Production Process Of A Radio Play
Overview
About 2 months ago I was approached by a good friend of mine Arran Dutton, asking for some advice on adapting and producing a radio play from a sit-com script he had written called Unholy Behaviour.
We had a couple meetings discussing the project and decided to put are heads together to see what we could come up with.
Radio Plays have been running since the 1920s however it is not until recent years that they have been so readily available. This is mainly due to the use of podcasting and home recording equipment which allows anyone to produce their own radio play.
I am writing this blog and blogs to follow to provide people with an account of the process taken to produce a podcast based radio play. I believe this blog will also serve as a sort of production process diary, detailing all the aspects of the production.
Production So Far
So far Arran and I have reviewed the script discussing which parts would and wouldn’t work when converted to a radio play. Obviously a lot of visual humour would not work for a radio play. After reviewing these parts of the script Arran set about re-writing and adapting the script for radio production.
Currently the idea for Unholy Behaviour is to produce it as 20 minute podcast episodes. The series is likely to be somewhere around 10 episodes.
Radio Script Layout Explained
A radio script is laid out differently than a stage or film script, however there are also some similar elements. Here is a brief overview of the different elements that go into a radio play script.
Character Expression
Character Expression is used to aid the voice actor in their performance. It will sometimes be an emotion and sometimes other things like a character action.
Sound Effect (F/X)
F/X are used when a sound needs to be added. Either during the recording or after in post-production. When recording the voice actors, any sounds to be added in post production will simply be shouted by one of the production team. For example if there is a ringing telephone to be added in post-production someone will shout “ring!”. This helps both the actors with their timing and the engineer when they come to add the sound effect later.
Scene Number
Scene Numbers signify the end of one scene and the start of another. Scenes are generally a change in time and/or location.
Atmosphere (Atmos)
Similar to an F/X, Atmosphere describes the ongoing sound effect playing during a scene. This maybe traffic noise, or the sound of birds singing outside of a window.
Lines in the above script are censored for copy protection.
Examples of radio comedy scripts can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/radio_comedy.shtml
Voice Talent
It is important when producing any script to find actors suitable for each role. There is an even higher importance of choosing actors with the right voice for a radio play because it is the only tool the actor has to play with. They need to be able to convey a wide variety of emotions using only their voice. For some radio plays actors will portray more than one role. This is unlikely to be the case however for Unholy Behaviour.
Arran and I have already started looking for voice actors. We have been recording a read through with them so that the different actors can be compared at a later point. This process also helps the writer determine any changes that maybe necessary for the script.
There will be blogs to follow this one detailing more in depth aspects of the planning and technical requirements for producing a radio play.
Screen Sharing Pro Tools 9 with Skype
Skype 2.8 for Mac has added a screen sharing feature and Pro Tools 9 allows you to use audio devices other than ones built by Avid.
This means I can now finally Skype with colleagues and clients and converse on the latest project whilst allowing them to see and more importantly hear the project. It took a little bit of time to work out how to do this. I wanted to share the steps I took to save others sometime.
Firstly download and install SoundFlower from this link.
Go to the Application-Utilities Folder and launch the Audio MIDI Setup Application.
Click the + button to create a new Aggregate Device double click the newly created device and name it “PT Skype”. Put a tick in the Use box for Soundflower (2ch) and a tick in the Use box for the normal microphone you use for Skype. On my Mac it is the Built-in Microphone.
Launch Pro Tools 9.
Open the Playback Engine window and set the Current Engine to PT Skype. You may have to restart Pro Tools for the changes to take effect.
Open the I/O Setup and click on the Input tab. Click the Default Button. You should see an input I have named mine Built-in Microphone 1-2.
Click the Output tab. Click Default you should see a stereo output. I have renamed mine Soundflower.
I recommend exporting these settings so you can recall them later.
Now that Pro Tools is outputting to Sound Flower you need to tell Sound Flower which speakers you want Pro Tools outputting to. I want Pro Tools coming out of my studio monitors which are connected via my Mbox 2. So from the toolbar icon I open the Sound Flower Menu and tick the Digidesign Mbox 2 option, see the below screenshot.
You should now hear sound when playing audio in Pro Tools.
