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Internet-Created Free Audio Dramas?
fraser_joat asks: "The other day I finally took the time to watch Starship Exeter, previously reported on Slashdot. Coincidentally, I also revisited the BBC's excellent radio adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, following the hype caused by the recent movies.
The two of these got me thinking: while _Exeter_ was clearly a huge effort, it looks like they had a lot of fun making it. In many ways they are scratching the same sort of itch that generates free software. So what about audio drama? The technology needed to produce it is freely available, things like Ardour and Csound. So is it possible to produce an audio drama based on free texts such as those from Project Gutenberg in a distributed fashion, with contributers from all across the Net, just like with software? Would they even be useful as an introduction to classic fiction or just as pure entertainment?"
It would need to be a real community effort - I fancy that I could produce a passable script adaptation of a book and help with the audio production and sound effects, but I'm no actor, nor do I have equipment at home that even approaches what would be required. What about it?"
"While the technology exists to cut a play together, I see several possible problems:
- High-quality audio recording equipment is expensive, and homes are not ideal environments. Can source material of sufficiently good quality be generated without professional facilities?
- Since the actors could be widely separated, can they act in isolation in a sufficiently convincing manner that they can be cut together later, in the same way that film actors must pretend that the special effects exist during shooting?
- Are there good (royalty-)free sound effect libraries available?
It would need to be a real community effort - I fancy that I could produce a passable script adaptation of a book and help with the audio production and sound effects, but I'm no actor, nor do I have equipment at home that even approaches what would be required. What about it?"
Oh, you can find StoneTrek here, to save some bandwidth on the home site.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There's been a few specially written audio dramas written for Doctor Who and featured on BBC's Cult site (can't recall URL presently), which IIRC have used some of the original actors when possible as well as some reasonably famous celebrities for additional voices.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
There's plenty of free professional-grade stuff at Seeing Ear Theatre.
Scifi.com occasionally even throws in some classic radio stuff, but the best source for "X Minus One" (Bradbury, Dick, Zelazny, etc.) is Old-Time Radio mp3 trees where you trade CD-R's through the mail.
There's a charity that specializes in doing exactly that, through the efforts of volunteers.
(I've been thinking of giving it a go someday....)
iSKUNK!
So far the hardest part has been to get the Voice Actors to record with the same settings, as close to the same way as possible.
Nothing like a VA who doesn't understand the format request, giving 4khz/8bit when you ask for 44khz, 16 bit.
Or the VA who speaks three angstroms from the microphone.
Or the VA who practically whispers so quitely the 'cut off' clips most of her audio, and what you -do- get is "household" noise.
I'm still going to keep attempting this. I just find that the hardest part is Voice Actor wrangling.
It's not free (and it isn't really what you're talking about) but ZBS Media has been putting out sci-fi/fantasy audio dramas for close to two decades. Their most notable series are the Ruby Series (a film-noir detective set on another planet - I recommend the first one. Oh yeah, and she slows time. :) and Jack Flanders (an inter-dimentional traveller, for lack of a better description. More fantasyish. Check this one.) Both are awsome. They're also completely not-for-profit, so if you like their stuff you can donate at their website.
Enjoy.
Triv
In the US they are done this way.
In Japan, for instance, all the actors are in an open soundstage and read their lines with everyone else present, and in many cases it keeps the actors from sounding stilted.
You could recreate some of the synergy (buzzzzzzzzz) of actors working together in real time if the performances were done simultaneously with an instant messenger using an audio stream or webcam. If done correctly, this could solve the problem of disjoint performances.
But it would create a few logistical problems. The performers would need to record their own work at their own computers. That would mean each of them using Audacity or whatever and knowing enough to get good sounds out of it. They would each need good quality sound cards and microphones. And pretty fast internet connections. That's a lot to ask.
Then there is the problem of mixing down. First the actors need to get their wav files to the sound engineer. Wav files are HUGE! You could cut down some of the size by using FLAC or something, but you're still talking about some pretty massive files. Another reason why the actors need fat pipes. Mixing down an entire book would be an enormous task. It takes hours to mix down a three minute song. Mixing an audio book is a bit simpler than a pop song, I imagine, but it would still take an incredibly long time to do.
