Greetings. This is Kyle Bondo, and this is another episode of the making of pause for dramatic effect. And I've been affectionately referring to this as as between the pauses. And today, we're gonna talk about quality. Now, quality is an interesting word in audio drama, and there's 2 different elements of quality that I want to just briefly cover in this episode. And the first has to do with a deadline versus a planned schedule.
Now for the National Podcast Post Month or Ned pod POMO, really, you have a very short turnaround. It's creation of a script, creation of the who's gonna say, what what parts of the story are you gonna be told? How long it's gonna be sound effects in that story, actors, or in some cases, my own voice recording time, editing time, postproduction, and publishing. All sometimes have to has to happen within a 24 hour, sometimes even 12, or sometimes even 6 hour turnaround. So
the quick deadline version of quality is difficult when you're on a deadline. At some point, you just have to say good is enough. Good is good enough. It's not gonna be perfect. And in some cases, even if you have the time, it may never be perfect. But in a quick deadline situation, sometimes you have to make compromises with whether or not that's the right sound you want for the sound effect or it's the right line you want versus planning it out.
Now if you have all the scripts written and you know where the story is completely going and you have gone through this pull this screenplay or this script multiple times, and you have an idea what it is you want. Everyone is say, how are they gonna say it? Where the drama is? Where the inflection points are? Where is the climax?
Where all the parts take place. What kind of sound effects you want? You can literally schedule out a whole day of just doing sound effects or a whole day of doing certain actors or a group of actors or a specific scene, which you need all the actors together. A planned out version of this, you can get multiple takes. You can get 1 single chapter. You can record that 2 or 3 or 4 more times. You can fire actors and bring new actors in.
So sometimes quick in a deadline makes you work with what you have and you get unexpected things up here. Things you never expect to people who participate in this process that you never would have thought they could have given you this kind of this level of talent. And that's kinda cool. Planned out also in in its in retrospect can give you the ability to be selective. To pick out the right actor for the right role. When doing quick deadline turnarounds, you don't have that luxury.
You have whatever you can get at the time or a quick turnarounds. So both of them have constraints that that help you create good drama. The quick deadly the quick turnaround, the deadline turnaround requires you to be creative under cry under pressure. The planned out 1, however, may cause you to be too what's the word? Too selective or you think you have too much time. And sometimes, the planned out becomes the quick deadline.
Because you didn't plan it out correctly. And so these are the challenges within quality. I would like to say that when it comes to creating your first audio drama, The quick deadline turnaround, I think, makes you have to learn this faster,
has to get you past the hurdles quicker, and it makes you make decisions that sometimes might make me make mistakes. They sometimes might be errors, and you don't want You don't you don't Of course, you don't wanna be You'll be silly or be foolish to think you put stuff out. But that makes you better. Making a mistake actually makes you better because you learn from it. I think just in this past, 3 weeks or, I guess, we're 1 of 4 weeks now of Nadpap homo,
I have learned so much about audio drama that in 2 years of contemplating whether or not I was gonna do this and create my first audio drama, I never would have learned. I've learned the hard, fast truth of audio drama. That gets me to my next point. My next point is solo or versus collaborative. Now what I've learned in audio drama world is you can't really do this alone if you want to have a ton of diversified sound to your audio drama, and what I mean by that is different voices.
And you may have to recruit people who are near and dear to you that you can almost I think I said in the past episode. Bully them into doing a quick part and being a voice. And when you do that, when you when you draft someone to be a part of your production, sometimes what they give you is what they give you. You just have to live with it. Now, it turns out that sometimes
what they give you is actually really good. Actually fits the role. And because no 1 really knows what to expect in your audio drama, they may not know that that person has never been an actor before, never voice acted ever in their entire life, and now they're giving you a role that sounds quite believable. Now you're not gonna always get perfection. You're not gonna always get the right person for the right role at the right time, and that's fine. But what it does is it teaches you first
how you're going to have to record this. It gives you through all the process of they're gonna say the line wrong, or they're gonna say it without the emotion you want, or they're gonna say it in a way that sounds like they're happy when they wanna be sad, you're gonna have to really control their inflections of the words and what where they stop and pause and what words matter more than others in a sentence. Now, the solo way of doing this, just like the quick deadline way of doing this, gets you out of your comfort zone really quick and teaches you how to work in these environments.
Because you're gonna eventually have to do collaboration. You're gonna eventually have to get groups of people who may actually be real actors who understand this craft and don't need as much direction, but you need to be able to communicate to that
you communicate the direction to them so they understand what job you're asking them to fulfill. So when it comes to quality and audio drama, I think the way that people should start down the path of becoming audio drama directors or writers is to do the quick deadline turnaround and the solo productions just to get their feet wet, to get in the door because eventually they're gonna do 1 that's planned out and has a lot of collaboration.
And the stuff they learn in the quick deadline turnaround, the good is just as good as you're gonna get. The solo is you're you're the only voice, so get creative. Those constraints help you become a better director, a better writer. A better producer. I think you have to do these kind of audio dramas before you can do the better ones. In fact, I bet you guarantee you out there. There are directors and writers of audio dramas who sound really good, who you love, and enjoy,
I bet you they have audio dramas that they've created, that have never seen the light of day, or they'll never tell anybody about, or they're out there, and you have to dig for for them to find them that their first 1 was x, y, or z. And imagine in interviews, they'll tell you. They'll tell you, oh, yeah, I started with this 1. It was horrible. Why it was horrible. Well, it was quick and a deadline I did it all by myself. I just used just me in the kitchen and in the microphone.
And then I found some friends and then I got creative and then I hired some I got more creative. Then we planned it out the next season, and now here I am. That is really the path. That is really the path. And quality is this kind of thing. Is sometimes your quality has to be what it is
I think I heard someone call it the the Honda Civic test is if it works at a Honda Civic and it sounds okay to Honda Civic, it's probably okay for everybody else. Now is it stage quality or theater quality? No. But it doesn't really matter. Podcasting has a quality area where you can be just okay and still sound great because the last time I think I I I think I heard this from a a gentleman named Daniel j Lewis who said, wow, I really like the sound quality of that podcast.
No. No 1 really ever said that. They'll say that if it's really bad, most people say the content. They like the story. They're captivated by the story. So quality, if a quick deadline produces a quality story that people enjoy, you've achieved your mission. Thank you. This has been another making of between the pauses. I really appreciate you joining me for these little bonus episodes. And thank you so much for listening to pause,ergramatic
effect. I'd love your feedback. Please send me your feedback if you have, if you've heard this show, or you heard a bonus clip, I'd tell me what to think. I'd love to hear from you. You can hit me up at [email protected] if you wanna or to respond back. Otherwise, for more tales of whoa, please visit podsordomesticfitch.com.