Fall 2014- Copywriting- Out-of-Class 4

Topics: |  Out-Of-Class 4  |  Process  |    Production  |  Result  |

Out-Of-Class Assignment 4- Radio Ad + Producing It
Our fourth out-of-class assignment for Copywriting was the first one we would produce.  The purpose of the assignment was to give the student the opportunity to use the knowledge gained in class, by developing, writing and producing a radio commercial that would be recorded and broadcast. We could select any product or services, or make one up, and use it for the spot.


Process
I was brainstorming a lot for this project. First, I had to decide if I wanted to go with a product or a service, and even when I decided a service would be better, as I'd already done products so far, I had to narrow down what kind of service. It took me a surprisingly long time to come up with anything.

It so happened that I was at a Cirque du Soleil show when the idea hit me. Being that Samhain's my favorite holiday of the year, and that the month of October's the only one I really allow myself to enjoy horrors, I decided I wanted to go with a horror attraction. Using the Cirque as a jumping point, I came up with the Cirque du Massacre.


Once all of that was decided, I went through all the sfx on my computer, seeing what kind of story I could tell with sound effects. It was surprisingly fast to come up with the story of a tormented man who eventually turns into a monster against his attacker. Putting it to a creepy carnival instrumental I found, and distorting it, made it a very good base track for the spot.

Client:  Cirque du Massacre
Writer: Eric Thomas
Length: 00:00:59

Production
When I had my script approved, I went on to produce the spot itself. My first step was throwing the sound effects I'd based my script on, gotten from freeSFX, into Adobe Audition. I created a preset for the effects rack, which gave all the effects a chorus, reverb, and distortion. For the female laughter, I also modified the pitch. I used this effect preset to likewise alter the music, and my voice, later on, though I adjusted the settings for my voice-over.

When I had the audio set out and, for the most part, timed out, I recorded my voice over. After a number of takes for different results, I decided to go with a recording where I let my brogue, which usually only shows up when I'm really tired, come through. After cutting the VO down and separating the segments out, I re-timed the music and sfx cues so it all meshed together. Once the audio was all together, I did one final edit to the exported audio to make the levels less spiked between vo and sfx, created a cover illustration, and uploaded to YouTube.

Result

There are some technical issues, but since I haven't done any kind of audio engineering since my sizzle reel several months ago, and professional-quality audio wasn't the point of the project, I'm quite happy with the overall result. If you're interested in the illustration I used in my video above, I also have a companion post breaking down the illustration from start to finish.