I think this would be really cool, and I'd like to participate if someone gets a project going, but there are a few things that need to be worked out. The fact that I can write this post using Galeon on Linux is a major testament to the power of peer production efforts.
I created one called StorySprawl a while ago - it's for people to actually write cyoa adventures together, and we started doing an audio rendition of one of them, chapter by chapter, "Dreams Of Esterton". Low budget but fun. The "old" version of storysprawl is at www.storysprawl.com and the new version is in development... people can always write me if they want to have access to one of the sample audio chapters.
Curt
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
My bad. Guess I missed the bit about Project Gutenberg texts...
:-)
RFBD does mostly new books, and educational ones at that. Copyright issues prevent the recordings from being freely distributed.
Anyway, these folks are interesting not so much because of their finished products, but because they recruit volunteers to record and produce them, and have all the actual equipment necessary to do that. It's a nifty way for hopeful voice actors / dramatic readers to get some footwork, and perform charity at the same time. (Yes, educational books only, but there's a whole art to not sounding like Ben Stein on Valium
P.S.: Someone please mod my previous comment (-1, Overrated)....
iSKUNK!
My younger sister is an AVA, or Amateur Voice Actress online. There's quite a community of voice actors, who frequently produce original radio plays, and those based on books, movies, anime or TV.
Fanfiction is perhaps the most popular form of online voice acting, as the producers and actors are able to take more liberties. Fandubs (generally the fan-dubbing of anime) are quite popular, as are rewriting books into script-format and recording them.
These generally turn out fairly well, sometimes better than professional dubs, and the actors record their lines in their own homes, without ever having met the rest of the cast.
The most popular site for AVA's is FLAVA (Fun Lovin' Aspiring Voice Actors).
The VAA (Voice Acting Alliance) is a very good place to learn more about how these productions are made.
One of the most popular original online radio plays, which is beautifully mixed, is Legacy of a Hero, and definitely sets the standard for amateur producing and acting. LoaH is highly recommended listening.
My sister's AVA resume will give an example of the range of productions.
In short, online voice acting, in people's homes, mixed with lines of other cast members whom they've never met, can work out incredibly well, and have been doing so for several years.
'The staff in the hand of a wizard may be more than a prop for age,' -Hamá, the doorward
I don't know if this is something you'd be interested but the evangelical christian group "Focus on the Family" produces some very high production value radio dramas. They are obviously coming from a conservative evangelical christian position but most of their dramatisations are of classics & childrens classics. For example: Silas Marner
Les Miserables
Billy Bud by Melville
Dicken's A Christmas Carol
C. S. Lewis'The Chronicles of Narnia
the Secret Garden
I've also heard that their dramatisation of the life of Deitrich Boenhoffer is very good.
i wanted to jump in here as well. i worked for six years doing ADR and post production for the animated series the Simpsons along with numerous other animated programs.
how we would go about it is like this. we would have what is called a cast record first. this is when every actor comes to the studio or soundstage and the whole script is read and recorded. this would then be edited very slightly, sometimes not at all and then shipped to the animators for a reference. after completing a majority of the animation, dialogue editors would go through and match dialogue with the animation. now, after this had been done, there would always be some lines that weren't innotated right during the first record, or the producers made changes during the animation process to make it more funny, happy, etc. these changes would then go to the ADR stage. we would have each actor come in and record the lines synced to picture. sometimes this would be 12 lines per actor, or it could be the whole damn script for a particular actor, you never knew. it was at this point that walla would be recorded. walla is the "background" people and crowd audio you hear. it is usually done by a walla team of 4 to 6 people. after all of this, all of the audio is sent to dialogue editors, sound effects editors, mixers, sweeteners. these people are the final step in the post production process. they tidy everything up with your typical crossfades, sweetening, and mix everything down to a final stereo track that is layed to tape synced with the animation.
just some information from me, some stupid recording engineer.
As for me, I am an observer that has observed there is a lot of observing to observe.