Sunday, 2011, 04.17
Hacker Public Radio
Theater of the Imagination
by lostnbronx

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(HPR INTRO up)

(HPR INTRO crossfades with TOTI-3-INTRO-MUSIC)

(Music holds a bit, then fades out.)

Hello, this is lostnbronx.

Welcome to Part 3 of "Theater of the Imagination".  This is my series on 
dramatic audio fiction, past and present, and, especially, how I, and a 
whole lot of other people, are putting their own, and a whole lot of 
other people's stories, into the audio format.  As I progress in this 
avocation, I fully expect to learn a thing or two, and ASSUMING I do, 
I'll pass said things onto you, my gentle listeners.  I'll be using my 
own works, and that of others, as examples in order to talk about the 
things I've experienced, or have come to believe; so, with your kind 
collective indulgence, I will proceed.

Ah, before I do, though, I want to point out, that this series is NOT a 
how-to type thing -- at least, for the most part.  I'm generally bad on 
fine detail, so, if anything, it'll be a "how-NOT-to" series, and, 
thusly, I encourage you to check out some of the examples I use, so that 
you can decide for yourselves how full of crap I may or may not be.

Okay, since my last episode, I have completed most of the work on a new 
audio fiction project, called "Driving With Eddie".  It's a short-form 
audio comedy, with a couple of different voiced characters, sound f/x, 
and music.  Technically, this makes it a thing called an Audio Drama, 
despite not BEING a drama -- and if you want to understand why THAT is, 
you can check out Part 2 of this series, HPR0677.  I know it's a little 
confusing, how a comedy can be called a drama, but, in short...well, 
that's just the way it is.

Now, "Driving With Eddie" is my second foray into the medium in general; 
and, in some ways, it was easier to make than last time, while in other 
ways, not.  First off, it's shorter.  Over all, less time involved.  
That's on the "easier" side.  Secondly, my previous dramatic audio media 
project was, basically, a short story drama -- REAL drama this time, not 
a fake drama nomenclaiture thing -- to which I added music and sound 
effects.  It was just me, in a story narrated in first person, singular, 
present tense.  No multiple voices, except for some sound effects, and 
it was done in a rather stylized narritive form.  But essentually, all I 
had to do was read the thing straight through, no muss, no fuss.  It 
wasn't THAT simple, of course -- nothing ever is -- mostly due to 
technical problems that needed finessing, but it was a different animal 
entirely from this latest one, which took more work per minute of 
finished content, to plan and put together, than the previous project 
did.

I don't know if I'm making much sense.

"Driving With Eddie" has two characters with speaking parts in it.  
Normally, this sort of thing would be done by two different actors.  In 
this case, I did them both myself, so, in fact, the process is similar 
to one used by most dramatic audio media producers in this day-and-age, 
in that you'll have people in far-flung places around the globe whom 
you've cast in your show, and whose voices you must cut together in the 
editing process.  In most respects, save one, this is considerably 
easier when doing it yourself -- it's much faster and more efficient; 
you're not waiting on anybody.  The "save one", of course is a biggie -- 
different characters have different voices, and this generally requires 
different people to produce them.  Depending upon your skill-set this 
can be a trade-off: in my case, I felt comfortable enough doing both 
voices that I thought I could pull it off.  This, versus my people 
skills -- management and networking -- which are woeful at best.  Now, 
this certainly isn't the answer for every project: I'm not Mel Blanc.  I 
can't do a 1000 distinct voices...actually, I could argue that he 
couldn't either, but my point is this approach doesn't always work, and 
may not, in fact work most of the time.  Nonetheless, the prospect of my 
artisitic endevours relying upon the efforts of others, who will almost 
certainly be strangers I've never laid eyes upon, fills me with a kind 
of horror, plain and simple.  Now this is territory that's probably 
better approached in an episode dedicated just to acting and actors, so 
I'll drop it here for now.  And, anyway, my opinions are subject to 
change as I gain experience in dramatic audio media production myself.

Okay, believe it or not, all of that was just a kind of intro.  

(TOTI-3-INTERLUDE-MUSIC up, holds, then out.)