The next step is to set up a talkback microphone within Pro Tools.
Create a new mono audio track and choose the input of your microphone. On my Mac it’s the Built-in Microphone. Arm the track and you should be able to hear yourself speaking. See the below screenshot.
The only down side of this method is that you can hear yourself speaking. Reducing the buffer size in the Playback Engine window will reduce the amount of delay.
Whilst Pro Tools is not playing you will hear the armed talkback microphone. As soon as you press play the microphone will not be heard. If you still want it to be heard during playback, select the Input Only Monitoring option from the Pro Tools Track menu. However I do not recommend this.
So finally we have to setup Skype.
Launch Skype. Go to the Preferences window and click the Audio/Video tab. Set the Microphone to Soundflower (2ch). This will receive any audio coming out of Pro Tools including your armed Talkback Microphone.
I believe this method will work with iChat as well but I have not tested it. If you do get it to work let me know.
Editing Voice Overs For A Radio Play
A question that arose from my recent blog post titled Recording, Organising & Compiling A Radio Play…“What method do you use for recording and editing the various audio tracks that make up the scenes of a radio play?““How does the ambient sound of the room effect the finished product?”
Firstly, there are two common ways of recording voice overs in a studio.
Live Recording-This is the method used most in recording of a radio play. The live method involves gathering all the actors in the studio at the same time, each with their own microphone. Scenes are then recorded in real time. This usually produces the most natural sounding results because the actors are playing off of each other. The scenes will not necessarily be recorded in order. This is mainly for logistics. It can be hard to get all the actors together at the same time. There is no point in a supporting actor that only has a couple lines coming in for the entire recording session. This is where pre production planning is important.
Solo Recording-This is the method of recording an individuals lines without the other actors present. Sometimes a director will stand in and read the other actors lines to prompt the actor recording.
Often animations such as the Pixar movies will have an all star cast that never meet because there voices are recorded at different times in different studios.
For my current project I use a combination of both recording techniques. Mostly live recording to record the majority of the script. However the narration is sometimes recorded separately and edited together with the live recording later in post production.
Myself and the director will sit down and listen to the recorded material and make decisions on re-records. These re-records are normally to alter or correct a line that was not delivered how the director wanted it. These re-records are then edited back into the compiled scenes.
Editing
When scenes are recorded with the live method, all the relevant microphone tracks are recorded together at the same time. In other words, even when one individual actor is speaking into their microphone all the other actors microphones will be recording, and to some degree pick up the actor speaking and the ambient room sound. For the type of radio play I’m producing this ambient room sound is undesirable.
To remove the ambient sound picked up by other actors microphones, I go through each track and edit down the audio files to just the individual lines. Making sure to leave a small over lap (about 10ms) between different characters lines. If you don’t leave this overlap there is the possibility that you will hear the silence of no audio between lines. Even silence sounds of something. It is important to keep some constant background noise through out the production.
Below is a screenshot example of different characters lines edited down with slight overlaps.
Recording, Orgainising & Compiling A Radio Play
I wanted to share with you my method of recording, organising and compiling a radio play. Organising any kind of audio recording can become very confusing especially radio and voice over recording due to the number of takes created during recording.
So I’m going to take you through some of the steps and tools I find useful to me.
It starts with a script… For the current radio play I’m producing, Unholy Behaviour, I receive a script in advance of the recording session. I first go through the script and make note of every character that appears in the script and the number of scenes for the whole script. Once I have this information I open a new Pro Tools session and name it accordingly. (In the case of my current project “Unholy Behaviour Episode 3”)
Within Pro Tools I create a separate mono audio track for each character.
I create an edit and mix group for all theses tracks. Linking the mutes and solos within this group.
Using groups comes in useful when mixing and editing, but it is also essential for organising takes.
Now that I have a separate track for each character and that they are grouped I can go ahead and prep the sessions playlists.
Playlists are a way of recording multiple takes on the same audio track. These playlists can be named and arranged how you like.
When recording a script I already know how many scenes are going to be recorded.
I start by naming each track with the character name followed by “Scene 1”.
So for example; Jesus Scene 1, Moses Scene 1, would be the track names for the first two tracks.
