CAPÍTULO 1
La expresión artística de la imagen radiofónica
Arte: creación, recepción, interpretación y crítica.
Dualidad:
- Sujeto artístico (creador, espectador, intérprete, crítico)
- Objeto real (la obra de arte)
La radio enfrenta cuestionamientos estéticos sobre su naturaleza artística: ¿la radio es un arte verdadero?
La radio es dueña de un lenguaje singular cuya formulación puede tener una intecionalidad artística. La radio puede ser un vehículo artístico. Una voz mal caracterizada o una música deficientemente escogida, puede echar a perder la intencionalidad artística.
Una manera como la radio puede ser concebida y practicada en forma artística es a través de su vinculación con la literatura. Las primeras transmisiones de obras dramatizadas fueron las obras de teatro de Broadway (que después daría origen al radioteatro y la radionovela). Esto consolido un genuino código de expresión radiofónico.
Así radio y literatura se han convertido en medios compatibles y complementarios.
Bertold Brecht, Paul Claudel, Samuel Beckett, Orson Wells, Julio Cortázar son sólo algunos de los creadores cuya obra radiofónica ha sido muy importante para la radio y para las vanguardias del siglo XX.
Otra manera de utilizar la radio como instrumento de expresión artística se da en el radioarte, género que busca nuevas formas de expresión radiofónica. Luiggi Russolo, en 1913 fue uno de los primero artistas en incorporar los ruidos como principal materia sonoa en la composición musica. Lo mismo hicieron cineastas como Vertov y Ruttmann.
Vertov propone "fotografiar" sonidos y ruidos, el radoi-ojo y el radio-cine, entre otros.
Ruttmann realió en 1930 Weekend (Fin de semana). En este filme acústico, Ruttmann evoca la imagen de un fin de semana en Berlón, pocos años antes del fin de la República de Weimar.
En 1950 el arte acústico cobra importancia a partir de propuestas de craedores como Pierre Schaeffer y Pierre Henry, quienes crean piezas concebidas especialmente para ser transmitidas por radio.
En 1960 "Nouveau Roman" en Francia y "Neues Horspiel" (Nuevo radiodrama) en Alemania marca la vanguardia en la experimentación radiofónica. Se constituye una ruptura con el radiodrama tradicional, para salir de la retaguardia literaria.
El lenguaje radiofónico tiene siempre una doble vocación: por un lado, como instrumento de comunicación y por otro, promotor de arte y de cultura.
b) La estética de la imagen radiofónica
La estética de la radio es el estudio de la radio como arte, el estudio de algunos programas radiofónicos como mensajes artísticos. Contine implícita una concepción de lo "bello" y del gusto y del placer tanto del radio escucha como del teórico.
La estética radiofónica considera y valora tres aspectos fundamentales:
1. Materiales físicos del sonido: palabra, música, ruidos o efectos sonoros y el silencio.
2. Los códigos culturales.
3. La expresión radiofónica como resultado del proceso de la elaboración creativa que ordena y unifica los dos aspectos anteriores, con el propósito de hacer de la obra radiofónica un objeto estético acabado, con sistemas de significación específicos que ejercerán una influencia en el sujeto receptor.
Es indispensable la interacción armónica entre el cómo y el qué. El valor estético de la expresión resulta de lo que se expresa y de cómo es expresado.
El artista radiofónico utiliza:
- Temas
- Técnicas
- Materiales sonoros
Ninguno de estos son inéditos. Pero debe buscar un nuevo ordenamiento de esos elementos para obtener una expresión original.
El arte es al mismo tiempo palabra y memoria. Un cultura se compone de obras pasadas que permanencen presentes porque tienen un mério suficiente de quedar vivas mucho tiempo.
La radio se enfrenta a un deterioro rápido del material. "Las grabaciones antiguas están frecuentemente estropeadas o el nivel técnico de grabación es muy inferior".
c) La creación de la imagen radiofónica
La palabra imagen proviene de la voz latina imago: representación, retrato, relacionado con imitari, "imitar". Se trata de una representación de la realidad.
La imagen es el resultado del proceso de percepción. Cuando hablamos de imágenes en movimiento nos referimos a una serie de imágenes fijas que al ser vistas en continuidad, producen la ilusión de movimiento.
De igual manera, cuando el sujeto presta atención al sonido elabora en su mente un sinnúmero de imágenes sonoras que logran evocarle un mundo imaginario. Esto se logra combinando cuatro elementos básico del sonido radiofónico:
- Palabra
- Música
- Ruidos
- Efectos sonoros
- Silencio
Elementos que al interactuar requieren del manejo de los planos y desplazamiento sonoros y de la relación espacio-temporal sonora.
La imagen sonora es esencialmente sugestiva porque fomenta la imaginación.
En este sentido, el radioescucha no es un ser pasivo. Es alguien que participa de manera activa en la reconstrucción de la realidad, creando a su manera las imágenes sonoras a partir de las sugerencias del creador radiofónico que propone situaciones, ambientes y personajes. Cada receptor, conforme a sus propias experiencias, interviene en la elaboración final del relato y aporta incluso una solución personal.
Un ejemplo de esto es La guerra de los mundos, de Orson Wells (1938).
La radio hace aparecer el canto mágico de la interioridad y los sonidos secretos de la imaginación.
Imagen sonora: cómo crearla, qué procedimientos utilizar, qué efectos tiene la utilización de ciertos recursos técnicos en su concreción, qué factores tanto culturales como personales determinan la formación de una imagen sonora en el radioescucha.
[Acá la autora toma el libro La imagen de Mantilla, Aparici y Valdivia]
Iconicidad/abstracción
Hablamos de iconicidad del sonido cuando hay un alto grado de semejanza entre la imagen sonora y el objeto representado (independientemente de que haya sido tomando de la realidad o creado artificialmente).
Los sonidos icónicos ofrecen una imagen sonora muy cercana a la real. Ejemplo: el ruido que produce el motor de un auto.
La imagen sonora que aparece en nuestra mente tiene un alto nivel de precisión con respecto a la realidad.
En la radio, debido a que involucramos un solo sentido, tenemos la tendencia a utilizar sonidos monosémicos para reproducir lo más fielmente la realidad y no dar lugar a la ambigüedad en la lectura.
La superposición simultánea de tres o más fuentes sonoras genera un mayor grado de abstracción en el proceso de percepción del receptor.
Si se quiere crear la imagen sonora de una nave espacial, se tenderá a recurrir a sonidos más abstractos, que no tengan un referente directo con la realidad. En este caso, tanto los sonidos como los recursos técnicos y el text en conjunto ayudarán a que la abstracción de la imagen sonora sea lo suficientemente objetiva para dar una impresión de realidad.
Simplicidad/complejidad
La simplicidad o complejidad de una imagen sonora dependerá de la antención que requiera el receptor para interpretarla. Por ejemplo, a pesar de la complejidad que implica la creación de la imagen sonora de un platillo volador, el grado de atención que requiere el radioescucha para recrearla es mínimo.
El nivel de complejidad de una imagen sonora está vinculado a:
- Grado de abstracción: el sonido será más complejo en la medida que tenga un grado menor de representación con la realidad.
- Referencias culturales: la imagen sonora será más ambigua si el que la escucha no conoce el contexto y los códigos culturales, históricos, políticos, sociales, etc, para interpretarla.
- Manipulación del sonido: los sonidos tenderán a ser más complejos en razón del tratamiento y modificaciones electrónicas a que sean sometidos, ya sea en la grabación o en la consola de mezcla.
- Utilización de múltiples fuentes sonoras simultáneas: la imagen sonora creada por medio de la superposición de sonidos resulta más compleja para el oído del radioescucha, ya que requiere de mayor atención para reconocer cada una de las fuentes sonoras. Un ejemplo de esto es si se quiere recrear una pesadilla, donde se superpondrán varios elementos sonoros que crearán una atmósfera irreal, junto con los efectos de eco, delay y rever, que no hacen más que seguir superponiendo sonidos.
- Música concreta o electroacústica: esta clase de música no es de fácil lectura; el grado de abstracción dependerá de su utilización. Sin embargo, como recurso expresivo, se emplea cada vez más, ya que resulta de gran ayuda para crear toda clase de ambientes.
Redundancia/originalidad
Redundancia: cuando los elementos sonoros se vuelven previsible, habituales, esperados y por ello pierden su impacto de sorpresa y, muchas veces, de información. Como la redundancia conduce a la previsibilidad, el guionista debe ser sensible al utilizar elementos sonoros necesarios para que el oyente no se confunda o pierda el hilo de la narración. Si se abusa de ellos, será demasiado obvio e impedirá la participación imaginaria del radioescucha. La originalidad no está asociada con la complejidad o grado de abstracción de la imagen sonora, sino con un planteamiento nuevo que rompa creativamente con los estereotipos.
Elementos para realizar una imagen sonora original:
- Uso de metáforas: unir dos imágenes sonoras de naturaleza diferente para sugerir una idea común a las dos. Ej. militar escribiendo un parte de guerra en su máquina de escribir sumado al ruido de una metralleta.
- Contraste espacio-temporales: jugar con el tiempo radiofónico y el tiempo real, que son distintos, para darle mayor ritmo y fluidez al sonido. En cuanto al manejo del espacio, resulta dinámica la combinación entre espacios tranquilos y bulliciosos, entre espacios resonantes y sin resonancia, entre espacios cercanos y lejanos.
- Uso del silencio como elemento expresivo: los sonidos no previsibles crean mayor expectación. Por ejemplo, cuando por lógica narrativa el oyente espera que explote una bomba y en cambio escucha un silencio.
- Tratamiento musical de la voz: la voz usada como instrumento sonoro con una finalidad experimental para crear ciertos efectos busca nuevas expresiones surgidas de códigos estéticos poco utilizados en la radio.
- Grado de sugestión musical para crear atmósferas: la música concreta, específicamente, se ha ido incorporando poco a poco en el mundo del trucaje sonor radiofónico para crear neuvas posibilidades expresivas.
[Acá la autora da un ejemplo de guion de la serie "La Revolución en vivo"]
Monólogo: es el discurso de un solo personaje, que se refiere de manera expresa a sí mismo (soliloquio) o que expresa sus pensamientos, emociones o deseos.
Clases de monólogos:
- Monólogo simple:
a. Simple dramático: el personaje está solo en escena
b. Simple equivalente: el personaje monlogante está solo en escena, pero finge dirigirse a otro personaje, situado fuera de la escena o cuando lee o escribe una carta donde expresa sus sentimientos.
c. Simple incidental: el personaje monologante está acompañado, pero sus acompañantes o no pueden ír o fingen no oír o no pueden replicar.
