The scene setting moment
      • Atmospheric dialog
      • Overlapping of narration and scene
      • Keeping the setting alive
      • Dramatic Scene Structure
  • Scene shifting
    • The pause
      • Advantages
      • Disadvantages
    • Narration
      • Advantages
      • Disadvantages
    • Sound Effect Transitions
      • Advantages
      • Disadvantages
    • Musical Transitions
      • Advantages
      • Disadvantages
    • Combination Transitions
      • Advantages
      • Disadvantages
    • A note on consistency in transitions
    • Conventional symbols
    • Dialogue on the move (simulating movement on radio)
      • Fade out Fade in
      • The Moving Mic
  • The Radio Climax
  • Closing a radio drama (the radio close)
    • Narration in closing
    • Music in closing

Act

One of the main divisions of a dramatic work.

Action (New Goal)

A plan to be implemented in pursuit of a modified goal that usually leads to a new scene.

Antagonist

The character, characters, or even environment that sets itself in opposition to the characters.

Cast

The characters to be represented in a dramatic work and the actors who will play them.

Climax

The high point of tension in a story, the place where the final confrontation happens.

Close

The ending to a radio play.

Comedy

Programs dedicate to exploring humor (often in the form of the sketch, joke, or situation comedy).

Conflict

The pitting of one persons goals against another that creates interest and tension within a scene.

Denouement

The wrap up to a story, wherein we get to see the characters enjoying the results of their adventure before the story ends.

Dialog

Conversation (internal or external) intended to carry a play forwards.

Dilemma

In dramatic terms this is the character’s reasoned self talk and evaluation of the available options in response to an event.

Direction

Instructions concerning the timing and delivery of dialog, sound effects, music etc.

Disaster

Any event which frustrates a character’s attempt to achieve a goal.

Drama

Tension, usually between characters, or between characters and their surroundings, that creates desire in the listener to “find out what happens”.

Emotional reaction

The emotional reaction follows the physical reaction to an event. A person might jump with fright and then register the emotion of fear.

Event

An event is anything that happens in a story to provoke a response from the characters.

Fade in

An effect whereby sound or music starts softly and then gradually increase its volume.

Fade out

An effect whereby sound or music starts at normal volume and then gradually decreases its volume.

First narration

The first use of the narrator in a radio play, usually to introduce the play itself.

First person perspective

The story narrated from the protagonists viewpoint (using “I” as in “I walked into the bar and had to duck as a bottle crashed into the wall beside my head”).

Goal

Anything a character may be said to want enough to take action to obtain.

Inciting incident

The event which introduces change, and requires the protagonist to embark upon the story.

Involuntary reaction

An involuntary reaction is the reflex physical response that occurs when someone encounters an event (for example jumping in fright).

Motivation Reaction Unit

A term that describes the psychological relationship in time between a stimulus, the physical reflexive response to it, the emotional sequel to the reflex, and then the cognitive volitional response that follows.

Narration

Verbal description provided for the audience (usually to bring the audience up to date on past episodes, set a scene, or introduce or conclude a play).

Obstacle

Anything that prevents a character from obtaining a goal.

Opening

The way a play begins.

Point of no return

The point in the plot where the protagonist’s bridges are burned behind them and they must either go forward or fail.

Protagonist

The individual who the story is about.

Proxy Listener

A character who’s purpose is to speak for and on behalf of the listener, asking the questions the listener might wish to ask etc.

Reaction

The reflexive physical, emotional, and cognitive response to an event.

Resistance

The things which characters do to resist the changes brought into their lives by the events of the plot.

Reversal

The moment when everything goes wrong, the characters appear doomed, and all is lost.

Rising tension

The ratcheting up of the suspense and tension as the obstacles placed before the main characters grow increasingly more difficult in the lead up to the reversal.

Scene setting

Establishing a scene through description, dialog, or action.

Script

The manuscript or one of various copies of the written text of a play, motion picture, or radio or television broadcast.

Second person perspective

The story narrated from the listener’s viewpoint (using “You” as in “You walk into the bar and have to duck as a bottle crashes into the wall beside your head”).

Sound FX

Ambient sounds intended to evoke the environment in which the characters are acting.

Sting

Musical or sound based punctuation (dramatic chords, etc.) that are used to help evoke an emotional response (laughter, fear, shock etc.).