Once all the tracks have been named in this way I create a new playlist for the first track. This will add a suffix .01 to the end of the track name.
The beauty of this is that because all the tracks are grouped together (as long as the group is active) a suffix will be added to the end of every track.
An active group is represented by the group being highlighted in the groups window, bottom left of the Pro Tools window. Below is a screenshot so you know what you are looking for.
Clicking the group will active and deactivate it. You can also turn on the keyboard shortcut button which is the little a & z. This allows you to turn your groups on and off using a keyboard shortcut known as “Keyboard Focus”. In this case the key “a”.
So you now have; Jesus Scene 1.01, Moses Scene 1.01 etc.
The next step may seemed confusing but it’s really just repetition. Create another playlist, this should add a .02 to all the tracks. The next part is a little monotonous but the benefit is far worth it. All the tracks, now with their .02 suffix, need to be renamed to “Scene 2” from Scene 1.02. For example Jesus Scene 1.02 needs to be changed to Jesus Scene 2 and so on….
So now you have a playlist something like this for each track;
Character Name Scene 1
Character Name Scene 1.01
Character Name Scene 2
Once again create a new playlist for which will suffix a .01 to Character Name Scene 2. Again create one more playlist (remembering to have the group active so it effects all tracks together) This playlist will be Character Name Scene 2.02, This is the playlist that you will rename again on each track to Character Name Scene 3.
By the end of the process you end with something like this.
Character Name Scene 1
Character Name Scene 1.01
Character Name Scene 2
Character Name Scene 2.01
Character Name Scene 3
Character Name Scene 3.01 etc…
Note that you can create addition playlists (takes) by selecting the scene you want with the highest suffix then creating a playlist.
Which will give you something like this;
Character Name Scene 3
Character Name Scene 3.01
Character Name Scene 3.02
Character Name Scene 3.03
Character Name Scene 3.04 etc…
When you come to record a specific scene select the scene with the .01 suffix (make sure the group is active) record your take then if you want to record another take just create a new playlist. All tracks will suffix a .02. Continue recording like this till you have the take you need.
Be sure to make a note with a pen and paper of which lines and takes were best. You may want to compile (comp) different takes together later to create one good take.
Comping
After completing a recording session, the takes need to be comped into final takes. There are a couple of ways you can do this. Some people create new playlists for comping. I duplicate all my tracks excluding all the playlists. So basically I have blank tracks that match my takes tracks.
Below are my two sets of tracks the highlighted and soloed tracks are the new Comp tracks. These are where my final edits will end up. Below these are the original takes tracks which contain all the playlists that have been created during recording.
You may notice that the comps tracks have their own group. This is for quickly soloing the comps so that any other takes can’t be heard.
The only problem with all these tracks is that it takes up a lot of screen real estate. The solution is in Memory Locations.
Memory locations are often used for setting points in a time line, kind of like bookmarks, that you can easily jump to. I use them for jumping to the start of different scenes once all the scenes are in place.
However there is far more you can do with memory locations.
Below you can see a screenshot of my memory locations we are just going to look at number 1 “Takes” and number 2 “Comp”.
These memory locations make switching between the takes tracks and comp tracks as easy as a click.
Firstly I made sure that all tracks other than my takes tracks where hidden. I adjusted their height to fill the screen and adjusted the session zoom settings. This is the amount of your session you can see in the edit window.
Within the Edit Memory Location window you can see that I have set the Time Properties to None. This means the created memory location will not show in the timeline, only in the Memory Locations window.
General Properties allow you to set what aspects of the current tracks are saved and recalled when you click the memory location.
I have saved;
- Zoom Settings
- Track Show/Hide (This is very important, it makes sure the takes tracks are shown and the comp tracks are hidden)
- Track Heights (Saves the height of all the tracks. These currently maximising the screen real estate)
- Group Enables (This recalls any groups that are active when the memory location is created. Make sure that only the group for the Takes tracks is active.)
- Window Configuration allows you to choose custom layouts that get recalled with the memory location. I will discuss this shortly.)
Just for comparison you can see below the Comps Memory Location active. The takes tracks are all hidden. This does not mean they are inactive or muted you need to make sure you mute the other group of tracks before jumping to and from one another. You can also see from the below screenshot that for the Comp memory location the Comp group is active.