- Monólogo narrado: consiste en el hecho de que las palabras y pensamientos de un personaje son contados por un anarrador en tiempos pasado y en tercera persona.
Voz en off: corresponde a todo sonido que pertenece a alguien que estando en la escena no participa en ella temporalmente. Puede ser:
- Subjetiva: monólogo interior, la cual nos permite conocer el discurso interior o los pensamientos de un personaje. Los otros personajes se comportan como si no hubieran oído. Se ubica en un plano psicológico.
- Descriptiva-objetiva: se trata del narrador omnisciente, personaje que ve y sabe todo y nos describe.
Intensidad: se puede entender de dos maneras.
1. Sonora: sonidos fuertes o débiles
2. Expresiva: carga emocional en el estado de ánimo del emisor
El manejo adecuado en los cambios de la intensidad de la voz contribuye a mantener el interés del oyente. En el momento en que se aumenta la intensidad, se resalta la importancia de lo que se quiere destacar. Si se mantiene el nivel de la voz siempre constante, se produce una cierta monotonía que hace perder el interés al oyente.
Tono o frecuencia: El tono para el habla, al igual que el rango de variación, depende de cada individuo y está determinado por la longitud y masa de las cuerdas vocacles. Por tanto, el tono puede alterarse, variando la presión del aire exhalado y la tensión sobre las cuerdas vocales. Esta combinación determina la frecuencia a la que vibran las cuerdas: a mayor frecuencia de vibración, más alto o aguado es el tono.
El tono lleva consigo gran parte de la expresividad de la palabra. Por ejemplo: tono cologial, dramático, irónico, agresivo, cariños, etc. El cambio de tono o acento provoca que una palabra, frase u oración resulten irónicas, dulces o tengan mayor o menor fuerza.
Timbre: Todo instrumento musical, voz, ruido, etc, tienen un sonido propio característico que nos permite distinguirlo de los demás. Por ejemplo, es er umano puede distinguir la voz de diferentes personas gracias a pequeñas diferencias fisiológicas que influyen en el modo de la producción vocal y, por ello, en la generación de voces con diferente timbre.
El timbre es el que más ayuda a identificar y diferenciar a cada persona. Nuestra voz resultará agradable o no a los demás dependiendo de nuestro timbre. Hay timbres más radiofónicos que otros sin importar que éstos sean agudos, graves o medios.
Duración: La duración está directamente relacionada con la velocidad en el desarrollo del diálogo:
- rápido
- medio
- lento
Se habla más deprisa o más despacio según el estado de ánimo.
El ritmo no debe ser constante sino alternado (rápido-medio-lento), sin que esto quiera decir que tiene que funcionar de manera cíclica.
No basta tener una buena voz. Es necesario tener una correcta dicción que le permita al locutor/a o al actor o actriz atribuir a cada letra su sonido específico para que tenga mayor claridad.
Es importante hablar con naturalidad sin forzar el tono de voz.
En la locución de un texto hay que tener cuidado para que éste no se sienta leído sino que fluya de manera natural.
El ritmo de lectura es muy importante para captar la atención del radioescucha, pues un ritmo uniforme terminará siendo monótono.
B) La música
Elementos del lenguaje radiofónico más valorados
- música
- palabra
Pero hoy el impacto de la música en la radio es algo de grandes proporciones.
La música (en la dramatización) nos sirve para crear imágenes sonoras como:
- expresión sentimental
- expresión de cosas
- hechos
- situaciones
- ambientes
En la producción radiofónica dramatizada, la música tiene cuatro funciones básicas:
1. descriptiva
2. expresiva
3. narrativa
4. rítimca
La música podrá tener todas esas funciones a la vez o cumplir con una de ellas.
Función descriptiva: sirve para representar una ambientación en general. En combinación con los efectos sonoros busca: describir un lugar, un paisaje, un sitio donde se desarrolla la acción del relato, etc. Ejemplo: los acordes musicales de una cítara, nos ubicarán en la India. Los acordes de un tango nos ubicarán en Buenos Aires.
Función expresiva: sirve para evocar, reforzar, expresar o provocar estados de ánimo:
- tristeza
- melancolía
- temor
- humor
- pasión
Crea ciertas atmósferas que destacan el valor dramático de las implicaciones psicológicas y existenciales de los personajes.
Función narrativa: Adquiere una función narrativa cuando sucede antes del hecho o acontecimiento. Cuenta la historia antes que el discurso sonoro. Sirve de apoyo para intensificar las acciones. Es difícil no tener en cuenta este recurso, porque en la práctica resultan efectivos.
Acá hace una diferencia entre "ruido" y "efecto sonoro". Afirma que:
Los efectos sonoros son sonidos naturales o artificiales que gracias a su correcta utilización y también a su verosimilitud (es decir, que parecen verdaderos), permiten evocar un espacio real o imaginario.
Fade out es cuando el sonido va disminuyendo gradualmente hasta desaparecer.
Cualquier idea sencilla puede ser interesante, todo depende de la forma en que se cuente.
The radio image - Lidia Camacho Camacho
CHAPTER 1
The artistic expression of the radio image
Art: creation, reception, interpretation and criticism.
Duality:
- Artistic subject (creator, spectator, performer, critic)
- Real object (the work of art)
Radio faces aesthetic questions about its artistic nature: is radio a true art?
Radio owns a unique language whose formulation may have artistic intent. Radio can be an artistic vehicle. A poorly characterized voice or poorly chosen music can spoil artistic intent.
One way radio can be artistically conceived and practiced is through its connection to literature. The first broadcasts of dramatized plays were the Broadway plays (which would later give rise to the radio drama and radio soap opera). This consolidated a genuine radio expression code.
Thus radio and literature have become compatible and complementary media.
Bertold Brecht, Paul Claudel, Samuel Beckett, Orson Wells, Julio Cortázar are just some of the creators whose radio work has been very important for radio and for the avant-gardes of the 20th century.
Another way to use radio as an instrument of artistic expression is in radio art, a genre that seeks new forms of radio expression. Luiggi Russolo, in 1913 was one of the first artists to incorporate noise as the main sound material in musical composition. Filmmakers like Vertov and Ruttmann did the same.
Vertov proposes to "photograph" sounds and noises, the radio-eye and the radio-cinema, among others.
Ruttmann performed at 1930 Weekend. In this acoustic film, Ruttmann evokes the image of a weekend in Berlón, a few years before the end of the Weimar Republic.
In 1950, acoustic art gained importance from the proposals of creators such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, who created pieces specially designed to be transmitted by radio.
In 1960 "Nouveau Roman" in France and "Neues Horspiel" (New radio drama) in Germany marked the forefront of radio experimentation. It constitutes a break with traditional radio drama, to get out of the literary rear.
Radio language always has a double vocation: on the one hand, as an instrument of communication and on the other, a promoter of art and culture.
b) The aesthetics of the radio image
The aesthetics of radio is the study of radio as art, the study of some radio programs as artistic messages. Implicitly contains a conception of the "beautiful" and the taste and pleasure of both the listener and the theoretician.
Radio aesthetics considers and values three fundamental aspects:
1. Physical materials of sound: word, music, noise or sound effects and silence.
2. Cultural codes.
3. The radio expression as a result of the creative elaboration process that orders and unifies the two previous aspects, with the purpose of making the radio work a finished aesthetic object, with specific meaning systems that will exert an influence on the receiving subject.
Harmonic interaction between the how and the what is essential. The aesthetic value of the expression results from what is expressed and how it is expressed.
The radio artist uses:
- Themes
- Techniques
- Sound materials
None of these are unpublished. But you must search for a new ordering of those elements to get an original expression.
Art is at the same time word and memory. A culture is made up of past works that remain present because they have sufficient merit to stay alive for a long time.
The radio faces rapid deterioration of the material. "Old recordings are frequently spoiled or the technical level of recording is much lower."
c) The creation of the radio image
The word image comes from the Latin voice imago: representation, portrait, related to imitari, "imitate". It is a representation of reality.
The image is the result of the perception process. When we speak of moving images we are referring to a series of still images that, when viewed in continuity, produce the illusion of movement.
Similarly, when the subject pays attention to the sound, he creates in his mind countless sound images that manage to evoke an imaginary world. This is accomplished by combining four basic elements of radio sound:
- Word
- Music
- Noises
- Sound effects
- Silence
Elements that when interacting require the handling of sound planes and displacement and the sound space-time relationship.
The sound image is essentially suggestive because it encourages the imagination.
In this sense, the listener is not a passive being. He is someone who actively participates in the reconstruction of reality, creating in his own way the sound images from the suggestions of the radio creator who proposes situations, settings and characters. Each receiver, according to their own experiences, intervenes in the final elaboration of the story and even provides a personal solution.
An example of this is Orson Wells's War of the Worlds (1938).
The radio makes the magic song of the interior appear and the secret sounds of the imagination.
Sound image: how to create it, what procedures to use, what effects does the use of certain technical resources have on its concretion, what cultural and personal factors determine the formation of a sound image in the listener.
[Here the author takes the book La imagen de Mantilla, Aparici y Valdivia]
Iconicity / abstraction
We speak of iconicity of sound when there is a high degree of similarity between the sound image and the object represented (regardless of whether it has been taken from reality or artificially created).
The iconic sounds offer a sound image very close to the real one. Example: the noise produced by the engine of a car.
The sound image that appears in our mind has a high level of precision with respect to reality.
In radio, because we involve only one sense, we have the tendency to use monosemic sounds to reproduce reality more accurately and not lead to ambiguity in reading.
The simultaneous superposition of three or more sound sources generates a greater degree of abstraction in the receiver's perception process.
If you want to create the sound image of a spaceship, you will tend to resort to more abstract sounds, which do not have a direct reference to reality. In this case, both the sounds and the technical resources and the text together will help make the abstraction of the sound image objective enough to give an impression of reality.
Simplicity / complexity
The simplicity or complexity of a sound image will depend on the attention that the receiver requires to interpret it. For example, despite the complexity involved in creating the sound image of a flying saucer, the degree of attention required by the listener to recreate it is minimal.
The level of complexity of a sound image is linked to:
- Degree of abstraction: the sound will be more complex to the extent that it has a lesser degree of representation with reality.
- Cultural references: the sound image will be more ambiguous if the listener does not know the context and the cultural, historical, political, social codes, etc., to interpret it.
- Sound manipulation: the sounds will tend to be more complex due to the treatment and electronic modifications to which they are subjected, either in the recording or in the mixing console.
