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Article
by Robert Parson
I am the News Director of 96.7 FLR
in South Central Michigan (www.myflr.org).
I've always enjoyed the radio dramas and comedies of
the so called Golden Age of Radio but producing it is a hobby
I've picked up only recently.
Most
creators of audio theatre are continuing to produce programs
either live on stage or in a studio, hoping to get on radio
stations that are less and less interested in airing audio
theatre. While there's nothing inherently wrong with
that, I figured the internet could be something more than an
online catalog.
The
comedy “Ambassador Service” and the thriller “Invasive
Species,” I think, have taken full advantage of the
resources made available on the internet.
Because of the fairly low costs involved, the internet
provides the perfect distribution method for these types of
niche products.
Before
I got to distribution, though, I had to create the product.
I recruited my cast by posting messages on various
bulletin boards resulting in auditions by a wide variety of
folks, including internationally.
I've had cast members from Canada and Western
Australia.
Once
I established the cast, I also established a gathering place
at groups.yahoo.com
to share scripts, suggestions, and comments.
The files sections also gave me the opportunity to make
graphics available and post some rough edits for cast members
to listen to. With cast members scattered throughout the world and in
wildly different time zones, the Yahoo! groups turned out to
be much more useful tools than I expected.
Cast
members were able use their home computers to record their
lines and email them. Because
I use Acoustica as my multi-track editor, I was able to accept
WAVS and MP3s, without having to worry about extra conversion
processes. Even
though the new version will import Windows Media files, none
of my cast members have chosen to use WMA yet.
That flexibility gives my cast and me the opportunity
to create with few restrictions, including cross platform
compatibility since at least one cast member recorded his
lines an Apple Macintosh.
Because
most of the cast members are not what would normally be
considered radio or theatrical professionals, I had to
establish minimum levels of quality for sound files.
For the most part they complied.
As it was I ended up with sound files with a wide range
of bit depth, and sampling rates.
I even had a mix of mono and stereo files.
Acoustica
is delightfully easy program to use.
It will accept all those wickedly various files and do
basic mixing without any breaking a sweat.
I took full advantage of the built in volume, pitch,
and pan capabilities to create living, breathing characters
and environments. The
non-destructive splitting of files was a critical function
since most of my cast would send all their lines for an
episode as one large file.
I
create the finished episodes as MP3s, although I have also
converted them to Ogg Vorbis using dbPowerAmp.
No reason for doing that.
I just like being able to.
A
limitation I experienced, though, was that Acoustica at this
time does not have plug in support.
For some special effects, I used a freeware,
open-source sound editor called Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net),
which supports VST plugins.
The
plan was to distribute the series on the internet.
The average web surfer, though, has a notoriously short
attention span. I
wrote “Ambassador Service” and “Invasive Species” to
take advantage of that. Instead
of using the old 30 minute radio theatre paradigm, I wrote them
as serials with episodes of
five minutes or less.
Long enough to move the plot along, but not so long
someone is going to lose interest.
This also gives me a chance to create appointment
listening, by making the episodes available on the same day
every week.
When
each series is completed, I master it for CD, and remove most
of the free downloads, leaving only a sample episode or two.
My productions are hosted at www.ampcast.com/nbi.
Someone wishing to have a CD can order it from ampcast,
which will create the CD complete with artwork,
and ship it out. I don't even have the expense of warehousing an inventory.
I
expanded that even further, with Official Stuph at www.cafeshops.com/amserv
for “Ambassador Service” and www.cafeshops.com/invasive
for “Invasive Species.
Cafeshops allows me to have series artwork on t-shirts,
coffee mugs, baseball caps , and loads of other stuff (I am
greatly amused with the idea of a teddy bear with an
“Invasive Species” logo), again with no physical
inventory.
Neither
“Ambassador Service” or “Invasive Species” would have
been possible without Acoustica.
It doesn't have quite the bells and whistles as SAW,
CoolEdit, or even ACID, but it's much easier to learn and to
use than those other programs.
As an added bonus, it's less expensive than those as
well. Acoustica
is a great program at a great price.
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