What we're really going to do here is start at the very beginning of the 
process.  And, since we're talking about fiction, the beginning of the 
process is in the writing.  It all begins with the written word.  It is 
exactly like the foundation of a building.  Everything else to come 
rests upon it, and if it is weak, so will the finished construction be, 
no matter how talented the voice acting is; no matter how expensive the 
equipment used or level of maturity of the software involved; no matter 
the skills of the producer.  If the writing is poor, the show will be 
weaker than it could be.  And if it's really bad, nothing can save it.  
Good writing gives the actors more to work with, which, at least in 
theory, gets better performances out of them.  Good writing even allows 
for a somewhat easier editing process.  Granted that "good" or "bad" 
writing are subjective things, we're not talking about a standard of 
quality that everyone everywhere will agree upon.  No, the standard that 
matters is yours -- assuming we're talking about you producing your own 
work.  If you know that there's more which needs to be done on the 
script, then you have to do it, deadlines be damned.  And I'm not 
talking about neuroticly tweaking the puncuation, or obssessivly 
worrying a bothersome passage.  As consuming as they can be, if you 
can't get past THESE kinds of niggling problems, then you're NEVER going 
to be done.  No, I'm talking about plot, character, and dialogue.

This will be only the barest of considerations of this rather huge 
subject.  There are audiocasts, online and real life writing groups, 
how-to websites, and books by the thousands, all dedicated to the craft 
of fiction writing.  And make no mistake, it is the CRAFT that matters: 
talent and skill can both be honed, but only skill can be learned.  Some 
people have talent, no argument, but no one can choose the level of 
talent they are born with.  Everyone and anyone, however, can choose 
their own skill level.  It comes soley from study and practice...and 
mostly practice.  In this case, that means putting words to paper, or 
screen.  A lot of them.  Can you write?  Yes, you can.  Can you write 
well?  Yes, you can.  DO you write well?  Ah, now there's the question.  
Because the answer is maliable.  Work at it, and the honest answer to 
that question will be different in a year. That's true for everyone.

So you're sufficiently motivated, RAH-RAH-GO-TEAM, and you have a story 
or audio script that you think is half-way decent.  What do you do next?  
Or let me even back up a half-step: how do you get your script into a 
proper format?  IS there a standard, generally-accepted format for 
audioplays, the way there is for stage plays, and television and movie 
scripts?

You know what?  I don't know.  And I don't care.  And neither should 
you.  So long as it's understandable to both you and anyone else who 
needs to read it, such as other actors, what difference could it make if 
you write the characters' names followed by a colon, a space, and then 
their lines, or if you indent their names to the middle of the page, and 
then put their dialogue on the following lines?  There very likely is, 
or at least, once was, a standard industry format to these things, back 
when there WAS an industry, but that's another world, long gone.  You 
won't be paying too many bills doing this.  It won't be your job.  It's 
all supposed to be for fun and self-expression, and, I don't know about 
you, but sweating the details of audio script formatting doesn't sound 
like fun to me.  If it ain't your bread and butter, and people can read 
it, who cares?  The script's format is not the story you want to tell.  
It's the means of telling the story.  Put it all down in as sensible a 
way as you see fit, and get on with it.

Okay, you have a script of some kind at last.  The next thing you want 
to do is line up your various elements; and by that I mean your 
readers/actors, your music, and your sound effects.  If it's an 
audiobook or the like that you've written, and you intend to record 
yourself reading it, then that's the first thing on the list taken care 
of immediately.  Next, you might want to line up music.  If you're a 
musician yourself, that's two elements down right there.  If you're not, 
like I'm not, then there are as many sources for music out on the Nets 
as you could ever want, but I strongly believe you need to stick with 
Creative Commons.  I won't even say Public Domain.  I used to like PD, 
but I don't anymore.  I don't trust it.  If you want to know why, take a 
look at what Nina Paley went through over the Public Domain music she 
used in her animated film, "Sita Sings The Blues".  A frickin nightmare.

