Evaluation

I wouldn’t say that my production is the kind that I could just expect someone to listen to
whilst they are walking their dog. This is because the production is quite long, and it has a
story that is quite quickly paced, not too quickly but quickly enough that you could lose
track of what is happening if you are not paying attention. I could expect people to listen to
it if they are not doing anything else, e.g. on train or bus rides. I wouldn’t necessarily
compare my production to the ones that I listened to for my research, with the exception of
‘Heads Will Roll’. Episodes of ‘Heads Will Roll’ were intercut with both fake commercials and
a preview of a separate audio drama. However, the audio productions I looked at were
clearly more professionally made, presumably recorded entirely in radio booths, with
professional Foley and music production. Each of the shows I listened to had a different
comedic style, as ‘Hal’ and ‘Influencers’ used minimal background music. Out of the three,
‘Heads Will Roll’ definitely used the most Foley and physical action, which is something I
tried to capture in my own production.

My production strengths came in the use of the sound effects. I also think I succeeded in the
writing aspect of things, as writing comedy is particularly hard, and while not everything
landed like I expected it to, I was complimented on the script by some of my voice actors.
The story of You May Now Kiss The (B)Ride: A World-Wide Wedding Trip was based on a
story I wrote around 4 years ago, except I modified the story to make it slightly more
realistic. My style of comedy is usually more visual, so it was difficult to try and write audio-
only comedy, because it could easily come across as over-exposition.

I think another very important part of

creating a successful comedy production
is in the delivery of the lines. I do think I
could have been a bit better at directing
some parts, but in my defence, we had a
time limit, and we barely managed to
get all of the lines recorded. Next time I
would try to be better at time
management, but I do think that my
time management this time around was
better than it was during my last
production, Calli. I decided to dedicate
most of my time during the production
week to editing.

I have to give props to my voice actors who really helped bring the characters to life. I chose
Isla Sykes for the role of Savanna because I just knew when I was creating the character that
she would be the perfect fit for the role, in terms of character traits and her assertive tone. I
also have to give special credit to my dad (Matthew Harwood) as the narrator. I also enjoyed
creating something that I could get most of my family involved with. It was a lot of fun
working with my younger cousins, Leah and Amy, to create the strawberry milkshake
commercial, and to also have Amy as the role of ‘Little Sister’, and Leah after she
volunteered to play the role of the minister. But I have to give credit to all of my actors,
Logan Parker, Brandon Edwards, David Harwood, Wendy Harwood, Emma Fielding, Rebecca
Harwood, Shevaun Iles, Darren Iles and Jose-Luis Rodriguez.

The editing process was long and hard, it took around 15 hours in total to edit, first to lay
out the recordings and then to clean up the audio with lots of background sound. The total
runtime of my production was just under 32 minutes, which makes it possibly the longest
production in the class. I tried my best to use background audio to set the scene, for
example, waves and a gentle breeze for the beach, cars and street ambience for
Maidenhead, Disney music and crowds for Disneyland. In my feedback, I got some different
compliments and criticisms about the length, some saying it was too long, and others saying
that the dialogue felt a bit rushed in delivery, but there wasn’t really anything I could do
about that. I got a variety of opinions on the commercials, some enjoyed them, others found
them confusing. This was sort of my intention, as I often find when I get interrupted from
podcasts I get confused, as the adverts have nothing to do with the actual show I’m listening
to. I got this idea from ‘Heads Will Roll’, which scatters fake commercials in between acts, as
well as a preview of a separate audio drama, except the audio drama used in that is actually
real.

If there was something about my production I could change, it would probably be

something to do with the cryogenics commercial. I could have done a better job recording it,
as well as the audio mixing. I think I recited it a little too fast, which I was planning to do but
in the final product it was hard to understand what I was saying, as we recorded it in one
take, so I would definitely take more time with that part if I were to do it again, as we
weren’t recording that part of the production under a time crunch. I also feel like the part
with Savanna and the Ticket Master could have had the waves sound effect be slightly
quieter, as I do think it overshadowed the dialogue in that part.

I also would have liked a better conflict resolution. I had a scene where the two main
characters get into an argument and separate as that is a thing that happens in most Pixar
movies. In the script I was going to have the two characters reconcile by Kaylie singing the
song ‘True Colours’ by Cyndi Lauper, because that’s how I wrote it in the original story, but I
chickened out of it and didn’t have time to come up with a new conflict resolution. I would
have figured out some new way for Savanna to forgive Kaylie, maybe by sending an
Avengers Lego set to her via balloon, calling back to one of the recurring conversations the
girls were having during the adventure. I also would have used a better polishing sound
effect during the part where the girls find the plane in the random field. I used an organic
sound of me polishing a plate, but it didn’t give the squeaky sound effect that I wanted, so I
don’t think it is obvious enough that it is supposed to be someone polishing something.

I was praised in me feedback for

the pacing though. Despite the
fact that the production was half
an hour long, the story did flow
rather quickly and effectively,
and it didn’t drag out like it
potentially could have. I could
have done without the marriage
discussion scene I thought, but I
added it in because it relates
back to why the girls are on this
trip in the first place, and it helps
flesh out Savanna’s character
more, so I’m glad I kept it in. If I were to do some things differently, I would definitely make
the Kyra’s Cryogenics commercial shorter, as I do think that dragged out longer than
necessary.

In conclusion, I do think the production turned out well, my favourite part to edit was the
Buttyre by Clockx Cozmetics commercial, because I enjoyed using the voice distorter. I still
think there are definitely some areas on the technical side of things that I need to improve
on, but I enjoyed the process of creating my audio production, particularly the script writing,
even though it was quite hard to write in this particular format. However, I do think that in
the end, the story was clear and was edited as well as I could.