You may have noticed that the Memory location screenshot has one more location called Recording. This Memory Location recalls the Takes tracks just like the Takes Memory Location however it makes use of a custom Window Configuration which is set up for recording. Below is a screenshot of this set up.
You can see I have simply narrowed the edit window and fitted in the mix window to the left of it. This handy for monitoring input levels whilst recording. When recording a specific scene I often hide all tracks that are not record armed during that scene. It gives me more detail of the tracks being used. Once the scene is recorded though I simply click the Recording Memory Location and I’m back to seeing all my tracks. I have also added a big time counter for keeping an eye on how long takes are.
I hope this insight into my production process has been interesting and possibly helped you. There are many ways to use Pro Tools and I am always finding new ones by just experimenting… try it, you never know what tricks you may come up with.
If you have found this blog useful please subscribe, share and comment. Thank You
Clearing Space In Pro Tools Sessions
This video is useful when you come to upload a session to a server, save it to disk or hard drive.
Sound For Moving Image-Godzilla Script Outline
| Approx time code | Situation | Dialogue | Audio notes |
| Intro to 01:42:00 | On board tanker | Intro (in Chinese?) | Intro music (theme continues throughout movie |
| 1:42:00 – 02:06:07 | In hospital corridor | Meeting dialogue in French (English subtitles) Script sheet A | Light, mysterious going to suspense type background music. |
| 03:09:23 | Fade from hospital to exterior shot – Out on beach road overview of jeep convoy | Script Sheet B | Background music, sounds of wind, cars, aircraft overhead. Note sound as jeep passes people on the road |
| 04:48:00 | Shot of aircraft in cloud | Background storm and loud plane engine noise | |
| 04:54:00 | Inside aircraft | Background music adds to mystery | |
| 04:57:00 | Inside aircraft | Script Sheet C | Dramatic music to finish on map shot |
| 05:06:00 | Fade into shot of new york in storm | Dramatic thunderstorm noise fading into rain and people talking. | |
| 05:21:00 | Shot of Nick: going into shop and heroine (Audrey:) watching | Script sheet D | Rain, thunder and people. More gentle background music esp in shop |
| 07:23:00 | Fade out to black | End | End music |
Script sheet A
Representative: Sir There’s pressure from the Americans
Investigator: What have you told them?
Representative: Nothing yet
Investigator: Are there any survivors?
Representative: Only one sir. He was lucky
Investigator: Get them Out
Representative: If you please
Investigator: Ask him what happened
Representative: Tell us what happened… What happened to you?
Investigator: What did you see old man?
Old man: Godzilla…..godzilla….godzilla
Script Sheet B (approx timecode 03:12:00)
(Dialogue for conversation in jeep approaching beach and tanker)
Lady: So…..3 years digging up worms in ah…….Chernobyl was it?
How did Mrs Adotapolis handle that?
Nick: It’s Atopolis. I’m actually not married…
Lady: Really….a girlfriend or….
Nick: Er..no
Lady: Oh….no….
Nick: Perhaps I work too much.
Lady: So…do you mean to tell me there’s no one who holds a special place in your heart?
Nick: No. Not for a long time now.
Lady: Well you may be the wrong man for the job but I think you’re cute.
Nick: Oh… Thank you
Nick: (To passenger) She thinks I’m cute
Finish with shot of beach, people and view of tanker. Background noises of activity and people talking
Script sheet C (timecode approx 04:57:00)
Inside Aircraft
Colonel: Seems like the things only 200miles off the Eastern American seaboard and we don’t even know what the hell it is…
Finish with shot of map showing New York
Script Sheet D (approx timecode 05:31:00)
Chemist: Can I help you young man?
Nick: Yes…Ah….do you have any at home pregnancy tests….ah… specially ones that look for gonadictropic hormones or chromophine citrate?
Chemist: Oh I don’t know. This…..is……this is all we’ve got.
Nick: I’ll take all of them.
Chemist: (laughing) Ok
Audrey: enters shop
Audrey: Well….you must have quite some harem.
Nick: Audrey! Oh my Go…Audrey is that you…what are you doing here..uh….Hi…hello…Wow. How much is that?