- Use of multiple simultaneous sound sources: the sound image created by superimposing sounds is more complex for the listener's ear, since it requires more attention to recognize each of the sound sources. An example of this is if you want to recreate a nightmare, where several sound elements will be superimposed that will create an unreal atmosphere, along with the effects of echo, delay and reverb, which do nothing but continue to superimpose sounds.
- Concrete or electroacoustic music: this kind of music is not easy to read; the degree of abstraction will depend on its use. However, as an expressive resource, it is increasingly used, as it is of great help to create all kinds of environments.
Redundancy / originality
Redundancy: when sound elements become predictable, habitual, expected and therefore lose their impact of surprise and, often, of information. Since redundancy leads to predictability, the writer must be sensitive when using necessary sound elements so that the listener is not confused or loses the thread of the narrative. If they are abused, it will be too obvious and will prevent the imaginary participation of the listener. Originality is not associated with the complexity or degree of abstraction of the sound image, but with a new approach that creatively breaks with stereotypes.
Elements to make an original sound image:
- Use of metaphors: join two sound images of different nature to suggest an idea common to both. Eg military man writing a war report on his typewriter added to the noise of a machine gun.
- Spatio-temporal contrast: playing with the radio time and the real time, which are different, to give more rhythm and fluidity to the sound. As for the management of the space, the combination between quiet and bustling spaces, between resonant and non-resonating spaces, between near and far spaces is dynamic.
- Use of silence as an expressive element: unforeseeable sounds create greater expectation. For example, when by narrative logic the listener expects a bomb to explode and instead hears a silence.
- Musical treatment of the voice: the voice used as a sound instrument with an experimental purpose to create certain effects looks for new expressions arising from aesthetic codes little used on the radio.
- Degree of musical suggestion to create atmospheres: concrete music, specifically, has been gradually incorporated into the world of radio sound trickery to create new expressive possibilities.
[Here the author gives a script example from the series "The Revolution Live"]
This world is imaginary and personal, formed from the combination of the sound elements. The physical characteristics of the voices, the iconicity of the sound effects, the coloring of the music and the silence help us create the sound images in the minds of listeners.
Television could not evoke a similar world since the images it projects are very concrete.
EPISODE 2
The sound image: the elements of radio language
Balsebre: radiophonic language is the set of sound and non-sound forms represented by the expressive systems of speech, music, sound effects and silence, the significance of which is determined by the set of technical-expressive resources of sound reproduction and imaginative-visual of radio listeners.
Sound systems expression of radio language:
A) The word: the radio word is the means that dialogue suggests, since it opens up the plural dimensions of exchange to language. The word is the main pillar where the radio language rests and around which the other elements of sound are articulated. Such importance has made that on many occasions, the radio is based on the word.
Five reasons for the overvaluation of the word in the radio language (according to José Luis Terrón):
1. Conceive the word as the most important element.
2. Lack of deepening in the perception of radio language. Music, sound effects and silence are used as mere supporting elements.
3. Not taking advantage, sometimes due to ignorance, of the possibilities of low-frequency devices.
4. Let yourself be carried away by production routines.
5. Simplify and make production cheaper.
The radio creator must monitor the good use of the word.
When turning on the radio, we hear as people who do not see a number of voices of announcers and people we do not know and of whom we recreate a sound image thanks to the characteristics and qualities of their voices.
It is a condition that the characters involved in the story appear before the listeners with a clear phonetic personality, so that by their timbre of voice they can be recognized accurately.
From a technical point of view we can distinguish different forms of the word:
- Dialogue
- Monologue
- Voiceover
Dialogue : it is an exchange alternating ideas, opinions, feelings between two or more characters through language:
to. attract interest
b. they give variety
c. mobilize the imagination
d. make the message more expressive
and. establish a warm, personal and emotional communication
F. facilitate empathy, projection and identification of the listener
g. they are effective because their message is implicit
Monologue : it is the speech of a single character, which refers expressly to himself (soliloquy) or which expresses his thoughts, emotions or desires.
Monologue classes:
- Simple monologue:
to. Dramatic simple: the character is alone on stage
b. Simple equivalent: the monologue character is alone on stage, but pretends to address another character, located off the scene or when she reads or writes a letter expressing her feelings.
c. Incidental simple: the monologue character is accompanied, but his companions either cannot go or pretend not to hear or cannot reply.
- Narrated monologue: it consists of the fact that the words and thoughts of a character are told by a narrator in past times and in the third person.
Voiceover: corresponds to any sound that belongs to someone who, while on the scene, does not participate in it temporarily. Can be:
- Subjective: inner monologue, which allows us to know the inner speech or thoughts of a character. The other characters behave as if they have not heard. It is located on a psychological plane.
- Descriptive-objective: it is the omniscient narrator, a character who sees and knows everything and describes us.
Intensity: it can be understood in two ways.
1. Sound: loud or weak sounds
2. Expressive: emotional load on the mood of the sender
Proper handling of changes in voice intensity helps maintain listener interest. When the intensity is increased, the importance of what you want to highlight is highlighted. If the level of the voice is always kept constant, there is a certain monotony that makes the listener lose interest.
Tone or frequency : The tone for speech, like the range of variation, depends on each individual and is determined by the length and mass of the vocal cords. Therefore, the tone can be altered, varying the pressure of the exhaled air and the tension on the vocal cords. This combination determines the frequency at which the strings vibrate: the higher the vibration frequency, the higher or higher the pitch.
The tone carries with it much of the expressiveness of the word. For example: colloquial, dramatic, ironic, aggressive tone, affection, etc. The change in tone or accent causes a word, phrase or sentence to be ironic, sweet or have more or less force.
Timbre : All musical instruments, voice, noise, etc., have their own characteristic sound that allows us to distinguish it from the others. For example, the human can distinguish the voice of different people thanks to small physiological differences that influence the mode of vocal production and, therefore, the generation of voices with different timbre.
The timbre is the one that most helps to identify and differentiate each person. Our voice will be pleasant or not to others depending on our timbre. There are more radio tones than others, regardless of whether they are high, low or medium.
Duration : The duration is directly related to the speed in the development of the dialogue:
- Quick
- means, medium
- slow
You speak faster or slower depending on your mood.
The rhythm should not be constant but alternated (fast-medium-slow), without this meaning that it has to work cyclically.
Having a good voice is not enough. It is necessary to have a correct diction that allows the announcer or the actor or actress to attribute to each letter its specific sound so that it has greater clarity.
It is important to speak naturally without straining your tone of voice.
In the locution of a text, care must be taken so that it does not feel read but flows naturally.
The reading rhythm is very important to capture the attention of the listener, because a uniform rhythm will end up being monotonous.
B) The music
Elements of the radio language most valued
- music
- word
But today the impact of music on the radio is something of great proportions.
Music (in dramatization) helps us create sound images such as:
- sentimental expression
- expression of things
- acts
- situations
- environments
In dramatized radio production, music has four basic functions:
1. descriptive
2. expressive
3. narrative
4. rhythmic
Music can have all these functions at once or fulfill one of them.
Descriptive function: it serves to represent a general setting. In combination with the sound effects, it seeks to: describe a place, a landscape, a place where the action of the story takes place, etc. Example: the musical chords of a zither, will locate us in India. The chords of a tango will locate us in Buenos Aires.
Expressive function: it serves to evoke, reinforce, express or provoke moods:
sadness
melancholy
- fear
- humor
- passion
It creates certain atmospheres that highlight the dramatic value of the characters' psychological and existential implications.
Narrative function: Acquires a narrative function when it happens before the fact or event. Tell the story before the sound discourse. It serves as a support to intensify actions. It is difficult to disregard this resource, because in practice they are effective.
Rhythmic function: In this case, the music will complement the rhythm of the action. If we are counting a bank robbery, the music will be fast and will transmit adrenaline. If instead, we are counting that we are in a green meadow observing the landscape, the music will be calm and pleasant.
The rhythmic function takes from the cinema the concepts of diegetic and extradiegetic music.
Diegetic music: it is captured from reality. For example, when a character is in his car and is listening to music from the stereo. In this case, the microphones capture the actual sound coming out of the stereo.
Extradiegetic music: it is music that does not belong to the world of our fiction. There are no microphones that pick up the music, but the music is added later.
This video explains diegetic and extradiegetic music in cinema well:
C) Sound effects
Here it makes a difference between "noise" and "sound effect". It claims that:
Noises are all those elements that distort sound and therefore obstruct communication. For example, the noise on the radio may be caused by a bad signal, interference from another station, etc.
The sound effects are natural or artificial sounds that, thanks to their correct use and also to their plausibility (that is to say, that seem true), allow to evoke a real or imaginary space.
It also explains what the sound environment and atmosphere is. What is the difference between sound environment and atmosphere? Very simple:
Sound environment: is one that paints a real sound picture of a situation. For example, the ambient sound of an office or an airport.
Sound atmosphere: it has to do with a psychological key and is often suggested by music. For example, if we are walking in the middle of a meadow and we hear the birds singing, we will have an atmosphere of serenity.
Three basic ways to generate sound effects:
1) Pre-recorded effects found in sound effect libraries. These are easy to find, but can generate remoteness when the listener identifies them as repeated, since they give the feeling of non-credibility.
2) Effects tricked live by the gimmick (the person generating the sound effects). Summary Author's Comment: While this practice was widely used in the past, we currently do not find many radios or programs that have a gimmick. Today there is a wide variety of effect libraries, so we can find different versions of the same sound.
3) Effects generated through digital processes. Summary author's comment: This should refer to synthesizers for example, which allow you to generate particular sounds.
Sound effects have three basic forms:
- Descriptive
- expressive
- Narrative
- Rhythmic
The function of these effects will be marked based on the context of the narration (that is, if we are reporting a bank robbery, we cannot put effects of birds on a meadow ...).
Descriptive function:
These effects, whether real or artificially created, serve to illustrate or describe the environment where the radio work takes place. These serve to create a real environment, giving credibility and plausibility to the story. For example, if our story takes place at an airport, it will be essential to have sounds of planes landing or calls to board the loudspeakers. The same in a cafeteria, the sound of the rates will serve to describe the situation and the space in which you are.
The more iconic * the sound effects have, the better, since they will make it easier for the listener to recognize them. But be careful: you have to be careful not to be redundant with the word. There is no need to announce what is going to be heard, let alone describe what is being heard. In other words, if we are at the airport and the sound effects are planes landing and the calls through loudspeakers, the rapporteur need not say: "minutes later, at the airport ...". The listener already knows that we are at the airport, since the sound effect placed him in time and space.
