MATTHEW BOGAN
Sound Design | Film | Television | Video Games
WORK PLACEMENT
The Grey Hill Multimedia Company
The Grey Hill are a digital media company focusing on supporting local theatre, playwrights, and actors by digitising theatre content for audiences. Their aim is to make the theatre an accessible experience for all. This is their mission statement:
'To be one of the world's leading theatre producers providing quality entertainment and information, using a diverse portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services, and products for our audiences. We want to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable theatre experiences and related products in the world'.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, The Grey Hill have produced various podcasts and audiobooks based around the theatre - thus creating new work opportunities for playwrights and actors who would have just lost all work because of the lockdown. Converting new plays into an audiobook form creates further opportunity for audio specialists looking to work within the recording, editing, and distribution stages of the production process.
After recommendation from Magnus Collie, I contacted The Grey Hill to discuss any opportunities there might be for myself and my unique skill set. It was Barry Robertson who responded and arranged for my full 40 hour placement to be fulfilled within the coming months.
Within these early stages, I was assigned two projects: a podcast consisting of interviews with the cast of their previous audiobook Building Bridges, an audiobook of a new play Where Did All The Flowers Come From? and a podcast with the cast to support.
AUDIO STANDARDS FOR DISTRIBUTION
Due to the nature of professionally distributing audio on multiple streaming services, audio standards are of great importance. Therefore, to maintain unity within all audio projects, the ACX audio submission requirements were to be followed closely.
ACX, an Amazon company, is a marketplace where authors, agents, publishers and other rights holders can connect with narrators, engineers, recording studios, and other producers for the production of an audiobook.
The following requirements must be maintained before distribution on any streaming service:
Be consistent in overall sound and formatting
Include opening and closing credits
Be comprised of all mono or all stereo files
Have a running time of no longer than 120 minutes
Measure between -23dB and -28dB RMS and have -3dB peak values and a maximum -60dB noise floor
Be a 192kbps or higher MP3, Constant Bit Rate (CBR) at 44.1kHz
BUILDING BRIDGES
A Cast Interview
Set in 1965 in Anderston, Glasgow and examines the reaction of deserted husband, Billy Speirs and his family to the return of his estranged wife, Bernie, whose mother has been taken seriously ill. It is a tale of bitterness and betrayal but also of the absolute enduring strength of love at a time when a community was being sliced up to make way for a stretch of inner-city motorway and the Glasgow Kingston Bridge.
The editing process of this podcast was a very new experience for myself as an audio engineer. The opportunity to work strictly with voice and spoken word had never arisen before, which means research was required prior to beginning this new work opportunity. Fortunately, YouTube has a wealth of resources based on podcast creation, formation, and distribution. Channels such as Buzzsprout, Katie Steckly, Mike Russell, and CMAC each provided a crucial insight into creating an industry ready product.
Completing this project provided me with new skills in vocal editing, processing, and automation, each are industry standard techniques that are used across a number of entertainment industries, such as; Radio, Television, Film, Podcasting, Audiobooks, and Online Content Creation. This initial project was the perfect starting point before moving onto the next stage of this work placement.
Using these new skills, I was able to finalise an individual episode for each cast member, the playwright, and an ensemble roundtable for all of the cast - providing The Grey Hill with an option to release either two feature length episodes at 30 minutes each, or 5 shorter intimate interviews alongside the longer playwright episode. Find below all episodes full edited and processed by myself.
WHERE DID ALL THE FLOWERS COME FROM?
Audiobook and Cast Interview
Set on the Isle of Arran, Scotland three sisters reconnect on the anniversary of their mothers passing, only to begin an investigation into who has been placing flowers by their mothers graveside. This conundrum sparks a tale full of twists and turns to fully understand those within their own family, providing a wonderful insight to differing perspectives on philosophical questions and religious values around the topic of love, death, and remembrance.
Using the skills obtained during the first podcast project, this audiobook was created in an organised and efficient fashion. However, this project was larger than an interview style process. This play featured a total of 5 characters over two scenes, required sound effects / ambience, and was recorded separately due to the nature of the pandemic. Therefore, all audio files were continuous and featured only short breaks between lines of dialogue. It was also a challenge to gain unity between each audio track, because of each actor using their own equipment within their own home, each character initially had different characteristics that created a jarring effect. Fortunately use of EQ and Reverb allowed for each character to have a uniform sound within the setting of the play.
As mentioned, this audiobook also required a number of sound effects and ambience tracks. Fortunately, I was able to use a number of sound effects from within my own personal audio library. Due to the nature of converting a play to audio format, all stage directions and scene setting cannot be done in the traditional sense. It was my job to implement audio to help portray this information to the listener. Multiple recordings of birdsong from various times of day were used, along with footsteps, character interactions, and prop interactions.
Similarly to Building Bridges, this play also featured a roundtable interview with the cast. This allowed me to once again refine my skills and create another feature length podcast episode that would compliment the audiobook perfectly. Find below both the audiobook and podcast episode.