Month: April 2024

In this session, we were tasked with creating a live broadcast to the class who were listening in another room. I took part in reading extracts from the radio play Dingus by Mike Cooter. This was my first experience reading and “acting” from a script so it was important to be as clear as possible. We communicated with the rest of our class over message so they could give feedback on our performance by telling us if we’re standing too close or too far from the mic and general notes. The experience was a lot of fun and gave me a good understanding of the pirate radio format and radio plays as a whole.

Considering the naturally dramatic quality of radio, we should enhance this aspect to create more powerful art. Even boring sounds and topics can be made exciting by exploiting this dramatic potential. For our piece we want to look at enhancing the space in which the voice sits in, we can use radio techniques like exaggerated voice acting and playful sound effects to our advantage, enhancing the overall impact.

Listening to the radio is like opening a door to a world full of voices, music, and stories. It’s a widely accessible way to connect with the world around us. Whether we’re driving, working, or just hanging out at home, the radio keeps us company and helps us discover new things. Even though we can’t see what’s happening, the sounds paint pictures in our minds. It’s like having a friend chatting with us, even if they’re far away. In a world where we’re always looking at screens, the radio reminds us that sometimes all we need is our ears to enjoy something special.

Things to consider when producing radio:

• Who is the target audience?
• What is the story? (fiction, non fiction?)
• Size of the broadcast (local? national? personal)
• foley? how are these sounds created?
• who owns the frequency channels? can we create our own pirate station?
• Should it be live or pre-planned structures?
• how do we listen? (headphones, speakers, online?)
• equipment? (mics, transmitter)

For the project, I have decided to work with transforming acousmatic content using an old radio and modulating effects. As opposed to creating a fictional scenario I want to use local and live radio as my foundation as it leaves room to create a fictional space within a live news broadcast. I’ve been tuning my FM radio to classical music stations and listening for a few minutes then repeating the process but using delay and pitch modulation. I found that although interesting to hear with effects, the quality of the radio is worn out enough to naturally create a sense of dystopia.