* For more information on the degrees of iconocidad: https://soygabrielguerra.com/blog/escala-iconicidad-imagen/#:~:text=Por%20ejemplo%20la%20relaci%C3%B3n%20de,nulo%2C% 20is% 20a% 20image% 20abstract.
Then we have situations and spaces that do not belong to objective reality, for example an alien spacecraft. Here there would be an unreal-reality, and we must look for the sound effects that match the social imaginary of what could happen in that space that does not exist, but has already been represented on other occasions, such as in the cinema or in other radio broadcasts. Another example of unreal-realities are the haunted places, nightmares or hallucinations of the characters.
Another of the descriptive functions of sound effects is the use as a leitmotif resource in the identification or characterization of a character, an object or a place. This effect creates a certain state of mind for the listener and, on the other hand, allows the place to be identified in advance.
Expressive function
This type of effect, which is used symbolically, helps us create a situation that has to do with a state of mind. For example, the constant sound of a leak or cell phone vibrating without being attended to can create emotional situations of tension or anxiety.
Another expressive function of sound effects is when they are used metaphorically, that is, when two sound images are joined in the montage, which may be of a different nature to suggest a common idea. This metaphorical effect is little used in radio. We see it more in the cinema, where two images or sounds come together and that union is clear. On the radio, being abstract in nature, it is difficult to achieve that effect.
Narrative function
The sound effects can generate or support the internal rhythm of the narration. For example, an effect that remains constant (a drop hitting the floor, the tick of a clock, etc.) can create a certain psychological state, it is also setting a rhythm in the narrative.
D) The silence
French film director Robert Bresson (photo) states: "The most beautiful thing is silence, although not just any silence; for it to have intensity, it must be carefully prepared." This says it in reference to that a certain duration could seem a technical failure.
The writer Octavio Paz affirms that: "the poet is known for his words and his silences. From the beginning, the poet obscurely knows that silence is inseparable from the word: it is his grave and his womb, the land that buries and the land where it sprouts. "
Although the different people who are dedicated to art, be it cinema, writing, poetry, etc., highlight the qualities of silence, it is often ignored. Something similar happens in graphic design, when you try to fill all the spaces with some design, so as not to leave blank spaces. Silence (like white space) has value in itself and with the rest of the sounds that are produced in a sound piece.
The sound pollution, in which we find ourselves daily, prevents us from knowing and recognizing the very codes of silence and its remarkable narrative, descriptive, rhythmic and expressive value.
José Luis Terrón, in his doctoral thesis "Radio silence" states that:
(...) silence does not exist; We call silence the non-audible, whether for physiological, pathophysiological or perceptual reasons. Hence, at a given moment we distinguish between absolute silence and silence. The first is only possible in non-existence; the second, framed in a contextualized individual experience ".
Another example of the importance of silence can be found in music. This piece is famous:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4
José Luis Terrón proposes a definition of silence: "significant manifestation that occurs in a socioculturally contextualized interaction, with an ability to communicate, to express, to redirect communication and to develop cognitive processes."
When talking about silence, we have to take into account the sociocultural context, since silence will have different valuations according to each culture. In other words, silence itself has no communicative value, it only becomes communicative and expressive in terms of the previous and subsequent sound context when we combine it with other sound element (s).
Silence functions:
Descriptive function
When silence plays a dramatic role and creates certain atmospheres, as a symbol of death or danger or to highlight an emotional progression.
Expressive function
Silence can express what you want, think and feel, such as moods of sadness, tranquility, anguish, loneliness, changes in feelings, etc.
Gerald Millerson in Techniques for production and production on television, reveals four expressive forms of silence:
1. A prolonged silence suggests different ideas:
Death
Desolation
Despair
Stillness
hope
Peace (Great example is found in natural disaster movies, when the tornado is over and there is complete silence)
Extreme tension (classic in thrillers where it is not known if the criminals keep going around)
2. Sudden silence: when we are having a telephone conversation and from one moment to the next we stop listening to the other person.
3. A sudden noise: when a thief enters a house and hits something, making noise in the middle of the silence of the night.
4. Emotional impact: when the listener expects that, by narrative logic, there is extreme noise and instead what he hears is absolute silence, what is called an effective emotional impact is created that gives the scene an exciting artificial quality : The explosive charge has already been placed and activated. The detonator is activated. Then silence ...
Silence is a great creator of dramatic tension. We see it clearly when one of the characters makes a brief silence before responding. Silence, when prolonged, is provocative and disturbing.
For example:
Matías: How is your grandmother doing?
Maria: (silence)
Matías: Sorry, I didn't know anything ...
This is a silence that enables interpretation and is capable of expressing an emotional state and narrating the situation without going into detail. That silence is worth for the explanation of the death of Matías's grandmother and adds a great drama that expresses what Matías feels at the time.
Narrative Function
Silence will also be able to serve to express what happens in time and space. Silence serves as a spatio-temporal punctuation element, so it can be used to separate and mark place and time transitions. For example, ellipsis, flashbacks, or flashforwards may be announced with silences.
Another function of silence in dramatization is to use silence to identify an off-field presence; that is, "outside the sound space in which we build audibility." For example, when one of the characters speaks on the phone. In this case, the silences correspond to the presence of the interlocutor outside the field. Although the responses on the other end of the phone are not heard, this dialogue can be deduced from the character that is heard.
This is an example in cinema:
On the other hand, we have the duration of the silences. José Luis Terrón says that they should be between 3 and 5 seconds.
Five factors to determine the duration of the silences:
1. The duration of the sound group that precedes it.
2. The rhythm we want to build.
3. If there is a claim that this silent curtain serves in unison as reflective silence for the receiver.
5. And a determining factor that should never be forgotten in practice: the duration of the program.
Rhythmic function
Silence is a key element in the construction of the narrative rhythm. Silence supports the rhythm of the action by linking the scenes almost directly without the conventional musical bridge.
Summarizer clarification: Today we can find silence being used in many other places besides radio and they have different uses. The most recent can be found in tik tok:
Analysis of sounds and their effects (this is a table that Millerson proposes for the analysis of sounds and the effects they can produce in the receiver. It should not be taken at face value, it is a reference when choosing this or that sound.
VOLUME
1. Loud sounds. They are associated with: large, strong, affirmative, powerful, energetic, exciting, active.
2. Soft sounds. They are associated with: small, calm, peace, kind, dominated, delicate, low energy.
ACUTE ACUTE OR SERIOUS
3. Accentuation. They are associated with: frequently suggests physical height
4. Sounds with enhanced treble. They are associated with: exciting, light, fragile, exciting, stimulating, exhilarating, attractive, precise, lively, weak.
5. Sounds with accented bass. Associated: power, weight, depth, solemnity, sinister, quiet, depressive.
TONALITY
6. Major. They are associated with: vigor, brilliance.
7. Minor. They are associated with: melancholy, anxiety, fear.
TONAL QUALITY
8. Pure, subdued (eg, flutes, pure string tones). They are associated with: purity, weakness, simplicity, sweetness, ethereal, exquisite, direct, persuasive.
9. Rich (with a strong overtone or harmonic content. They are associated with: Wealth, greatness, fullness, complexity, confusion, noisy, worldly, vitality, strength.
10. Metallic sound. They are associated with: Cold, shrill, happy, bitter, tangled, vicious.
11. Full "round tone" (horn, saxophone, bass strings). They are associated with: warm, rich, melodious.
12. Prolonged (eg oboe, clarinet). They are associated with: Sweetness, nostalgia, delicate, melancholic, thoughtful.
13. Transient percussion sounds. to. High-pitched (xylophone, glass percussion). They are associated with: Exciting, exciting, horrifying.
b. Low pitch (eg timpani, thunder). They are associated with: dramatic, powerful, significant.
SPEED AND RHYTHM
14. Slow. They are associated with: serious, important, dignified, intentional, powerful, noble, gloomy, melancholic.
15. Quick. They are associated with: exciting, happy, hopeful, fierce, agile, trivial.
16. Simple. They are associated with: uncomplicated, intentional, worthy.
17. Complex. They are associated with: complication, excitement, elaboration.
18. Constant. They are associated with: uniformity, insistence, monotonous, depressive.
19. Changeable. They are associated with: vigorous, irregular, uncertainty, joy, wild.
20. Increasing (acceleration. They are associated with: increased excitement, energy or strength; progressive development.
21. Decreasing (slowdown). They are associated with: reduction of excitement, energy or strength, conclusion of development.
PHRASING
22. Regular repetition of set of sounds. They are associated with: recognition, pleasant, insistence, monotony, organization, coordination.
23. Irregular repetition of set of sounds. They are associated with: characteristics, personality, disorder.
24. Very strong accents of sound sets. They are associated with: strong, energetic, emphatic, rhythmic.
25. Sounds without accents. They are associated with: continuity, lack of vitality.
26. Interrupted rhythm. They are associated with: character, vigor, uncertainty, unexpected.
DURATION
27. Brief, fragmentary. They are associated with: arouse interest, excitement, energy, dissatisfaction.
28. Sustained. They are associated with: persistence, monotony, stability, fatigue.
29. Staccato. They are associated with: vitality, nerves, excitement.
MOVEMENT
30. Outline movement. They are associated with: the movement in the outline of the sound must suggest physical movement corresponding to each case. For example, top-down-top sliding (glissando) pitch changes suggest rocking motion.
31. Upwards. They are associated with: joy, progressive importance, expectation, interest that awakens anticipation, doubt, energy, power.
32. Down. Declination, decreasing interest, decision, imminence conclusion, culminating movement.
PITCH CHANGES
33. Sudden changes. to. Ascending. They are associated with: increased interest, excitement, inspiration.
b. Descending. They are associated with: sadness, depression, decreasing movement, reduced tension.
34. Slow changes. to. Ascending. They are associated with: increased tension, aspiration, progressive movement.
b. Descending. They are associated with: sadness, depression, decreasing movement, reduced tension.
35. Well-defined tone changes. They are associated with: decision, effort, brilliance, vitality.
36. Indefinite changes (eg ligatures, glissando). They are associated with: Lack of energy, indecision, sadness.
37. Vibrato. They are associated with: instability, imbalance, decoration.
VOLUME CHANGES
38. Tremolo. They are associated with: uncertainty, shyness, action, imminent.
39. Crescendo. They are associated with: strength, power, lack, etc., progressive.
40. Diminishing. They are associated with: strength, power, closeness, etc., decreasing.
REVERBERATION
41. Dead acoustic (deaf). They are associated with: restriction, intimacy, closeness, confinement, understanding.
42. Live acoustics. They are associated with: openness, liveliness, spaciousness, magnitude, distance, uncertainty, infinity.
