Cai Gwilym Pritchard

To start off with, I wanted to create some kind of piece around a particular scene from the second season of my audio drama, Chain of Being. The scene in question is split up over the episode but in the interests of what I currently feel will end up as a live performance/series of tracks I will be working from the scene as a whole, separate from the rest of the scenes. Below is the entire sequence in which the main character: Adam, communes with a mystic forest, the Noecelia, in order to uncover a way to bring his friend back from another realm. I wanted to write the speech in a way that was bizarre enough to unsettle the listener’s sense of normalcy whilst still suggesting that there is truth and meaning behind what is being said. 

In the original script I really love the idea of this method of uncovering truth being a totally normal and accepted method of research, and I think going into a performance this feeling of slight anti-logocentrism and an attempt to make the listener feel at peace with an alternative method of thinking. 

I think developing the skills to be comfortable with difference is extremely important. My anarchist readings on various internet spaces as well as more academic readings have led me to the conclusion that a total change of how we approach society and everyday life is needed. The wider Euro-American societal attitudes to gender, sex, sexuality, race, culture are key in maintaining the patriarchal white supremacist colonialist society we find ourselves in. I don’t expect to see these attitudes toppled in my lifetime, but I feel in some small way I can attempt to use the platform and artistic skills I have to try and gently suggest that people open their minds to alternative ways of being. This is one of the underlying aims of the entire second season of Chain of Being, with this one scene being part of this wider goal. 

I think then the challenge for this possible performance piece will be concentrating what is being done over a 7 hour story down into just one thing. Perhaps it isn’t going to have this effect and perhaps I’ll drop this idea eventually but I think having that as at least a foundation will help aim me in a good general trajectory.

Conversation with the Noecelia:

Note: all lines not said by Adam are ‘said’ by the Noecelia. It is not dialogue but an interaction with Truth via the forest itself.

Unto unto unto u u u u u 

Whence whence cometh th th th th

Avaunt from here eternal, A a a a a 

Untouchable, 

Alone, eternal al al al al 

Soldier, poet, philosopher, murderer, alchemist

Hater of injustice causer (of much), 

A yak, thousands of threads you do carry, which which which which

Ingress and egress, and orbiting body, dangerous dangerous dangerous

Time into importance 

The danger of such a thing

Long before, an age even for you, what enemy held you?

Adam: intrinsic, fought to a death that won’t come, a frozen beast roars from the cold tower, waves of cold peel away at flesh and shatter bone. A terrible honour. A secret held dear, a lie as cover.

A time soon past, tragedy turned redemption:

Adam: A Roiling serpent, head of flame, making blood, marking blood, arcs across the sky. The sight burns out my eyes before the heat can

The deadly, marking truth, future revelation

Adam: A pair of siblings with no forms repeatedly slay each other, both made from light, one purely so but both crossed with Earth

These truths are meaningless

Adam: Aye, to me

[pause]

I would drink the cascading sunset,

All warriors are born unfortunately,

This self holds significance, turn your ire to me,

I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know,

Who is not your kin, that should be?

Adam: are you talking to me?

Who is not your kin, that should be?

Adam: Everyone, humanity, I don’t understand 

FOOL!

Adam: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, please don’t scream, don’t scream

All relationships come to a death. Why pursue?

Adam: Why pursue? Why

Who are you?

Adam: what will I be?

If you don’t 

Adam: if I don’t 

Pursue to ward off apathy

Adam: apathy is death

You refuse to die

Adam: I can’t die, I can’t 

FOOL, AGAIN!

Adam: please!

Death is…

Adam: death is more than dying

Why are you the exception 

Adam: because my self can die

You pursue 

Adam: how do I pursue?

Who is not your kin, that should be?

Adam: I

You

Adam: don’t 

Do not

Adam: know

Know

Adam: please

What, by choice, has separated itself and stands in opposition? What turns its ire above?

Adam: The Anthronesians

You’ve seen

Adam: I have, I have?

What powers they must have 

Adam: you wear a face that doesn’t belong here

One you brought with you

Adam: what powers they must have

To pull things through and from

Adam: the angels

You’ve seen

Adam: I have.

