• Production Week 1:  Friday 2nd February – 9th  February

This week we were given our groups and scripts. The lesson begun by going through the first few scenes of each script which allowed us to get a feel of how they might sound and of course which ones we wanted to work on. In the afternoon the roles for the production were explained, the importance of them and what they entitled. We were then told to split into the roles we wanted to get, as DMC student, certain roles were best suited for Radio students which was understandable. We had to think of our First & Second Choice of roles as we might have had to switch around.  My first Choice was Script Editor and my Second Choice was Production Co-Ordinator, those roles seemed most appealing to me.  

Eventually our groups were sorted, my group is called the Drama Darlings. We then discussed the top 3 scripts we wanted to work with. We all wanted to do Coffinated the most which we got. We also chose when we wanted to record, and it was the first recording session on 23rd February in the Afternoon slot. 

My group consists of: 

• Samantha – Producer 
• Faye – Director 
• Clare – Production Co-Ordinator 
• James – Studio Manager 
• Tino (Me) – Script Editor

On Wednesday we met as a group, minus James who couldn’t make it, to discuss anything regarding the script, I had a look at the script before said meeting but found it difficult to find anything that needed drastic changes. Faye had previously made annotations to the script before the meeting that she brought in to discuss with us. The only changes that really needed to be made were addition/subtractions of SFX, not any lines or scenes.  We also spoke about the actors available and had a listen at each of their reels, some of the actors sounded a lot older than we had wanted but we considered their playing age. 

• Production Week 2: Friday 9th – 16th February 

This week I had made the small changes that had been spoken about in the previous week to the script, we also had another meeting to discuss sound effects, how the background would/should sound in different scenes and the possible order of the scenes we would do. We also discussed how certain scenes were going to be done. For example; voiceovers recorded in the booth, scenes heard from within the coffin or scenes heard from outside the coffin.  I finalised the script by the end of the week by adding Page numbers and Line numbers, this way it would be easier and quicker for the actors to go to certain lines if we need to re-do it. 

We also had some studio time this was to help us distinguish how we wanted the actors to be positioned, we especially needed this as our actors needed to sound like they were in an enclosed space, as if they were Coffinated. We worked with the little booth within the studio and brought out the sound boards and we also experimented with mono-mics and stereo-mics. By the end of the session we had decided how close we wanted the actors to be stood to not only each other but the microphones too. 

As we decided to use the booth it would have been hard to communicate between the actors and production crew in the studio as there wouldn’t be a speaker to hear from in their when the door is closed, I was chosen as the middle person to make it easier for the actors to concentrate on the script and to avoid having the others go back and forth between studio and booth which would waste time. 

• Production Week 3: 16th February – 23rd February 

The week of Recording, I had finished the final script and on the 16th by lunch time Clare had sent it to the actors that were booked that afternoon as required. 

Our back-up actress was double confirmed as Clare had gotten an email from Rosanna informing us that she could no longer make our afternoon recording, we had managed to get Madeline Dunne who we had spoken to the previous week as a “just in case” scenario since a different actress had yet to respond. 

• RECORDING DAY: Friday 23rd February 

Today was recording day, our group met at 10am to go over the script an extra time for precaution. We sectioned off which scenes would be recorded when, first would be Coffin scenes, then anything VOs (Voiceovers), Café scenes followed, and Outside scenes were recorded last. Scripts we also printed for the actors in the instance they forgot theirs and production scripts that were annotated for our benefit. As I would be in the studio with the actors I chose to use a digital screen to view the script, just so I know what scene to look at to signal to the right actor. We also went over how long to spend on each recording section.  

At 1pm we went up to the studio as the morning group would be finishing up with their recording, so we had to start setting up the booth and studio. James, Clare and I got the studio set up the way we had discussed, and Faye and Sam went through a quick read through with the Actors. 

The final actors were: 

• Olivia Warren as Beth 
• Bart Lambert as Death 
• Madeleine Dunne as Steph 
• James Dunham as Jeff 

Just before 2pm we began recording, I stayed in the studio with the actors to signal when to start and stop as the first scenes we recorded the sound blocks were up and blocked the actors view of Faye and Sam. Being inside the booth was fun as I got to see first-hand the expressions of the actors and how fast they bonded for their role. They seemed at ease. 

The recording went smoother than I had anticipated, we seemed to be ahead of time to be fair. I was worried about how well I would communicate between the actors and the production team in the booth, but both seemed to understand the information that I conveyed to them.  

I was happy with my team, we worked well together and thankfully there weren‘t any disagreements and if anyone had any suggestions we considered it. The production ran smoothly and by 4:30pm we had finished any recordings we needed to do with the actors, we thanked them for their participation and they left. Afterwards there was still some extra sound effects we needed to record