CHAPTER 3
Sound montage: Meaning and significance of the sound image.
Before analyzing the sound montage, it is necessary to refer to the cinematographic montage.
Film editing has greatly influenced radio and other arts.
Since the 1920s, different theories have been formulated about film editing. The theorists of these theories have not always agreed. Some claim that the montage takes place in the script as a montage project, known as the "iron script." Others assure that the script is carried out after the production and during the actual stage of editing (the editing stage) and that it has more to do with post-production. Still others cling to the montage as something broader, where it appears at each stage of the creative process, that is, from script writing to editing and through production.
In this chapter, radio mounting is not going to be referred to as the practice of cutting and pasting ( summary note: here he talks about cutting and joining magnetic tape, which is no longer used and is now a process that is almost in progress). its entirety digitized), if not, it is going to refer to the expressive montage that is created in the writing of the script and materializes in the making and post-production of that script.
All dramatized radio work is intended to make sense of the plot. This sense is achieved by chronologically linking the actions in a given space and time. And here the most important thing appears: that there is a continuity that contributes to advancing not only the understanding of the story in the person who is listening, but also the meaning that the author wanted to express.
What is a radio montage?
A radio montage is the organization of sounds according to certain conditions of order and time in the succession of events to produce the sound image desired by the creator.
Mariano Cebrián defines radio editing as "the union or interaction of all sounds to generate a narrative structure".
The montage has a triple creative function:
1. Creator of the meaning of the dramatized work: the montage gives meaning to the radio work thanks to the continuity of the actions in time and space so that the story is understood.
2. Creator of rhythm: rhythm is the impression of duration caused by the program or scene, all determined by the actual duration and the dramatic content of that program or scene. The rhythm is essential since it allows us to capture the attention of the listener and keep it until the end. Broadly speaking, the rhythm is conditioned by: the interdependence of the sound elements that make up the radio discourse (for example, the speed or slowness of the dialogues, the psychological time of the characters, the length of the scenes, the length of the music in the links, the number and duration of the fade in / out, etc).
3. Creator of ideas: the montage has a descriptive and narrative value. But it also has an explanatory or ideological value that highlights what the author wanted to express. From the juxtaposition (when we speak of juxtaposing, we are referring to putting one thing after the other, in this case, one sound after another) or superimposing of sound images, ideas arise that are not included in any of the above and that the listener interprets in one way or another.
Camacho presents a structural description of the sound montage to take into account to give the story meaning, rhythm and meaning.
3.1 The punctuation elements
What are punctuation elements in radio narration?
Punctuation elements allow a variation of argument, time or place to be clearly and simply underlined.
The elements of sound punctuation separate and unite the narration to give logical continuity to the story.
Some authors assimilate punctuation marks in writing to radio punctuation elements. Be careful, this can cause interpretation problems. The score should never be perceived as such; It has an important function in the construction of the story, but it should be limited to making the story flow.
Punctuation or continuity elements used in a dramatized script:
- direct cut
- solvent (fade in / out)
- fade (mix or cross)
- musical bridge
- spark or musical burst
- musical beat
- silence
There are no defined rules for using punctuation elements as transition resources; The most important thing is always that the listener understands what is happening.
a) Direct cut: allows you to go directly from one sound image to another to separate the story. Cutting in this case does not mean separation, but union. It is used when it corresponds to a simple change of point of view or to a separation in perception, without expression of elapsed time or space traveled. This way of passing from one sound scene to another, gives a greater rhythm to the narration than the face-in or mixes, which tend to be slower.
It is important to avoid ambiguities, so it is recommended to anticipate the time gap in the dialogue. For example:
Shonku: We will leave for Osaka on the first train in the morning.
Effect: (TRAIN WHISTLE AND START OF THE SAME).
In this example we see how the character anticipates in the text that there will be a change of space and time. Space: Train station. Time: Some time in the morning.
b) Solvency or fade in / out: These are the most widely used forms of transition.
What is a fade in?
Fade in is the progressive reinforcement of the sound until it comes to the fore. The fade in is used to start a story or scene.
What is a fade out?
Fade out is when the sound gradually decreases until it disappears.
Both are also used to evoke flashbacks.
Fades have to be used with austerity, since if they are abused, they can interrupt the narrative flow.
c) Cast (mix or cross)
What is a radio fade?
It is when two sounds mix. One gradually disappears while another appears until replacing the previous one. They only sound at the same level at the moment when the descent of one meets the rise of the other. It is usually used for a time transition between two scenes that have a certain relationship of narrative continuity, such as a flashback. Also used for leaps into the future (flashfoward), representation of dream scenes, nightmares or hunches.
It may also lack its own meaning and can often be used only to smooth a direct cut.
d) Musical bridge
What is a musical bridge?
Music is the most widely used way to make a space-time transition. It is generally used to separate scenes and thus suggest the passage of time or a change of location. The music acts as a "musical curtain", serving as a neutral and abstract sound material that easily divides the parts of the plot.
c) Spark or musical burst
It is a short musical fragment that serves to highlight a moment or to separate one scene from another.
f) Musical coup
It is a short musical chord with a dramatic character that is used to highlight a situation or emphasize an action, as well as to mark an end point. Both the spark and the blow have a suspense function and the scene usually closes with that musical chord.
g) Silence
Silence also serves to mark a spatio-temporal transition in radio narration (this is explained in Chapter 1)
3.2 The spatio-temporal elements of the sound image
Are space and time important in radio dramatization?
Space and time in radio dramatization are two concepts of vital importance. Space is the place where facts or events occur and time is the date and duration of those events.
a) Radio space
In radio, space and place are usually considered as the same thing. There is no clear difference between the two terms. But they are two different concepts:
What is the difference between space and place?
Space is a not very determined area where stories unfold. Instead, the place is a limited area where the events of each of the stories occur. Unlike the space that is general, the places are particular. In general, the space is too wide to be able to dominate it; hence, this space is restricted to a certain place (Sánchez González, Arnulfo, Obra narrativa, México, UNAM, 1989, p. 73).
In a radio drama, both the narrator and the characters can provide us, from the beginning, with useful and precise information on the space and place where the action takes place. The important thing to recreate the sound space is to determine the environmental characteristics of that space, in order for the listener to use his imagination to reconstruct it.
How to recreate a sound space?
The first thing we have to do to recreate a sound space is to identify its nature: are we in an office, a park or a church? It is important then, to determine if the action is going to take place in an exterior or interior space, since the sound perception will be totally different. In this sense, echo and reverberation produce a different resonance that will serve to characterize the interior of a church, a park, even an imaginary place.
The German theorist Arnheim states that: "Sounds inform us not only of the source that emits them, but also of the place where the source is. Under certain conditions, even instances can be distinguished. The size, shape and characteristics of the sounds walls of the room where the sound is emitted can also be recognized by the kind of resonance they produce "
He also affirms that: "(...) our ears are able to distinguish the differences between a sound coming from the left and another coming from the right; the sound coming from the right reaches the right ear earlier than the left , and this small time difference is perceived unconsciously. "
Another important relationship in the creation of the sound space is distance, which informs us of the approach or distance of sounds. In a dramatized program, it becomes necessary to have a planning about the different sound planes that are going to be used. This is extremely important to give dimension or perspective to the space and therefore be able to offer an idea of reality.
What are sound planes?
In a radio drama, it is not enough to suggest the place where the events take place, it is necessary to give a sound dimension to the space. It is not enough to know that the action is taking place in a train station. It is also necessary to know where the characters are located to more accurately reflect that reality.
The sound planes serve to give greater presence to a sound in relation to others. Plane is the apparent distance between the sound source and the microphone. In radio we will have five basic sound planes:
- Psychological shot or extremely close-up (dpi): This shot is confidential. It is the intimate, close voice that speaks to us of "you to you". How is it achieved? The announcer has to speak very close to the microphone, thus also giving a sensation of symbolic proximity with the person on the other side listening. The tone of your voice tends to be softer and more confidential.
An example that allows this plane to be distinguished from the rest is when the main character is also the narrator. Therefore, when the main character is narrating, his voice will be much closer and confidential. Your voice will be different when you transition to the main character.
- Close-up: here the sound is clearly perceived above the other sounds.
- Second and third shots: the sound source is respectively slightly farther from the microphone.
- Background plane: these are the sounds that appear far from the microphone and, consequently, the listener listens to them on the same level. These background sounds are generally accompaniment and help to evoke a specific sound environment. They can also transit between the foreground and the background plane. For example, at a party the sound of music may be in the foreground, and then move to a background when the characters speak.
The sound image or sensation of movement occurs when we give the sound a certain scale of planes, that is, when we move the sound source away from the foreground until it disappears or we move it from a third to the foreground. The scale of planes creates the illusion of depth.
Sound displacement or traveling
Another very different type of sound movement occurs when, instead of moving the actor in relation to the microphone, we create the sensation of moving the microphone in relation to the characters or places. The displacement of the sound or traveling sound gives the sensation that the microphone moves in relation to the sound source, even if it remains static.
Echo and reverb
Echo and reverberation serve as a reference to effectively identify and evoke the sound space where the scene takes place. For example, if we are in a small space or a large space, or an open or closed space, a church or a library or a mountain.
What is the difference between echo and reverb?
Mariano Cebrián defines echo as the repetition of a sound reflected by a hard source. It differs from reverb in that it is perceived differently and separately from direct sound.
Instead, reverberation is defined as the action and effect of the prolongation of a sound after its source has stopped emitting it. It differs from the echo by the perception as continuity of the sound emitted by the source.
In this video you will be able to see well the difference between echo and reverb.
b) Radio time
Time management in radio narration has a double function:
- Chronological function
- Psychological function
What is the chronological function in radio narration?
Chronological function: it offers the listener a reference system that allows them to locate events at a specific chronological time such as the year, month, day and time that the events occurred. In radio dramatizations, the way to locate the temporality of events is through the narrator or dialogues, as long as care is taken that these temporal data flow naturally and discreetly, and are not forced.
An example of marking temporality in a forced way is as it happens in this video of all the transitions of the SpongeBob program, where temporality is marked using the facility of putting a text and a voice indicating the exact time that passed. This is purposely done and used in a humorous way.
Another subtle ways (and that you will surely have heard at some point) to mark the passage of chronological time is with the use of clock bells, the crowing of birds, the wind and the rain, the crowing of the rooster, of the owl or of the crickets.
Music is another great resource to mark the passage of time. For example, if we want to talk about the 60s or 70s we will put Jimi Hendrix type rock music with All Along the Watch Tower, if we want to talk about the 80s disco music and if we go to the 90s we will put Nirvana and in the 2000s Britney Spears. This is a widely used resource for making flashbacks.
