Group Project

The group project consisted of 5 people within my group and decided on a piece which would show our voice capability, being more than one character in an audio play would show our versatility. We decided to work with a well known sci-fi comedy from the 1980's called 'Flash Gorden' . I took most of the priority over this choice, mainly because sci-fi is my favorite theme in any audio story. A good example of a very popular sci-fi audio work which i have already mentioned before is war of the worlds. It has the same elements as flash Gorden in the ways of all the characters being unique and different to the ears to hear. For example the narrator has a very clear, slow and crisp voice, introducing the play just like in Flash Gorden. So in order to have that same effect as what the war of the worlds audio did, we needed to make sure the narrator introduced the play with guts, energy and Strength. Getting the listeners attention and giving them the plot for whats going to happen.

However before detailing our audio piece of flash Gorden, we needed to show to the rest of the group what characterisations vocally we had came up with for our self-cast characters from the show. I got the characters 'slave' who is a servant to the alien planet and 'Princess Aura' who is the princess of the planet and daughter of king of 'Mongo', the planets name. For the slave i wanted to show  very low status and i imagined the slave to be very short and have a hunch back, almost Igor like. So having that growling speech and stutter showing that she has been a slave for too long. The strengths of this would be that it completely contrasts with my princess Auras characters voice to which was a low tone yet sexy and flirtatious. it sounds in-human and unnatural to the ear so would stand out more to the listener, giving it a comical effect by the way the slave speaks. Also completely contrasted to other characters voices decided on within out group for example the doctor would have a smart, punctual and articulate voice while Flash would be very strong and powerful with his. The weaknesses though were that it did strain my voice even with vocal exercises, giving me a strained voice and risking my chances of damaging my vocal folds. So to help improve this i lowered the tone of the slave voice but eased the growling noises so it's less of a strain. As i have heard from radio audios from my research i noticed that strained voices really show especially in audio. It makes the listeners almost cringe when they strain or try to hard at a specific voice. A good example of this is when i researched and listened to 'the children of Witchwood'. When the actress who was playing the 17 year old girl started to cry, you could tell by the strain in her voice that she was trying too hard and could hear her real voice come through the audio, realising too much maturity to the characters voice. So this was once main thing i had to be cautious of.

Once we settled on characters, we focused on how to speak the lines, using performance techniques to get used to having a microphone. For example when shouting certain lines such as:

'Quick earth man! to my rocket ship!'

If shouted from standing right in front of the microphone not only would it be too loud and blasted unexpectedly and not very professional, so with advice giving by my mentor to use and study microphone and audio performance techniques in my own time, many simple ideas work very effect ivy such as standing at a certain distance away then shouting the line, not only making it sound more realistic but the actors can play with it such as if two people are talking they can stand right next to the mic as normal then with the other character at a distance and shout, makes it so much more imaginative and easier for the listener to picture. I got this idea from when i was listening to an audio performance of 'The Archers', a country/ farm, based audio soap and in one element you could hear a man shouting in the distance and i realized that they managed to do this realistic effect just by simply standing away from the mic. Shouting 'Oi, I'm here' from about 2 foot away from the mic and projecting loudly gave this the effect of him shouting as if he was across the other side of the field. A simple yet very effective method to which we used to our advantage.

Of course for a group audio we needed a lot of sfx and music. For it being a sci-fi it needed a lot of futuristic noises, again linking back to war of the worlds with it's massive following for it's music and sound effects. Such as laser/ ray guns, Background/ instrumental music whether it be for a scene change or for a tense or climatic moment such as the aliens coming out of the pods for the first time in war of the worlds. The Flash Gorden script had most of it's sound effects all ready put within the script, it was just the little details such as shouting from a distance, heavy breathing and grunts with thuds which were done just by our bodies and vocal techniques. As shown from below, the anotation of the script for the sound effects is pretty much like this thorughout, of course it had different sound effects such as animal noises, laser guns and doors openign and shutting. Music was used in this radio to add tension but also know to the audio listener that the scene has changed. This goes for many Radio shows that are listened to today such as '2525' which is a futuristic sci-fi radio show with elements of comedy like flash Gorden, in which music is used to emphasise the moments as well as the scene changes been shown very clearly for example the scene change music being a futuristic/ electronic sound effect:

Radio Solo

For my solo radio project, i had to choose three categories from which i had to show and challenge my voice showing versatility and each piece different from each other.  These three categories where:

A modern Monologue- 'Death and dancing' from 'why is John Lennon wearing a skirt?' by Claire Dowie

A classical Monologue- 'Constance act III scene I' from 'King Arthur' by William Shakespeare

A speech/ news article- 'Bullying effects adult lives' from BBC news

These three contrasted with each other very well and would benefit me to show off my variety of voice skills.

To start with i struggled very much with creating a character for the modern monologue. This was made tougher because you can only hear the voice of the character so had to sound believable as possible. After a practise run through and get giving feedback, such as 'slowing down the pace' and 'give the character time to think of what they are going to say' it made a real difference to how i interpreted it the next time round. Before that however i firstly researched into solo fictional story radio stories which helped me to understand this skill even further. For example i decided to research in detail to 'War of the worlds' which i already knew before the study of this project. I already knew that the narrator of this play was the main aim of the show, but never thought of how he interprets it before. As i listened to his opening speech he was very powerful with his opening, using pauses to show the thought process of the character. This makes it easier for the listeners to picture and image the character. That's when i realised in order for me to be as believable as his speeches i needed to analyse my monologue even further, adding pauses and emphasis on certain words but also not starting of the speech so powerful otherwise you have nothing to build up to midway through the performance:

 

 As shown through the '/' these signs means all of the thought processes of my character, also showing that she changed her thoughts very often, meaning she is annoyed and agitated by the fact that femininity is pressured in today modern society. Also from my analysis of war of the worlds i built up this tension and anger and at the point of 'wait a minuet because if i really wanted to be like Marilyn Monroe' to show the breaking point of the character. Showing that she has rather an attitude and a short temper. 

