Audio Performance Blog 3: Ensemble Work Rehearsal

This blog will detail the development/research, rehearsal and analysis of my audio performance pieces. We have been tasked with developing and performing a big ensemble radio play and also have 3 individual pieces to do with solo performance. This blog is about the former and the next blog will be about the latter. The play is called "People Snogging in Public Places" by Jack Thorne.


3/1/17:

Initial Thoughts:

So today we found out the casting and surprisingly, I got James. This is quite a daunting task since James is the main character of this play has a lot of dialogue and is definitely the most developed character in the play. On the initial read through I had no idea what to make of the play or how it could be performed. I read for the character for about a third of it and he had so much to say, I won't say that I wasn't intrigued by it and some of the weirder elements of the play I did find very funny which showed some comedic potential for the play. However when reading it there was also a lot of dramatic potential for a lot of these scene especially the ending or at least with the vague idea I had of what was going on. Admittedly I couldn't follow it too well upon first reading it and I would usually put more of a focus on body language if this were a regular play since I usually think of that first and then it influences my vocal delivery. However that's cut out entirely so not having the physical base to work with made my delivery (Mixed with the fact it was my first reading) pretty bland overall. I have a lot responsibility in this piece, if I'm bland then the play overall will not live up to it's full potential at all. So I see potential for this play I just need to look at it more.



4/1/17:

Today we did our first full read through of the play. It went well but there was some definite room for improvement especially on my part. I had only just been cast as James and was obviously not too familiar with the material at this point.

Firstly I found the script very difficult to read as in since there's so much dialogue I found it difficult to keep up although that maybe due to it being the first full read through as the character. Also there was a lot of pauses, transitional moments and a lot of full stops that on the first read, made some of it seem unnatural and hard to read properly. As well as that I was just stuttering an awful lot, so with this focus on just trying to actually read it, I very rarely fully characterised James. This also meant that the pacing was very slow any time I had to read something. There are moments where it will go from me talking and then it transitions into a moment in the past and I didn't how to make them sound good, any time they had to flow it sounded very unnatural since I was always unsure if I should set it up as if the character's voice over is anticipating it or if the voice should cut off abruptly. Either way it didn't sound right.

My main criticism in my feedback was that I lack any real variation in my voice. In some scenes I did well but in others I was very one note. I put this down to not having read it before but I still feel I could've done better. I can tell that the scenes do have very varying emotions, I just haven't worked them out yet or really got a full grasp on everything.

Something I feel I must rehearse, is how to properly act with punctuation marks since with full stops, I often ignored them making the paragraph seem to fast and then other times I'd make the pause beat last for too long so either way it wasn't well executed especially with the previously mentioned transitional moments. So really I had the same issue as I mentioned in "The Christmas Tree" where the punctuation didn't seem to be well timed. The rule seemed to be that when I come to a full stop, stop for about a full second, possibly.

As I said there were no characteristics although when I thought about it afterwards the only quality I thought of that I could bring forth or identify vocally was the fact he's socially awkward. This could be shown by a use of pauses or slowing down his speech and adding an uneasy tone to it when ever he's interacting with anyone. I'll have to read it more to get a good feel on that though.


13/1/17:

After the read today I was thinking about what James is like and how he should sound. I feel I'm giving him a delivery that's very similar to how I actually talk although when reading him, I get reminded of a certain character. He reminds me of Will from "The Inbetweeners" in some regards. Everything about the way he talks, in terms of when he's talking about himself implies that he's fully aware of why he's unpopular but he's just grown to be comfortable and even embrace it in some regards. He doesn't like the fact he's unpopular and genuinely hates some of the reasons why but he also looks at the benefits of it. I get a slight optimistic feeling from him at certain points during the play, especially when he's talking about being a library monitor and how the quiet does him some good. There is a slightly optimistic tone to him at some points. Although at others he's acknowledging how rubbish his life is so he varies a lot in terms of how he feels although it seems as though he really just wants to be normal. Going back to the optimism, he's aware that his uncle has a lot of issues but still looks on the positive side of having him there, how ever that changes when he realises that Patrick may ruin his chances of making a friend.

This is showing that I will have to look even more at this script to pin point the emotional variants from moment. The plays tone as well as James's emotions shift a lot so I will have to do the same and show this other wise the one note performance will seem very out of place, some moments won't flow very well and certain parts will probably be boring.

The idea I had last time of varying his speech when interacting seems to have developed slightly. I will keep the same basic principle but I'll have to take the emotion any other person would feel and change it a little bit. For example when he's talking to Pete and he says "No. No.That'd be great" I could put some pauses in there and increase the volume and excitement as it goes on to audibly hint at his sudden excitement/hope/happiness. It's little thing like that I want to experiment with to create some variation and bring some life into him.