On the other hand, if we want to mark the temporality within a year, we will put Christmas carols to let us know that we are at Christmas, for example.
What is the psychological function in radio narration?
The psychological function of time creates in the listener the impression of duration determined by the dramatic content and the rhythm of the montage. Time passes quickly when a story is engaging and exciting. Instead, it lengthens when it is boring or when dramatic events make us suffer with such intensity that we want them to accelerate.
Procedures used in the radio to mark the passing of time:
a) The use of some sound that indicates the passage of time in a more or less determinable way: from the crowing of crickets it merges into the crowing of the rooster that announces the new day. This is a seven-hour ellipsis that lasts a second, where the person who is listening perceives it as real and plausible.
b) The whistles of trains, ships and planes suggest the elapsed time of a trip.
c) The voice of a boy or girl that is mixed with the voice of a teenager or an adult.
d) When a character writes an email, his voice dissolves with the voice of the character who receives it and is reading it aloud. Reading the letter makes us go from one time to another, elliptically shortening the space-time process of the narration.
e) It may happen that we hear the voice of the person who writes or reads a letter and the dramatization goes to a flashback or a flashforward.
f) Both the monologue and the dialogue activate the transition to another time, such as the case in which the actor says: "I'll wait for you at the casino at night!" And let's go to a direct cut to the sound of the casino machines. This brings us directly into the night.
Function of sound ellipsis
What is a sound ellipsis?
The ellipsis is used to suppress scenes that are not necessary for the understanding of the story. Those scenes do not help the dramatic progression but, on the contrary, uselessly lengthen it. For example, if a person has to move from one place to another (for example, they have to travel from Buenos Aires to Miami) it is useless to describe that journey, as long as nothing important for action occurs in that period. The ellipsis serves to condense situations of little interest or useless for the understanding of the action, without this preventing the understanding of the story.
Any insignificant interval can be covered in multiple ways using the punctuation elements, either juxtaposed or through the superimposition of sounds. It is very common to also use music to mark the ellipsis. Direct cutting, in turn, helps speed up the pace of the narrative.
We can also find voluntary or expressive ellipsis that serve to create suspense, since when the most important moment of the action or certain information is intentionally omitted, the listener follows with more interest the course of the action.
Management of narrative tenses
Although radio narration generally moves from the present time forward and with actions that are carried out logically, there are two ways to manipulate radio narration:
- In reverse: going from the present to the past (flashback).
- In advance: where you move from the present to the future (flashfoward).
Reminiscence or flashback: the flashback or jump to the past is a process of usual engagement in radio narrative. At a certain moment, the narration stops to describe or explain significant events that occurred long before reaching the present situation. Subsequently, the action resumes its course until the end or the flashbacks are repeated as many times as necessary.
Double flashback and false flashback: In some cases you can use a reminiscence within another reminiscence (double flashback) or it may even happen that the narration, once it went to flashback, does not return to the present (false flashback).
An example of this can be seen in the movie Titanic, where the old main character remembers at first how the sinking story was and the narrative goes directly to the story, only to return in the end to the already old main character.
In radio narrative, flashbacks or reminiscences are used in different ways:
1. They are used to clarify, from different points of view, an event in a story.
2. A dramatization can begin with a climatic moment of the action or with the ending and then count all the antecedents until reaching the moment where the program began.
3. The reminiscences also serve to remember a tragedy that happened years ago until reaching the present situation.
Some procedures for using flashbacks:
1. Fade out on a textual reference. Example: "It all started when ..."
2. Cross or cast of two temporary elements. A plane contains the present of the discourse; the other, past history. This type of leaps into the past is caused by the memory of a character or the narrator, either as witnesses or as participants in the events.
Psychological flashback: one where the character evokes the past action, but is not transported to that past. The action does not go back in time, but introducing fragments of the past (setting, voices, replicas) into his present story, as the character remembers it.
Premonition or flashforward: Flashforward is used to describe actions that can or could happen in the future and then return to the present. The result of the flashforward is the anticipated (present) experience of events that have not yet happened.
Flashforward is generally used a lot in science-fiction shows or dramas, or to narrate certain future events imagined by a character in the present story.
The possibilities of combining these temporary jumps are varied and complex. The important thing about its use is not to fall into abuse and if they are used, the time jumps have to be clear and not confuse the listener.
3.3 Types of sound mounting
Different types of sound montage with a clearly expressive function can be used in radio drama to join scenes or sequences.
On the radio, when we talk about scene and sequence, we usually give it the same meaning. On the other hand, in cinema, we know that a scene is determined especially as a unit of time and place, and it bears a great resemblance to a scene or painting in a play. On the other hand, the characteristic of the sequence (succession of shot, images recorded at one time) is rather the unity of action.
On the radio, continuity is the most important reference factor for the entire sound story.
Pudovkin extrapolates the cinema to the radio and talks about four types of montages:
a) Linear mounting : It is the simplest type of mounting. It is a unique action exposed by a succession of scenes arranged in a logical and chronological way. It is rare to find a radio drama where two or more actions are not temporarily intertwined.
b) Parallel assembly: This type of assembly enables two or more actions to be carried out alternately at the same time, but in different places. Actions can have a single resolution, joining or not at the end.
Parallel montage is used to create interest and intensify suspense by describing actions that are directly related to each other and that can come together in a final climax.
c) Montage by analogy: This type of montage allows you to link two scenes that may have an acoustic similarity to highlight the differences.
Arnheim gives an example: The noise of the train dominates the snoring of a man who is sleeping in the following scene. Both scenes have a common denominator: their acoustic similarity serves precisely to reinforce the difference between both scenes, thanks to the radical insistence of the striking element that serves as a union.
Another example would be a person typing on a computer and the sound of the keyboard paired with the sound of machine gun fire.
Another type of analogy used is that of content, in which the last word or phrase of the first scene is made to coincide with the initial phrase of the next.
Another way to use montage by analogy is through the sense of the argument. A character mentions a person, a place, or a time to link them to the following scene.
It is also possible to chain two scenes by means of a metaphor, since this allows us to unite two sound images that may be of a different nature in order to suggest an idea common to the two. For example, when a couple is about to have sex and before they start having it, the burning wood of the fire is heard in the background. Something that is also a movie classic ...
d) Assembly by antithesis: This type of assembly allows us to unite two spaces, times, actions or ideas that are opposite or contradictory.
Arnheim says: the contrasting character of consecutive scenes is achieved in various ways: the first scene takes place in a resonant space and the next in a space without resonance. Or the first takes place in the distance, for example, a dialogue, while the second takes place close by. Or a placid sound decoration, followed by a wild background; a rhythmic one, followed by a sound without rhythm or shape; one down, against another high; a persistent sound, against another intermittent; one regular, followed by another irregular; a close-up, against a background. Or else a hectic dialogue, contrasted with a calm one; a fast way of speaking, against a slow one.
A monologue opposed to a mass scene; one leisurely dialogue to another without pause. Male voices, against female voices. Or a combination of all these possibilities.
We can also contrast scenes that vary in their symbolic content:
- from wealth to poverty
- from cowardice to bravery
- from joy to sadness
- from a funeral mass to a party
- from scarcity to abundance of food
- from life to death
Arnheim in this sense proposes an example: "In the first scene, a nurse comforts the patient:" Naturally he is going to be well ", and immediately afterwards, on medical advice, a doctor is heard saying:" Naturally, the patient he's evicted. "
In this example, an analogy of form and a deep contrast between the two situations are given.
e) Leitmotiv montage: The same action or the same sound image is repeated successively throughout history to signify the same idea. For example, the use of a piece of music to characterize a character, a place or a certain situation. In the radio adaptation that Joaquín Marroquí made of Knock on any door, a novel by Williard Motley, the gunman, who does not utter a word throughout the work, always shows his presence by whistling a song.
CHAPTER 4
Play of images: From literary work to radio adaptation
What is a radio adaptation? And why is it important to dedicate an entire chapter to it?
In adaptation work, the adapter requires translating literary images, sometimes subjective, sometimes objective, always complex, to sound images. In this adaptation work, the adapter faces innumerable risks, because a literary image, when adapted to the radio, can gain or lose intensity, but never be identical. The author says that the work of the adapter is similar to that of the translator: to achieve with different means similar effects.
In this chapter the author will seek to explain certain theoretical-methodological aspects related to the radio adaptation of literary works.
Radio adaptation is a creative and operational, technical-artistic process that consists of transferring a literary work to a different mode of expression from the original text. That different mode of expression is radio.
For Alain García in "L´adaptation du roman au film" (1990): (...) as a science, with its well-defined laws and principles. Therefore, it is very important to understand that there are two very different activities or operational moments in radio creation: the original script and the adaptation. Working from a red note, an anecdote or a memory, has nothing in common with this difficult mission that consists of adapting literary material for the radio.
The radio adaptation follows an aesthetic process of auditory-visual production, which essentially consists of transforming the images in a book into auditory images, which implies the formalization of various physical materials with which the screenwriter works to adapt a work. This means that the choice of these physical materials (word, music, sound effects, silence) is not something that happens by chance. By this is meant that the choice of a voice or a few seconds of a song is not random or accidental. This choice serves to express a psychological state on the radio and the correct choice is going to be decisive for the listener to understand what they want to transmit.
As in poetry, where it is advisable not to translate word by word, but entire verses, in order to communicate the original meaning and emotion, the same is true of radio adaptations, since literary texts are designed to be read and not spoken.
In this sense, the screenwriter has to know the technical-creative requirements of transferring a literary work to a language and a mode of expression different from the original, and must have a deep knowledge of the radio language and possess the qualities of a writer.
When a literary work or any other text is adapted to a radio script, it must be treated as an auditory-visual experience and remember that we are not obliged to reproduce the source material as it is, but we must remain faithful to its integrity.
What types of adaptation of the literary work are there?
There are three types of adaptation of a literary work:
- the literal adaptation.
- free adaptation
- the transposition
a) Radio adaptation and its different forms
The literal adaptation
In a literal adaptation, although forced changes are required between the play and the script, the intention is to reproduce as closely as possible the proposals of the original play.
In the adaptation, we are going to find, for example, an extensive novel. This extensive novel will not be able to be translated into radio as it is written, since they would not give the radio times to do so. In this sense, the screenwriter's work will consist not only in suppressing certain episodes or cutting out certain passages, but also in knowing how to condense the literary work. The scriptwriter will have to put her creativity to the test to use all the necessary resources that allow her to make the transformations, arrangements and adjustments for the radio:
- put in the mouths of the characters what in the novel is described by a narrator, either omniscient or equiscient (the squeaky narrator is the one who narrates, but only knows one of the characters).
