GALORE!

I’m envious and a little in awe of fellow audio dramatists that I meet online in various social media groups.  Most of them do their own recording and production and I know that such technical skills may well be beyond me forever. Luckily for me, I’ve learnt long ago the value of other people’s skills and expertise. ( It seems there are people who actually like doing tax returns, for example, and I have taken advantage of this fact for many years now.)   So it’s a joy to know and work with people who like producing the clean recordings we need to make audio drama, and those who are happy to seek out, design and finesse the bizarre soundscapes my plays sometimes require. Himan Brown, one of the great names in radio history famously wrote: 

“The key to radio drama is sound – is imagination – is what you can do by stirring somebody. You can’t do that with television. You can show them the pictures and say ‘This is what it is’. But so what? So you sit there like a dummy and accept the car crashes but you can’t add anything to it. There’s nothing bloodier than the blood you see in your imagination. What are they gonna do? Pour a lot of ketchup on the television screen? It’s still bloodier in your own mind.”

 I have a reckless sense of handing over all responsibility when I write a direction such as

SFX: Contents of glass thrown onto cat, who catches alight. Cat screeches. Water is flung at cat. Cat escapes through cat flap and is gone. (It turns out that this effect alone comprises 45 layers of sound!)

Or another one:  

SFX: The cart lurches to one side as the horse stumbles: wood creaking and scraping; horse neighs in distress. Samuel exclaims as he is almost thrown out but manages to pull up sharp: wheels and horse hooves trundle forward briefly as the cart is righted and then come to a stop.

Thanks to the skills of people like Alex Bennett and John Boyd, as well as the talented actors, the raw dialogue that I wrote will be turned into what some people call theatre of the mind.  (Can I just add that I do like cats and horses, none of which were ever harmed in the making of my audio plays…!)

 You can read here about the people who have made my writing come alive. Couldn’t do any of it without them.