Stream of consciousness

The continuous flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings forming the content of an individual’s consciousness

Third person perspective

The story narrated from an outsider’s viewpoint (using “He” or “She” as in “He walked into the bar and had to duck as a bottle crashed into the wall beside his head”).

Third person limited perspective

The story narrated from an outsider’s viewpoint but limited to one character’s point of view (eg. “Jack walked into the bar and had to duck as a bottle crashed into the wall beside his head. He couldn’t tell where the missile had come from.”

Third person omniscient perspective

The story narrated from an outsider’s viewpoint without being limited to any one character’s point of view (eg. “Jack walked into the bar and had to duck as a bottle crashed into the wall beside his head. He couldn’t tell where the missile had come from. Meanwhile, Terry, sitting in a dark corner at the back cursed his imprecise aim.”

Voluntary reaction

Voluntary reactions are rational actions driven by the engagement of our reason and faculty for choice. They follow the involuntary physical and emotional reactions to the event.

Walla

Background sound belonging to the environment (for example, the sounds of a busy street) – usually intended to help set a scene.

NA

NA

Story telling is a unique feature of human existence. As far as we know, no other creature in the universe creates stories to tell. The telling of stories in audio drama format activates the imagination and brings great rewards to the listener, but it is also an extremely satisfying form or artistic expression in and of itself.

The spoken word has existed for centuries as a medium for the telling of stories. It creates pictures in our minds that the most special effects laden movies of our era would struggle to create easily. It is not constrained by location, the laws of physics, special effects budgets or any of the mundane things that tend to bog down visual drama. If you can imagine a talking sub-atomic molecule on the other side of the galaxy then you can create it for your listener using the spoken word.

In this lesson we are going to harness the power of speech to adapt and create our own stories. We’ll be using basic and familiar fairytales, fables, and myths as the raw material we work from but once you master the skills involved, you will be able to tell any story using these techniques.

Here are some questions to get you started…

Have you ever tried to write a play? What challenges do you think the task provides?

What unique challenges do you think creating a play for the ears provides?

What rewards do you think you might get out of constructing your own play?

Introduction to Speech (in particular Narration)

Narration is avoided in visual forms of theatre, but in audio, while not essential, can still be very helpful.

The narrator provides editorial comment, introductions, recaps and occasional scene setting.

Avoiding long narrations

It is important that narration not be overlong if it is to hold the attention of the listener. There are two common devices that are used to break up long narration sections.

Proxy listener

The proxy listener is there with the narrator and represents the listening audience. This extra character interrupts with questions, comments, etc. during the narration and so, breaks it up. The disadvantage of the proxy listener is that the character must receive air-time even when the narration is of such a length that they are, strictly speaking, not required.

The proxy listener can also be used to comic effect (as a kind of nuisance questioner) and also as a point of identification for the audience (where the proxy listener is the same age or sex as the desired audience).

Split narration

Split narration is another means of breaking long stretches of narration. In this device various voices take over the narration in a form of vocal relay race. Multiple narrators can be used to differentiate sections of the narration or present differing viewpoints.

New voices can be added where the desire is to make clear an enumeration or list (one voice for each list entry).

A new voice might be used to identify a quotation or several voices might be used to identify a series of quotations.

First person narration

First person narration can be a particularly effective form. The first person narrator has more of a stake in the story (being a part of it) and gives the narration a greater emotional impact. The first person narrator is also speaking directly to the audience (creating a strong emotional connection), inviting them inside the story in the role of a friend.

When first person narration is used the listener rarely feels that the narration is interrupting the story.

Stream of consciousness

Stream of consciousness is the narration of thoughts as they pass through the mind of the narrating character. This can acquire quite a dramatic intensity.

Other guises for first-person narration

First-person narration assumes many other guises in radio. A letter, or group of letters, diaries, addresses to the jury, deathbed confessions, messages to posterity etc. have also worked well.

Types of third-person narration

Generally speaking audio writers prefer characterised to uncharacterised narrators (that is a narrator who is a character). However, the nameless narrator is still used successfully.

The narrator in the script

Typically the narrator bears that label. If the narrator is a character and has a name, then the name is used.

Introduction to Speech (in particular Dialog)

Dialog is the chief tool of the dramatist.  It nonetheless has some special problems.

The vanishing character

For characters to stay alive in the mind of the audience they must speak.  Remarks to or about a character may help, but only speech brings the character to life.  This is why long speeches are often broken up with interjections.