No.  They can keep that crap.  Creative Commons tells you up front what 
you can and can't do with a recording.  And a lot of that music is stuff 
people haven't heard before, which is generally a good thing -- it lends 
a certain originality to your work, without being challenging to the 
listener.  Another approach: if you find a piece of music you like that 
either has an incompatable license to how you want to eventually release 
your dramatic audio media, or no license statement of any kind that you 
can find, then contact the artist directly.  Email, Facebook, Twitter, 
Identi.ca, something.  A lot of times, they'll give you special 
permission to use a piece, and then everything is hunky-dorry.  In fact, 
it might be good to contact the artist or artists directly anyway.  They 
generally like to know if their stuff is being used, and maybe they'll 
mention it on their own blogs and such.  That can only be good for you.  
Personally, I scour ccmixter.org, and the Internet Archive.  Lots of 
good Creative Commons stuff is there, but there's also Jamendo, and 
Magnatune, and Podsafe Audio, and tons more.  The Creativecommons.org 
website has a nice list of places to check, and I'll have that link in 
the shownotes.  Decide what TYPE of music you want, be a little 
flexible, and look around.  You'll be sure to find something really good 
and appropriate for your work.

Okay, sound effects.  If you're recording an ebook, you probably don't 
need or want ANY.  Some -- and ONLY some -- ebooks have a little sound 
effects, usually done solely for special emphasis or drama in a 
particular place, and usually only once or twice in the entire novel.  
That's pretty rigid these days.  Go to Podiobooks.com, download a few 
books, and I think you'll see what I mean.  I don't necessarily like or 
agree with this trend, but it is well-entrenched now, and you'd do your 
eventual popularity a favor by respecting it.  My own popularity gets NO 
respect, because I am an artiste, see, and I do what I want -- but there 
is a price to be paid for personal whim.  If, after all your hard work, 
obscurity is fine with you, then, by all means, do whatever the hell you 
want.  I mean, you're not going to make money either way, but finding 
listeners may be your only reward for this, and if you produce art in a 
non-standard way, you may find it challenging to gain distribution 
outlets, and, therefore, listeners.  For instance, I have no interest in 
iTunes, but the fact is, if you aren't there, you aren't being heard 
much.  Now, that's all got little or nothing to do with sound effects, 
but my point is, the closer to established formats that you remain, the 
more people will tend to like you.  That may seem shallow, and I won't 
argue, but it is true nonetheless.  At some point, I'll do an episode 
specifically on distribution and promotions -- whenever the hell I 
figure out how to do it myself.

Now, sources of sound effects are also all over the Internet.  I tend to 
stick with two sources mostly: freesound.org, and...me.  Now, 
freesound.org is big and awesome.  Check.  It.  Out.  You'll very often 
find at least something like what you want.  And if you don't, try my 
second source.  Me.  Or, rather, YOU.  Fully half, if not more, of my 
sound effects, I have created myself.  It's not hard.  It's fun, in 
fact.  Try it.  In "Blue Heaven", I had several variations on a huge 
metal door opening and closing.  Well, I don't have access to a 
military-grade blast door or a rusty old bank vault, but I do have a 
propane tank and a barbecue grill and a cast iron frypan on my stovetop, 
and those are what I used to create those sounds.  Remember, it's 
fantasy.  Imagination.  You SAY it's a door, make a squeak, and people 
HEAR a door.  Listen to the sounds of the ordinary objects around you, 
and you'll begin to hear possibilities all over the place.  And, anyway, 
sound effects you make yourself can't possibly give you license issues, 
so they're attractive on that front too.

All right, I'm rambling.  Have been since the start, in fact.  That's 
okay -- like I said, this is no tutorial; rather, it's meant as nothing 
more than food for thought.  And because it is, here's one last thing to 
think about: how many of you out there have had an idea for a great TV 
show, or a movie?  Everybody's had one at some point or other, right?  
Now, what are the chances that you'll ever, in your life, see your 
script come to the big or small screen?  I'd put better odds on being 
struck by lightning out of a clear blue sky.  But you can do it in 
audio.  You CAN make a dramatic audio fiction piece out of YOUR idea 
that's just as thrilling, or interesting, or moving -- if not more so -- 
than anything Hollywood puts out.  It's work, yes, but it's also fun.  
And you can start right now.  You don't need a budget, you don't need 
expensive equipment -- not really, anyway -- and you don't need anyone's 
approval but your own.  A microphone and words to read.  That's it, and 
you're off and running, transporting your listeners to any world of your 
choosing.

This has been lostnbronx, with "Theater of the Imagination" Part 3.

Take care.

(TOTI-3-OUTRO-MUSIC up, holds, then crossfades with HPR OUTRO MUSIC.  
Music runs to end.)