Pre production evaluation log Radio

When I first got handed the script I had to go through all of my scenes and take out any musical songs and change them into dialogue that can be spoken by the voice actors. After I had changed all the musical sings into dialogue I then continued to look through the script to see if I needed to use sound effects and if so what sound effects I was going to need to use. When I was looking for sounds I decided I would create sounds by using foley to make sure I made the sound realistic as possible. I realised a lot of the sounds were footsteps and people walking so I decided I needed to record them myself. So I got a microphone and one of my class mates and went to a quiet classroom, where I recorded my class mate walking towards the microphone and away from it. It took us a couple of takes to get the perfect sound for my scenes because I knew what I need to record so when the sound was in the scene it helped create perspective for the audience. This helps the audience engage more with the drama and it entices them in as listeners. Once I created my foley sounds I knew I needed more sounds so I searched the internet looking for other sounds that would suit the specific scenes. I knew I had to use different sounds to bring my radio drama to life and make it feel realistic and professional for the audience to listen to. Once I found the right sound effect I used a mp3 converter online to save them into my files and documents. After I gathered all of my foley sounds and different sound effects I then put them into Logic Pro and made sure there was no strange audio attached or in my clip, and if there was I removed it. I made sure I only had the sounds I needed. However, pre production taught me that anything can go wrong when you are using different softwares and different apps, but it also taught me if anything goes wrong how to fix the problem and get round it. For example making sure I had the same sound effects duplicated in case the first one went missing or got deleted, or when I was nearly finished my work always make sure I had the full thing backed up incase the original got deleted. Another thing it taught me is how to organise people and their time wisely so no ones time was wasted in the process. 

When I started to record me and my cast and crew went into the recording studio to start. We started by turning on the Mac, speakers and plugging the mic’s into the software. The microphone we used was a Rode NT1000, we used this mic to get a crisp and clear sound of the voice actors voice. Another reason we used this microphone is because it’s a large diaphragm condenser microphone which is excellent for recording people talking. Once everything was plugged in to the correct places and we connected the microphone to Logic Pro we did a practise run through a couple of lines to make sure everything sounded great. Whilst we were recording we bumped into some problems because some the voice actors were closer than others and the sound was all over the place so we had to retake some lines cause it didn’t sound very good. Sometimes the voice actors were either to close or to far away and then sometimes they were to quiet or to loud so a lot of lines had to be redone because of this. I did realise that some of the voice actors were nervous and felt pressured because they were trying to do different accents and voices in front of people that they have just met so this was understandable. However, by doing many retakes this meant that we had a lot of material and sound clips to work with and I guess more is better than less. Once we had finished recording the voice actors we saved it in multiple places such as, on a SD card, usb stick and into many different files on the computer, so if anything happened we always had a backup. By saving it onto a usb stick we were able to transfer what we recorded in the recording studio to the computer in our editing room. The computer what we used in our editing room was a Mac and it got the job done. When transferring files and audio files we had problems moving them onto the computer and we lost a few, however because we had saved them all multiple times this was fine because we just used one of the backup files.

When I began to edit the audio clips of our voice actors, I decided to trim them all first so there wasn’t a long pause at the beginning and end of each clip. I trimmed them down to make sure they all ran smoothly without any pauses between each character. I trimmed each audio clip by using the scissors tool and then I dragged the audio clip into the correct place. Whilst I was doing this I tired a couple of the, out and put them together but some of  the audio clips of the characters talking sounded to close together so I had to extend some of them to make sure they had a little pause in before the next character spoke. After I had cut everything down to where it needed to be I then decided that I needed to remove the background noises because you could hear the air conditioning and people in the background either talking or giggling. I knew I needed to remove the background noises to make sure I had the clearest audio possible. I then realised that some of the audio was different volumes so I had to go through and change the audio gain so the final product flowed nicely. Some of the dialogue I needed to sound quieter than others because I had to create perspective for the audience so it seemed realistic. For example if some was shouting I would have to make that clip louder than someone just talking. Another is if someone is standing in the distance I would have to make them sound quieter and further away than the rest of the clips. I knew that creating a perspective for the audience was vital because to allows them to visualise and escape reality and make them focus on my drama. When most of the radio drama was completed and edited I added the sound effects I gathered previously, when I added to sound effects I realised that they were much louder than the actors speaking so I had to adjust the audio gain to make them quieter. When the radio drama was at the final stages I found a few mistakes with the voice actors audio files I either used the wrong file or I mixed them up so I had to go back to all the audio files I saved and replace and edit them so they fitted straight into the gap where I took one out. I had to make sure I edited it perfectly so the scene and the talking flowed smoothly without any interruptions. Finally some audio clips had to have a dramatic effect so I had to fade certain audio files to create suspense and an atmosphere to keep the audience enticed.