The vanishing character utilised for dramatic purpose

In a story with a mute character the absence of voice can create a disconcerting vacuum – something particularly frightening in the case of the silent burglar or kidnapper who never speaks.

The vanishing character utilised for comedy

In comedy, where the world need not be realistic at all, the sudden intrusion of a voice that the audience was previously unaware of can add extra punch to a gag.

Summary on the vanishing character

Except in the case of special effects, comic or frightening, characters in an audio play must usually be kept alive in the listeners imagination through frequent speech.

The number of characters

It is important that the characters in a scene be distinguishable.  As such, it is usual for the voices to be differentiated in casting into one of five (or six and even seven, on occasion) identifiable types;

Bass                       – Heavy/Elderly male

Contralto             – Elderly female

Baritone              – Leading man

Mezzo-soprano – Leading woman

Tenor                    – Juvenile

Soprano               – Ingenue

Trebble                – Child

While such general patterns are helpful (and scenes are generally restricted to four or five contrasting characters at a time) it is not helpful to apply completely hard and fast rules on the subject (for example you can distinguish two otherwise similar voices quite easily with the addition of a foreign accent, or a speech quirk).  Sometimes it is important for two baritone voices to interact.  The intonation and expressive range of the actors can easily carry this… but it is still helpful to avoid putting two of the same type of voices into a group scene.  Sometimes, equally, it is of little importance whether the voices can be quickly distinguished (such as in an anonymous crowd scene).

Because of the importance of distinguishing voices in audio, the cast tends to be smaller than in other dramatic works.

Dialog positions

Dialog is normally assumed to occur at the microphone.  Terms like AT A DISTANCE, APPROACHING, DEPARTING, FADE IN, FADE OUT etc. tend to indicate those occasions when the character moves away from the microphone.  One special instruction relates to SCREAMS, SHOUTS, or CALLS OUT.  In this case the speaker raises their chin to the ceiling and shouts the lines.

Script length

Dialog is delivered on average at 150 words per minute.  A line will average about three seconds or twenty lines per minute.

In a fifteen-minute program, comprising of thirteen minutes of actual dialog, you can expect to write approximately two thousand words.

It is far easier to cut an overlong passage than it is to pad an over-short one.

When faced with cutting dialog from a scene, ask yourself…

(1)    Does the cut version cover the essential facts?

(2)    Which rhythm do you prefer?

(3)    Does the cutting sharpen the focus and clarify the main point of the scene?

(4)    Is the cut too severe?  Does it render the scene empty of character?

Choice of words

Avoid using difficult-to-pronounce, unfamiliar, or esoteric terms.  It is easy for the listener to get lost (and the listener’s pleasure ends the moment they are lost).  It can also be very difficult for the actor to manage complicated words.  An audio script needs to be easy to read and the words must roll off the tongue, particularly where being performed live.

Choice of names

Names which are difficult to picture or easily confused with other words (consider “you” and “Hugh” in a sentence) or the use of multiple names for the same character (nicknames for example being used in the same play as the character’s right name) should be avoided.  The risk of confusion is too great, especially considering that characters in an audio drama address each other by name more than characters in any other entertainment form (book, stage, or screen).

Dialog directions

Keep directions to the actor to a minimum.  Only use a direction where the line is to be read in a manner different than would otherwise normally be expected.  Keep the directions short so they can be instantly absorbed and acted upon by the actor delivering the line.  When a direction is called for identify it with bracketed capitals eg. (ANGRILY).

Dialog punctuation

Audio dramas often punctuate according to the pacing of the delivery rather than grammatical function or construction.  Three dots or the term (BEAT) are often inserted to indicated a pause or momentary hesitation in the dialog.

An experiment in Radio Dialog

During a movie or television program close your eyes for some time.  At the point you become lost consider which of the following causes is to blame: Didn’t know who was talking… Didn’t know whom he or she was talking to… Didn’t know where they were… Didn’t know quite what they were doing… Too many people all mixed up.

This game should develop an alertness for the various pitfalls of radio dialog: unidentified characters, characters who have “died”, too many characters, unidentified sounds, scenes, actions.

After ascertaining the reason for the confusion, open your eyes until oriented again and repeat the process.

Routine Technique

There are a number of routine techniques employed in the construction of an effective audio script: (1) The Opening; (2) The First Narration; (3) The Scene Setting Moment; (4) Keeping the Setting Alive; (5) Scene Shifting; (6) Dialogue on the Move; (7) The Radio Climax; (8) The Closing.