A problem I'm having with reading this script is when I get to longer paragraphs such as my breakdown near the end. I feel I have to read it rather fast to reflect the panicky over thinking nature of it all but when I read it, I do stutter a lot and lose my place. It was an issue I had the last read through and it hasn't gone away. Even though we were told we don't have to memorise it, I really think I should look over the script quite a lot during the lead up other wise the final read will have absolutely no natural flow and seem forced. If it seems forced then all potential of emotional connection will be gone.


20/1/17:

Today we finished our third read through since we had to stop yesterday after 20 pages and this is the day where I got notes as we were reading the script which I found very helpful.

I got only a couple of notes and they were mainly to do with the way I was saying a certain line, usually it would be said with the wrong intention. For example when I say "Because truthfully I haven't got the symptoms of autism. Really." I originally said it like I'd been hiding it and I was ashamed to admit it, which didn't work in the context of the scene. it was meant to be said as if I was letting it out as if it was just a bad excuse I'd been using and I was being very serious about it. I tried that and it was much better.

A note of criticism I gave myself was that I felt my voice was too weak and not properly warmed up. There were points when reading (Especially during longer paragraphs) where my diction was very poor in a lot of places and the words just melded together. My projection wasn't great today either but is improving a bit from the last session.

While I have read them a fair few time I still think I need to get more familiar with the longer paragraphs since there is still a lot of stuttering and the natural tones and inflections go away when I'm noticeably struggling to read the lines

I've noticed despite my words blending together at points, I'm getting a little better with the punctuation and recognising the structure of certain lines. I even read a line wrong and then recognised how I should say it after I finished reading it. I can't remember hat the line was but I picked up on it whilst I was reading it. I even corrected myself before Sally could give me the note about it.

A good thing about this rehearsal was that I noticed an aspect of my performance that I think is key. I noticed I was differentiating my voice between narration and in scene dialogue. My voice when narrating is generally a bit more projected and feels like it has a lower tone, almost like during narration, he's fairly comfortable and has the slightest bit of confidence. Whereas when I'm talking to someone else in the play my voice is usually a tad quieter and awkward since that is how socially awkward people can interact. They could have confident thoughts but in real life they can't handle things as well. This is good since it makes a key distinction between if it's an interaction or exposition and that needs to be clear other wise it can be very confusing. In a film you can see when narration kicks in, but not here, so as of now I think I'm on the right track in that regard.

3/2/17:

Today we had another full read through of the script and it went very well.

My main note was that even though I'm doing very well and showing some good potential, I just need to read the script more. I have been reading it as often as I can but it's just the big paragraphs I struggle with. I think I just have trouble balancing the speed and the emotion of the scene while trying to keep track of where I am. I'll still keep reading it though whenever I can. This does bring up a problem however about the fact that if I still have this problem when actually recording, it may lose something since I'll still be looking at the script (Even though I'll have my head up) it may make me lose focus on the emotional tones in my voice and make me just focus on the script. I'll be honest that is something I really don't want to happen.

There is a part in the script where I start panicking and I'm supposed to start crying. I've never done this before, not even in a regular play so to try and just convey that through my voice could be difficult. I tried it out and found it initially quite hard to do although as I went along it got better. Something I tried doing was like what I mentioned with "Bioshock Infinite", just trying to reach an emotional place. I tried imagining I was in this scenario and and compare it o whenever I've been stressed to make some anger surface. Not much just enough so I could show frustration or fear. It seemed to work OK but is something I really need to practice.

One technique that I have used when rehearing was to make sure anytime I had to take an in-breath, I would move my head away from the microphone, so that the quick although still mostly inaudible breath isn't heard. I have problems with breath control in terms of knowing when/how to take small breaths in a sentence to keep the flow in the way most actors can, so they are less frequent than everyone else's. I often remedy it by carrying on with the sentence and when I get to the end of a sentence or a punctuation mark, I feel the need to do this. It does help with the flow a little bit and still cannot be heard which is a good thing.

During that same scene is a point where I have to shout "Sorry" to someone I run into by accident and to create the illusion that I'm moving and that I turn my head back to say sorry to him, I will actually turn my head backwards. It's like with what I saw in the session for "Family Guy" and acting out what you're actually doing. It really does help if it's planned out well and this when it's properly mixed into the background sound effects as well will suggest what my character is doing.


9/2/17:

With everything I've talked about and researched and rehearsed over this project I think I'm ready as the recording session is almost here. I'll certainly be rehearsing, reading and familiarising as much as I can. I still have a couple problems such as a dry throat occasionally and some horrible stuttering but everything else such as vocal energy, variation and timing I believe is up to a decent standard and I should deliver an effective performance. Two concerns I have are that being in the recording studio for the first time may make me nervous and something may change but that isn't very likely at all. Also I'm wondering how the stand I hold my script on will affect how I perform. I will have to find a place for it to go so it's not blocking me or pushing me too far back from the mic. In terms of page turning, I've done it so that I don't talk while I'm doing it so the slight pause can be cut out if need be. I'm going to hold a page up and have the next page visible just in case any sentences carry over which a couple of them do. I feel prepared so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do.

