Radio Script Need to Keep Writing "the Sound of"?
When you talk about blurring the lines between the real and the fake, people tend to get a little uptight. But there can also be great pleasure in walking along that tightrope between fact and fiction. Mira Burt-Wintonick, producer of CBC's long-running show WireTap, explains how fiction and documentary can learn a lot from each other.
When you talk about blurring the lines between the real and the fake, people tend to get a little uptight. There must be some fundamental human instinct that recoils at the idea of being lied to. And discovering a lie that you deeply believed to be true? That hurts most of all. But there can also be great pleasure in walking along that tightrope between fact and fiction. It can be uneasy, swaying from side to side in the wind, but when you master it, balancing high in the air with your old-timey umbrella, the view is a real thrill. I produced a show called WireTap (RIP) for about 10 years with the show's creator and lead producer Jonathan Goldstein, and with our co-producer Cristal Duhaime. We never really knew how to describe it, but it was a blend of telephone conversations, short stories, moody interludes and comedic sketches, and you were often unsure if what you were hearing was real or not. But the fun was in the uncertainty. The fun was in trying to figure it out. Of course not every project warrants such blurry boundaries, but fiction and documentary can still learn a lot from each other. People crave authenticity, and fiction can learn from documentary how to sound authentic. But documentary can learn from fiction how to sound even more authentic, more real than real. Are you still with me? I sure hope so, 'cause here are some tips on how to achieve both. In recent years, there's been a budding resurgence of radio drama as an art form with a potpourri of audio fictions for modern tastes. But in order to make compelling fiction, you first need to understand authenticity. Even if people know something they're listening to isn't real, they want it to 'ring true' and that can only be achieved when you strike the right balance among the following elements. A performance can really make or break an audio fiction. If your actor isn't coming across as a natural, real person, the rest of your story won't be believable. Even the best actor will have a hard time bringing an awkward, stilted script to life. Make their life easier through purposeful writing. When it comes to sound quality, imperfections are your friend. A flawless, overly-polished sound can be a dead-giveaway that something is fake. One of the biggest challenges in audio fiction is how to set the scene. In film or video, your eye can take in so much information about a time, a place, a character — all from a single shot. In sound, you need to find other ways to convey those details and how you go about it can make all the difference. Of course, not every fiction is trying to pretend to be real per se. But even if you're making an explicit spoof or fantasy, you still want to strive for emotional truth. We made a piece last year about a woman navigating online dating as though it were a video game. Obviously the listener knows they're not hearing a real video game, that it's all pretend, but the piece still takes you somewhere real. The emotional stakes feel honest and that's what makes the piece resonate. The really exciting thing, for me, about this modern radio drama revival is that almost no one is consistently nailing it yet. There are people creating beautiful, powerful works but most of us are still feeling our way along that tightrope, striving to find that perfect balance. Which is exciting because there are still so many things to experiment with, so many new ways of doings things to try out. The important thing is learning the 'rules' and trying to master them, then challenging yourself to discard them and make up your own. One of my favourite hybrids of fact and fiction that really makes up its own rules is Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel, by producer Pejk Malinovski. Listening to it, it doesn't matter which parts are real and which are imagined because it's all so delightful. The great Canadian filmmaker Wolf Koenig said of documentary film that "Every cut is a lie. But you're telling a lie in order to tell the truth." And great audio docs should strive for the same thing. It's not enough to just tell a story. You want to transport your listener inside that story, so they are immersed in the feeling of experiencing it themselves. And while many doc makers happily attempt this through music, sound scape and editing, there are still other ways to use fiction to bring your subject to life while staying true to your story. I'll leave you with one last quote from another documentary filmmaker (it's our national art form, guys!). The late/great Michel Brault said: "Truth is something unattainable. But what we can do, is reveal something to viewers (or listeners) that allows them to discover their own truth." So next time you're making a doc, think about your listeners, stepping out onto that tightrope, and allow them to find their own balance and trust them enough not to fall.MAKING FICTION SOUND REAL
Performance
Writing
Sound quality
Sound design
Emotional truth
Breaking the rules
MAKING DOCUMENTARIES SOUND MORE REAL THROUGH FICTION
Radio Script Need to Keep Writing "the Sound of"?
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/docproject/blog/storytelling-through-sound-making-radio-sound-real-1.3440137
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