We’ll be looking at each in turn, but for this week we’ll restrict ourselves to the opening.

The Opening

Radio shows select their listeners. In the golden age of radio it was the job of the opening to, in as succinct and straight-to-the-point a way as possible, invite listeners to give their attention to the show.

All three of the tools – sound effects, music and speech – are available for the purpose.

Sound effects can instantly suggest a characteristic setting or activity.

Music is essential to suggesting the essential mood of a program.

Speech communicates immediate, attention grabbing information (and is usually essential).

They are also useful in combination or rapid alternation.

A typical pattern might be to

1) Divide the information into at least two separate doses,

2) Divided by a brief appetite sharpener of mood-suggesting music or scene-suggesting sound effects.

The key feature of the early radio show openings was brevity. They would begin abruptly with an extremely compact opening that identified the show as quickly as possible before diving into the action.

Many shows had an ending that echoed the opening in some way providing a framework for the telling of each episode.

Of course you may be writing for a show with an existing framework in place. In this case there is no need to write one for yourself.

The first narration

Immediately following the opening comes the first narration, and introductory passage about what’s coming. It usually contains the where, when, and who of the story to follow.

The most frequently encountered form of this introduction is an announcement or straight narration. Nonetheless a variety of forms can be applied.

Multi-voiced introductions

You can split the first narration up among a number of voices, establishing characters quickly along with other required information.

Semi-dramatized introductions

In this case, a piece or two dialogue is inserted to underline and illustrate the narrative.

The lead-in for serials is a special case and will be examined later.

The scene setting moment

The scene setting moment is concerned with the transition from the first narration to actual dialog.

The crucial need of this moment is to create an immediate sense of the reality of the scene.

Some scenes set themselves with little effort because of their familiarity ( a train station or police headquarters for example).

Other scenes may require more assistance.

A scene-setting sound

Sounds can provide sudden dynamic evidence of a physical world. Adding the click of a typewriter to the mention of a newspaper office, or a car horn to a street scene helps establish it solidly in the listener’s imagination.

Atmospheric Dialog

The narrator can employ a few well-chosen words for the establishment of a scene as well, describing the warm breeze blowing through the grass that stretches across the park through which our protagonists are taking a walk. Our protagonists then spend a moment or two commenting on the nice weather etc. in order to further cement the scene for the listener.

Obvious versus implied scene-setting

Serials often begin with an obvious scene setting moment; “… Today we find our heroes at …”

No words are wasted and the action gets underway immediately.

Less obviously the scene is established by the dialog of the characters and underlined by the sound design.

Eg.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS AND BITTER WIND IS HEARD BLOWING. DOOR CLOSES, CUTTING OFF WIND AS JIM ENTERS THE ROOM.

JIM: It’s damn cold outside today Bob. How’re things in your lab.

BOB: It’s a biologist’s nightmare Jim. The three white mice are so cold their chattering teeth sound like a craps game on a tin roof. And my goldfish, Chester? Well, he’s so cold he’s turned blue. How’re things over in administration?

Here the essential information (cold, biologist, lab, mice, goldfish, Bob, administration, and Jim) is given to the listener indirectly yet very effectively via the sound and dialog. We’ve learned the scene takes place in a biology lab, that Jim is a biologist and has mice and goldfish on hand, and that Bob is from administration

Overlapping of narration and scene

This can be a little complex to describe so I’ll give an example. It’s a technique that allows you to use a sound effect (or occasionally music) to overlap the narration with the new scene.

For example

NARRATOR: On the mean streets of Star City crime is an ever present reality.

SOUND: POLICE SIRENS IN THE DISTANCE – GROWING NEARER. FADE IN AND REMAIN UNDER.

NARRATOR: On this particular winter’s night Police Detective Jack Wilson and his partner are engaged in a high speed chase with a murder suspect.

SOUND: BRING SIRENS UP AND ENGINE NOISE – MUFFLED AS FROM INTERIOR OF CAR. ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

SOUND: SQUEAL TIRES – LET IT FINISH.

JACK: Damn Phil, don’t get us killed!

PHIL: Sorry, Jack, but he’s getting away!

Keeping the setting alive

Without cues to keep us in the moment, our mental picture of the setting of a scene will fade and recede. In long scenes it is therefore sometimes necessary to revive this image.