Audio Performance Blog 2: Solo Work Rehearsal

For this side of the audio performance tasks we had to with finding a monologue, an advert and a children's story suitable to be told on radio and has to be with in what we consider to be our potential range of vocal performance.



Children's Story:


My original ideas for my story were children's TV shows which had narrators such as "Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids" and "Thomas the Tank Engine". They were stories I was familiar with and they had a large variety of characters and are narrated in a similar manner to how a children's audio book would be read. So it seemed to have the potential to show off quite a few voices and suggest every detail in the text. This turned out not to be the case however. I watched them with the visuals and then without and they seemed to embrace the fact they were working with a visual medium, so some of the adapted text has been lost to add it in with the animation since something can be shown rather than explained through narration. So this means that just as audio it didn't work despite their style of presentation so well and that meant it wouldn't be ideal.

Another reason I decided not to go with them was that since I watched them religiously during my childhood, I realised that when performing, I'm very likely to copy the narrator of the TV shows and not really present my own performance or interpretation, it would just be an impression. So I looked for a story that I was aware of but had never heard anyone read before. I looked for a while and found "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. This is known for having many varied and strange characters for Alice to interact with. The character who I wanted to portray the most was the Cheshire Cat since he's a character that is so crazy but is also very comfortable with the fact he's crazy to the point where h can be described as mellow. He's just so delightfully weird and any version of him I see he's generally fun. So I want to be=ring across the calm yet crazy demeanour and just have the chapter be fun. So I went with a segment of chapter 6.

Something that I wanted to keep in mind is what I learnt from listening to Stephen Fry and Jim Dale read "Harry potter". I have to keep the tone of the chapter and individual moments in mind and use that for my delivery. The atmosphere of this book is very surreal so I The narration will done with a hint of uncertainty, almost as if everything Alice is seeing is being questioned and it's all unfamiliar.

The other thing I learnt from not just the book reading but other shows like "Knowing Me, Knowing You" was to try and vary characters as much as possible. For this I only have two character voices and a third voice for my narration. My ideas for character voices are as follows; Alice will be a rather well spoken girl since in the story she is generally quite patient and well mannered despite everything that's happening around her so making her sound innocent and likeable. She will have a higher pitched voice since she is a young girl. The cat will have a much deeper voice and one that suggests he is very relaxed and laid back, almost like he's saying she shouldn't care where she is, she should just enjoy it. Because of this, his words will be spoken a lot slower where as Alice's will be generally fast paced to show the desperation and eagerness to get out of wherever she is. The narration should evoke the atmosphere so when I say something such as "But he only grinned wider", I feel it has to be said so it seems perplexing, and it's from Alice's emotional point of view. I feel if I can get that right then the surreal nature of this story will come across, if the delivery is fairly bland then the story as a whole will just be a bit more mundane so I really need to get that right. The key here is to create the full picture through variation.


14/1/17:

Today I gave all of my ideas a go, recording it into my phone and listening to it back and in terms of my goal of varying them, I think I did a decent job. I feel that if I took out the "Said Alice" etc then it would still be easy to tell who is talking and I even noticed I was putting in the emotional tones for the characters even though they were not listed in the text. For example when Alice says "But I don't want to be among mad people" I made it sound as though she got frustrated by the fact she was getting nowhere, not rude, just frustrated. So today I showed a good deal of variation, whether or not it would be good in terms of volume and clarity, I'm not overly sure since I wasn't testing that out.

28/1/17:

As I mentioned before I didn't try and test the volume levels of the performance so I performed it and instead of listening to it on my phone, I imported it to my computer and listened to it through my speakers. The notes I made for myself were that I need to project a little more, although I put that down to being in my home while recording and don't like others hearing me rehearse. My clarity was fine and I could understand the recording very well. I think with this I'll probably stand fairly close to the microphone since nothing requires me to be loud, In fact, it more demands that I be quieter, more subtle and possibly mysterious so this will require some close delivery, not too close like I'm whispering but about 7 or 8 inches from the microphone to really get full clarity.




Contemporary Monologue:

I had a few options to choose from but wanted something I'd never done before. Also a goal for me with this entire assignment was to try and show range/versatility in my voice. So something I wanted to experiment with was the use of accents and I had two monologues that I thought would be suitable. My initial choice was Mickey's speech from "Blood Brothers" since the play takes place in Liverpool and I wanted to try that accent as well as the challenge of seeing if I could portray a child's playfulness, innocence and mischief purely through the voice. This was my speech for a while and it was even used for our microphone technique session. However I changed it because it was a comedic piece and all my pieces are fairly light-hearted or comedic at this point and it lacked some variation in that department. So I wanted to go with something else that had a focus on accent and was a bit more dramatic.

The one I changed it to was the Atticus Finch courtroom monologue from "To Kill a Mockingbird", I had already done this and when I thought about it, it seemed incredibly fitting for a radio piece. It's main focus is emotion and vocal tones, even in the film version there is very little movement besides pacing and the occasional hand gesture so those things can be easily removed and it would still have the same effect.

