Monologues
Monologues - use them .......? It depends on your decisions about the style and genre.

GENRE (Types of plays)

REALISM or not, EXPERIMENTAL or not.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST: The listeners do not expect them, they break the realism convention of dialogue, and they become clumsy too quickly.

ARGUMENTS FOR: interiorizing - the voice in the mind, circumstances where a short monologue is to be used .... a character distracted or worried and speaking aloud, as in real life it is to be expected.

A quantity of plot information can be quickly delivered to the audience.

How to - in production:

Best as position one or position two at the microphone

in a neutral acoustic

We hear all the detail and colour of the voice.

It is a difficult technique for director and actor - and well worth doing.

YES - use if you want - one principal character, and not by others.

Use as 'cement' to get each episode exactly to 5 minutes.

Record scenes and put them through postproction.

Write the monologue script - and record this yourself at the pace you think is needed and that the actor will deliver.

Number each of these narrator sections as separate scenes.

Put in these temporary files into the episode - use the naming system:

'N (for Narrator) - clump number - episode number - scene number' - as 'N-3-2-1' = Narrator-Clump 3 - Episode 2 - scene 1'.

TIME SCENARIO - is the Narrator-character remembering back as in a sort of 'dear diary'? E.g., 'Don't believe what they say - vampires do exist. But I was not to know that when I first arrived in Canterbury ....' (etc.)
Then do all the rest of the postproduction - putting in the music and effects, including for the Narrator scenes. This gives you total control. You can now time everything to the exact 5 minutes.

You now know exactly what the length of each Narrator scene is.

Record the Narrator scenes with the actor.

Take out - one-by-one - your temporary narrator scenes - and put in the proper Narrator scenes. You will have to do some tweaking. But with locking groups of files in blocks etc., this should be possible.

 

 

 

This SITE is Radio Soap (serial drama) - HOW TO - advice by Alan Beck - production, scripting, post-production, marketing, web site, 'logging'

See INDEX 'A' TO 'Z' (RADIO SOAP SITE)

See also 'Radio Drama - directing, acting, technical, learning & teaching, researching, styles, genres'. See INDEX to navigate also.  Complete curriculum of scripts, techniques (acting & directing & post-production & genre styles), advice, sound files - effects and atmoses (with no copyright and so free to use), detailed script commentaries, etc.

Academic material on this site is Alan Beck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Learn about radio drama on this site along with my book - Beck, Alan, Radio Acting, London: A & C Black ISBN 0-7136-4631-4 Available on Amazon. CLICK HERE.

To the WELCOME PAGE for Alan Beck's sites. See more of Alan Beck's work.

Disclaimer

Any opinions expressed in this site are the personal opinions of the owner of the site. IF YOU HAVE COMMENTS, PLEASE EMAIL TO : [email protected]