The first step to becoming an audio drama director

Creating the world with sound. This is the tagline of a web series called Voice Monster [1]which is about voice actors in China. And that phrase sums up my understanding of audio drama.

Since becoming the director of our group, I have never stopped thinking about how I am going to use sound to create the world that Skin-Walkers-this script provided. I think about the ways in which sound contributes to the presentation of this story in three main directions. Firstly, dialogue, recorded by voice actors, I think this is an important sound that carries the plot of the story. It generates from record sessions and this will be the main task we will be working on during these weeks. Secondly, SFX sounds, in my opinion, this is the key sound that builds the scene in the storyline, whether it is an ambient or specific SFX, and it works to help the listeners to feel as if they are there in the story. Lastly, music, I will use the music to assist the story in providing the listeners with the emotion it is aiming to deliver, as if it is the spice in the dish, making the whole story easier for the listeners to empathise with. Following those 3 directions, I set up different objectives in different parts of production. And the first step is recording for dialogue.

Yesterday, we had a practical session that focused on the practice of directing actors to record their lines and some attempts to record ambient sounds for scenes. After my own experiments and observations of other groups, I found some situations that had not occurred when I was rehearsing in my head. The most important thing I have learned is that as a director I have to have a complete picture of most of the things that are going to happen on the day of the recording. Not just a picture of what is in the script and how we all need to work together on the day. For example, as we need to take into account the fact that the audio has dual channels, it is particularly important that the actors are positioned in front of the microphones. Our part of the episode is a conversation that takes place in one room and the voices will not be far apart, so the actors must remain at the same distance from the microphone. In addition, the listeners are in the spectator's point of view in this story and the dialogue does not sound left or right around the listeners’ ears, so it is important to ensure that the actors are as close to the middle of the microphone as possible so that the recording does not produce a noticeable difference in volume between the left and right channels.

The other thing I found was that the work that had to be done between our group members before we recorded was that we had to set shared objectives for the recording and have clear expectations of how it would come out. Therefore, I plan to spend the next time focusing on thinking about the details of the recording, specifically how each line should be delivered, and taking it out and discussing and improving it with the group as early as possible so that we can ensure we all agree on what to do before we record.

[1] This is a stage competition show for voice actors to be streamed on the Chinese video platform Bilibili.com in 2020. Featuring voice actors, audio directors, audio producers, and other professionals, the show gives audiences a behind-the-scenes look at the ways and considerations voice actors take into account when presenting their work by documenting the show's elimination rounds. The show is entirely in Chinese and the show URL is provided here as proof: https://www.bilibili.com/bangumi/media/md28231538/?spm_id_from=666.25.b_6d656469615f6d6f64756c65.1