The main feature about this one I must take note of is pace. This is meant to be a very tense, suspenseful scene. The character is a lawyer sticking up for a black man during a time of prejudice and he feels this speech in the courtroom is his best chance to get his point across so he uses it to his fullest.  When he makes a point, he let's a pause happen to potentially give the people he's talking to time to think, even if it's only 2 or 3 seconds. I feel I have to use this at points in the speech such as after he says "She tempted a negro" or "The only good hand he possesses, his right". This will bring that aspect of him across, like he's trying to persuade them, where as if I cut the dramatic pauses out then it would go by much faster and nothing would sink in.

I said it's run on emotion and that emotion is restrained anger, since he's in a courtroom he can't show full on anger otherwise his reputation and authority could be jeopardised. He believes the man he's defending is actually innocent and the fact that the towns racial hatred is clouding their judgement is getting to him. I'm going to have to try and bring this across with specific moments in my voice. A line that comes to mid is "Rigid and time honoured code of our society", that line means he thinks there's no reason for this law to be around other than for the sake of traditionalism. At that point I could make that moment a bit angrier or have a slightly more aggressive tone. This will add variation but also having fluctuating moments in anger and moments of restraint so it will be engaging and keep the listeners attention by changing things up during the 2 and a half minute speech.


22/1/17:

I gave it a run through on my phone today and I have confidence in this as a radio piece. The way I think I should perform it is to stand about a meter or so away from the microphone and then project my lines as if I were in a courtroom, this means the microphone would pick me up very clearly but would have no distortion or popping sounds what so ever. This also makes it easy to edit since the only thing that may be required in post production is the slightest of echos to suggest the size of the room which of course cannot be replicated in a studio. The volume in my piece fluctuates slightly so during those moments where I have to speak a little quieter I will simply take a small step forward to accommodate the volume change.




Advert:

I was initially going to go with the Tesco's one but decided I couldn't when the list of item I'd have to say fast is obscured in the latter half by another person so this meant I couldn't get a proper script for it. So the advert I have decided to go with is a Thorpe Park advert. This one starts with a man at the park telling the listener how good it is and where to book tickets. The main chunk of the advert however is a humorously presented list of reasons as to why you should not attend the park. Even though most of them are conditions and health states, it finishes it off with a comment about everyone else just being scaredy cats. It uses a sort of reverse psychology/taunt to tempt people into coming along. It is as I said though in a fairly humorous manner and not overly serious.

The reason I've chosen it is because the ad's focus is on fast, clear delivery which is something I have never done in this kind of context before. I have proven that outside of acting I can manage fast, articulate delivery although that's more to do with singing or rapping and that's with things that never had a comedic edge to them or any lighthearted mannerisms. I've proven in the past that I can pull of some good comedic timing and with this piece I see the potential to show it in a different light.

I feel for the sake of comparison it would be best to find an advert that delivers the offer or message in a way that's either significantly slower or significantly faster. After looking at a few, I realised one that has a focus on normal or slower pacing would give a better contrast. I mentioned the advert for "AA fuel assist" and the people in the ad talk normally although still with clarity but the last person (The narrator) has more time to get all his sounds out clearly where as I have to rush mine. The other people in the ad talk in a persuasive manner and I feel that would also be good for my guy in the first part of the ad. I listened to quite a few but they all had similar good points, the main one I noticed (And one of the most important) was clarity.

Now a lot of these fast terms and conditions bits on adverts are generally sped up although still fast and crystal clear when originally delivered but I wanted to see if I can do it without the need to edit it. I know of people that can do it and it even some people such as a YouTuber called Caddicarus that sometimes requires his voice to be slowed down. I've demonstrated that I can do this type of thing before but this might be a little more demanding since it's a fair bit longer than anything I've said this quickly.

11/1/17:

Today We had to perform our pieces into a microphone for the first time as a rehearsal in order to practice our microphone technique. I performed my advert since it's the one I feel is up to a decent standard at the moment. When doing it I made sure to stand a good distance away from the microphone when delivering my loud, enthusiastic part but then step further forward and tilt my head to the side a bit when saying the bulk of my advert since it's much quieter. I decided to step forward quickly since the two voices in the advert have to contrast in tone and volume so the faster I can make that happen, the more intentionally jarring it should be and therefore a little funnier. With all these projects I do want to try and make it so there's less work for the editor and less time can be wasted to fully utilising these abilities and correct timing that can be done.

My feedback for performing was pretty positive. The thing I was very happy to hear was that I did have a great degree of clarity although I personally thought that I could have gone a little further, there were a couple words that sort of blended together even though the overall performance was pretty good. I wasn't properly warmed up at the time although when I had to perform it again, later that day it did have full clarity.

Most people found it to actually be very funny as well which means I'm achieving the contrast I wanted for it. There was one person who thought my voice in the first part of the advert didn't work although they never gave a reason and everyone thought it was pretty good. I like it mainly because of the aforementioned contrast that it provides, one moment the voice is happy inviting and very enthusiastic where as the other is very serious, yet humorous and is drastically faster.

