INITIAL WEEKS AND PRE-PRODUCTION:

In the first weeks of Audio Drama we familiarised ourselves with different audio dramas prior to starting our production. Moving to production we read through different extracts of scripts. We then got split up into groups, initially it was only myself, Calum and Charity. We called ourselves then ‘The Three C’s’. Later Alex and Vanessa joined in our group. We all decided on the Out Of Bounds script. I loved this script because it was set within and airplane/airport and I thought that would be really fun to try and recreate within an audible form for this drama. It also had some little funny nods in and personally I prefer quite funny podcasts so those little antidotes were what drew me to script.

Once choosing our script we split ourselves up into roles and worked out who would have the time for each role. We decided on Charity being the producer, Vanessa on being the production manager, Calum on the studio manager, Alex script editor and myself as director. We also set up a group chat on WhatsApp so we can all communicate.

Moving forward into the next few weeks I familiarised myself with the script and within class we had a chance to practice the techniques we would be using when actually recording our audio drama. We also got a training session with John Wakefield, we got to listen to his work as well as work on some editing from extracts of his current project.  I learnt a lot from John especially when it came executing and recording an audio drama and the relationships between actors and your own group.

Following on from our training sessions we got briefed on our essay questions however I wasn’t well this day and wasn’t able to attend. By this time Charity had taken it upon herself to sort arrangements with Jeremy in terms of day of recording.

We had a group meeting the following week which I attended via facetime. Within this meeting we went through the script and made some edit points before Alex went through and made his edits and adjusted. This is where I also set up a shared Google Team Drive that we could all access and would be a place for all audio and scripts to be. This same week I started to go through the script after the edits and adjustments had been made and had a thought about what directional points I wanted to make and how I wanted to go about recording such as potions of actors, will they be in the booth or the main room for recording as well as any Foley in post-production we may need.

RECORDING DAY:

On recording day I was a little shaken up due to some sad news I had the day before.  I told Charity about this and this helped out a lot when we got down to the actual recording.

Prior to recording I printed out scripts, however this took a little time due printer issues and they were constantly getting jammed. Eventually I managed to print a copy for all of the actors. I gave the actors all my scripts and introduced myself to the actors. After this we let the actors get use to the scripts and their lines. We then did a read through where myself and Alex had to stand in for one of the actors as he was late. Once we did the read through we asked the actors if they had any questions and we answered the ones they did have. After this me and Charity decided on which scenes we wanted to record first, we decided to record the ones with the actor which had to leave first so we could get those all out of the way with.

Recording its self-went well, we were listening to the feedback Jeremy was saying and I think myself as director I did a good job at directing as well as talking to Charity about which takes were good as well as how we were going to be going about recording each take. I also think I had a good relationship with actors and was always being very reassuring of takes and making them feel as comfortable as possible. I found that it was really important to always be ‘on’ and be happy and never show them when I was frustrated at times. The goal is always to make them feel as comfortable as possible. A lot of the actors were thinking of this very visually and some were in audio terms but just saw it as voice over. I had to make sure they understood the audio vision me and Charity had when recording certain scenes which was challenging but overall the experience was really enjoyable.

Me and Charity then met up in the week to go through the start of the edit. We chose the takes we wanted to use and downloaded any sound effects we wanted to use.

We then split the editing up into 5-minute chunks each. When I went to edit my part we ran into an issue with the audio recorded on the day. It sounded static-ey and we had this issue the other day with me and Charity, but we assumed it the speakers in the room we were editing in.

REFLECTION AND WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY:

Overall if I were to do this again I would of for sure had a schedule when recording, this way we would have been able to know the order in which we were doing takes. I also would have liked to of been more confident as well as knowing the actor’s normal names as I tended to just call them by their character names. I would have also had all scripts printed before the actors arrived as well.

I personally would have had plan in terms of what props and surroundings for recording rather than just a general idea of what I wanted on the recording as well. Overall, I think our team worked well minus the expectation of a member who could of put more effort in when we tried to include them. I think on the day I executed the role well but as mentioned before it could have been better in terms of confidence etc.

FINAL PIECE:

Out Of Bounds soars to the skies with a story which sees a Stewardess meet her match whilst in training. Like any workplace, trials and tribulations arise and things get a little… turbulent. 

IN:   

 “Out Of Bounds…” 

OUT:

“… for the University of Westminster”                        

DUR:

 14’14”

Closing Announcement [from Continuity]

Out Of Bounds, an audio drama by Three C’s production’s.