For this Audio Story Assignment, I decided to make a radio advertisement for the state of Missouri. This advertisement highlights the many different outdoor activities people can do in the state. The first step was coming up with a script. At first, I wrote a paragraph about the things I loved about the Missouri outdoors and put it into a narrative. After reading it a few times, I realized that it was the most boring script I could have written and needed something way cheesier. I then switched it up to a dialogue between two people. The inspiration for this dialogue was from infomercials. I liked how cheesy they were but also how efficient they were in getting a point across. My main goals for the advertisement were to ask a few questions to get people engaged, answer those questions, and highlight just a few of the best outdoor features in Missouri in a reasonable amount of time. I wanted to make points that would appeal to the majority of people and a broader audience. Once the script was complete, I started recording.
My first recording was a cold take of the entire script. I was going to voice both the narrator and the responder. I made one attempt that quickly devolved into chaos as I tried to switch between voices. The responder’s voice ended up sounding like Mickey Mouse and I couldn’t finish a take without bursting into laughter. I then asked my fiancée to voice the responder and things went a lot smoother. I first recorded the narrator parts, breaking it into six sections for ease of recording. This would allow me to do a couple of takes and only keep the best one without having to redo the entire script. I then helped my fiancée record the responder’s section of the script, broken out into the same number of segments to pair up with in Audition. Once the voice segments were complete, I took it into Audition to start trimming parts down. While I luckily didn’t have to cut out any “ums” or “likes”, there were a few sections where the mic picked up a breath that sounded out of place that I cropped out. I also worked on making the segments flow right into each other without too much of a gap or it feeling rushed. The whole advertisement was slowed piece together until I felt the timing was perfect. I think the advertisement is very solid but can have some parts missing that will make it really pop!
Kyle Rolfes · Audio Story Draft – MO Ad
Here is a link to my blooper take. Viewer discretion is advised. There is strong language towards the end as the recording kind of turned into chaos as I couldn’t contain my laughter and knew the take wasn’t going anywhere.