Some constructive feedback I got was that I need to place a breath in there so I don't sound out of breathy by the end of it. I had already considered the idea of putting a comical, over the top, deep breath in there since it does get used in other ads such as the Tesco's one I mentioned before, however I really feel it would be funnier and more impressive and effective if I did it in one breath. I know I can do it, I just need to find the right warm, ups to get me to do it.

One thing I need to mention is the need o stay hydrated. I often forget to do this for rehearsals and it's a huge flaw of mine and it did happen today. For the first read again that's where my flaws came through and this was a major factor. You don't want the voice to sound warn out or tired which it can do if not hydrated and it can be distracting when heard.


17/2/17:

Today we had to demonstrate one of our pieces to the class using a microphone plugged into speakers but this time we actually got to show Sally. This time however we were all behind a screen so we could not see each other and only had the actors voices to go off of. I again demonstrated my advert since I feel it's still the one I feel was the most prepared.

The feedback for it was overall very positive. I was told I have some great clarity especially considering it's all very fast and has to be done in one breath. My volume was also very good and my clarity was spot on this time although I still had that annoying issue where half way through, I need to take a breath. I again got the note that I should add a breath in but to be honest I really don't like that idea because it does takes away from the impressive nature and it's just not very representative of that advert trope. Terms and conditions readers never take a breath so to do it would not be accurate and would it would just seem lazy. People say it's OK to add it in for comedy but it's really not that funny, someone who is being very serious saying these reasons as to why you shouldn't come is much funnier than referencing it and being overly self aware. I have practiced it and done it in one breath so I'm going to try my best to do it again in the recording

The feedback I got today suggested that my voice for the beginning part fits very well since it's meant to be very enthusiastic and it seemed a bit infectious, some people did genuinely enjoy it. This was good to hear since it got criticism last time although people have either warmed to it or always liked it. Some people were even quoting it afterwards so I must've done something well.

Audio Performance Blog 1: Analysis

Introduction:

These blogs will detail the research, development, rehearsal and analysis of my audio performance pieces. We have been tasked with developing and performing a big ensemble radio play and also have 3 individual pieces to do with solo performance. This blog is about all of the analysed projects to do with audio performance in preparation for both assignments as well as any additional information and techniques/ideas I find. It will detail what I learn from listening to them, whether they be good or bad, both are beneficial for identifying key elements and faults with a performance so I can learn from them.



5/1/17:

Today was a session about exploring basic microphone technique. This session I found to be quite useful since I'm very inexperienced when it comes to vocal performance and have never had to to it as a genuine performance.

The rules we went over were as follows:

- Make sure that you don't have a tight or tense posture since it will affect your breath control, your volume and can limit how much you're able to say. So it is best to stay as relaxed as possible and keep your body loose unless your performance demands such a tense voice for a scene.

- Never sit down. It's always best to stand up otherwise this is very restricting as well.

- Always breathe through your mouth as well as your nose so that you don't get the "t" when opening your mouth next to the microphone. It also allows you to take more breath in a lot faster so you can hopefully keep the pacing consistent or to what is intended.

- If you have to get very close to the microphone then it's recommended to slant you head slightly so that the audio isn't affected by your breathing or "P", "T" and "H" sounds hitting the microphone. Even if you have a pop filter over the mic it's still a method to prevent any possibility of the distortion happening.

- Make sure to use distance correctly. This means that the distance you're standing from the microphone has to correlate with the volume of your performance. This important for the sake of clarity, if the distance is wrong it'll be either too quite, too loud and distorted or just have a lack of clarity.

The main bulk of the session was experimenting with these ideas. We had to choose one of pieces (I went with my "Blood Brothers" monologue) and then record a segment of it with variations in how we deliver it. When trying them out I was trying to test out how the breath capacity/control is affected and see in what way it affects the clarity of the final audio only result. The first one I tried after doing the straight forward read was to stand with my arms firmly by my side as if I'm in a crowed corridor. That resulted in my recording sounding quieter and a little more breathy compared to the first one. Then I laid down on my stomach and said the lines and this one sounded way too breathy and as if I had very little air in me to say the whole line at a good volume due to my diaphragm being pushed inwards a bit, restricting it.

We also tried just varying the distance from the microphone to see what kind of effects we get. We ran through segments of our speeches several times with variations in distance from the microphone. As you'd think, this affected the clarity of the recording and showed us the importance of the correlation between distance and volume. If you deliver normally but are too far away then it will sound too quite and muffled but if you're too close and too loud then it will sound hugely distorted and very unnatural.

These are the key rules in audio performance and I will be analysing.



