Sound Advice

Spent the last two days editing the radio version. Working with Dave and Al has been great - they are the prodcers, and they seem to really "get" what I was hoping to do with it.

When we last met, we had cobbled together all of the recording we had done with the actors. It was all out of order, we put it all in place, and found it was 101 minutes long. It needs to be 58:30 - and less, if we are going to provide IDs for the station, or brief reminders for listeners who drop in just exactly what the hell they are hearing.

It's because of that last point that no one does radio drama anymore. People don't sit down in front of their radio anymore, they jump from station to station, in their car or at work. If they don't know what is going on, they quickly move on to something else.

After adding sound effects and Dennis' music, and taking out the more obvious big gaps in air we had only added a minute. So at 102, there were three and a half minutes of material to cut.

On Wednesday I re-recorded some new language, cut some passages, and we found mistakes we had missed the first time through. The good news is we cut two and a half minutes - that's a lot. But there's still one (or two) minutes that must be excised.

On Thursday, we added sound effects. I use the phone a lot in the show, a device that shames me because writing half a phone conversation is always stilted ("How are you? You're fine? You're coming down with a cold? You say you have a brain tumor? No, I'm not repeating everything you say.") but it does sound a lot better when you run it through an EQ and make it sound like you are hearing half the phone conversation.

There are also a lot of places in the stage show where I make noise which needed to be recorded. Drawing on pavement with chalk, rocking in a rocking chair.

We're stuck trying to come up with ambient sound for The Cloisters. Nick and I are speaking in hushed tones, and we put a reverb on that which will sound great - if there's background noise. The scene's too long to go without it. But The Cloisters has close rooms and stone walls. We can't think of a place in town where we can get the hushed whispers and echoey footfalls necessary to provide background.

Anyway, hearing all of the different voices with added effects and sounds, I am more confident than I was that using other people was exactaly the right idea. Or that anyone will want to listen to it - it all just jumps out at the listener. At least, I hope so.

A lot of what I cut were jokes. Things I said just to be funny. I don't think they will be missed. Dave and Al will be handing the rough cut off to one of the higher-ups at WCPN, who will no doubt suggest some merciless trimming, which is just what I need at this point. I only hope he has a suggested three minutes of cuts, so I can put back in the minute that hurts the most.

Can you imagine? "I know this story is important to you, but we don't really need to hear about ..." But it has to be done.