So, your play has been accepted, you have met with the producers, possibly rewritten or made adjustments to the play under their supervision and the play is scheduled for production. What follows is a brief outline of a standard model for how your piece might be prepared for broadcast.
Stage 1. The play is read through with actors. In the case of the BBC, these will be selected principally from the established Radio Drama Company. There is critical analysis and the opportunity for final amendments.
Stage 2. The casting meeting involving the writer, director and producer.
Stage 3. The direction and recording of the stereo sound stage acting master. This is the recording of the actual dialogue and script as acted out by the cast in the sound recording studio. Spot effects, musical and atmospheric noises and tracks indicated in the script are sometimes included here but are usually recorded and edited in separately.
Stage 4. The selection and critical analysis of musical themes and musical enhancement of the piece. This involves the writer and producer exploring the libraries of compact discs and records or commissioning composers to produce original scores.
Stage 5. Post-production planning meetings. This is to establish a "sound philosophy" for the production, defining the surrealist, sub-conscious and background sound conventions of the piece.
Stage 6. Multi-tracking post production. Multi-tracking has become a well-established technique of sound production in the film and music industry. It uses a wide form of recording tape which is divided into 8, 16 or 24 tracks of single sources of sound in stereo. This stage involves planning, timing and disciplined experimentation so that individual tracks of sound can be balanced and mixed. The different tracks might, for instance, consist of the following:
Tracks 1 and 2. The music in stereo.
Tracks 3 and 4. The sound effects in stereo, e.g. atmosphere of a railway station.
Tracks 5 and 6. The stereo sound of special incidental sound effects.
Tracks 7 and 8. The sound in stereo of the actor's words and movements.
Stage 7. The final editing. This can involve restructuring the plot of the drama by changing the sequence of scenes. Editing can also affect the pace and rhythm of the drama by determining the length of pauses and changes from scene to scene.
"In recording a radio play, the studio recording is only an element, albeit an important one, in the whole production process. It's the culmination of weeks or even months of work, and it's here that the distinction between producer and director can best be illustrated. Usually in radio they're the same, but strictly speaking the producer's job is wider or more comprehensive than that of the director. The latter directs performances at the time of recording and has the task of editing the show afterwards, while the producer takes responsibility for the production overall.
Obviously, any radio play begins as a script. This may have been commissioned by the producer or his department or it could be an unsolicited offer from the writer. It might be an original work for radio, the dramatisation of a novel or an adaptation of a play written initially for another medium such as the stage or television. If uncommissioned, the producer's first job is to sell it to the slot editor or head of department. Without this sanction no money will be forthcoming with which to pay the writer, book a hire studio and technicians.
Once bought, the priority is to book studio and crew for your recording allowing about one day for every thirty minutes of programme. Studios are an expensive investment which require their owners, whether a broadcasting institution or commercial production company, to optimise their use. It's crucial therefore to sort out studio availability before serious money is committed to production. With recording time confirmed, the project then has a schedule and you'll know exactly how long you have for script development, casting and so on.
With money allocated and studio time booked, most projects begin what can be a lengthy process of script development. As the producer of a play or serial you're almost certain not to be totally happy with the first draft. Sometimes you may ask a writer to produce several drafts before you're happy to take it in the studio. This is undoubtedly a frustrating process for many writers but unless they're prepared to write, direct, perform and, most significantly, fund their play themselves, it is an unavoidable one. In the best writer- director relationships there ought to be sufficient give and take on either side for both to enter the studio on the first recording day reasonably satisfied with the script they intend to make.
With script development well under way, you can start to spare a thought for casting. For understandable reasons, actors, or more specifically their agents, aren't keen to commit themselves too far in advance. Knowing this, there is a danger that you leave it too late and suddenly you find yourself in the last week before the recording with only half a cast. A drama producer should have wide ranging knowledge of actors with their strengths and weaknesses. Quite apart from someone's suitability for a role there are other considerations such as whether they are going to be a good cast member and do they know radio (arguably one of the hardest dramatic media). Also the issue of comparative casting is a very important one. On radio all a performer has is their voice, and more than one radio drama director has come in for criticism after a play for casting two people who sound indistinguishable to listeners.
One of the last tasks before going into production is the writing of a schedule. As far as possible, a lot of directors will want to record the play in story order but there are often good reasons for abandoning this approach. For instance if scenes 5 and 8 are short, set in the same place and require an acoustic or set difficult to establish; or if an actor is only available for part of the studio time.
The first step on the first day of recording is normally a read-through. This is important for a variety of reasons. It might be the one occasion when you have all the cast together in one place. It also helps to give an indication of whether the production is going to overrun or fall short. One of the reasons the writer attends the studio is to help with cuts or insertions if either seem necessary. Following the read-through the director has his or her chance to speak to the whole cast about the play. This is crucial. You offer your own interpretation of the script's purpose and message, of its structure and form and the sort of line or stylistic approach you want to adopt.
The majority of directors now work by taking small chunks of the play, usually individual scenes and rehearsing and recording each one before moving on to the next scene. Some producers with a strong theatrical background might rehearse the whole work for most of their studio time and then record it in one long take at the end. Personally, I wouldn't have the courage to come back from lunch on the last day knowing that not a single line existed on tape.
The pattern of recording is fairly standard. Cast work in the studio with the third engineer or Spot who is responsible for all live sound effects. The balance engineer and the grammes operator, (in charge of all pre-recorded sound effects) mostly work from the control room or cubicle, where also sit the production assistant, the writer and the director. The director frequently moves between the cubical and studio as it can be quite hard to hold detailed discussions of a line or mood of a scene over the talk-back.
Suddenly, it's all over and there are reels of takes and retakes which have got to be edited down to a precise number of minutes and seconds. One has roughly the same amount of time to edit as one had for the recording. It's important to begin editing knowing as far as possible what you want from which takes.
In his book SHOOTING THE ACTOR, Simon Callow tells of his somewhat unhappy experiences working with film director, Dusan Makavjev. One of Callow's complaints concerns the almost complete lack of feedback from Makavyev to any of the cast after a take. One sympathises with Callow totally but one also understands all too well, Makavyev's problem. Namely that strange paralysis of thought which can descend upon a director during a recording. All too familiar is the sensation of finishing a take and knowing that, not unreasonably, perhaps upwards of a dozen people are expecting you to have made decisions about it, when all you're really conscious of is being utterly adrift in a sea of indecision. Quite apart from the textual, interpretative function, the director's role is one of co-ordination. Each cast member has one character to think about, each engineer has his or her own technical area to get right, the PA is concentrating on the administrative side of things ... meanwhile, the director has to bear all these things in mind and always the clock is ticking remorselessly away."
Tim Gebbels is a producer for BBC Radio Drama.
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