0818-Romeo (An audio Drama)

       I will talk about my experience in making an audio drama, although its not my first time to make it but it is the first time that someone with a higher knowledge about it would listen and have to grade my work. First of all the story is an inspired story of the tragic accident of Jesse Robredo. It is not the actual happening or the actual conversation. The story starts with the boss leaving his house. He is departing for Cebu and boarding with a private plane. With him is his bodyguard who is newly hired and a pilot who is expert in flying the Ceena model plane. While in the plane the boss and bodyguard talks and suddenly the plane is malfunctioning. For that the plane goes down and crashed in the ocean.

       In making the script of an audio drama, I find it very different from making a script of normal plays. In audio drama you have to count for the actors conversation because there are no image to be seen to express the feeling therefore the feeling must come from their lines and the delivery of their lines. Also, the sounds effects details are importantly included in the script. This way the listener would know where the actor is or at and what is the actor doing. The experience of making the actual audio drama is exciting but the same with plays in theater, the acting is still very important. The expression and the feeling should be express well in voice actors.I know now that in making this kind of project, the script is very important. The script should have all the information of what the actor should do, the SFX that the operator would be adding and the lines should be more descriptive in a way that the listener would understand who is talking and where the scene is.

      Lastly, an audio drama is not good if the script is lacking what I have mentioned above and an audio drama must have distinctive voice for the listener to know who is currently speaking. All in all the experience is really good but at the same time a challenging one for me because I was the one who thought of the story, making the script and directing the actors of their lines and expression. Is in my part if our audio drama lacks the feeling and expression.

Criticizing an audio drama

This part of my blog, I’ll be giving some critics to an audio drama entitle Infected – episode 1. Upon listening to the audio drama, I think they are in a class room when the teacher warned the student to keep his phone. This might be my first time to listen to an audio drama and trying to give comments to it. I noticed that the audio drama I was listening to lacks some background music or background sounds. Only those who are focused are in the audio. I am not a professional of giving comments on audio drama neither I really don’t know if an audio drama really does not include any background music. Continuing on my analysis, some of the voice actors are not doing well in expressing the feelings especially the girls’ part. It seems like they don’t even care what is happening.

                Is it normal in audio dramas to don’t have any narration as to describe the scene? I really don’t know but for me it is important to have at least a voice acting telling me that they are at this place and somehow describing where he/she is. I can’t really imagine where they are. In my case I really lack imagination but overall the audio drama tells me that they are at school with no student even chattering (this is before the zombie part). I think they did well in the zombie part. What they lack before, they had fill it in when the zombie is there. I also think they did well in collecting some good sound effects like the car, the door opened and some of the whacking the zombies. Well they put background music in the last part and I thought it was really good. Background music could make the audience or listener feel the scene.

                The story is good. It just lacks describing their scene. Overall the audio drama is 7 out of 10 for my immature rating. The background music made me feel sad in the end. If they only added more background music to their drama it would be a lot of emotions. Just to close my critics, sound effects and voice acting is not enough to make a good audio drama. There should be background sound (like winds, chattering, or nature if the scene is in nature) and background music (like fast phase if action or slow phase if sad) to really make the emotions go out. 

Beach Soundscape

       This video here is a soundscape of a beach. I put different sound to make it sound like as if it is in the beach. There are 8 different sounds that I put together. 3 kinds of waves, 1 seagull sound, 2 boat horns, 1 aircraft sound and 1 wind. Mixing it all together forms the soundscape of a beach.

What is the importance of sounds in animation?

                Sounds are very important in any film/movie. Sound makes the feel of the movie. An animation without a sound is plain and sometimes not that very good feel the message of the scene. For my opinion, without sound in animation is like watching cartoons of the oldies wherein the message is foreseen in the action of the character. That is not enough to make the audience to really feel the thrill, excitement and etc. What if it’s a horror animation, then it wouldn’t really be a horror without the sound because audience might not scream or be frightened.

                There are some opinions that they wouldn’t like the movie even if the animation is great when the sound effects are poor. This simply means that sound play a very important role in keeping the feel of the movie/animation. Every little sound detail is likely to be included to make an animation really good. Make it be a foot step, a gash of the wind, a cricket in the night or simply a buzz of a fly. It is really important to include those for the audience feel the environment of your scene and aside from these sound effects, background music would help if the scene is sad, thriller and action. Ultimately, my say is that the audience can hear and therefore let them hear the feel of the scene to make a thumb up animation.