Whit's wiping down the counter, Connie's mopping the floor, and the kids are sipping on their milkshakes. If you want to talk about Adventures in Odyssey the radio drama, this is the spot to do just that!
I know it's easy to skip over this part of AIO, but without the sound design, AIO would be nonexistent (no, Glenn Montjoy didn't pay me to say that! ).
What's do you think have been the most outstanding sound designs? I loved the part in Connie and Joanne's trip where Connie fell into the river. The underwater sound effects were stunning. I believe that episode won Best Sound Design over at AIOHQ. Also, the montage of flashbacks in "The Time has Come" was very nicely done. Oh, the episode where Trent has to give speech in front of the class was stupendous--when everything goes into slow motion for Trent. I liked the heartbeat sound effect, as well as Marvin saying in a deep, gravelly voice, "Gooooo geeeeetttt 'eeeemmm."
The Tower. Listening to that with headphones is like having surround sound in my head. I'm referring more to the scene where Eugene is supposed to be sacrificed.
I am ashamed to admit that I usually don't pay that much conscious attention to the sound design of an episode. However, one thought that occurred to me last night as it listened to it was that blending all the stuff together for "BTV: Behind the Scenes" must have been difficult, since there are several times where conversations are layered, and there are some funny sounds too.
The earlier mentioned scene in The Time Has Come also is a significant achievement! I had always thought of that scene as difficult before because somebody would have to decide all the quotes to use and get them off whatever episode they were from, but I had never really thought about how all the clips got put together and blended in to each other. I have a new appreciation for AIO sound designers!
Catspaw wrote:I am ashamed to admit that I usually don't pay that much conscious attention to the sound design of an episode.
It's supposed to be good enough that you don't think about it.
Catspaw wrote:The earlier mentioned scene in The Time Has Come also is a significant achievement! I had always thought of that scene as difficult before because somebody would have to decide all the quotes to use and get them off whatever episode they were from, but I had never really thought about how all the clips got put together and blended in to each other. I have a new appreciation for AIO sound designers!
Dave Arnold reveals in the Complete Guide that it took 8 hours to complete that scene. A scene that length usually takes 1.
-Jonathan
Last edited by Jonathan on Wed Apr 06, 2005 8:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dave Arnold reveals in the Complete Guide that it took 8 hours to complete that scene. A scene that length usually takes 1.
Condsidering that there is a posability they were still editing with tape. That would have been a nightmare. Hats off the the sound design team when doing it with Tape. Learning how to multitrack was something that I missed out on in my audio classes, however I did edit reel to reel tape and it's a nightmare.
Jonathan wrote:The Tower. Listening to that with headphones is like having surround sound in my head. I'm referring more to the scene where Eugene is supposed to be sacrificed.
-Jonathan
I love listening to AIO episodes on headphones. You can hear so much more depth and detail.
I know that gap digital (people who do the Left Behind dramas) is coming out with a radio drama in surround sound. Wouldn't that be cool to listen to AIO in surround sound.
Jonathan wrote:The Tower. Listening to that with headphones is like having surround sound in my head. I'm referring more to the scene where Eugene is supposed to be sacrificed.
-Jonathan
I love listening to AIO episodes on headphones. You can hear so much more depth and detail.
That is quite true. Another show that's really interesting to hear with headphones is "OT Action News: Jephthah's Vow." When the mock "interview" between Jephthah and the king of the enemy is held you hear their voices alternating in each ear so it sounds like one is to the left and the other is to the right. A neat little trick.
Snow day was a fun episode. We actually went out to a canyon here in Colorado Springs and found a patch of snow that we could tromp around in. There are also the sounds of us literally sliding down a hill on a trashcan lid. Let me just say that the more times you go down the same patch the faster you go. And trying to do that while your battery on the recorder is running out adds to the challenge! Rob and I were both out of breath after that!
BTV: Behind the Scenes is a fantastic episode as far as sound design goes! Jonathan spent more time on that episode than anyone has spent on any one show to my knowledge! It has to be my favorite.
FOTF Radio Theatre did do "Back of the North Wind" in Dolby Pro Logic II. The guys at GAP digital did it as an experiment. It turned out nicely but they were taken by suprise with all the extra work that went into it. I can safely say that there will be few, if any, other radio dramas that we produce that will be in surround.
Jonathan Crowe gets the credit for pushing AIO towards better and more elaborate sound design in the last 5 or so years. That said, it is often a careful balance that we have to strike in the production between quality and time!
Things to listen for that make our jobs harder:
*Entrances and exits. If there are a lot of these happening in one scene you can be sure that there is hair on the floor of a studio somewhere around here.
*Movement. It is really easy to see movement when it's on TV. Trying to get the feel of somebody walking across the room while moving is hard when you don't have a picture backing it up. One of the toughest scenes I've ever mixed was in "A Most Intriguing Question". The scene where Connie and Bernard meet at Whit's End and then go upstairs to the IS seems easy but there is a ton of movement in that one.
*Specific, unique sound effects. For me, the crashing of the Dragonlady in LCD was hard to come up with. There's a lot that happened in that one as well!
I'm sure I could come up with ton's more but you get the idea!
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