https://weirdworldstudios.com/tips-keeping-audio-drama-forgotten-memory-audience-focus/ Drama for the dinner table Wed, 01 Mar 2023 16:57:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://weirdworldstudios.com/tips-keeping-audio-drama-forgotten-memory-audience-focus/#comment-3129 Wed, 01 Mar 2023 16:57:32 +0000 http://weirdworldstudios.com/?p=3515#comment-3129 Thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Robotham!
I’m, as usual, in agreement with all of your points.
It makes me wonder if the main purpose of the protagonist (or the main character(s) in a scene) is to cue people into the progress of the story. It reminds me of little theatre (as so much Audio Drama does for me), in that characters on the stage are required along with the sound effects and sets/setting to help develop the mood and identify the stakes that are involved. The “noise” can be especially a problem and multiply with the number of people focused in a scene. If there are four people in a scene with equal focus. Those four people are creating four different points of distraction if not handled well by the writer and the direction of the audio.
I’m currently in process of creating an online tool of the type that I mentioned in the first MAD-CON panel in which writers can draw a quick scene, and provide icons to represent where the characters are (which would aid in panning and movement). As well as an icon to represent where the focus of the “camera/microphone” should be in a scene.
For example, how different is a story when your main character of the scene walks from the left of the hearing spectrum to the right speaking to another character moving from the right to the left, crossing and going the other way, as opposed to both characters walking “together” on the soundscape.
Having a graphic representation of each scene can help clarify movement, voice, and story between the writer and the audio producer.

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