Chemist: 46 dollars
Nick: God…you look wonderful. Wow… how have you been?
Audrey: It’s good to see you Nick
Nick: So you made it
Audrey: What?
Nick: You’re a reporter uh.
Nick: No that’s good…that’s good its what you always wanted. I’m…I’m happy for ya. Really…I am
Audrey: Are you still mad at me?
Nick: Well…you left without a phone call…a letter…nothing all this time. Ye…Ye.. I guess I am still a little mad.
Audrey: That was 8 years ago….some people change
Nick: Most people don’t
Audrey: Oh…well I’m sorry you feel that way
Nick: Audrey…..you’re right. 8 years is a long time. Can I make you a cup of tea?
Audrey: Sure….that’d be nice.
Fade out to black
You can view the video of Godzila Here.
Sound For Moving Image-Godzilla
This is an old overview of a project I co produced a couple of years ago.
I have to start by crediting the co producers of this project. Graham Callaghan and Chukuemeka Obiorah.
We started the project by watching the movie through with the original sounds to give us some ideas on how we could make our own sounds and music.
I then imported the movie file into a Pro Tools session. But before I did that I had to convert the file type to mp4 as the mpg would not play on my Mac for some reason unknown to me.
Once the file was imported I went through the project on my own and placed markers in the timeline these were colour coded. I made markers for the script starting points, music changes and sound effects.
Pro Tools Screen Grab- Memory Locations
The group then decided to assign these three main components, one to each person. I got the voice over recording and vocal over placement. Graham got the sound effects and Chuck got the music.
First we all sat down and talked about the type of music to be used. We went through music libraries finding music that suited as a ghost track (A track similar to the type of music we were hoping to create). These ghost tracks were inserted into the project. Whilst I was doing this I made some fades to blend the music together. Later adding fader automation to achieve the right levels. After all these changes were made we decide we really liked the music already in place so decided to keep it where it was.
There was not a lot of processing/effects needed the only place I added an effect was on the music in the shop which I added an EQ to cut out all the mid. This made it sound like it was being played on a small radio.
Voice over recording is a hard thing to get right. Firstly I decided to work out how many people I would need and book them into the studio. I used one person Alex for Nicks voice he was American anyway so it helped a lot. I then used Matt and myself for the inspector and representative. For the three female voices I used Hannah.
On the day of recording the voices I set up my laptop in the vocal booth with a RE20 condenser microphone. I used this microphone because it is great for voice over recording due to its ability to capture voices clearly and naturally.
I got the voices just about in sync by counting down with the voice talent so as I press record they pressed play at a designated point. This was not the most disirable method but it was the only method avaliable at the time. After all the voices had been recorded I edited them and placed them in the correct positions. Some lines had to be chopped up word for word so they fitted with the video better. I added compression to even out the large dynamics in some of the vocal passes. A couple of reverb busses were set up for different environments and room sizes.
Because Hannah played all the female parts and her voice did sound similar when playing the chemist and Audrey in the same scene. So for Audrey’s voice I pitch shifted it up a couple of semitones to change its sound.
Graham using a M-Audio Micro track portable record collected sound effects. These were specific sounds that would be hard to find on any Internet site or sound effects CD. A lot of the other sounds used, I had on a sound effects CD collection. These included some of the weather and animal sounds used to make up the Godzilla sound.
Chuck made the Godzilla scream using animal noises including dolphin and elephant. These were added on different tracks and mixed together to achieve the right balance between the different sounds. On some tracks such as the dolphin sounds, the audio was pitch shifted down to achieve a bassier growl. A lot of audio suite plug-ins were used on sound effects including pitch shifting, reverb, distortion and many others. Audio suite plug ins were used because there were lots of different sound effects on the same track so if we used Audio Unit or VST plug ins we would have had to automated them to turn on and off for each sound effect and this is a lot of unnecessary work.
As we went on through the project we had to bounce audio out to 1 track because we ran out of room in the project. So once the levels were mixed nicely we bounce out to another project called Godzilla Mix Down. Using the mix down project I mastered the group outputs for sound effects, music and the voices. I also added in any other miscellaneous sound effects needed like some low-end sweeteners, Lightning strikes, extra rain.
