Preparation for the recording

I had two main tasks before we officially recorded. One was to add detailed notes to the script so that I could better communicate with the group and the actors on the day of the recording what I wanted to present, and the second was to clarify my role and practice for directing the actors on the day of the recording.

Regarding the first task, first of all, I have read through the script many times to fully understand the plot of the story and the characters. I needed to understand not only our section, but also the previous two sections, because that way I could know the full story and summarise how the main character would be in her mind and what tone of voice she would use when the story developed to our section. The focus in our section is on dialogue, in which the past and present mental struggles of the main character Max, the intense conflict between Max and skinwalkers are reflected, and the truths of skinwalkers pretending human are revealed in the words. Therefore, I will pay particular attention to the emotion of the lines, this is the primary tool we have in this section to create this story. After listening to the suggestions of our group members, I finally finalised the appropriate emotions for each line before the recording and reprinted the script with the annotations and planned to distribute it to the actors on the day of the recording.

Apart from the emotions, there was something else I needed to think about before recording, which was how to present some particular plots. There is one difficult point I would like to mention is the muffled sound Max made as she was held. I thought a long time about how to present the piece. I considered giving the actors pillows to hug, and my classmates suggested trying to get them to actually hug. But it was when I was watching the web series Voice Monster that there was an almost similar hug scene in which the voice director made a comment that woke me up, saying that the voice actor could try using a towel or just putting his hand over his mouth during the recording. I tried to do this myself and then recorded the audition on my phone and playback, found that the results were significantly better.

As the second task about practice for the real recording, I would like to thank my team members, without their help I would not have been able to do this task well. We had a meeting this afternoon and pretended we were actually recording and they as actors and I as director went to give them instructions. At first, my instructions were very long and unfocused, and they reminded me that I had to keep every instruction clear and simple so that the actors would not be distracted. Then every time I gave them instructions next, they would give me feedback, telling me that it was clear and good instructions that they understood right away, or telling me that it was a bit confusing and they didn't know what to do even after hearing it.

With these suggestions in mind and with practice, when I got home that night and prepared a director's version of the script[1] for myself with notes on how I wanted them to go about each part or each key point. This was to give me instructions to me in a manageable amount of time before I went to the recording studio, to make sure I didn't give the actors instructions that would confuse them or make them wait a long time for me to think for no reason because I was rusty at directing for the first time.

[1] Section 3 Script with director instructions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XM403EOmHuFWjCZK3gBLWNEYl2l2jeDW/view?usp=sharing