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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?"
Aren't cartoons done in a segmented fashion? You don't get all of the actors in one room. Each one records there segment and then everything is spliced later on. Actually, there is no reason that you couldn't do exactly like you suggest and find somebody who is willing to do some low end computer animation.
Because I really want to see poorly coreographed lightsaber duels with AfterEffects glow slapped on top.
Set to a bastard child combo of John Williams and Fatboy Slim and you've got a hit! You're an internet movie star, baby!
A few years ago, I ran into an audio series on the Internet, although it was originally on NPR Playhouse. Apparently it was one of there most popular series of all time. Its a wonderful, campy radio drama. I wish these guys would do more. Highly worth checking out.
o we en99/hayward_sanitarium/hayward.html
Check on Google, but ther RA files can be found here:
http://www.cincinnatisoftball.com/specials/hall
Perhaps a less ambitious and more realistic starting point would be to produce "books on tape" of some of the Project Gutenberg works. One person could produce a work with minimal effort and no sound effects.
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:
I'm really sorry to break it to all the geeks here BUT you do actually need to act to do Radio plays. It can be much harder to convey feeling when all you have is a voice.
People who can act have a skill, just like coders. And lets face it...
No one has ever said that communication is the strongest skill that a geek ever had.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
More and more universities are offering their students high quality audio equipment for free use. One place I know of is Johns Hopkins, where a number of people I know have produced professional sounding recordings simply by taking a quick class in how to use the equipment offered by the university.
Possibly other places, like libraries might do the same for out of school people. The equipment's there, there just needs to be the time and the money.
I don't know about the legal issues with use, though, such as students using the equipment to bootleg concerts, etc. Other issues might include people renting the equipment to make "home videos".
Consider something like the the bar with the aliens in "Star Wars". In an audio drama, all you have to do is have a few words by the narrator (something about a typical seedy spaceport dive, with a band of aliens playing exotic instruments), and then some simple sound effects, and the listener gets an image of the place.
Not "the" image...but "an" image...which is better, because everyone gets the image of the perfect seedy spaceport dive for them.
In a movie, all we get is the director's image...and unless they spend a lot on costumes and effects, it's a cheesy image at that.
When you don't have to spend most of your budget on effects, you can spend more on story. Many classic SF stories that we'll probably never seen done well on the screen were done in the 50's on radio.
Finally, audio works great in the car.
Back in the eighties I had a lot of friends who produced public cable access TV shows. You can borrow the cameras and use the studios and editing facilities. Depends on the city, but in Portland Oregon all you had to pay for was tape. Most of the shows were on the level of two people sitting in the studio with a fake potted plant between them. But there were some scripted stories shot on location with local actors, or at least acting students. Very amateurish but occasionally interesting and sometimes actually good.
My point is that people who want to do these things are already doing them. There's nothing holding back anybody from producing audio drama and throwing it on Live365 etc.
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.
"While the technology exists to cut a play together, I see several possible problems:
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?
To the first point... high quality computer audio is dirt-cheap these days. A SB Live Value has better record/play fidelity than the majority of pro broadcast gear used in the 60' to 80's. 24-bit cards can be had for under $300. Decent mics are an order of magnitude less expensive than 10 years ago - eg a Chinese large diaphragm condenser for $99 (Nady, Marshall, APEX etc). Very effective multitrack software can be had for well under $100 (example www.ntrack.com). So the gear is THERE!
As far as a recording space...funnily enough, many radio drama studios pride themselves on how realistic a 'room' sound they can create. Amazing how much a living room can be made to sound like
The best sound effects for radio drama are custom-created and recorded, libraries might get used for hard-to-get stuff, or for less critical backgrounds. Again, a guy with a MD recorder (or a rented DAT) and a mic can gather just about any required effect.
The sellers of pro libraries have fallen on hard times. Pro Hollywood-grade libraries are selling at 50% or more off usual price. A good general 10-CD library can be had for under $300 on sale. Check out the Blue Plate Special at www.sound-ideas.com. And there's alot on $ 10 "multimedia" library CDs. And finally, tons of free stuff on the 'Net.
Regarding actor collaboration, yes you will still get the best results with the actors playing off each other in the same studio.
So, it would be easy and rewarding to do this over the Internet. Let's go!
Down with hollywood! Up with kids who build star trek sets in their parents basements!
Although if the Exiter people keep on churning out good stuff, they could *accidently* produce a major hit, like the blair witch project...
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