That which turns its ire above, which stands apart, that pulls things through and from

Adam: That is how I pursue, the Anthronesians can pull angels from their realm, they can pull entities from other realms. I can do the same with Ichrinth

You’ve seen

Adam: I have

You cannot be made to die

Adam: I have seen

Only you can end the self 

Adam: I don’t-

You don’t understand 

Adam: understand. Speak

Apathy can follow in the shadow of pursuit

Adam: I don’t see

You don’t see. You don’t you dont you dont you don’t you dont you don’t you don’t 

As I start to get closer to writing the last few episodes of Chain of Being I’ve decided, acting on the advice of Jaci, that I’m going to start casting now. Most of the main roles have been written and decided on and we can always do a second round of casting later if any major characters pop up unexpectedly.

I’ve been using a casting call from a show I auditioned for as a template and am currently in the process of writing up the details for each character and selecting lines that, when performed, will give me a good sense of range and skill. I’ve put down details of the show and exactly how much pay it will be for each role

I am very excited to start hearing these characters come to life and I’m curious to see how my perception of them changes when they’ve been cast. Jaci tells me that whole new characters were written to include actors that they particularly wanted but had no role for.

 From the 17th to the 27th of march I went to New York and Philadelphia to meet with several members of Faustian Nonsense. Having worked with many of them for over 2 years remotely it was a very strange and exciting experience to meet with them in person. We spent much of the time socialising and talking about our various projects, doing group outings and dinners. 

I have to say that it was a really valuable experience, it was so nice to have a different environment to be talking with everyone and a situation where everyone is in a group sharing ideas and joking around is vastly different to everyone being on the same call.

I also spent some time making noise music with people that I may end up using as score for Chain of Being or just releasing as its own piece.

Overall it was an incredibly valuable experience to finally socialise in person with my colleagues and I am extremely grateful for the time to do this afforded to me by DPS

My placement with Faustian Nonsense has me mostly editing Super Suits, an audio drama sitcom about lawyers in a superhero world. This is a brief walk through of the process of editing an episode to try and show what I’m mostly up to during my DPS year

We tend to do dialogue edits and then sound design edits 3 episodes at a time, just so I’m not constantly switching between mindsets and ultimately the process ends up quicker that way.

First I collect all the lines, working from a script to see which characters appear in an episode and then going through the dropbox to find them.

I then place them all in a session file and get to work, using the script as a guide I choose the best takes and weave the scenes together. I also take any particularly funny outtakes to put on the patreon as extra content.

The only processing I do on the voices at this point is noise reduction, EQ, and compression to have all of the voices at a roughly similar level so they sit well in the mix together and no dialogue gets lost when sound effects get added. 

Once this is done I’ll sit with Jaci and Hannah (showrunner and head writer) and make sure everyone is happy with takes and timings, and then I move on to the Sound Design stage

I first add any voice effects to characters that need it (usually it’s just the AI character but sometimes certain characters will need something added.) And then go by the script again, adding atmos and sound effects to the script. The scripts tend to leave a lot of creative freedom and any time I think of a funny audio gag I usually put it in.

I also pan characters to try and spatialise the scene and then automate the panning going left or right if the character moves. Most episodes also require some new foley which I just record as and when I need it, otherwise I just use my sound library.

I put a multiband compressor and limiter on the whole thing, again just to try and make it easier to hear in different environments.

I then export this and send it off to Jaci Hannah and Tony (our marketing director) to get extra opinions on the overall sound design in case I missed anything or something wasn’t clear. As a final check I run it through and LUFS penalty analyzer which tells me if the episode is going to be reduced or boosted by any of the platforms that it will be hosted on and then adjust it accordingly so the mix doesn’t get affected.

On the 19th and 20th I went down to High Wycombe to join in on Quirky Voices podfest. It was a really good experience that led to loads of new connections. While the various talks an performances over the weekend were really interesting I did find that the most valuable moments were in between, before and after. The lunches, intervals, and pub trips led to some really interesting and enlightening conversations that really truly made me feel like a part of the community.

Overall I’m really glad I went and I got to meet and spend time with some really interesting people.

In the first few weeks of my placement with FN I was more or less left to my own devices to get on with the work assigned to me, however I felt that there was a certain lack to structure, when I talked with Jaci about it we came up with the idea for weekly check ups, where we would talk about what I had done in the past week and what needed to be done next week. This has been extremely helpful in keeping me on track and adding some structure, while before I was just doing my own thing with a list of things to do, now there’s an actual person to answer to which is super helpful.