The writer can do this through dialog; commenting on the room or location etc.

Generally speaking, this is better accomplished through the use of a sound effect. The effect is unobtrusive and repaints the picture in a single stroke.

Here the use of the sound effect is the equivalent to the way in which a book writer inserts a descriptive moment into the middle of dialog in order to reinforce the picture in the reader’s mind.

Dramatic Scene Structure

Typically a dramatic scene is made up of six parts that are arranged in two sections.

The first presents the situation.

1. The scene establishes the protagonists goal and answers the question why is the character here and what does he/she want?
2. It presents a conflict and answers the question who or what is trying to prevent the character from achieving this goal and how?
3. It presents a disaster that thwarts the character in a devastating way.

The second section presents the reaction

1. The character reacts to the disaster at a reflexive then emotional level.
2. The character then reviews the options available and tries to predict the possible outcomes.
3. The character makes a decision (choosing a new goal) that leads directly to the next scene.

It is important to remember that a character’s reaction ALWAYS occurs in this order;

• reflex (eg. the physical jump that occurs after a boo scare),
• emotion (eg. the recognition of the actual emotional feeling of fear which follows the jump),
• rational thought (eg. the engagement of rational thought to deal with the source of the scare).

Because it can be difficult to develop each of these six elements of the scene with a single character, it is often better to have two protagonists who can act as a sounding board for each other. A character who must talk to him or herself in order to reveal their inner emotional reactions is far less satisfying to the audience than a pair of characters in dialog.

Example Scene (Structural Summary)

Scene: Police Detective Ray and Sunshine are sent out to the scene of what they hope will be a straightforward murder investigation. The neighbours heard a husband and wife fighting loudly, screams, and then saw the husband drive rapidly away.

1. Goal: Arriving at the scene they find the Medical Examiner already there. They want to wrap the investigation up quickly and go get some lunch.

2. Conflict: The medical examiner doesn’t like the way the scene looks and tries to convince them they should look more closely.

3. Disaster: They find a stabbed and badly beaten little girl in the cupboard, bleeding and left for dead. She saw everything and manages to say “It wasn’t daddy, it was daddy’s friend…” before slipping into a coma induced by blood-loss.

4. Reaction: Jump with fright on opening the cupboard, followed by sympathy on seeing the little girl and frustration that things aren’t going to be nearly so cut and dried as the Detectives would have liked.

5. Exploring the options. The detectives discuss whether the girl should be believed, the fact that the husband/father still needs to be brought in for questioning, the fact that the M.E who also saw and heard the girl wouldn’t let them ignore her statement even if they wanted to, and whether they can still take time out for lunch.

6. Decision and new goal. “So much for open and shut! I guess we’ll have to investigate.”

Scene Shifting

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).

Narration

Sometimes the transition from one scene to another is handled by a narrator saying something like “Meanwhile, three miles out of town camping in a dried up creek bed the Dalton gang plan their next move”.

Narration doesn’t quite provide the effect of a curtain on its own so the fade out of the old scene is usually still needed. Generally only a three to five word fade is required (unlike the pause transition which requires a longer fade).

Advantages

The story doesn’t need to halt when a narrator aids the transition. The pause between dialogue and narration can be almost negligibly short.

Narration-transitions come in at full volume and do not needed to be faded in.

Narration also allows the writer to introduce fast and frequent changes of scene.

Disadvantages

The narrator can be used in a clumsy manner if a proxy-listener character must be brought to the foreground. Transitions are better handled by the narrator alone rather than the narrator in dialogue with a proxy-listener.

Some folks feel narration breaks the sense of immersion built up by the dialogue. This is not necessarily the case since the listener participates actively in maintaining the illusion of being present on the scene.

The above point is very controversial for some folks (many producers of modern audio drama are highly vocal in their dislike of narration in general). Personally I enjoy it, even if I don’t use it much in my own scripts.

Sound Effect Transitions

Particularly useful in action drama, the sound effect makes a great means of shifting the scene. As with the pause transition, it works best when the setting of the new scene is foreshadowed by the concluding words of the old. It is also more effective where the sound background is repeated/repetitive (as such sounds can be faded out easily without creating confusion).

For example, a protagonist ends a scene by mentioning the need to catch a train (fading out), the sound of the train is introduced (fading in), and the conductor asks for tickets or calls “all aboard” as the sound is faded into the background.

