Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

steven c wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Wow, so totally true! Those radio guys were uniquely great at what they
> did, in most cases.
> >
> > Archive.org search engine is not working right now (Sunday night Eastern
> Time) but if you search
> > "radio" and moving images, you'll find a film, title escape me, that shows
> a radio drama being
> > broadcast, a western drama. It keeps cutting to a boy enjoying the show in
> his home and then staged
> > scenes of the action, cutting back and forth between a motion picture and
> the radio drama, showing
> > how SFX are done. I think about those complex, multi-actors and SFX
> productions, with the limited
> > sound boards of those days, going out live over the network line, and it's
> so impressive how
> > realistic it all was.
> >
> > By the way, back in today's world, the actors who seem to do best with
> audiobooks are the ones who
> > do a lot of live theater. I wonder if they've picked up a skill of reading
> ahead a few sentences as
> > they speak out from what's stored in their brain. Or is it just
> super-quick eye-speech coordination?
> >
> Well, you need two skills. The first is the ability to read REALLY fast
> (fortunately, I seem to have come "factory equipped" with that...) and
> the second is the ability to express emotion verbally rather than via
> gestures and facial expressions! Live-theatre actors would be very
> skilled at the second...but keep in mind that they memorize, rather
> than read, their lines...I would assume that gives them some ability
> in speed-reading their dialogue?
>
> However, radio acting is virtually nonexistent in our television-
> ridden age...?!
>
> Steven C. Barr

Even at the CBC where they still pretend to do it. Problem is that there's no
such thing as training for radio acting any more, and those who do it come from
small stage companies and have no idea how to refine their high-pitched
adolescent screaming for the microphone.

For an interesting look at the art and the period, find "This was Radio" by
Joseph Julian. Insider's perspective from an actor who could actually put
sentences together.

dl