In 1950, Godfrey Baseley created the audiobook of Emmerdale Farm. I joke of course, 1950 saw the pilot season of The Archers on the BBC Light Programme. Emmerdale Farm actually manifested on our tiny 576i television screens 22 years later in 1972. The Archers has been broadcasted ever since seeing life on the previous mentioned BBC Light Programme and the BBC Home Service, now known as BBC Radio 4. The long-running British audio soap averages an audience of five million listeners each episode making it the most listened to non-news item on the radio station, the programme also fetches over a million ‘Listen-Again-ers’ on the BBC iPlayer.
Now, why would a 19 year old student be blogging about a show aimed at 40+ year olds? Well one, I have to as part of my summer project and two I… have to. We have been given a link to an exhilarating online article written by Alan Beck. In said exhilarating article Beck talks about Gary Ferrington’s (1994) three aspects of a radio play soundscape; Foreground, Contextual Sounds and Background. I know I shouldn’t be one to pick but surely Contextual Sounds should be Mid sounds? But hey, if I knew what I was talking about tutors would be sending students to my blog to research (HA). Beck illustrates his concept through the use of a fire scene, I will make my own, to try to keep this sinking ship of a blog post, fresh. So, right now I’m sitting on the sofa, the television (which I’m most definitely not watching more than writing this, a whole other blog post would be about the lack of decent TV on at 7AM on a Saturday morning) is the foreground, the sound of my fingers typing away would be contextual (mid) sounds and the Isle of Man rain pouring outside would be the background sound.
Good (old) Alan then goes on to discuss foreground signposting, radio’s Establishing Shot. This is where foreground sound effects are used at the beginning of a scene to establish location or a certain action. Do we need an example of this or do we understand it? You get it, alright then I’ll continue. Next, we look at Ferrington’s second category, which Beck’s called ‘Contextual Sounds Taking Place in the Vicinity of the Foreground Sound’, slips right of the tongue, right? Contextual sounds, put simply, are sound effects we hear through a radio play like a phone ringing or someone turning off a laptop after reading a boring blog post… Or as Beck puts they “are little peaks or intrusions from the background which serve to push the tension up a notch which a director can use to punctuate the rhythm of a scene.” The background sounds are often known as atmos sounds, a recording of a setting or location which helps complete the image of the scene in the listeners minds eye.
I have just arrived on The Archers website and navigated myself to an online episode list, I will now listen to an episode and see if Ferrington’s concept is present in the production of the radio play. Lets be honest, this blog has been a waste of time if it doesn’t, but yes let’s persevere. The episode I have chosen to watch has a description of “Kathy has a nerve-racking wait. Meanwhile Tom is determined to make a sale.” I’m intrigued.
Yes. I can safely say The Archers demonstrates the use of a three aspect soundscape. I’ll take the scene where the so called Kathy is outside talking to a friend. The scene starts with the foreground sound of a car passing, then there is dialogue, behind the dialogue is an atmos track of trees blowing in the wind. Oh and it turns out Kathy’s nerve-racking wait was as her son was getting his GCSE results. Nice. I also noticed the use of distancing away from the microphone to maximise the use of stereo transmitting. The voices aren’t in a mono format, where the same audio comes out of each channel at the same level. I had Kathy’s friend’s voice coming more from the left speaker and Kathy herself more from the right. This creates a 3D-like surround sound, giving the listener a more spatial awareness to the action happening.
I feel I have learnt more about the complexity of audio production, in particular radio plays, and the hierarchy of the sounds you use. I can’t say I’ve been drawn into The Archers and will most probably never finish listening to the episode I began, but who knows in 31 years when I’m in their demographic audience I may see the attraction.
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