- find equivalences to reasoning and inner thoughts.
- look for the necessary ways to transmit psychological states, atmospheres and environments using sound effects, music and silences
- make the evolutions in time and space comprehensible.
Eugene Vale in "Screenplay Techniques for Film and Television " (1996) says: "The screenwriter who diligently copies entire blocks of the material in the new form may find that, despite his fidelity, the adaptation takes on a different spirit and does not it does justice to the original. In other cases an adaptation that represents a less literal transformation is much more faithful to the original. This fidelity intention is not always the most convenient for a dramatization or for the author. Many authors would be favored if it were changed considerably their work, as long as the meaning and essence of their stories are reproduced, it is convenient for them to take such liberties with their works because they will result in the best possible transformations for radio ".
Free adaptation
In free adaptation, the screenwriter only consults the original text as a guide, as this kind of adaptation presupposes endless possibilities, as many as the creativity and skill of the screenwriter allow.
In the free adaptation, it is proposed to present the work itself and also to draw a new creation from it, without thereby betraying the spirit of the original work. In other words, the screenwriter can:
- change the order of events
- change the style of the narration
- create other scenes
- create other incidents or events, etc.
But all this has to be done without changing the sense and tone of the work. In this case we can talk about an adaptation inspired by such a literary work or a free adaptation of a novel, or a script based on this or that character in the story.
Alain García says: "The adapter in this case uses the literary text to express, through his personal creativity, conceptual, psychological, social and individual aspects and propositions, characteristic of the characters, the situation and the theme of the work originally".
The radio transposition
Transposition is nothing other than transformation, the act of being able to transfer a work from one medium to another, maintaining the identity of the original, thanks to a system of analogous techniques and equivalent procedures. "Transposition is like a transcodage, the translation from a linguistic code to an auditory code" (García, Alain). The adapter, in this case, is a translator that has a double objective: to translate faithfully, at the same time as creating freely.
The transposition results in new and unexpected effects. What these new and unexpected effects do is show new aspects and values that were not entirely clear in the literary work. She is not referring to the fact that something is attributed to the work that it does not have, but rather to discover some nuances that were hidden. It may happen that the radio adaptation is, in some aspects, more adequate than the literary work itself, reaching the perfection to which it aspired from the beginning.
Luigi Pareyson says that: "Obviously, this type of transposition is not easy: to achieve it, mastering the technique is not enough, it is necessary to be gifted as an artist. with a deep concept of fidelity, which is the truest and safest fidelity, although arduous and difficult: the fidelity of the work as it wants to be, requires it to enter its inner dynamism and take ownership of its creative project ".
Here the author paraphrases Alain García and says something important to clarify the difference between literal adaptation, free adaptation and transposition:
- The literal adaptation betrays the radio being too close to the literary work.
- The free adaptation betrays the novel by taking too much distance from it.
- The transposition does not betray one or the other, but is situated within the confines of these two forms of artistic expression.
An example of a transposition is The War of the Worlds, the radio piece directed by Orson Wells, inspired by the homonymous novel by HG Wells. It is a sample of transposition where the morning of the trade, the skill of the technique, the skill and the daring of Wells are revealed. The radio version had an impact that the novel never achieved. The war of the worlds is a key piece in the history of radio, since it transcended, like few others, the transience of the medium and became a classic work.
Why was The War of the Worlds so successful?
The genius of Wells and Koch consisted in transforming the novel, which narrates the Martian invasion, into a simulation of live radio broadcast. The informative flashes, the interviews of both the experts and the supposed official authorities (scientists, military, government), as well as the live connections of the reporters, caused a piece of radio drama to be confused with a report, despite the fact that the public that heard from the beginning the program knew that it was a fiction.
Both filmmakers achieved this enormous success, thanks to their novel radio transposition. And this they achieved without the novel losing its essence. In other words, this radio piece achieves something very difficult, but what any filmmaker should aim at: maintaining both fidelity and creativity, because on the one hand it intends to present the work itself and, on the other, to draw from it a new image. The radio version of The War of the Worlds shows the creative capacity exerted by both artists when moving from a fictional genre to the special demands of a radio report.
The transposition opens an immense field to virtuosity. It allows creativity to be used to, as we saw in the example of The War of the Worlds, take a novel and the radio report, mix them and obtain a unique piece. Achieving this requires the skill, technique and talent of an artist.
Summarizer's comment : Today, we could take into account a third factor that notably influences the success of this radio fiction: the time it was broadcast. The War of the Worlds is a novel from 1898. The transposition was first broadcast live as a Halloween episode, on a Sunday at 9:00 pm. From the year 1938. Yes, 1938. People who heard the program from the beginning knew that it was fiction. But the people who caught the broadcast started, thought what was happening was true. This, in part, is thanks to the genius of its authors who knew how to give the transmission realism. But, on the other hand, at that time the radio was the communication medium that transmitted the news more immediately. Therefore, it was expected that the radio is communicating a news and, added to the impossibility of checking with another source of information (today we could check on a news portal in seconds), people did not doubt that what they were hearing it was really happening. To put it in current terms we would say that it was a fake news that quickly went viral.
b) The aspects of adaptation.
Mario Kaplún classifies the dramatized format into three subformats:
1) Unitary programs: they are those emissions in which the complete story occurs in a single chapter. The characters have no subsequent continuity.
2) Serial programs: in each chapter an independent theme is presented, although there are common features that are repeated in each broadcast, such as the permanent characters that give continuity to the series. Each chapter represents an independent unit, so they can be understood without having a background.
3) Novel programs: it is what we know as a radio soap opera, whose characteristic is the interconnection of the chapters with a continuous plot, therefore it is necessary to listen to almost all the chapters to understand the story. But, each chapter must have a separate dramatic structure strong enough for the listener to hook into the next chapter.
Adapting a play can present at least two difficulties:
- on the one hand, to provoke the listeners to the same sensations that occur in the public-actor relationship
- on the other hand, audibly visualize scenes, settings and decorations without breaking the dramatic rhythm.
c) The importance of the matrix of events
Matrix of events is what in French is known as decoupage. It is an instrument that the screenwriter can in his adaptation work so as not to lose the development of the essential elements of the literary work.
The matrix of events consists of dividing the literary work into its events and situations before preparing the radio script.
When the most significant of a literary is summarized in a matrix of events, it allows to globally visualize the different planes of the development of the literary work, located in a historical, real or imaginary time-space, which facilitates the work of the screenwriter.
The matrix of events involves listing each of the existing characters, as well as their psychological characteristics, their position and their trajectory in time and space in order to define the moment in which they are (for example, to form a couple), in the one that stops (in the event of the death of a character), or the one that interferes with each other (for example a fight between two characters). It also has to include the most important events or actions (a car accident, killing the rival, etc.). In turn, show the fabric of everyday life, customs, settings, important objects, etc.
This allows the writer to:
- abbreviate or eliminate part of the events in which nothing important happens for the understanding of the original story.
- conceal information in order to allow the listener to reconstruct the events on their own.
- The screenwriter may extend certain parts or events that he wishes to underline for reasons of an aesthetic nature.
- You will be able to find possible creative solutions so that the viewer recognizes them via the imaginary identification and not the stereotype, through the use of metaphors and symbols.
- allows the screenwriter to calculate the number of chapters and their duration.
- makes it easier for the screenwriter to combine the events of the story into a specific spatial-temporal organization scheme.
Analysis of the event matrix of the story La mabel de Guy Maupassant
As it was a literal adaptation, minimal transformations were made that gave the work a greater radio rhythm. The story begins with the description of the cell where a madman is found in an abstracted attitude. The doctor explains to someone the causes of that man's madness and gives him the madman's diary so that after reading it, he communicates his opinion.
In the radio adaptation, instead of a narrator reading the newspaper (which covers the whole story) it was more enriching to create characters and dialogues; Recreating situations that gave life to what the madman narrated in the first person in the newspaper. In the same way, the chronological order was altered when starting with the cries of the madman (which in the story are in the final scene), which serve to give an atmosphere to the place where the doctor explains to a friend of the madman, briefly and forceful, the uniqueness of his illness.
CHAPTER 5
Dramatized radio script writing
As in the cinema, we will have two types of scripts:
- literary script: where the plot idea is developed without technical dimensions.
- technical script: in addition to the dialogue continuity, it details all the technical indications necessary for the recording
The development of both scripts can be given by a single person or two. Depending on the workflow of each screenwriter. The most common is that at the same time that the story is created and developed, the indispensable technique for understanding and representing the script is deployed.
Mario Kaplún defines the script as: (...) something more than a text; it is the auditory structure encoded in writing; the project of the sound emission. It is the detailed and precise scheme of the broadcast, which includes the spoken text, the music to be included and the sound effects that will be inserted and indicates the precise moment in which each thing should be heard.
You can begin to create a dramatized script for the radio based on an experience, a theme, a character or a situation. Each writer has her own way of writing. There is no single method of writing dramatized scripts; discipline, the daily practice of radio writing and the study of dramatic theory are the basis for the construction of the writing profession. However, many authors agree in pointing out the stages that a writer who begins to write must follow: the idea, the synopsis, the treatment, the literary script and the technical script.
a) THE IDEA
The idea is the spark of creation. From one or more ideas, a story can be generated. That story can be turned into a radio script.
The idea has to be clear and easy to understand. Some writers assure that the idea must be able to be explained in a maximum of two lines. If you exceed that number of lines, the idea begins to lose strength and not be understood.
Any simple idea can be interesting, it all depends on how it is told.
Examples of ideas:
- the impossible love story between a man and a married woman.
- the collapse of a family after the death of a son.
- The story of an attack on a famous person.
- the consequences a singer has to face for uploading a controversial photo to her social networks.
- the torments that the young athlete must endure due to the pressures his father imposes on him to win.
- the mission assigned to an American chess player in the 1970s to obtain information from the Soviet Union.
b) THE SYNOPSIS
The word synopsis comes from the Greek and means: "summary that is covered at a glance".
What is the synopsis?
It is a summary of the story or story, as well as the main characters, written in an indirect style and without dialogue.
Eugene Vale in Script Techniques for Film and Television says that the synopsis "establishes the salient facts of the nascent script. It does not need to contain all the facts yet; but those that are must suffice to effect a complete narrative, without gaps or fragile developments. they can later insert the missing elements, as long as their absence does not imply crucial doubts. Other facts can be altered in the subsequent development ".