Advantages

Where the fade-in has been handled by the sound effect, dialog can come in at full volume and get right down to business.

The sound effect transition is also a very quick transition. In some cases it can even overlap a scene (particularly useful for flashbacks)

Disadvantages

The sound effect transition tends to work best in action stories and doesn’t lend itself particularly well to stories with a home atmosphere.

The sound effect transition also works best where the effect is created through an ongoing background noise (such as an engine, background babble of a theatre or restaurant etc. that can be faded in and out).

Musical Transitions

This is probably the most common form of transition used in audio drama.  It is probably the clearest form of auditory “curtain” used between scenes

Advantages

A musical transition is easily recognised as a curtain by the listener.

The musical transition can be varied to commuinicate a particular mood (anger, joy, triumph, despair, etc.) as well as signal the end of a scene.

Bridging musical transitions can move the audience from the feeling of one scene into the mood of the next (assisting in the narration).

A musical transition can be used without requiring the old scene to be faded out.

Dialog in the new scene does not need to be faded in.

Music can transition into the sound of the next scene where the sound effect carries a similar rythm.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of the musical transition is the cost of commissioning the music itself.   However, there are large libraries of free and public domain music that can be approached for pre-recorded music.

Combination Transitions

A combination transition is a complex transition in which sound, music, and narration are combined to curtain the scene.

Advantages

By combining transition techniques the shift between one scene and another can be made much more immersive and dramatic.

Disadvantages

Complex transitions of this type, if not directed carefully, can be very confusing for the audience.

A note on consistency in transitions

Never feel constrained to use one and only one transition. Non-naturalistic transitions (like music and narration) should probably be established early, but transitions are tools and should be selected for their contribution to the telling of your story and not for the sake of consistency.

Conventional Symbols

Some sounds have taken on a conventional meaning over time. The slidewhistle and chime both can indicate a magical occurance. The chinese gong or cymbal crash often indicates a dramatic transition. A harp glissando often indicates the shifting of time (into the past and backagain) for flashbacks etc. Be careful of using these conventions, however. Their very popularity has made them into something of a cliche.

Dialogue on the Move (simulating movement on radio)

Characters can move from place to place while engaged in dialog. There are two techniques which can help to sell the idea that movement is occuring during conversation.

Fade out Fade in

One way to achieve this is to fade the conversation out and then back in to suggest the movement (the actors moving away from, and then back towards, the microphone). The audience members identify themselves with a fixed point in one location, listening to the conversation depart, and then with a fixed point in the new location, listening as the conversation approaches.

The Moving Mike

The second way to achieve this effect is to use sound effects to give the impression of movement. Going from inside to outside one might keep the actors voices level in the foreground but include the sound of footsteps, a door opening, and fade in the sound of bird noises etc to indicate the outdoors are being approached.

The Radio Climax

Unlike the stage where it is possible to give the spotlight to one particular party in a conflict at the climax, radio rarely has this luxury. The need to keep both parties to the conflict “alive” in the minds of the audience usually requires the writer to include shorter and shorter speeches, of increasingly dramatic delivery to build the necessary impact and heat.

Of course, there are a variety of ways to maintain the tension; someone sobbing throughout the speech or constantly attempting to interrupt it with more and more desperation would also work.

Closing a Radio Drama (the Radio Close)

A denoument scene can be written whereby the characters bring the drama to a close through dialog, but this is not the only means of closing a drama.

Narration in closing

Narration can be very helpful as a means of presenting the close of a drama.

It can shorten the anti-climax period since it is more economical than dialog.

It allows us to leave the drama at a point of high interest dialog in order to maximise its impact.

It gives us a chance to skip the story forward directly into later days and years.

Music in closing

Music is an essential curtain for the drama. It signals the end of the drama, provides a place for the credits to be read out along with any final sponsorship messages, and can be gradually snuck into the closing moments of the story, swelling when the end is accomplished, to help audiences prepare for the inevitable conclusion of the play.

What is the purpose of narration in an audio drama?

Describe three different narration techniques?

What is “the vanishing character”? How may it be utilised?

What advice does the lesson content give regarding the number of characters and choice of character names?

What are the six elements of a typical scene?

Describe the advantages and disadvantages of three different transition techniques?

Adapting a story for audio dramatization

This exercise is based on a twenty five to thirty minute script. You can easily adapt it for shorter scripts, though.

