​Rosie Allen - BTEC Acting
RADIO
Today, as an introduction to the acting for radio unit, we discussed the key different types of radio performance that are becoming an ever-increasingly prevalent part of the performing arts industry for actors (SEE MIND MAP ON THE RIGHT).
Our first task was to record our natural voice speaking for about 20 seconds about something we did over the Easter holidays, which we then played back and discussed as a group. My initial recording:
The feedback I received was incredibly beneficial as it highlighted some aspects of my vocal qualities that I previously had not been fully aware of. The main pieces of feedback I received were:
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I have very sharp 'S' sounds - e.g. on the word 'sister' - when I speak naturally and this is emphasised by the microphone, which picks up fricative sounds like that. I need to ensure that I am making an effort to soften my 'S' sounds when I speak so that the microphone doesn't pick up on them too much.
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I have very good diction, although it is not always consistent - e.g. the word 'flat' in the recording - otherwise I always put the Ts on the end of the necessary words which makes it clear what the word is, an essential part of conveying words on radio
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The pitch fluctuates quite a lot, so I need to make this more consistent
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My intonation rises at the end of each sentence, similarly to how Australians speak, which is a vocal quality I have picked up due to my upbringing
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My voice as a tendency to sound quite tense, which is something I have noticed when I'm doing presentations or speaking as myself to a group of people, so when I warm up, I need to pay extra attention to releasing tension from the vocal tract to make the sound more relaxed
We then re-recorded our voices saying roughly the same lines, but this time we considered the feedback we had been given after the previous recording:
Log 1
Friday 17/4/15
This time, the vocal aspects I concentrated on ammending the most were my harsh/sharp 'S' sounds as well as making my pitch and intonation consistent throughout the recording. According to the feedback I received, I managed this fairly effectively in terms of taking on board the previous comments. This exercise was really beneficial as it highlighted my own unique vocal qualities that I need to be aware of in the future when doing radio and voice recordings.
Log 2
Friday 24/4/15
At the end of last week's lesson, we were put into groups and given the task of devising and recording a short radio commercial/advert to advertise a product of our choice. Overall, I found this really enjoyable as it made me, personally, really aware of essential radio recording skills and aspects. For example, we had to manually lower the volume of the jingle underscore whilst the speech was happening over the top to ensure that the listeners would be able to hear the words clearly. In terms of physical positioning of ourselves and the microphone, we stood in a circle around it to ensure that we were all equidistant to keep a consistent volume throughout. However, this might be difficult in an actual recording studio as usually the microphone is one-sided, meaning that we would have to stand in either a semi-circle around it, otherwise certain voices would not be picked up as clearly as others.
Our Feedback:
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The inclusion of a jingle made it memorable
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The characterisation, aided by the utilisation of American accents, was effective and heightened throughout to compensate for the lack of visual interest
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The purpose of the brand/product was very clear due to the use of repetition and overall simplicity of the advert
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The major key of the jingle gave it a bright and positive tone
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We used contemporary colloquialisms such as the word 'bae' to make the commercial relevant to our target audience of young people
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The brand name could have been more prominent, as we only mentioned it specifically once in the entire advert
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Consider coming closer to the microphone to change the volume instead of doing it manually
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The diction sometimes slipped a little bit due to the accents and fast pace of the dialogue
Our second task was to get into new groups and, concentrating on sound effects only and using our new knowledge of radio recording techniques, recreate the sounds of someone's morning routine in a minute-long recording. The speech was to be minimal with the main focus on coming up with creative and realistic ways of creating the relevant sounds:
Log 3
Friday 1/5/15
Today we listened back as a group to the recipes that we were told to record over the past weeks in small groups. My group were given Eggs Benedict and we were instructed to decide on a target audience and make specific vocal choices to make the piece relevant for that group of people.
The next task we were assigned was to record, in pairs, a scripted scene from the British SitCom 'Ab Fab' and focus on character. My partner and I experimented a lot with different accents and vocal qualities in order to create distinct and memorable characters, before finally settling on using a nasal, cockney accent for both characters. However, due to the fact that the characters in our scene are mother and daughter, they had to have the same accent, meaning that the other elements of our voices were even more vital to distinguish between the two characters in the scene:
Our Feedback:
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The group identified the correct target audience that we were aiming for - middle-aged, middle/upper class women
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The vocal personas/characters that we created matched and complimented each other very well in terms of vocal qualities
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The sections in unison were very effective and those moments in the recipe were incredibly memorable for this reason, especially the parts we repeated throughout
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The overall tone of the piece was subtle and not invasive to the listener
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My own individual efforts to soften my 'S' sounds were noticeable and they didn't sound so sharp in this recording
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Using certain words and emphasis to create imagery was very well done, which is important for radio due to the lack of visual aids to the imagination
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We were all a good distance from the microphone
At the end of the lesson, we were introduced to the concept of spoken word performance, a medium of voice acting that is similar to poetry but often carries a political or social message that the writer/performer cares strongly about. We listened to some examples, and I also did some of my own research after the lesson and discovered that these pieces differ greatly from one another, despite being the same genre of radio performance. For next week, we have to write our own short spoken word piece. (SEE BELOW).
I used these images as stimuli to write a response to for my spoken word performance. I have a personal connection with mental illness and the stigma surrounding it, and am incredibly passionate about raising awareness and eliminating this prejudice. Given that spoken word performances are usually based on a social or political issue in order to raise awareness about it, I thought it would be an interesting platform to do this upon.
Over this week, we were each given a different poem and were told to record it twice to play back in Friday's lesson. One recording had to be targeted at an audience of children, and the other version had to be targeted towards adults, taking into account different vocal techniques required for the two contrasting target audiences. (SEE RECORDINGS BELOW).
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I lowered my voice
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I paid more attention to punctuation so when sentences ran between lines, it sounds more like a piece of prose instead of sticking to a set meter/rhythm
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I didn't change my voice to say the direct speech at the end of the poem, as an adult audience would not need the aural interest of multirolling to be engaged
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I made my voice pitch higher and pushed the sound forward towards my hard palatte and nasal resonators to create a brighter tone that children would respond to
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I maintained a steady rhythm throughout, so that the rhymes stood out and it sounded more song-like/more like a nursery rhyme
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I elongated certain vowels to create imagery that a child audience could picture in their heads to keep them engaged throughout.
Solo Piece Assessment
Group Piece Assessment
Evaluation
Over the course of this unit, I feel that I've learnt a great deal about the medium of acting for radio. It was a really interesting challenge to learn about this area of performance. I really had to utilise my vocal skillset as an actor in order to create believable and distinctive characters without any visual aids for the audience - in this way, I explored my own vocal capabilities to an extent that is not as necessary when you have body language and physicality to help distinguish characters. For example, when acting for radio, various vocal techniques such as accents, varied inflection and pitch can help create a character, something which I utilised in my group piece for assessment, in which I played the character of Babs. I decided to speak with heightened R.P. accent and a higher pitch than my natural voice in order to create a bold, memorable character without the aid of visual aspects. However, being recorded with a highly sensitive microphone means that the actor has to be aware of certain sounds that they don't have to be aware of in everyday speech. For example, microphones pick up plosive sounds such as 'P's and 'B's very sensitively, amplifying them, so the actor has to be aware of the prevalence of these sounds in any given piece of text or script, so that they can soften them to compensate for the sensitive microphone. Personally, I also had to be aware of my 'S' sounds, which have a tendency to be harsh on the ear, so over the course of this unit, I have had to become more aware of them and mark them in any script or text that I am recording.