Post Production Journal

Journal 1

Today I began by creating and organising tracks for my radio drama, I separated them which best suited me. For example I put the voices first and then down to other sound effects. I also made sure that I changed the colour of the tracks to make it easier for me to understand the separation of the tracks and what they hold.

I then began creating my intro and outro for my radio programme. I knew from my scripts that I wanted some stereotypical police kind of music with my narration playing over it. After finding the police themed music I believed it was missing some key sound so I made the creative decision and added police sirens over the music as well, I chose this as it’s a genre code an audience can’t miss as everyone knows the sound of a police siren and will understand that this is a police radio drama.

My goal for the next few sessions is to develop my cricket sounds that I made with a screw driver and a bowl. To develop them I wanted to quicken the pace of the screwdriver across the bowl and make it a higher pitch to make it sound more like crickets.

2 (Crickets noises, effects, )

I have completed my goal from last week, which was to develop my cricket sound effect. To do this I changed the pitch of the recording by changing the semitones of the recording and pitched it higher to make it sound like crickets. After doing this the sound of the recording sounded bad and unproffesional so I added a filter to reduce the resinating sound which increased for changing the semtiones. After adding the filter it sounded much better and more acurate of the sound of crickets.

As my recordings were around 46 seconds long so I had to copy and paste the editied effect so it would be long enough for my radio drama. I should have recorded longer but I am fne to copy and paste this sound as its for the background of my radio drama so people will not know that it has been copied and pasted. I also changed the voume of the track so it sounded as if it was in the background of the radio drama, I did this keeping to my script and pre-production plan.My goal for tomorrow is to develop my first lot of voice actor recordings specifically stacey as it will need the most editing so that the voice sounds like a 7 yearold girls.

3

Today I have been cutting all my tracks that were voiced by stacey and then putting them n order of where they come in the script, which I had in front of me so I knew what order to put them in.

Afterwards instead of editing just one clip I edited the track and put a pitch shifter on the track to make the voice sound higher. I only increased the pitch by 1 when I did it by 2 she sounded more like a cartoon chipmunk so by doing it by 1 is good anyway because she sounded more like a little girl. I also had to change the volume of the tracks as they were to loud and were clipping in the red zone of the meter so I had to dim the volume of the track. The goal for tomorrow is to add my recordings of Greg and Carl and cut them as I have done Stacey’s.

4. Greg and carl, police siren joke

I made vast progress today with the voices of Greg and Carl, I was able to go through my takes choose the best takes and put them in order of the script. By doing this it means all my dialogue is now inputed into the radio programme. When going through the dialogue I knew the first thing I had to do was bring down the volume of all the tracks because they were all to loud and most clipped. After my lecturer listened to it he told me tat I should make the dialogue closer to get amore comedic affect and punch to the lines, he also told me to change a line in the script and I agree. He wanted me to make it so that instead of the line being “Carl what are you doing here, you will ruin this whole operation” So I cut the recording and seperated it between “Carl what are you doing ” and “you will ruin this whole operation”made more sense, by doing this it made the line funnier and work better for the scene. But I do have to figure out how I will make the Greg and carl recroding sound like the sepreate Greg and Carl tracks as it seemed that their was an echo in the Greg and Carl track so I have to figure out how to change that for next lesson. My other goals are to add the van door recording, running and music.

5 radio, van door opening and running

I began today by adding music which is coming from the van. I made this decision only now because I thought it would take away the focus from the dialogue but now I see it makes it better, By adding it it makes it seem that they are in avehicle even more because of the’ radio being on’ . I chose the song ‘Don’t you want me baby’ because its just a funny awkward song for the scene, to make it sound like its coming out of a radio I added these 3 effects which were connected to the preset custom choices.

I then chose to add a second song to help show time passing in the radio programme. I chose to add another famous older song which is equally awkward for the scene ‘Tainted Love’ by adding this song it just makes the scene funnier as it is an odd song o have playing in this stakeout scene because its post to be serious as a stakeout should be. I then thought that I should also include a radio presenter to present the next song as I didn’t have that in my script and it makes sense to have it because it is more naturalistic for there to be an presenter than not having one. After recording it and I put it into the same track as the songs so that it would have the effects that I put on the track so it sounds like its coming out of the radio.

I have also inputed the recordings of my van door opening and closing. When listening to my recording of the van door closing it didn’t sound like a van door closing so how would my audinece picture the door closing in their minds so I used my recording of the van door opening for closing as well and it works very well.