However i had to analyse and research more than one radio play, so decided to listen to a group play with various character roles called 'Children of witchwood' However this didn't help as much with my characterisation because the character 'Mandy' who supposedly was a 17 year old girl sounded too mature in the voice and sounded like an older women with a too low of a tone to her voice was interpretation an old teenager. Making it not believable enough for me as well as the rest of the characters. This made the piece very weak and effected the storyline throughout the play. So in order to make this character believable, characterisation is the main key in this speech. However the age of this specific character is 15 years so only two year age gap, which is easily characterised for me as it's only two years older than my actual age.

As for My strengths and weaknesses for this speech, many weaknesses outweighed others:

Strengths:

-  Articulation wasn't accurate but more naturalistic and believable, as a normal person based in London would speak

- Characterisation basis was there, knowing and understanding the background story of the character and showing how annoyed she is about her true feelings and emotions behind the perfect person and femininity

-Thought processes of the character showed her thinking and changing thoughts throughout the monologue as she tells her story

Weaknesses:

- Characterisation has a foundation but can be built upon and be improved to make even more believable

- Speech can at certain times speed up, making it hard to understand to the listener

- could have used voice techniques such as sighing and 'urmming' to add her thinking about her past memory making it more clearer for the listener.

- Use the punctuation even ',' as a slow pause, taking my time while saying the whole line

As for the technical aspect, i didn't see any need of any spot effects, background, SFX, or any vocal effects because none was said or needed within the script, also i wanted to keep the speech simple yet effective. Not over complicating it or making it overwhelming to the listener. However i could have added background music such as punk/ rock music to show that she is a punk tomboy but this would have distracted from her story.

For my classical monologue, to me this was my largest strength out of the three pieces. My voice has rather a low tone to it and as for the character Constance she is a very powerful character and is in her mid 40's. However my weakness for my speech as i did a practise recording i found that again the same with the modern piece i always started off too large and had nothing to build up on. Making it very mono-toned and no tense built atmosphere and to this monologue especially this was the main aim of the piece to the listener. As another example from 'War of the worlds' the character 'the artillery man' has the same attitude as Constance in one specific scene. Were they are both being naive about a certain situation and are trying to ignore past the truth. As listening to his voice speech, he starts of very quite, building up the tension and then finally going crazy at the end of his speech. This is how Constances' monologue also ends; in denial and determination.

 

  This piece therefore needed vocally to have as much emotion and show the characters determination as much as possible about how much she doesn't want the marriage to go ahead. As i performed this speech and listened to myself back, i found many strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

- Started off very calm and soft, letting the tension of the character build up and rise over the course of the speech, creating a tense atmosphere

- articulation was precise and well focused on, also showing the high status and standard of the Constance and her royalty standards

- As asking the questions towards the end of the monologue, using pauses once again for showing the thought of the character i showed the feelings of her being naive and anger. This showed to the listener that Constance is the kind of character that if she doesn't have control of any situation or if that situation is completely out of her hands, she will loose it and start going crazy. Loosing control of her emotions and thoughts.

Weaknesses:

- Fast reading lines, missing important punctuation which made it harder for the audience to understand the construction of the speech

- Sometimes miss pronounced words, which in order to understand needed to research the meaning

- As a characterisation choice i decided to have a low powerful tone however mid-way through the piece i started to use more of my head voice and my pitch went higher.

Again as for technical sound aspects as it was a classical piece it wouldn't be very appropriate to me personally especially with this character to have any sound effects, what she is saying alone is enough tension and to get the attention of the listeners, but this put more pressure on me to do better at my vocals; not be reliant on sound effects to improve the piece. So no spot effects, background, SFX or music was used.

As i researched into historic/ classical radio voices, i realised that the most royal people and most powerful has a lower and rich tone compared to the others below her status wise. For example, in my research of a radio play called 'Flash Gorden' The royal character called 'Princess Aura' had such a rich dark tone to her voice. I also noticed that she took her time saying her lines, oven prolonging her pauses of thought. This helped me to think i could use these pauses of thought for my character as well. Making a massive difference to show how the character is feeling rather than just rushing through the lines at a quick and angry pace. Which made it harder for the listeners to understand.

When performing this speech quite recently, after my research into flash Gorden and the analysis of my monologue, i received such positive feedback from my lecture.Remembering to use and pronounce my words and articulation, i also prolonged my pauses even longer, giving her the sense of changing her emotions and thoughts for example:

"It is not so...though has mispoke...misheard...*longer pause* be well advised and tell o'er thy tale again"

In my background research of radio before focusing on the solo projects i realised how much your voice can actually make a difference within a voice radio story. For example I listened to a large variety and range of audio work including 'the children of witchwood' which i have already mentioned, 'The goon show' which is a classical comedy radio show in whic was performed live with added sfx such as audience laughter. Creating a funny atsmosphere to the listeners which surprisingly worked really well. I noticed how different and contrasting each of the characters in the audio where, just by the sound of their voice. For example high pitched and low pitched voices contrasting with each other again makes it very funny and humorous to hear and imagine. As i took analysis of the characters, i took all of the techniques the actors where using into consideration for example, the pauses they would use, making them show that the character is thinking. Also the slow pace they spoke their words, taking their time to get what they have to say easily and clearly across to the audio listeners. This was for me a very analytical point which showed how much i needed to improve my pace and pauses when doing my solo speeches especially my contemporary solo. So taking note of this helped a lot. Also helped by my contemporary also having elements of comedy in it like this audio show as well.