Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Planning: Characters, Synopsis and the Soundscape

Characters
Jeffrey (Name not final), Male, 21 - A recent university graduate struggling to find employment, convinced that he can become the next big thing on the internet if he just manages to get a podcast up and running, unaware that literally everyone else has tried and mostly failed at it. Basically has no redeeming qualities save for his charisma which is also at times betrayed by his sheer stupidity.


Rain (Name not final), Non-Binary (they/them pronouns), 20 - Student, met Jeffrey at the Tabletop Game Society at university. Despite having their life in order, Jeff manages to convince them to help him with his podcast endeavour. They also want to prevent Jeff from doing anything too stupid while they're at it.


Synopsis
The podcast (yet to be named within the canon of the show itself) is in its fifth episode and has racked up a whopping ten regular listeners - listeners that they partially lose immediately at the start of the episode due to Jeff making a grave error of judgement. Those that remain stay to chastise and mock him, at which point the two hosts decide to harvest the negative energy of the internet by making more and more consciously stupid mistakes that continue to escalate in order to gain more 'hate listeners'. Ideally the episode would end with this tactic being another failed experiment in their attempts at fame but due to the three-minute limit, the escalation will stop with a single segment.


The Soundscape 

Voices – Dialogue 

Intro Jingle – transition into the programme naturally to connect the meta-programme to the real programme. Perhaps use diegetic instruments, for example one of the characters plays the jingle on a guitar. 

Laugh tracks (I have not really decided whether to use laugh tracks or not. It depends on whether I stick to sitcom conventions for humour or subverting podcast conventions for humour) 
Foley sounds – door knocks, doors slinging open. 

Microphone imperfections – to sell the amateur podcasting vibe – voices peaking due to a lack of equalisation. Equalisation can be played with in different ways, voices being too close or far away. 

Atmospheric background noises such as disruptions by aircraft or cars outside. 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment