Ask Him Yourself!

[tonyhind86]

In what ways do you think that working in a purely audio medium both helps and hurts your ability to tell a story? & Are their advantages audio drama provides storytelling that other art forms perhaps do not?

Well, just the fact that you have to TELL rather than show. That aspect alone causes more problems and technical hurdles than anything else. Action scenes are VERY difficult to pull off without some sort of narration. It can also screw up the pacing because in the middle of an action scene, we butt in with a journal entry. In tactical situations the reality of the scene would have them just shut up and use hand signals, here, we have to "talk it out". Any time a character is in a scene, we have to introduce them with a line rather than them just being quiet and observing. We also have to be careful to also use the character's names in introductions and things. Casting is a pain because if two characters sound similar, then scenes get confusing. Also, we have to be VERY careful with just about every word and inflection used. There's no visual to re-enforce an emotion or thought-process, so we have to use dialogue only to have something come across. "Often times the listener doesn't fully understand what they just heard until the next episode or some time later." --- That's mostly why people complain about slower episodes, but don't realize that the slower episodes raise the stakes and set up the other episodes to have that action. Because it's audio only, we have to spend more time in setups and establish things than visual mediums that can do the same in seconds.

The pluses? Not having to SHOW anything. We can do pretty much anything we want in the story and not have to worry about settings. There's also some scenes that the "devil is in the details". If we were to show you the

SPOILER 

list that Michael found in Raydon

then people would over-analyze everything to the point where anything and everything can be proven wrong. Same with Datu's matagun. The actual mechanics of it doesn't have to be shown, so we don't have to worry about the exact specs. So, we get to fudge some stuff.

If it were film, I would do similar story-telling techniques, but not the same. I would rarely show what the zombies looked like. The focus would be on the characters and reactions, and not the special effects that go into making the monsters. I also would show little to no blood or gore. We do more in the audio drama because it can't be seen, so there's already a filter. As much as I write this stuff, I am not an advocate of visual violence.

I like the way the imagination takes over. I'm sure we all have different ideas about certain aspects of the story, such as What the Colony looks like, What the Little Ones look like, how fat Kalani is etc.
Even when I listen to the show on the move, I still picture each scene in my mind - that kind of effect can only be achieved through not only giod story writing, but good story telling as well.

Using one's imagination to "see what's happening" is a great way for the listener to pay greater attention and get involved with the story. I believe that's one of the reasons why the show is so popular with the fans.

[Sin Angel]

KC can you tell us all the different places it started? Or was it just the places the news mentioned?

[alexcadtek]

I didnt know there was a Burt book where will I be able to get it when your done?

[Kc]

KC can you tell us all the different places it started? Or was it just the places the news mentioned?

Aside from what Kimmet told you already, you won't get any new info out of me

I didnt know there was a Burt book where will I be able to get it when your done?

Not sure exactly. I hoped to get it done before season 4, but it just took a LOT longer than I hoped. In the end I didn't feel it was ready and so postponed it until I had more time.

[alexcadtek]

ya can do it! come on man! well I would love to read it if yo get done with it, but if you say its not ready, well then its not ready. But it doesnt mean I wont wait for it! LOL!

[Sin Angel]

[QUOTE=Kc;71283]Aside from what Kimmet told you already, you won't get any new info out of me.QUOTE]

Alright, thanks! Are those other types just in LA or other places as well?

[Litmaster]

Listening to "The Accidental Creative" podcast got me thinking about creative projects in general, and specifically audio drama and the aggregation of skills involved in its creation. It's not good enough simply to be a good writer. Or a good producer. Or a good director, or sound engineer. Creating a product of this magnitude involves being all those and more...

Not only that, but often as creative people, we discover that, by investing our focused effort into a creative project, we accumulate new skills and develop ourselves in ways that were perhaps unexpected at the outset of the project. Not only do we create the project, but the project creates us as well.

So Kc, I'm wondering: What skills, knowledge, and abilities have you acquired/developed in the five-odd years of 'We're Alive' that maybe were not so developed prior to the creation of this project?

Here I'm thinking of anything from writing techniques to sound design, software development, rights and legal aspects, casting procedure, session direction, public relations, interpersonal relations with cast & crew, social media, etc.

The short form of my basic question is this: In what ways has creating We're Alive helped you to grow?

[Kc]

Listening to "The Accidental Creative" podcast got me thinking about creative projects in general, and specifically audio drama and the aggregation of skills involved in its creation. It's not good enough simply to be a good writer. Or a good producer. Or a good director, or sound engineer. Creating a product of this magnitude involves being all those and more...

Not only that, but often as creative people, we discover that, by investing our focused effort into a creative project, we accumulate new skills and develop ourselves in ways that were perhaps unexpected at the outset of the project. Not only do we create the project, but the project creates us as well.

So Kc, I'm wondering: What skills, knowledge, and abilities have you acquired/developed in the five-odd years of 'We're Alive' that maybe were not so developed prior to the creation of this project?

Here I'm thinking of anything from writing techniques to sound design, software development, rights and legal aspects, casting procedure, session direction, public relations, interpersonal relations with cast & crew, social media, etc.

The short form of my basic question is this: In what ways has creating We're Alive helped you to grow?

Well, for me the biggest one so far is confidence. Good, or bad, I feel that I have the ability to make compelling stories and characters that people enjoy. The second part of that is characters. Before WA, my characters were very thin and not evolved, but now I feel that when you get to spend a lot more time with these people in your heard, you start to learn and develop the mechanics to what makes a character flushed out.

Pacing is something you just have to learn by doing. Letting the action sequences be complimented by setups, and the proper balance of what goes where even in terms of dialogue. Motivation is another. If the scene isn't motivated by a character and rather just a plot element, then it's sloppy. BUT if a character's motivation coincides with the plot direction, it'll be smooth and more accepted.

The worst thing I had to learn is the legal/paperwork production side of things. Contracts first, before anything. And protect IP.

Social media used to work well, but is becoming more of a broken system. Still works, but not as much as it used to. There gets to be a point where too many people are liking or "fanning" pages and there's too many pages, and things get lost.

Software and computer hardware? Computers get slower as the software versions increase, even though they still do just about the same damn thing they did before. We started in Pro Tools 8, and now they're at 11. Same computer that whole time. I use a similar number of tracks, but now the system constantly gets overwhelmed now.

The techniques in sound design have been many. I can't list them all, and who knows some of that stuff might be considered trade secrets now. Either way I am much more picky about the smallest things now because I've honed my craft. The poor stage one sound designers... I keep re-doing their footsteps.

In all, it's given me a direction and goal that is achievable and I think that perhaps this show might be able to let me do this sort of stuff for my day job.

[tonyhind86]

There's been a lot of talk and discussion about the live finale event in LA, and a few of us have been discussing dates and plans etc. What time does the actual recording start, and is there a timetable for the actual day itself? Just to make sure that we arrive on time and get the opportunity to meet everyone involved

[Kc]

There's been a lot of talk and discussion about the live finale event in LA, and a few of us have been discussing dates and plans etc. What time does the actual recording start, and is there a timetable for the actual day itself? Just to make sure that we arrive on time and get the opportunity to meet everyone involved

The timetable is still up in the air, same with the venue. We're still in the process of planning all that stuff out.