Radio production- pre production

Radio production- Pre production 

Firstly, I began editing the script because my radio drama did not contain any musical numbers so I had to go through the script and convert the musical numbers into dialogue that could be spoken by the voice actors. I then continued to look through the script and identified where I wanted sound effect and the type of sound effect it was going to be, during this process I decided on which sounds I would create by using foley to ensure they sounded as realistic as possible. Foot steps walking towards and away is what I decided to create using foley so I grabbed a microphone and a walking actor and headed to a quiet corridor to where I recorded the actor walking away and towards me. I knew this foley sound was appropriate for the specific scene I had in mind because if just seemed right to have people walking to and from, and this helped create perspective for the audience and allowing them to be able to engage more into the radio drama. In addition, I then searched the internet looking for all my other sound effects which I was going to use to help bring my radio drama to life, I used a mp3 converter online once I found the right sound effect I was happy with. After gathering my foley sounds I put them into Logic Pro and ensured there was no unnecessary Audio in my clip and if there was I removed it to ensure I only had the footsteps as my sound effect. Overall pre production taught me to be mindful of what technical issue can go wrong and how to fix them for example saving multiple versions of a recording to ensure I have a backup if one gets lost or corrupt. It also allowed me to get a grasp on how to organise people effectively and how to record time efficiently to ensure no ones time is wasted but everything is complete to a high standard. 

To begin recording me and my crew went into a recording studio and began turning on the Mac, speakers and plugging the xlr’s into the software whilst it’s also connected to the microphone ( a Rode NT1000) to ensure the sound recorded is captured and monitored. The reason we used this microphone is because it’s a large diaphragm condenser microphone which is perfect for recording voiced although as it’s a condenser it’s requires Phantom power +48v. Once we were all signed in and had the microphone set up with Logic Pro we done a test take, where we got the voice actors to repeat some lines to ensure everything was plugged in properly and working to the standard we would like( this includes the volume they spoke at which we changed by adjusting the gain). During recording we encountered some issues with the voice actors changing volume and moving closer and away from the microphone which meant the volume of the audio was difficult to Change because of the amount of times it increased and decreased.however this is understandable because their is a lot of pressure performing voice acting and this meant we had many takes of certain scenes which was expected and overall gave us more material to work with. Once we were finished we ensured to save it in multiple places as well as on a usb so we were able to transfer what we recorded to our editing room where we worked on a different Mac in a more appropriate environment for editing. Previously we had trouble transferring files and lost a few so we ensured we kept many back ups incase this occurred again. 

When it came to editing the audio clips we gained from recording our voice actors we decided to firstly trim down all the clips to ensure they ran smoothly together and there was no huge pauses in conversations between characters.This was done by using the scissors tool and cutting the audio files at the correct time and then dragging them into place where they will line up with the mouse.   During this process I had to keep in mind that some of the audio might sounds sudden or long so I had to keep listening to entire conversations to make sure there was no sudden and snappy lines. Once we done this we jumped in even deeper and began removing background noises to ensure we had the cleanest audio possible and we done this by using effects at our disposal to accomplish this. Furthermore, we then continued to adjust the audio gain to ensure all the audio was basically the same volume where necessary to ensure our final product flowed nicely. Furthermore, whilst doing this I made sure to create perspective by adjusting certain levels of dialogue down and up to really show the audience if someone is shouting or if someone is scared and they have suddenly gone quite. Creating a perspective for the audience really allows them to visualise and escape reality whilst entering the visual escape in their mind which is the radio drama. In addition, we then decided to add in the sound effects we gathered earlier and we adjusted the audio gain to ensure the sound effects did not over power the actors speaking (if an effect was used during a conversation). Also we decided to speed up and slow down background audio to create a pace within the conversation to engage the audience more and this again was done just by adjusting the gain of the files and extending them or shortening them. Whilst editing the audio clips we discovered a few mistakes in the voice actors speak so we ensured we listened to the audio tracks to identify the flaws/mistakes and made sure we corrected them by either finding the correct take of the specific dialogue within the audio files or just cutting the mistake out and ensuring the audio still continued smoothly and fluently. This technique came in very helpful when editing and defiantly helped make the final project better. Finally certain audio clips needed a dramatic effect adding so to create that I decided to fade out the dialogue as it came to the end of their conversation to create an atmosphere of drama whilst also keeping the audience engaged and wondering why it faded out and keep them interested in the radio drama.