For my audio project, I have decided to produce an audio adaptation of the book This modern love by youtuber Will Darbyshire.

Brief summary of the source material

This modern love is a unique crowd sourced book that gets to the heart of modern relationships. Based on over 15,000 submissions, from nearly 100 countries, the book was produced to remind the reader that whether they were in or out of love, they were not alone.

The book, and the project as a whole, was an attempt to provide a safe environment for people to share their thoughts on modern relationships. Over the course of a year, Will asked people from all over the world a series of questions and chronicled their responses in the collection of pages that make up the final book. The responses were found to highlight the extremes and the humdrum of modern relationships.

Project synopsis

The book is broken up into three stages of a relationship; a crush, a relationship, and finally a break up. I intend to develop a script from the submitted letters in the book. It will be a sort of audio drama heavily inspired by the stories within the book. The drama will be broken into three categories like the book itself as well.

This will therefore involve going through the book a few times to devise what parts I can work with.

Reference audio for inspiration

• The heart podcast; Movies in your head

https://www.theheartradio.org/audio-smut/moviesinyourhead

Production process

As I intend to produce an audio drama adaptation of the book, I will have to write up a script for the piece. I will be breaking it up into three sections like the book as well.

In terms of bringing the whole piece together, I am going to read through it as much as possible and try and pick up points I can turn into dialogue, or translate into sound.

What has been done so far

As stated above, I have started combing through the book to find the parts I can use as dialogue, to build a script. I will also like to have a voice over element as well (as each section of the book has a brief introductory chapter before the submitted letters).

I also intend to use some music within the piece and locations sounds so I have started recording different location sounds I could use, and researching some music that could convey the feelings I’m trying to portray.

As I will want to use voice actors for this piece I have started looking into the types of people I would like for the characters I want to build within the script.

An alternative route I could take is to carry out multiple mini interviews, covering the stages of the relationship as proposed by the book. This therefore could be seen as a true recreation of the book, only with audio stories as opposed to written messages.