I also automated some volumes changes with the music to fit in with the sound effects and voice over parts. There was some clicks between different types of music where they overlapped but I sorted these using a cross fade.
The only technical problem the group came across was when moving a session from Pro Tools 7.3 to 7.1, 7.3 being the version of Pro Tools in the vocal booth and 7.1 being in the Mac suite. The video would not reappear. I did look into this but to no joy. So we had to do the most of the audio editing in the vocal booth and on my laptop.
I really enjoyed this project and I am very pleased with the result we achieved together in the group.
Hope you enjoy the film.
You can view the video of Godzila Here.
Mixing Cookbook
Vocals Most voice has little below 100HZ so use low cut to remove unwanted bass.
• Boxy at 200 HZ to 400 HZ
• Nasal at 800HZ to 1.5 KHZ
• Penetrating at 2 to 4KHZ
• Airy at 7 to 12 KHZ
Electric Guitar Cut below 80HZ to reduce unnecessary bassy cabinet boom.
• Muddy at 150 to 300HZ
• Biting 800HZ to 3KHZ
• Fizzy at 5 to 10KHZ
Bass Guitar
• Deep bass at 50 to 100HZ
• Character at 200 to 400 HZ
• Hard at 1 to 2 KHZ
• Rattly/fret noise at 2 to 7 KHZ
Acoustic Guitar
• Boomy at 80 to 150HZ
• Boxy at 150 to 300HZ
• Hard at 800HZ to 1.5KHZ
• Presence at 2.5 to 4 KHZ
• Bright/Scratchy at 4 to 8KHZ
• Airy above 8KHZ
Drums
• Kick drum weight at 70 to 100HZ
• Kick drum click at 3 to 5KHZ
• Boomy below 120KHZ
• Boxy at 150 to 300HZ
• Snare definition 1 to 3 KHZ
• Stick impact 2 to 4.5KHZ
• Cymbal sizzle at 5 to 12KHZ
Sourcing Sound Effects For Radio Play
I want to explain how I determined what sound effects would be need for Unholy Behaviour’s first episode. Followed by how I sourced those sound effects.
The first task I undertook was to read through the script numbering the sound effects and atmosphere effects. At the same time I made a list of the effects on a separate sheet of paper corresponding to the numbers on the script.
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So, after compiling a list of the sound and atmosphere effects needed. I set about sourcing them using a variety of different methods.
Some sound effects can be recorded live by the actor as they say their line. For example “coughs” “slaps” “clicking fingers” “whistling”. These effects were marked in the script. During the recording of the script all effects to be added in post production will simply be shouted by a member of the production team. For example “ring” where a phone ringing sound effect will need to be added.
Not all sound effects can be produced live, it is just not practical. They need to be sourced from sound libraries or recorded by a Foley recordist. There are hundreds of sound effect libraries available, some on the internet, some on CD. A popular internet site is www.sounddogs.com.
Of course there will be some effects that are hard to source or so unique to a script that they will need to be recorded or created. Recording sound effects from the real world is known as foley recording. Once foley recording has been completed the engineer will then need to edit down and mix the sound effects to suit their purpose.
Some effects can be used more than once. This saves time in sourcing multiple effects, however you need to be careful that you do not use the same effect too regularly or close together as they will sound like they have been placed into the audio, rather than sounding natural to the scene.
Once all the sound effects have been sourced they will be edited and mixed to fit with the scene. It would be silly to have a sound effect that has a lot of reverb applied to it in a scene that is supposed to be set within a dead sounding room, or vice-versa. Reverb can be added to an effect to give the impression of depth or a larger space. A lot of effects will need to be edited down to fit their purpose, this can either be done in preparation for post production or during post production.
Finally, all effects will be compiled corresponding to the order of the effects list. This makes it easy when going through and adding effects in post production.
Jogle Charity Cycle Ride
My dad Nick and his friend Al are doing a supported cycle from John O’Groats in Scotland all the way through to Lands End in Cornwall. They are cycling to raise money for Alzheimer’s Society and Macmillan Cancer Support.
Please show your support by visiting www.nickandalsjogle.co.uk.
Thank You