Projects Analysed: 



Radio Dramas:

The first one I looked at for a radio drama was the horror play "The Woman in Black". With in a minute of watching it I noticed something to do with the character Isabelle. When she said her first two lines as she was entering the room there was a jarring increase in volume and I can put this down to 2 things. Either while recording, she was stationary and her audio was just mixed incorrectly or she used the technique of standing away and stepped towards the microphone too quickly, resulting in the sound change happening to fast. There was no natural flow to how the volume increased with the situation presented and it me aware of what I was doing, listening to a play. Call this a nit pick but it was fairly jarring and goes against the idea of this play since it's a horror and has a focus on establishing atmosphere and a probably the most important part of setting up said atmosphere (Whether it be radio, TV, film or game) is to have good sound design/mixing, anything that's quite off can break the immersion. So a way to resolve this is to either stay still and just hope the editor is good at mixing the audio correctly or really make sure if your steps forward are paced well according to your demand. Other than that nitpick though the sequence I listened to was very well done, the actors were crystal clear, really energised and the rest of the sound design such as the ticking clock in the background did wonders for the atmosphere.

I also looked at "Cock" by Mike Bartlett. I feel finding faults in something is the best way to learn from it, and with this, I can't say that I noticed any in terms of it's acting and production quality. The audio was very well mixed and both lead actors were giving very clear, very natural performances and due to this, a lot of the lines were engaging to listen. This all applies to the segments I listened to, if there were any faults I didn't find them or notice them. So really I feel that if I just listened to this in preparation, I wouldn't have learnt much since it's done well. There isn't any behind the scenes material for it so I can't analyse but just going by this, it seems to match up with all the rules I've listed and in terms of acting is done very effectively.



Radio Comedy/Sketches:

I looked Three example for this and they are pieces I'm fairly familiar with. They are "Knowing me Knowing you with Alan Partridge" (Which is featured in our ensemble play), and sketches from "That Mitchell and Webb Sound" and "Monty Python".

I looked at the "Argument Clinic" sketch from "Monty Python". I looked at both the radio studio recorded version and the television version to compare their differences. The main difference I noticed between them was definitely how they're paced, The radio sketch is 3 and a half minutes where as the TV sketch is 4 and a half minutes despite having the exact same script. The actors are generally talking much faster and have very few gaps between their sentences. While I feel it's debatable if that is beneficial for radio as a whole, it definitely fits this style here since it's meant to be an energetic, wacky and ridiculous program. All visual elements are gone so they must be worked around. Some shows can incorporate pauses extremely well which I'll mention with the next program, but it seems as though it can't have too much silence otherwise the pacing will seem much slower due to nothing else to focus on during that moment. It also helps with adapting it since in the show they may have a visible reaction which cannot be shown on, so cutting that aspect out keeps the focus on the dialogue and results in a very frantic and well put together sketch. This sketch also has no canned laughter/audience track so the gaps would be all the more noticeable if they paced them out more.

Something else I noticed was the energy levels and volume of the overall performances. The most notable example of that is when Graham Chapman has to shout at Michael Palin, it seems more restrained, almost like he's holding it back or makes it seems as though he's really in his face, which he isn't. It seems as though he's too close too the microphone and knows it, so is holding himself back a bit. I feel this bit isn't as funny as the TV version since in that he goes all out in that and it seems more surprising when he shouts, putting us into Michael Palin's place of being overwhelmed and surprised. However I do feel that the moment where he whispered to himself sounded better the radio version because in the TV when he did it, it was too loud and didn't create enough of a contrast where as this one did and since he's required to get up close to a microphone here it's easier to accomplish. So an advantage to take from this medium is that you have a greater deal of control over volume so it's best put to use and I will be taking care to think about how loud I need to be.


I also looked at two episodes of "Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge". They use the same cast for every episode so I wanted to look and see how they make key distinctions between the characters they play. The two actors I focused on were Patrick Marber and Rebecca Front since I felt they were the best at doing that. Their main differences between characters in episodes are the use of accent, tone, varying speech speed and inflections. In one episode their characters can be a very energetic, fast talking American where as in the next, they could be slow speaking, monotone, miserable, English person. This shows the importance of versatility. Since you're on radio, no one can see you so it's all the more harder to be recognised so it's best to take advantage of that and change it up. If all the guests sounded the same then all the episodes would give off the same vibe and it would be rubbish if it didn't also have great writing but thankfully they don't and they give some varied, brilliant performances.

It's important to also distinguish between specific emotions. These guys do it very well, you can clearly tell when they're frustrated compared to when they're angry just by the subtitles of there volume and pace.

Different to "Monty Python", this show actually has a laughter track in it, so any moment after a character has said something there could be some realistic pacing with the speech since there was the something to fill in the gaps. I don't know whether the audience is actually there, my bet is that it isn't and that the laughter is actually canned. With that in mind, it means you are allowed to pace things a little more naturally and even have awkward moments. It works very well to consider the pacing of the speech in this manner to bring across the moment properly. In the script for our ensemble play, it seems as though it'll have quite a few variations of pacing for particular moments, I'll get into that when I read it again and develop it but it's made me realise that I'll have to consider each moment and wonder what the writers intention for the scene is to give off the right mood.