Example of synopsis: "María del Mar is a fashion singer who disappears without a trace. The police, prompted by her friends and family, start their search. A young journalist - María's friend -, who has the last interview that was made The singer began a modest information campaign in the cultural column of the newspaper he works for, with the sole purpose of helping to locate the girl. By investigating the whereabouts of María del Mar, the journalist managed to arouse interest Of the media.
Little by little, that modest journalistic campaign is becoming a real crusade. The performances of María del Mar sound more and more on radio, television programs are made with recordings of the artist, special editions of her music are made on compact discs, the María del Mar posters flood the market ... And the The public, eager for idols and symbols to take refuge in, responds by founding a club of admirers of the singer, offering her spontaneous collaboration for its location and, in short, helping to increase the fame of the disappeared woman.
The public response reinforces the media campaign. The testimonies of the famous people who met María del Mar are collected: Hugo Argüelles, her theater teacher; Jesusa Rodríguez, with whom she planned to make a show; Verónica Castro, who was left standing the night of her disappearance; Marta Verduzco, with whom she had a personal friendship; DIana Bracho, with whom she worked in a show, etc.
Little by little, the action of the media, in combination with the reaction of the public, create an information chaos around the figure of María del Mar and her true personality is being distorted. Before the embarrassed eyes of her family and friends, María del Mar is becoming a myth, a symbol, and her new identity is gaining so much strength that her close ones come to believe that they did not know the true personality of the disappeared person.
In the end, a new - and non-existent - María del Mar has been created by the consortium and all, without exception, contribute to keeping it alive. If María del Mar reappears, she will have to assume this new identity or disappear permanently. "
Once we have the synopsis, we move on to the next step: treatment.
c) THE TREATMENT
Treatment is a more developed phase of writing and writing the script.
Michael Chion in How to Write a Script defines treatment "as a detailed description of the action, in continuity, with, probably, an occasional line of dialogue, but, in most cases, in indirect style."
It is a kind of scale (the scale of a script allows you to quickly see the structure of the story) where the action and the most important data (characters, places, time) are briefly described, scene by scene in order of continuity.
Summary note: Here the author takes to exemplify the treatment, the continuation of the previous synopsis. She takes only the fragment of the moment in which María del Mar reappears and explains the reasons for her disappearance. I transcribe it as it appears in the text:
In the newspaper office, María del Mar explains to Pablo - her friend - and Humberto, editor-in-chief, the reasons why she decided to disappear. One day, María del Mar is seen in a video and realizes that little by little, without realizing it, almost with her consent, they were transforming her: dressed in a design that she had rejected, with curly hair and singing trash.
Two days later, María del Mar meets at a party with the composer Marcial Alejandro. In the heat of the tequilas, the conversation becomes more sincere:
MARÍA: You just told me that you saw me very pretty on TV. You haven't spoken a word of what I sing.
MARCIAL: Look, that one where you walk, it's not my vibe and ... I prefer not to comment.
MARÍA: You see, I'm rotting. And before I start to stink I prefer to throw everything away.
Marcial motivates her to look for other more daring forms of expression, as in the songs of her beginnings. María del Mar accepts Marcial's offer to record some of her songs with her.
The next day they spend recording. The result, to the surprise of María del Mar, is wonderful. Despite the exclusivity contract that she has signed with the consortium, María del Mar decides to present this material on a disc independently. Sara Gálvez, owner of La Rumba, agrees to present the album at her nightclub, just the same day that María would have to present the album she recorded with the consortium in San Antonio, Texas.
Raúl Aspeitia, his brother-in-law and representative at the same time, demands that María del Mar cancel this presentation or abide by the consequences. That night, Sara Gálvez receives several phone threats, and her dog is killed as a warning to María del Mar that war has been declared.
MARÍA DEL MAR: It scared me a lot. It was the first time I understood that they were capable of killing as long as we met their demands. I asked Raúl Aspeitia for a date. He gave it to me the next day in his office.
Raúl sets a trap for María del Mar. A press conference announcing the confirmation of the presentation in San Antonio of the album that the singer has recorded with the consortium.
Despite all the obstacles to overcome, María remains determined to give her concert at La Rumba.
The night of the concert, Raúl visits María at her home. He recommends that if he does not want something to happen to Sara and see his sister deformed, cancel the concert. Maria, maddened with pain, with helplessness, decides not to attend La Rumba and chooses to disappear.
In the treatment of a script, the main characters must be perfectly characterized.
How is a character characterized?
To characterize a character, many recommend writing his biography. If or if we must take into account:
Its physical characteristics:
- sex
- age
Its psychological characteristics that define its character:
- brave
- Coward
- shy
- nervous
Its socioeconomic characteristics:
- social class
- economic level
- ideology of the characters
The more information we have, the easier it will be to provide smooth and compelling dialogues.
The characters must be verified in terms of the range of their voices so that the listener can identify them immediately.
d) THE LITERARY SCRIPT
It refers to the complete story that includes the idea, the synopsis and the treatment: the actions in a defined time and space, the description of the characters and the dialogues. When it comes to writing a script, it is about knowing how to tell a story that activates the listener's curiosity, expectation and fantasy.
It can be divided into four stages:
1. Approach: the main characters, the situation or premise of the story and the conflict are configured. That is to say: who wants what and who or what is opposed. At the same time, the listener is introduced to the climate of the radio work.
2. Development and articulation of the conflict: here the evolution of the actions of the protagonists is described in the achievement of their objectives, with their anecdotal alternatives and the progressive description of the events, in a gradual growth of interest.
3. Culmination of the conflict: it is the moment in which the story is defined: failure, success or postponement in achieving the objective proposed by the characters or the events that have begun to arise in the first stage (approach) and have developed in the second development and articulation of the conflict). For example, here ends a love conflict and its dramatic tension. It is the moment of maximum tension or "twist" in history.
4. Outcome: It is the new stage of relationship between the components of the story after the turn made at the culmination of the conflict. The process of action described has passed from one state to another through the culmination of the conflict.
This structure (which can vary) is the arrangement of the elements that give shape to the idea.
Dialogue functions
Dialogues must be written to be said and not read, so it is recommended that they be concentrated and simple.
The dialogue serves to locate the scene in a defined time and space.
Without being obvious, the names of the characters and the relationship between them (father, wife, friend) must be reiterated from time to time.
Thanks to the dialogue some scenes can be linked with others and make the story more fluid.
Narrator functions
What functions does the narrator have?
a) Synthesize , in a radio soap opera, the most outstanding events at the beginning of each chapter.
b) Contextualize the story . For McLeish: "It is essentially useful for providing a large amount of background or those parts that have many explanations and descriptions but little action." But it is always better that action prevail over descriptions and explanations.
c) Describe settings that are difficult to identify soundly . This is very useful with natural landscapes or cities that we have no idea what they are like.
d) Visualize the physical features of the characters.
e) Serve as a character at the same time
f) Clarify, in case of narrative ambiguity, the spatio-temporal transitions.
e) THE TECHNICAL SCRIPT
This script includes the technical parameters of the radio image. The reality is that there is no pre-established way to put together a radio script. It is according to each person and how they are used to putting it together. The only important thing is that it is understandable so that each member of the professional team involved in the sound representation of the script knows how, when and what to do at the time of recording.
Summary note: here the author presents the diagramming of the McLeish / BBC model with some additions, which in professional practice (according to the author) give excellent results. Now, this was done when there was no widespread access to computers, notebooks or tablets, so take that into consideration.
1. Every script must have a cover with the main data:
- station name
- name of the program or series and the chapter number
- the list of characters and their characteristics
- name of the producer or producer
- screenwriter's name
- date
2. The sheet should be written on one side only, to minimize noise in handling.
3. The script must be written double-spaced, in order to allow the writing of modifications and annotations of the actors, the director and the musicalizer.
4. All the lines (from one to thirty) should be progressively numbered on the left margin of each sheet to facilitate the identification of each parliament for the entire production team.
5. After the number and on the left margin, they are written in capital letters:
to. The name of the character that speaks or, failing that, the narrator.
b. The indications for EFFECTS and MUSIC are written in capital letters and in parentheses; in addition, the entire line or lines that occupy this description are underlined.
6. The instructions regarding the sound effects can be interspersed in the body of the script, as long as they are short and simple, so that they serve as an orientation for the actor in the way of projecting his voice: ( STEPS FROM 2ND TO 1ST PLANE ) or to support the appropriate reaction time when listening to a sound effect: ( BEATS IN 2ND PLANE ) or ( PHONE RING IN 1ST PLANE ). If the sound planes and travellings simultaneously accompany the action, they must be included in the script body. If the indications are detailed and complex, they must be put on a separate line.
The screenwriter must describe the actions with the greatest possible precision and accuracy. For example: if the script says "Martín is getting closer", you have to specify how you walk, nervously or slowly.
When the word is accompanied by a simultaneous action, the action must be written before the word, for example:
SUSANA: ( HITTING CARLOS ). Damn, go away, I don't want to see you again in my life!
7. The annotations for the actor to give the nuances or intentions that of printing his parliaments, must be put as many times as necessary, always in parentheses and in capital letters. Example: (NERVOUS), (IRRITATED), (LOVING), (SHAKED), (BREAKING), etc.
In the same way we will have to mark the (PAUSES), the (SILENCES) or the (TRANSITIONS OR TRANS.) When it is required to indicate to the actor that he must give a change of intonation within the same parliament.
8. The musical dimensions must be written in parentheses, in capital letters and underlined: ( FADE IN MÚSICA / SE ESTABLECE Y SALE ). If it is a precise topic, the screenwriter also specifies it: ( ENTER THE SONG OF THE SIBILA / TRACK 3 REMAINS AND GOES DOWN ). The musical dimensions can also be in the body of the script, as long as they are explicit: ( MUSICAL SPARK ), ( DRAMATIC HIT ), ( TRANS MUSIC ).
9. Spatio -temporal indications are also in parentheses, in capital letters and underlined: ( INT. CHURCH ) ( EXT./NIGHT GARDEN ). The ways of passing from one scene to another must be indicated in the same way with the punctuation elements ( FADE IN / OUT ), ( MIX OR CROSS ), etc.
10. Progressively number each page with the name of the story or novel and the corresponding chapter. These data will serve as a guide to identify the leaves of that script. Although these details may seem insignificant, at the moment of production they are key, since it often happens that the actors or the production team lose their sheets or get misplaced.
11. The transcription, and therefore the copies of the scripts, must be very clear, so that they do not cause doubts or confusion for the actors when they are read.
12. Each page must end in a full paragraph, since, as a general rule, the actor loses the reading rhythm when changing the sheet or the scene must be repeated because the paper noise was heard.
END OF SUMMARY
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