Narrative Production

(2024)

In this assignment, we were asked to create a podcast, in monologue form, and an audiobook, in dialogue form, ten minutes each. They had to provide three examples of Audiobooks and three examples of Podcasts and explain how they compare to ours. They also had to create foleys in collaboration with our classmates in small groups. As it was important to pay attention to the choice of voices that interpreted the text.

For this assignment, I initially wrote the texts for the podcast and the audiobook. I started and made a plan for the plot of the story for the podcast and the audiobook, from beginning to end.

The podcast story describes the feelings and experience of a person who has bipolar disorder and multiple personality disorder. The original idea was to describe in a poem the feelings of one side of the personalities of the person with these disorders, but as the text was recorded and measured, it was observed that it was much shorter than the allotted time. So it was decided to rewrite the story and focus on the experience of the person experiencing these psychological disorders. I wrote the story with enough information and descriptions. After recording my initial idea, I started to correct and delete more information in order not to escape the time limit of the work but also to make the final result make sense. The podcast presents the story of the protagonist from the time he first came into contact with these psychological disorders and his experience in relation to them.

For the audiobook I followed the same process of recording and editing the text. The text focuses on the protagonist’s experience of a manic episode among people and around people he knows. He describes how he is affected and affects others.

Both texts were inspired by the artist DPR Ian (Christian Yu), who through his art expresses his feelings and experiences in his daily life in relation to these disorders. The podcast and the audiobook describe or were inspired by DPR Ian’s film “MITO movie”, but also by his music videos and interviews, as well as by his instagram live which explains in depth his thoughts, work and emotions.

After I finished recording the texts I started looking for actors for the roles of Ian, Dabin and Aubrey. The roles were assigned to friends of mine who offered to help me with this work. Although none of them were professional actors, they managed to perform the text quite well. The problems of course were that because none of them are professionals, the way they performed the text and the emotions of the characters might not have been quite accurate. Also, since they were not professional actors, they made many pauses and mistakes, resulting in the final file needing a lot of cleaning and cutting. Therefore, there were some technical problems but ultimately the work was performed with relative success.

In the second phase, I started cutting and cleaning the voices. I cut out parts where the actors made mistakes or took too many breaths. I left gaps where it was necessary for the smooth development of the story and edited the voices. In the monologue and the dialogue, I added an EQ to emphasize the low frequencies as in the monologue I aimed to emphasize the dark atmosphere of the story, giving the feeling that the protagonist is narrating the story inside a cassette. In the dialogue, I wanted the low frequencies to be emphasized to create a

The project is inspired by three podcasts and three audio books. From which I took inspiration for the creation of the voice, the music and the sound design. Especially the voice and the dialogue which is not loaded with sounds so that there is a focus on the story.

After I finished recording the voices, I started spotting, both for the music and the sound design. I listened and read the texts again and started noting sounds that I thought were needed for the best possible representation of the story. I thought it would be easier to start with the sound design spotting and so I started with that. I recorded on a piece of paper what sounds were in the text, where they began and where they ended. Then I divided them into categories and decided which ones would be recorded and which ones would be from libraries. Here, collaboration with our classmates was essential to create foleys that were used in the sound design. As a group, denoise was also done on as many sounds as were necessary. After I finished spotting and finding the sounds, I started passing them into the project and slowly began to build the story. So I started editing the sounds and mixing them. I EQed most of the sounds to clean and emphasize the frequencies that are necessary for the best sound. At the same time, I also lowered the levels in the mixer so that the sounds would come to a correct level so that they would not overshadow the voice. In some sounds, I also added a pitch shifter to create the timbre I needed.

I created one sound through Ableton Live. Where the narrator says that he hears a high sound, this was created through Ableton. I chose a sound and dropped the highest note and added an EQ to raise the high frequencies. The voices were also made with the help of Ableton. After downloading the speeches, I passed them to Ableton and processed them with a Fade (Knob 1 Fade) and an EQ as I wanted to make them sound deep and with some delay.