Decide on the length of script you wish the students to produce.

Select a story to adapt

Grimm’s fairytales, Aesop’s Fables, and numerous Greek and other myths are in the public domain and can be easily obtained on line. We have included a number on our website (in this handy .pdf located at http://weirdworldstudios.com/download/fairytales-fables-folk-stories-and-myths-a-resource-for-lesson-6-of-audio-drama-for-schools/ that you can reproduce and/or distribute to your class.

Look for stories with a standard structure. The character should be introduced, be given a goal, encounter obstacles, face a major set-back, confront the source of the obstacles, overcome the source of the conflict (by winning or losing), and be changed as a result.

Provide each student with a copy of the original story.

Analyse the story

Have students read the story and identify its structure.

Summarize the story with the class as a series of events written in simple, complete, present-tense sentences.

Label these sentences with the corresponding story structures (inciting incident, point of no return, reversal, etc).

Add any details as needed.

Where there are gaps have the students invent events or characters to fill them. The following worksheet will be useful for completing this task.

Divide the summary into scenes

Each scene may contain more than one item from the list.

A scene is a series of events taking place in a single location for a single continuous duration. Even if the location does not change, it is better to consider events that take place after a shift in time as constituting a new scene.

Narration was, until recently, considered a handy tool for the creation of audio drama. In recent years, however, it has fallen distinctly out of favour. Some feel it breaks the illusion and immersiveness of the drama to have a voice over introduce a scene or play. Others feel it breaks down the distinction between and audio drama and an audio book.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of narration as a tool in the audio dramatist’s toolbox?

Does it break the listener out of the story?

Does it turn drama into a mere prose reading of the story?

The tools in your audio drama tool box are yours to apply according to how appropriate you feel they are to the telling of your stories.

Is narration a tool you want to make use of?

Write the Script

Analyse each scene

Describe the setting (where and when and what items/props are present).

List the characters that are present. What goals do the characters in the scene have – why do they want to achieve them? How do they try to achieve them?

What happens in the scene (look at the events for the scene)?

Each scene should have a goal, obstacle, setback, reaction, exploration of options, and decision leading into the next scene.

List the sound effects the scene may need?

The following worksheet may be helpful …

Write the Scene

Instruct students to write the dialog for each scene. Ask them to ensure all relevant events are covered. Insert directions for sound effects, music and transitions as required.

Revise the Scene

Instruct students to review and revise each scene until they are happy with the result. Check for spelling and other errors.

Format the script

Instruct students to make sure the script is formatted appropriately (lines numbered, scenes labelled, dialog and directions formatted, Sfx and music highlighted correctly etc.).

Remind them to perform a read through of the script to identify any final problems.

For assessment:

Students are to submit a 25 to 30 minute script adapting a fairytale, fable, or myth for audio presentation. The final script must include all necessary directions for sound and music and conform to appropriate script format. (approx. 4000 words)

Writing your own audio script is quite an accomplishment in itself, and hearing it performed is even better. In these lessons we’ve examined the science behind radio, its history leading to the development of radio drama, the appreciation of radio drama, reading audio drama, performing audio drama, and the writing of audio drama scripts. Audio drama is still alive and well as an art form and is currently achieving a significant resurgence in popularity (especially on-line). You can check out many of the great Old Time shows as well as find links to fantastic new shows on the www.weirdworldstudios.com website.

Narration must be short or, when unavoidable, broken up to hold attention.

Because audio drama is not a visual medium, the presence of a character is indicated only by their speech. As such they can quickly be forgotten if they do not have dialog to keep them present in the listeners mind.

A variety of common techniques are used to open the play, establish the scenes and transition between them, and close the play.

Scenes have six general components (the character goal, a conflict, a disaster, a reaction, an exploration of options, and a decision leading to the next scene).

To adapt a story the writer needs to analyse the original material and fit it to the typical story macro-structure (adding or subtracting material where necessary) – 3 acts, inciting incident, initial obstacle, raising the stakes, point of no return, rising tension, (optionally) redirection, (optionally) rising tension again, reversal, final confrontation, and denoument.

The story is then broken into scenes and each scene should be conformed to the scene micro-structure – goal, conflict, disaster, reaction, exploring the options, decision.

Each scene is then written, complete with dialog, SFX, and musical directions. The final product is revised, formatted appropriately, read for final changes, and submitted.

