Introduction to Theatre Making 2

Sound

In theatre we use sound for many reasons. To create atmosphere, emotions & moods, settings or to reinforce by adding an additional layer to the performance.

3 types of reinforcement
1. Conscious- used in musicals and light entertainment- the mic moves to the movement.
2. Subconscious- cinema, TV, Radio- the sound is and accompaniment.
3. Intrinsic (vital)- Bands- everything is mic individually and all movement is based around the mic.

3 types of sound effect
1. Live
2. Taped
3. Reinforced

After learning the basics of a sound board the class was decided into groups and given the task to create a lightning storm through sound. The following are the decisions we made and where possible reasons why.

Firstly we decided we wanted to create a progressing storm. This way the storm has a journey and builds to a climax, this in turn should make the storm seem more real to our audience by tapping into past experiences and creating a familiar atmosphere. After looking at the available sounds we added the concept of placing our audience on a ship at sea and telling the story of the ship being destroyed by the storm through sound.

To achieve this we decided to start with a calm wind and the sound of distant rain on water, this establishes a location, at sea, because the sound of rain on water has a different quality to rain on another surface.

From here we would bring in a heavier wind and rain to show some small progression in the storm, we would expect our audience to feel as if the storm is travelling towards them and start to build some tension.

The third phase of our storm would be the introduction of a distant tremble of thunder, again this helps show a progression and adds tension by upping the severity of the storm.

From here we introduce a thunder clap and gale force winds through ship rigging whilst maintaining the heavy rain. This again adds to setting as now it is clear we are on a boat and places us in a dangerous atmosphere.

To heighten the sense of location further we would add the sound of rain on a cockpit, this would suggest we as an audience are now inside and gives a slight relief before we heighten the storm once more to a lightning crash and thunder before introducing a tornado and fading out to silence to show that the storm has progressed to a stage that it has destroyed our boat.

This was the initial plan based on the sound labels on the tracks we were given. However the reality was rather different. Due to the lack of time management and some of the tracks not working out as we planned our raging, destructive storm drizzled into a brief passing over of heavy shower. We still managed to show some progression and travelled our storm towards and away from our audience.

I feel we now have the skills to create more and progress on what we achieved as well as the understanding of what we can do with more thorough preparation.