On top of that we also talk about our respective writing projects, which helps me keep on top of making chain of being as well/

One of the projects FN is working on is Banshee, which is a library of sounds for audio drama producers to be able to purchase and use in their own projects, as the main sound designer involved I’ve been tasked with collecting sounds. One of the sound effects in the most high demand is footsteps, and so I went in a few days ago with my shotgun mic, zoom h4n and a selection of shoes. I booked out the foley studio in LCC and spent some time wearing the different shoes as well not wearing them at all, and walking, jumping, shuffling and running on various surfaces, it took up more time than expected and so I was only able to do wood and stone but they came out very well. I then got home and edited through, seprating the different footwear, movements and surfaces, labelling the files and then uploading them to the Banshee dropbox. From there I had to use the shared spreadsheet and put in how long each file was, how much effort it took to acquire, what tags would be appropriate and what category of sounds they were. All of this would then allow someone else to take these sounds and properly put them into packs to be sold to the customer.

I’m going to return to LCC and record the rest of the surfaces, making sure to bring the same shoes so it remains consistent.

In august I went to the London Podcast festival to see a peer of mine perform, we had previously both performed at last years in a competition where the best new Audio Drama would get the chance to do a full live show at the following years, and this was that show. Overall it was really fun to see them again and it was nice to be surrounded by people in the same field as you. I met a showrunner called CL Hendry who after chatting together for some time actually offered me a job as the sound designer, on top of that Sarah Goulding invited me to talk on her interview podcast where she talks to audio drama creators. Overall it was really enjoyable and I felt it was valuable to make friends and generally be involved in the Audio Drama scene in this country, as generally I tend to work heavily with Americans.

I’m also going to be going to another podcast festival organised by Sarah Goulding on the 19th and 20th of November which hopefully will allow me to meet some new people in the industry

As part of my time working for Faustian Nonsense, I have been tasked with doing the sound design for Super Suits, this is a total of 20 episodes, each about 30 minutes long. For each episode, I will go into the dropbox where we keep all of the individual voice lines for each character in an episode.

Working from the script I will cut up and arrange all of these lines, choosing takes that best suit the scene and adjusting volumes to get an average db of about -18, this is so that if I need to eventually do a particular line or sound effect louder than everything else, I have some room to work in. Also, for extra content on the patreon I take out any particularly funny bloopers. This Dialogue edit usually takes me 6-8 hours, including the review and export, sometimes the time gets extended because a line will be missing or occasionally the quality of the recording will be subpar, in which case I will figure a work around and edit around the missing line as we don’t really have time for rerecords. However if I can’t figure out a solution I will go to Jaci and we will figure out a solution together.

Once that has all been put together, I will schedule a call with Jaci and we go through the whole thing together to make sure the timings work and there’s no edits that need to be made. After that I begin work on the sound design, this is everything from footsteps to lasers to ambiences. Usually the script will act as my guide but occasionally it will not have a direction for something that the dialogue suggests it should or just something that would make the scene more interesting, in which case I will add it in. We also have scene transitions and a theme song that get added in. Once I’ve done all the sound design I will send it to a few people involved in the production to make sure I’ve not missed anything. Overall after all this an episode can take anywhere from 10-13 hours.

I keep track of all my editing hours in a spreadsheet and once an episode is completed I send an invoice to Jaci and Move on to the next episode. I’m going to start doing 3 dialogue edits at a time and then doing the sound after that, just so it’s not too jarring going between different mindsets for editing. I’ve completed 2 so far and am currently working on episode 3.

Right off the bat I managed to secure a placement with Reduced Listening on a BBC R3 production called ‘The Get’. I acted as production coordinator, essentially setting up the recording spaces and marking takes as they got recorded. The way this production was unusual in the way that they didn’t have all the actors set up in front of a static microphone but instead had them move about a space, blocking out the scenes, providing them with props and actual food to eat and so on. This really allowed the actors (who were mostly theatre and tv/film people) to be more comfortable and get more dynamic performances out of them. All of the scenes were also recorded in acoustically live spaces that best approximated where the scene was taking place (kitchen, car, bedroom etc.). Overall this was a really eye opening experience and definitely has led me to think differently about my own process for recording my own Audio Fiction works.

Despite only being 3 days it was still very informative and I feel that having a reduced listening production under my belt will be an amazing thing to have on my CV when applying to other big Audio Fiction studios.