After inputting my van door effects I included my running recordings. I gradualey decreased the sound of running so it sounded like they were going away from the van making harder to hear the footsteps. I did this twice for both characters Greg and carl leaving the van. After doing this I want to input and edit the enterance of my drunk man voice and car horn.

6 editing voices, car horn and drunk driver

I began today with adding my car horn and drunkman recrodings. I didn’t edit my car horn

much except decreasing the volume so that it doesn’t clip. However I did have to change the pitch of the drunkman recording because I got the same voice actor who did Greg to do the drunkman and sadly they sounded to similar so I pitched the drunkman recording down just enough for it to sound like a different person before it sounded more as if it was a cartoon voice than a drunkman.

Whilst I was changing the pitch of recordings I changed the pitch on my narrators recordings so that it sounded more like the steotypical action movie narrator, american deep and intense.

To do this I put a pitchshifter onto the whole track instead of just the clip as I want the narrator to sound deeper throughout. After changing the pitch by -2 semitones I had to make the volume of the track greater to understand what the director is a bit better.

7.

Today I wanted to make the output of sound of the radio programme dialogue better. What I mean by this is that because of how the sound of the dialogue all sounds like it’s coming from the

same place, like a microphone is just being passed around, so to make it sound like that the characters are in different positions in the van I am panning them left and right. By doing this it makes it sound like they are different positions because the sound is coming from a different direction, because of the way I have panned them when listening to the radio programme for the audience it makes it seem that you are actually in the van between the characters as I wanted all along. I panned Carl 40% to the right and Greg 40% to the left for example if I panned it any further it would sound like they were too far away from each other and more like a microphone is swinging across to one to the other.

I also fadeded in on 1 of rookies line as my voice actor did this deep excale of breath before speacking and microphone picked it up and as it sounded like a recording so by adding the

fade to the breath its still there but it sounds better than the raw recording. Another recording I put a fade on Staceys line “who are we playing hide and seek with this time”

8

Today I am adding the final recordings for my radio programme. After hearing my radio programme I learn’t that I needed to include a soundeffect of something Stacey could be doing or she is just listening to the adults and that’s not naturalistic so I have included a recording of the stereotypical supermario gaming music, to imply that she is playing this game on her hand held console like she would be as a young child.

Afterwards I included the recording of the radio host presenting the radio drama, I did this as by including these recordings it makes it more obvious that this is a radio drama as it is being represented by a radio host making the project more realistic.

My Reflection on whole radio drama

From the beginning of pre-production to post production I have included many things to include a more enhanced radio drama. For example I have included more music than I thought I would, at first I was only going to use the song ‘don’t you want me baby’ but n then end I also included another song and some radio host dialogue as well. This enhances the piece in several ways, for example by including a second song it can help an audience have a sense of time going past. It also makes the radio in the van seem more naturalistic by adding radio host dialogue so by inputting these recordings I make my radio programme more naturalistic making a better image for the audience when hearing my radio programme. Another enhancement I made in the post production that I didn’t think of until editing is actually panning the dialogue so it seems that the characters are in different places on the bus. At first I was going to just leave the dialogue so it came out of bother channels left and right equally but then I thought as the characters in the van will be sitting on the left and right I could change the panning of the recordings to express where they are sitting to give the audience a better, more immersive radio programme, and it was as by doing this it makes it seem that you are between the characters Greg and Carl. Without the additions and effects I made on my recording on the screwdriver dragged across the bowl it would not have sounded like crickets. By putting on pitch shifters, accelerating the speed of the recording and adding a small echo it really developed the recording and created a great background track. I learnt from post production as well that all my dialogue recordings were really loud and were clipping on Audition Adobe so I had to

decrease the volume on all dialogue tracks and change the volume specifically on some clips as they were too loud in specific areas. For example when recording Rookies lines the voice actor took a breath at the beginning of the line but it was too loud so I had to change the volume of the breath separately. Without these post production additions to the dialogue it would have had a big negative effect to the radio programme. Another time I made a creative decision that effected dialogue was actually changing the position of some of the dialogue. When listening to a part of the conversation between Rookie and Carl I learnt that Rookies line “Carl what are you doing here? You will ruin the whole operation” would be better separated and to input Carl’s line “shut up Rookie” between it to have a more comedic affect and to give the conversation a better pace. I cut the recoding and inputted carl between the separate clips. Overall I believe I have created a good radio drama that gives an audience a detailed picture and comedy to enjoy.