Barliman Butterbur
01-08-2005, 07:56 PM
Friday, January 7, 2005
By BRETT OPPEGAARD, Columbian staff writer
Footsteps through overgrown grass have worn an irregular path around the north Portland home of Sam Mowry and Cynthia McGean, leading to their backyard garage.
This space, originally designed for two cars, has been partitioned and converted into a quirky sound studio, with mustard walls, crimson curtains and audio gear stacked against just about every wall.
The founders of Willamette Radio Workshop are preparing for their latest performance, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," which will be featured in the second annual Tolkien Festival on Saturday afternoon at McMenamins Kennedy School.
But first, Mowry and a trio of fellow audio enthusiasts are trying to figure out how to make the sound of trolls fighting. Consultant Martin John Gallagher pounds his fist into a bucket of gravel. Not liking that noise enough, he grabs a padded stool and punches the upholstery.
Purely audio plays must operate without costumes, lighting, sets, gestures, expressions, movement.
"All of those things are taken away from you," Mowry said. "But you still somehow have to present everything necessary (for the effects of a) performance. Movement. Color. Light. And you only have voice and music and sound effects to make that happen."
Gallagher places various objects from around the room on the stool and punches them, listening carefully. The group is surrounded by racks and boxes and plastic bins, mainly plastic bins, filled with seemingly random objects wood blocks, propellers, bricks, balloons, bottles all chosen for this collection because of the noises they can make.
After a few minutes of rummaging around, Gallagher cracks that he's inadvertently added something to the mix and now can't find it.
"That would be my cell phone."
Someone suggests, "Just call it."
"It's on vibrate."
Gallagher begins searching through bin after bin, bucket after bucket. He explains that he pulled the phone out to make a call and now can't remember where he put it down in the clutter. A couple of different phones are found in the bins, another in the control room. But those aren't Gallagher's.
"It's a black one. Not the silver one," he said. "We'll find it. We'll find it."
Mowry said audio theater is more like a novel than television or a movie.
"You can go to a movie and just enjoy the pictures," he said. "A novel, if it doesn't engage you, if the characters aren't vivid enough to spring to life in your imagination, then it fails. A good radio script … has to grab the audience in the first minute and a half. You have to make it so vivid that people want to find out what happens, so they stay with you for the rest of the program."
Full article at http://www.columbian.com/01072005/life/230574.html
Barley
By BRETT OPPEGAARD, Columbian staff writer
Footsteps through overgrown grass have worn an irregular path around the north Portland home of Sam Mowry and Cynthia McGean, leading to their backyard garage.
This space, originally designed for two cars, has been partitioned and converted into a quirky sound studio, with mustard walls, crimson curtains and audio gear stacked against just about every wall.
The founders of Willamette Radio Workshop are preparing for their latest performance, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," which will be featured in the second annual Tolkien Festival on Saturday afternoon at McMenamins Kennedy School.
But first, Mowry and a trio of fellow audio enthusiasts are trying to figure out how to make the sound of trolls fighting. Consultant Martin John Gallagher pounds his fist into a bucket of gravel. Not liking that noise enough, he grabs a padded stool and punches the upholstery.
Purely audio plays must operate without costumes, lighting, sets, gestures, expressions, movement.
"All of those things are taken away from you," Mowry said. "But you still somehow have to present everything necessary (for the effects of a) performance. Movement. Color. Light. And you only have voice and music and sound effects to make that happen."
Gallagher places various objects from around the room on the stool and punches them, listening carefully. The group is surrounded by racks and boxes and plastic bins, mainly plastic bins, filled with seemingly random objects wood blocks, propellers, bricks, balloons, bottles all chosen for this collection because of the noises they can make.
After a few minutes of rummaging around, Gallagher cracks that he's inadvertently added something to the mix and now can't find it.
"That would be my cell phone."
Someone suggests, "Just call it."
"It's on vibrate."
Gallagher begins searching through bin after bin, bucket after bucket. He explains that he pulled the phone out to make a call and now can't remember where he put it down in the clutter. A couple of different phones are found in the bins, another in the control room. But those aren't Gallagher's.
"It's a black one. Not the silver one," he said. "We'll find it. We'll find it."
Mowry said audio theater is more like a novel than television or a movie.
"You can go to a movie and just enjoy the pictures," he said. "A novel, if it doesn't engage you, if the characters aren't vivid enough to spring to life in your imagination, then it fails. A good radio script … has to grab the audience in the first minute and a half. You have to make it so vivid that people want to find out what happens, so they stay with you for the rest of the program."
Full article at http://www.columbian.com/01072005/life/230574.html
Barley