After finishing the sound design, I started creating the music. First, I worked on the music for the monologue. I did spotting and recorded the sections of the story (Intro, So Beautiful, No Blueberries and Outro) and started composing music appropriate to the emotions that exist during the narration.

The music is inspired by two sources. The first source is DPR Ian’s music from the film and his music videos, a specific example is the “mito movie” the intro of the film, with the violins. The second source is the soundtrack from the musical Ballerina with main producer GRAY. Many sounds, and perhaps most, were inspired by this production. I believe that in general I managed to achieve a satisfactory result.

The basis of the Narrative Production that I created is in combination with the Live Performance course, with the knowledge of the teachers. The initial idea of ​​the piece came from DPR Ian “MITO movie” which uses many string instruments. Then I was inspired by both DPR Ian and the film Ballerina with GRAY as the main music producer. From there I was inspired by the rhythm I wanted the piece to follow because the main sounds were ambience and made the sound somewhat boring and monotonous. So I added a rhythm inspired by the references I had found.

After I finished with the sound design I started with the creation of the music. First I worked on the music for the monologue. I did spotting and recorded the sections of the story (Intro, So Beautiful, No Blueberries and Outro) and started composing music appropriate to the emotions that exist during the narration.

When I finished composing the monologue, I started creating the dialogue music. I did spotting of the sections again (Back To Today, At The Afternoon, Interlude, Before The End). Of which is the audio book “Forget This Ever Happened” from which I got inspiration to create the voice to be heard through a cassette as the story of the podcast was similar to mine, so I decided to make the voice like that. From the audio book and A Matter Of Death and Life I was inspired by the music for the project.

and I started composing the appropriate music. Because there was a point where the characters were in a place where there is ready music playback, like in the car with a radio and in the club, I used ready songs but processed the original sound in Ableton Live. For the first song Avalon by DPR Ian I used an EQ to not make the track too loud and to lower the track. Then I used a filter (Radio 40’s) to give the song a radio feel and a (Stereo Notch) to achieve the stereo feel. Additionally, I used (Sit In The Mix) from Drive & Color to isolate the sound in a space but also to widen it. Then I added an Audio Effect (Dirty Tape Head) to give the sound of a broken radio, as I did tomation to give the feeling that the station is lost a few times. Another Audio Effect I used was Stereo Widening to widen the sound and give depth and space. Finally, I used the Audio Effect Car Listening Environment to give the feeling that the song is being played inside a car. For the second song Τhis Is How We Do It by GRAY and Woo, I used EQ again for the same reason. I also used a Reverb (Empty Club) to give the feeling that it is in a club and the space is large. Then I added a Delay Beat Repeat (Slap Back), to emphasize the drums and give more intensity to the piece to get closer to the club sound. Finally I used the Audio Effect Stereo Widening again to widen the sound and give depth and emphasize the sound. Finally I added a limiter to keep the frequencies stable and not make the song too loud. For the song Bolo by Penomeco ft. YDG I used the same effects, but additionally I added the EQ Floor Tom EQ 1 to emphasize the sound of the drums. Also for the song 5882 by Sik-K I used the same effects simply adding a filter (Stereo Notch) to achieve the stereo feeling, and for the same reason I added the Wide Stereo effect.

I exported these songs to WAV and transferred them to a new project. I also converted the voice file to WAV and transferred them to a new project in Ableton so that I could cut the pieces, lower their volume and add more effects. In the song 5882 I added two Panning and Fade Effects because in the story the protagonist started to get dizzy, so I wanted to achieve this feeling of fainting.

This lesson was different and original on the subject of sound design and I liked that there was the opportunity to create something of our own from scratch. The project had several difficulties in terms of execution but overall I managed to complete it with a satisfactory result. I might change things and techniques if I saw it again but overall it was completed.

LINK FOR PODCAST AND AUDIOBOOK

All Links for my projects can be found at my Portofolio.