What are the basic elements of 3 act story structure?

What are the six basic elements of a scene?

What techniques are used to introduce, set the scene for, transition, and close an audio drama?

What are the steps you used to write your own script?

This was the final lesson in this unit.

The content of this lesson is copyright © 2015 Weirdworldstudios.com

Lessons

• Lesson 1 : The Science Behind Radio
• Lesson 2 : The History of Commercial Radio
• Lesson 3 : Appreciating Radio Drama
• Lesson 4 : Reading Radio Drama Scripts
• Lesson 5 : Performing Radio Drama
• Lesson 6 : Scripting Radio Drama

Worked Example (Radio Adaptation of Rapunzel)

• Appendix : Writer’s Notes on Adapting Rapunzel for Radio
• Example Radio Play (with writer’s notes) : Rapunzel for Schools Episode 1, Gustav the Hunter
• Example Radio Play (with writer’s notes) : Rapunzel for Schools Episode 2, Kidnapping
• Example Radio Play (with writer’s notes) : Rapunzel for Schools Episode 3, Desperate Measures
• Example Radio Play with writer’s notes) : Rapunzel for Schools
• Example Radio Play with writer’s notes) : Rapunzel for Schools Episode 5, Fateful Meeting
• Example Radio Play with writer’s notes) : Rapunzel for Schools Episode 6, Just Desserts

The post Scripting Audio Drama – Audio Drama For Schools Lesson 06 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Routine Technique

The first narration

Immediately following the opening comes the first narration, and introductory passage about what’s coming. It usually contains the where, when, and who of the story to follow.
The most frequently encountered form of this introduction is an announcement or straight narration. Nonetheless a variety of forms can be applied.

Multi-voiced introductions

You can split the first narration up among a number of voices, establishing characters quickly along with other required information.

Semi-dramatized introductions

In this case, a piece or two dialogue is inserted to underline and illustrate the narrative.
The lead-in for serials is a special case and Mr Barnauw’s advice regarding this will be examined later.

If you’d like to see some examples of how the first narration 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

The post Learning from Erik Barnau – Part 8 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Introduction to Speech (in particular Narration)

Narration is avoided in visual forms of theatre, but in audio, while not essential, can still be very helpful.
The narrator provides editorial comment, introductions, recaps and occasional scene setting.

Avoiding long narrations

It is important that narration not be overlong if it is to hold the attention of the listener. There are two common devices that are used to break up long narration sections.

Proxy listener

The proxy listener is there with the narrator and represents the listening audience. This extra character interrupts with questions, comments, etc. during the narration and so, breaks it up. The disadvantage of the proxy listener is that the character must receive air-time even when the narration is of such a length that they are, strictly speaking, not required.
The proxy listener can also be used to comic effect (as a kind of nuisance questioner) and also as a point of identification for the audience (where the proxy listener is the same age or sex as the desired audience).

Split narration

Split narration is another means of breaking long stretches of narration. In this device various voices take over the narration in a form of vocal relay race. Multiple narrators can be used to differentiate sections of the narration or present differing viewpoints.
New voices can be added where the desire is to make clear an enumeration or list (one voice for each list entry).
A new voice might be used to identify a quotation or several voices might be used to identify a series of quotations.

First person narration

First person narration can be a particularly effective form. The first person narrator has more of a stake in the story (being a part of it) and gives the narration a greater emotional impact. The first person narrator is also speaking directly to the audience (creating a strong emotional connection), inviting them inside the story in the role of a friend.
When first person narration is used the listener rarely feels that the narration is interrupting the story.

Stream of consciousness

Stream of consciousness is the narration of thoughts as they pass through the mind of the narrating character. This can acquire quite a dramatic intensity.
Other guises for first-person narration
First-person narration assumes many other guises in radio. A letter, or group of letters, diaries, addresses to the jury, deathbed confessions, messages to posterity etc. have also worked well.

Types of third-person narration

Generally speaking audio writers prefer characterised to uncharacterised narrators (that is a narrator who is a character). However, the nameless narrator is still used successfully.

The narrator in the script

Typically the narrator bears that label. If the narrator is a character and has a name, then the name is used.

If you’d like to see some examples of narration in the scripts we publish be sure to visit http://www.weirdworldstudios.com/products.html. We have some free samples you can download.
See you next time.
– Philip Craig Robotham

The post Learning from Erik Barnouw – Part 5 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.