Of all the radio pieces I've listened to for this, this was the one that was the easiest to listen to. I'm a fan of the TV show that spawned from this and it honestly felt the same, even without the visuals, it was just like I had the show on and just looked away from the screen. The combination of all it's elements such as changing their characters effectively, having fantastic pacing/timing with all of their lines and pauses resulted in it being very funny and constantly engaging to listen to.



Cartoons/Animated films:

For this I looked at a recording session for the cartoon "Family Guy". It's a cartoon I loved that's filled with some very and talented voice actors so I wanted to see how they act around a microphone. This was easy to come by since there is a lot of behind the scenes footage. The first thing I noticed them doing was to actually act out what they're doing physically. The best examples were of Alex Borstein and Seth Macfarlane. Alex voices Lois and Loretta in the same scene and you can see when she changes her body language when switching characters. She speaks more softly and is generally more relaxed when doing Lois's nasally but is more upright with her head pushed backwards and upwards and stern when having to do Loretta's more husky, gravelly voice. Any emotion they have, they physically display it and differentiate themselves very well. There is a part where Mike Henry has to be angry and he does three takes, the first two lack energy and are OK at best but then he steps back a little bit and increases his volume and emotional intensity which gives a much better take. When one of them is acting scared or surprised they change their body language to accommodate. So I feel it's pretty important to act out your emotion despite that no one will see it, because it does have a drastic effect on your voice so the intent will be understood if done correctly. The action does influence the voice.

One thing I noticed watching this was that if there is a scene with multiple people that has to be relatively fast paced or involves a lot of overlapping, then it is far better doing it all at once rather than one at a time. If it's done one at a time then it has to be edited together and that's makes the performances difficult to manage when recording them since you don't know how they'll turn out. There is an argument/misunderstanding scene in the making of and the way everyone works off each other and their reactions to each other and overall frantic nature of the scene is so much better and far funnier than just recreating it one at a time. Even though I've used a comedy to put this point across, the principle applies to dramatic scene as well, any meaningful interaction works best when you have the other actors right there with you. Quite a few cartoon do do it where the actors take it in turns to do the dialogue and it can sound very different and takes the natural feel away from it. "Family Guy" doesn't do this for the most part and any frantic scene is often hilarious due to the actor's chemistry and how they never try to out do each other.

I also looked at an infamously bad cartoon called "The Christmas Tree", a low budget Christmas special from 1991. It is very bad and it's faults are as follows;  

All the audio sounds a tad to quite and not as clear as it needs to be. The audio mixing/performances as a whole are very inconsistent since some people are actually a lot quieter than others  which resulting in having to pay close attention to some people just mumbling to get an ideas of what they're saying, where as the others will at least be mildly clear but still rubbish and lack any energy at all.

By far the biggest flaw with the acting in this cartoon is the lack of emotion, these people more or less all sound the same, it's all so dull and lifeless, especially the character Ray who sounds like his actor is bored and just wants to get out of there. His actor really seems like he's just reading the lines and nothing else at all, it's completely monotone. They all have no energy and in the very few moments where it seems like they try, it seems misplaced. There's a part where one of the characters is talking and she finishes her sentence and then says "and another thing" to make another point but there is literally nothing in between the two sentences and it's incredibly jarring, especially seeing as she gets a tad angrier in that sentence (Or at least trying to) which just adds to add how out and organised everything is since she has no reason to. I honestly don't know if that moment was poor editing or if she rushed the line but either way it's not very good.

That same moment also is a good example of how pacing ignored in this whole special, all the actors are either too slow or jarringly fast. All this just adds up to something that can even be unintentionally funny and overall a mess of performances and results in nothing be engaging, especially since barely anything is delivered properly and they may only get one aspect of the performance down from time to time.



Video Games:

I looked at three video games for this although I wanted to stick to ones that were not motion captured meaning they were just recording audio, not acting on a camera with a digital model added later. I'll be looking at one excellently acted game and two appallingly acted games, those being "Bioshock Infinite", Resident Evil" and "Ride to Hell - Retribution" respectively.

Bioshock Infinite: I have played this game before and think it's a great example of voice acting so I watched to a rehearsal session of Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper recording for a scene in the game. They record their audio together since they are very rarely apart form each other in the story and the session I watched shows a scene where the Character Elizabeth has to get upset. Courtnee Draper found it hard to get the right tone for the moment so the director and fellow actors decided to give her some build up to the moment by shouting and belittling her to "Get her to an emotional place" and it worked marvellously. While I seriously doubt that would ever happen in our recording sessions, it just shows the sheer dedication of this team and the importance they put on the genuine, raw emotions of the characters they were portraying. It shows how beneficial it is to embody your character as much as you can and not just stand there saying the dialogue how you think it would be said. If it is as genuine as possible for the actor, then it'll most likely be genuine for the audience. I'm not saying that an actor must traumatise themselves to get the right reaction but just do what they can to get the emotion right. No matter what part I get I will always keep this in mind, they've shown what it can do and I need to do the same.


