31/01/2020

This week we were put into our groups and were given the task of choosing which of the plays we wanted to produce. We quickly decided that the play that we wanted to do was “Distance over time” as it was the one that we all agreed was interesting to all of us.

We also quickly decided on our individual roles and I decided to go for “studio manager”. I was happy that we were able to decide on our roles quickly and without any argument on who should do what. The only problem being that two of the team weren’t present so weren’t able to decide on their own roles which meant that we had to decide for them.

I was impressed with our group today as we were able to make all of our decisions quickly and without any push-back from each other.

07/02/2020

Today was a lecture on studio recording where we practised recording each other reading from different scripts. As my role for the actual recording was studio manager I decided it would be good for me to practice recording some of these scenes.

Simon explained to me how all the microphones were set up in the studio and how to initiate talkback with the actors so that the director could give them some direction.

14/02/2020

Today we started practising recording scenes from our own scripts. I contributed to the recording of one of the scenes of “Angel Fish” which we did mostly in the booth as the scene took place on a beach so the atmos from a beach could be added in later.

We also practised a scene from “Distance Over Time” Where I managed the studio and gave some assistance to Ozzy whilst he was directing the actors.

This session taught me that it is very important to know the script really well before recording as it can be hard to get the right performance out of the actor if you don’t know the script well enough.

21/02/2020

Today we had a very interesting guest lecture from John Wakefield who played us a selection of clips from audio dramas that he had produced. He also played some clips from some audio dramas that he wasn’t so fond of and asked us to point out what had been done wrong, which was quite fun.

This showed me that a lot of sound effects can be and sometimes should be done during the recording as putting in sounds in post-production can sometimes make the drama sound a little odd

He also gave us some clips to play around with so that we could experiment with some of the effects in audition. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to do this and not very many computers were free all of our group edited the same clip together which I found a bit uncomfortable. However, I decided to play with the clips at home instead and learn a bit more about editing them that way.

06/03/2020

Today was the recording day for “Distance Over Time”. We were fortunate enough to be recording in the afternoon which meant we could use the morning to go over the script together and make any last-minute adjustments so that we were fully comfortable with it and knew what we wanted from the actors.

We met with the actors for a table read, unfortunately, one of our actors had pulled out of the recording meaning that some of the actors had to double up on roles but fortunately they were versatile enough to give different enough performances that the listener wouldn’t be able to tell.

As studio manager, I was responsible for the recording of the drama and made sure that everything was marked and labelled appropriately. I decided to label each recording with where the scenes were taking place (e.g. Cafe scenes, party scenes etc.) I also made sure to drop a marker each time we started a new take and liaised with Ginny to keep her in the know as to which marker meant what so she could make appropriate notes on each take.

I also made a few suggestions of my own on how some of the lines should be delivered if it felt that either the director or the producer were struggling towards the end of the recording.

Post Production

In post-production, we had decided to split the workload by giving each member of the group a different number of scenes to edit, I was responsible for the last to scenes; scenes 10 and 11.

For scene 10 I sourced a clip from freesound of party chatter that ran throughout the scene and acted as atmos as well as used a copyright free song to play under the scene.

For scene 11 I sourced another music track to play under the scene and put an effect on the track so that it sounded like it was coming from another room. I did this by playing with the EQ so that the lows of the song were more prevalent, and put reverb on the track so that it sounded more muffled.

I also recorded a few sound effects at a train station as atmos for some of the scenes that were set at a train station.