Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The lost art of radio...
In my recent Star Wars fervor that has been building for the premiere tonight, I have revisited all things Star Wars in the last few months. I have re-read the novels and comics, I have played old games (I was surprised to discover that I never beat Dark Forces II). I watched the movies, both Special Edition and original. I have gazed in wonder at the $120.00 lightsabers they have at Best Buy.
But the one thing that I have enjoyed most is I listened to the Star Wars Radio Show again. When I was a kid, this was the only way I could enjoy Star Wars when it wasn't in a theater. VCRs were not commonplace yet and even if they where, the movies hadn't been released. So, I had the radio shows. I made tapes of the show by taking my tape recorder and actually sitting it next to the radio to record them.
Anyway, it's been a long time since I last listened to them, and it dawned on me that it's slowly becoming a lost art.
I recently discovered that the same studio made a radio play of the novelizations of Dark Forces. I managed to get my hands on a copy and I realized that there is so much more to it than voice actors and sound effects. You see, the Dark Forces adaptation suffered from a lack of imagination. In a radio play, all of the details need to be provided aurally. All of the details and actions need to be conveyed in sound. In the old days, the easiest way was to have a narrator who explains what's going on. They've never done that with a Star Wars show, however. I guess they felt the soundscape of Star Wars was too rich.
Anyway, that's where Dark Forces falls short. Instead of utilizing sound to tell the story, they rely on dialogue. The result of which a series of forced conversations in a manner that no one would speak in. It goes something like this:
Bob the Jedi: We must get through this large black door with the strange, teal markings on it!
Larry the Jedi: Here, I can cut it with my lightsaber! I just turn it on. (Insert sound FX) And now I begin the cut. Here we go. I am cutting away.
Bob the Jedi: You seem to be about halfway done. Quick! Before the assassin droid with the blue eyes and large blaster comes!
And so on. It would be so much easier to use the sound effects to tell the story. They have this enormous library of sound effects. I'm not just talking about the sound of a lightsaber humming or blasters firing. I'm talking about the little sounds, the ones we generally ignore. The slight hum of a spaceship's engines as heard from the cockpit, a slight breeze moving across the dunes, a slight echo in a person's voice when they are in a large area, like the inside of a battle station.
This is why the Star Wars Radio Show is brilliant. They use sound to tell the story. The soundscape of Star Wars is so rich that you don't need to explain every little detail. This is why Brian Daley, who wrote the scripts, is a genius. He understood the power of sound design. He knew that even if something is not immediately clear, it could be clarified later in a more natural way.
Obviously, there are some times when you have to explain what the hell is going on. For example, the Wampa scene in Empire. It's almost impossible to convey in sound that Luke is frozen upside down in the cave. But rather than have Luke hanging there talking to himself, he uses his comlink to try to contact Han, and thus the explanation is given.
Radio shows are a dying art form. They still make the occasional one, like Dark Forces. The BBC still makes them, I think. They recently started adapting the last three books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. They also adapted a couple of the stories from Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina into radio plays. Outside of that, there doesn't seem to be much.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to make a radio show.
But the one thing that I have enjoyed most is I listened to the Star Wars Radio Show again. When I was a kid, this was the only way I could enjoy Star Wars when it wasn't in a theater. VCRs were not commonplace yet and even if they where, the movies hadn't been released. So, I had the radio shows. I made tapes of the show by taking my tape recorder and actually sitting it next to the radio to record them.
Anyway, it's been a long time since I last listened to them, and it dawned on me that it's slowly becoming a lost art.
I recently discovered that the same studio made a radio play of the novelizations of Dark Forces. I managed to get my hands on a copy and I realized that there is so much more to it than voice actors and sound effects. You see, the Dark Forces adaptation suffered from a lack of imagination. In a radio play, all of the details need to be provided aurally. All of the details and actions need to be conveyed in sound. In the old days, the easiest way was to have a narrator who explains what's going on. They've never done that with a Star Wars show, however. I guess they felt the soundscape of Star Wars was too rich.
Anyway, that's where Dark Forces falls short. Instead of utilizing sound to tell the story, they rely on dialogue. The result of which a series of forced conversations in a manner that no one would speak in. It goes something like this:
Bob the Jedi: We must get through this large black door with the strange, teal markings on it!
Larry the Jedi: Here, I can cut it with my lightsaber! I just turn it on. (Insert sound FX) And now I begin the cut. Here we go. I am cutting away.
Bob the Jedi: You seem to be about halfway done. Quick! Before the assassin droid with the blue eyes and large blaster comes!
And so on. It would be so much easier to use the sound effects to tell the story. They have this enormous library of sound effects. I'm not just talking about the sound of a lightsaber humming or blasters firing. I'm talking about the little sounds, the ones we generally ignore. The slight hum of a spaceship's engines as heard from the cockpit, a slight breeze moving across the dunes, a slight echo in a person's voice when they are in a large area, like the inside of a battle station.
This is why the Star Wars Radio Show is brilliant. They use sound to tell the story. The soundscape of Star Wars is so rich that you don't need to explain every little detail. This is why Brian Daley, who wrote the scripts, is a genius. He understood the power of sound design. He knew that even if something is not immediately clear, it could be clarified later in a more natural way.
Obviously, there are some times when you have to explain what the hell is going on. For example, the Wampa scene in Empire. It's almost impossible to convey in sound that Luke is frozen upside down in the cave. But rather than have Luke hanging there talking to himself, he uses his comlink to try to contact Han, and thus the explanation is given.
Radio shows are a dying art form. They still make the occasional one, like Dark Forces. The BBC still makes them, I think. They recently started adapting the last three books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. They also adapted a couple of the stories from Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina into radio plays. Outside of that, there doesn't seem to be much.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to make a radio show.
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I'm ashamed to say that not only haven't I heard the radio shows, I still haven't read the three books that take place after ROTJ
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