Ride to hell - Retribution: Due to this games terrible reputation, no behind the scenes material for it exists as of yet, however that doesn't matter since all you have to do is listen and the many flaws with the acting become apparent. The acting is far too quite at points and lacks any real emotion. There is one point in the game where the main character Jake let's out a huge scream of anger and frustration but it sounds like someone doing an impression of a scream but staying restrained intentionally. It really sounds restrained and put on. Any line that's said has no energy to it and results in everything sounding the same with no variation, so nothing sounds engaging. For example there's a scene where two characters are riding on motorbikes but their dialogue is delivered in the exactly the same as it did in the previous scene, nothing really changes. So techniques to definitely learn from this are to make sure there is plenty of variation in your voice and be able to adapt your voice to fit the current scenario. Also it showed me that even though you are only using your voice, energy is key and if there's a lack of it, it really makes everything sound dull and almost like you don't care. If it seems as though you don't care about it then that gives the audience very little reason to do so as well.


Resident Evil: This game came out at the point where video game voice acting was becoming that of a higher standard and this was really bad even for it's time. Now unlike "Ride to Hell" these people at least sound like they're trying to put some energy in and trying to project. However it still sounds terrible due to the fact it doesn't sound natural. Everything sounds forced and every vocal inflection and rhythm completely mismatches the tone of their lines. I mentioned that moment in "The Woman in Black" that really took me out of it but with this you can't really get into it at all. That moment was just one moment and it was not the fault of the acting, where as this achieves the same thing far more drastically; it ruins the atmosphere. This is a horror game and it is genuinely laughable. So from this it shows the importance of volume, proper vocal inflections and the correct rhythm. I have to make sure the tone of my voice matches the tone of the dialogue I'm saying, otherwise it will sound really off.



Adverts:

I looked a Tesco advert first. This was one that has a focus on fast, articulate delivery. This again made me think of clarity, but more specifically about articulation. A key factor of audio performance is that there is no visual aid, in a film if a word is a bit muffled you may be able to make it out from the actors lip movements, however with this there's really no chance, so being as clear as possible is ideal. This advert contains a list of products said very fast so if the articulation is off or sounds like all the words are blending together it would be a problem for both the listener and the seller since the consumer would be unaware of the products on offer and the seller would lose out because of it. Although that aside, it would also make it far less impressive and it would lose it's humour a little bit, it may even give off a lazy vibe. viewers/listeners are fairly critical of what they see or listen to and if it gives off a lazy vibe then they have less reason to care. Thankfully the actor in this did it very well so it retained the humorous side as well keeping the wow factor of how fast he was doing it, so it kept my attention.

The other advert I listened to was an AA advert and the delivery in that was a lot slower. Everything they said was clear and delivered with the correct emotion which in this case was frustration. It's almost like it's setting up someone to come in and help them and really gives off the right tone of the advert with a hint of persuasiveness which is key to any advert to try and entice the listener.



Audio books:

For this I wanted to listen to the same audio book but read by two different people. I knew that the "Harry Potter" audio books have been read by both Stephen Fry and Jim Dale so I listened to samples of the books to compare their delivery. They both had their strengths and weaknesses.

In terms of vocal variation between characters, they're both equal in quality. The make distinctions between them such as varying pitch and pace but they even add subtleties to them giving them a more gravely voice if they older and small details like that. I would say they could go a bit further and if the text they have to read saying "Said Harry" or any text that signifies who's talking it would be more difficult but when it's mixed with that it works perfectly well.

Fry on the other hand is stronger at keeping his entire delivery in tone with each individual moment, he seems to do a much better job bringing across the intention of the text. For example when he says the words "There was a huge motorbike", he elongates the word "Huge" to help with suggesting scale or to create a better picture. During a part where he had to express a characters frustration his tone would shift to something made it seem like it was from Dudley's point of view or make it sound like what Dudley missed (In this case 5 TV programs) was actually important. If this detail were in the film it would be shown visually by his frustration or adapted so an extra line of dialogue would be put in. Here however they don't have to do that so it doesn't seem forced and can flow more naturally with the good writing and great variation of delivery. Dale however doesn't do this as much, it's still there but there's less of it which unfortunately results in something slightly less engaging and more one note

Both of them overall are engaging despite having a couple of minor faults but show some very good qualities.


Now I've looked at a fair few project and their strengths and weaknesses I feel I can keep these in mind as something to work off of when I'm rehearsing for all my pieces and plays.





Links:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvM4Z_AAGp8&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVyOCssIXgQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58hITE_Gubc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&t=11s

https://soundcloud.com/delilahdevinkaufman/bbc-radio-3-presents-mike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxPzm_FS1yE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlFtMxG6mnY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLvBRCyNHJs

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/top-10-radio-ads-2015/1376405

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=229Goiczqgk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZM6oZmO1Y&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8q84QEMwkE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwb5Tdrpj2w