#james oliva

[alexanderdanner]

Julia Morizawa and Richard Penner Join Exercises in Sound

I haven't done a great job of hyping my newest show, Exercises in Sound, lately. Partly that's because it's summer, which means I've been traveling, and visiting family, and spending more time at home on family activities. Partly it's because I've really wanted to focus on hyping The Perfect Sentence, by @vandreasonable, which I truly believe is a tremendous work of personal art that I want all of you to go check out. (And it's only 90 minutes start to finish--shorter than a Marvel movie!) Partly it's because I've been dedicating more and more time to official @greaterblogston projects, including continuing work on scripts for Season 5! But Exercises in Sound has continued releasing episodes weekly all this time (well...I missed one week), and we have two new additions to the cast! (And these won't be the last new cast members to come!)

In the role of narrators, I'm very excited to welcome Julia Morizawa (of The Bright Sessions! As well as Omi Ogawa on Greater Boston.) and Richard Penner (of The Infinite Now! As well as Thomas Thomas on Greater Boston.). These performances were recorded remotely (the Jordans were recorded together in a local studio), but in a live session with James Oliva directing. These are two actors I always love working with, and it was such a treat to work with them in a live session!

Just as Jordan Higgs and Jordan Stillman both alternately play both roles of Character A and Character B, Julia and Richard are taking turns in the role of Narrator, exploring how their particular approaches to narration impact the tone of the story and the sympathies of the audience.

Additionally, the introduction of narration has added variations to the script itself, exploring how stylistic differences in narration script can alter the story, looking especially at differences in close versus distant narration, removed vs biased narration, and simply the impact of having more or less detailed narration.

Julia and Richard have appeared in three episodes each so far, with more to come! You can find them in: Narrated A Narrated B

Over-Narrated A Over-Narrated B

Bike Ride Narration A Bike Ride Narration B

[thelightfluxtastic]

Shoutout to James Oliva for completely nailing “Micheal as Leon”

[myownlittlecornerandchair]

What the hell do you mean this isn’t EXACTLY how @whatsthefrequencypodcast got most of their actors?

[wastedarkcell]

@whatsthefrequencypodcast is directly responseable for a blooper in episode #038 of Tales of THATTOWN.

This should be known by the public.

[oakpodcast]

god i swear the voice of Thomas is so fucking familiar

He gets that a lot. I used to freak myself out a lot because I’d think I’d hear his voice in every podcast I listened to. Especially Greater Boston.

[reganadler]

Visit Original Link

Some hilarious outtakes of James Oliva (the genius behind @whatsthefrequencypodcast) improvising as General Willard in the latest episode. VERY NSFW! This was formerly Patreon exclusive, but I noticed it was super disconcerting to have it auto play in between actual episodes, so here y’all go. 

[alexanderdanner]

Visit Original Link

I've got something new coming very soon: http://www.exercisesinsound.com Based on Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style (1947) and Matt Madden’s 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (2005, also based on Queneau), this takes the idea and applies to it audio storytelling. It’s one scene, reimagined over and over. 99 times, perhaps?

[alexanderdanner]

Exercises in Sound, Animal Episodes

A couple of silly, fun episodes that I don't think I've highlighted:

EiS: Too Many Cats

"Too Many Cats" was an episode I had planned from very early on, so I was able to ask James to direct Jordans Higgs and Stillman to perform a take of the scene specifically as if inundated with cats. I hadn't expected him to jump in as a cat himself, but it really helped make the performance work! This version features more improvisation by the actors than most others, which I think can really help a performance feel more natural.

The best part here, though, is how the actors made the cats a proxy for their argument--Jordan Stillman especially directs several of her lines to the cats, in tones intended for the cats, while the words and insinuations remain clearly pointed at B. I think there's a real lesson here in how a scene can become more interesting when characters have some physical complication or activity demanding a portion of their attention, rather than just needing to say their lines in a vacuum. This can be introduced at any stage in the process--the writer can account for it in the script, the directing can introduce complications during the performance, and sometimes the sound designer can even introduce physical activity for the characters themselves. (I do this often.) But I find it pretty consistently makes for a richer experience.

EiS: Character A is a Small Dog

This one uses one of the standard template performances, with Jordan Higgs in the role of Character B, while Character A--the one who wakes up alone--is actually a small dog, anxious about its owner's absence. I'd had this in mind for a while, but a visit to James earlier in the summer bumped it up in my priorities--I was amused to learn that he is one of those people who leaves the television on to keep his dogs calm when he goes out. It's a detail that works perfectly with the established structure of the scene, but not one I'd thought consciously about until I saw his dogs watching television.

Narratively, what I love about this version is how much it changes B's character and the central conflict. It becomes much more internal, more about B wrestling with feeling bad about leaving A alone.

It also particularly amused me to have the dog storm out of the kitchen upon seeing the ice cream. Even dogs have standards! (But also, raisins can make a dog very sick, so it's doubly justified in rejecting the offered "treat.")