• Bar Patron - Waiting for a Window

Hailing from Old Town, Maine, Toby Paradis is a new-comer to the professional entertainment business. After graduating from the University of Maine, Toby decided he would get more use out of this theater degree by moving to a much more theater-savvy part of the country... So he moved to Kennebunk, Maine.

In the words of The Great Gonzo: "Sure, if you want to do it the easy way..."

Toby was surprised to bump into fellow OTHS alumnus Fred after many years and jumped full face into the role of a surly drunkard in Waiting for a Window. Without him, there'd be two awkward moments of silence in the middle of the bar scene.

Roles:

• Woman - Waiting for a Window

CarlaRose's history as a performer started with her college major, Musical Theatre, and she's sinced toured with shows and performed at Medieval Times in FL. Her flexible and sultry voice was the perfect match for the ominous woman who seduces Norman to stay on the island and sings the sultry siren-like "Lullaby Song."

In addition to years of theatre, she also has big and small screen experience, most recently as a re-enactor on the History Channel's "MonsterQuest" series.

Roles:

• Norman - Waiting for a Window

Ed Patterson has appeared in several stage shows and television commercials, and did some previous radio voiceover worked before being roped into the role of hapless sailor Norman in "Waiting for a Window."

Now that production's wrapped, Ed is looking to pursuit his acting career by moving from bucolic Scarborough, Maine to New York City. So much for staying on the island.

Roles:

• Suzy - Waiting for a Window

Kristi Deville recently moved to the Portland, Maine area from Atlanta where she performed with several theatre companies, mainly Twinhead Theatre.

Originally from Louisiana, she's no stranger to wrestling large animals (though moose are a little heavier, albeit less surly, than alligators) and can produce a mean (and authentic) Cajun accent. She trained at LSU and has a BA in Theatre.

Aka "Man"

Roles:

• Patron 1, Man - Waiting for a Window

Chris Newcomb is an actor, storyteller, author, musician and teacher residing in Portland, Maine. It's rather convenient that he goes by the name of "Man," since after he and Fred bashed around the draft script for a while, Fred came to conclusion that an anxious, desperate man named Man should urge Norman to leave the island.

Chris was a perfect fit.

As an actor, Chris has had many roles on stages throughout Maine including: Penobscot Theatre, Mad Horse Theatre, Acorn Productions, Portland Players, Auburn Community Little Theater, and The Theater Project. He has been in numerous commercials in Maine and New England most notable include: Oakhurst Dairy, Hannaford Bros., Bangor Hydro, Central Maine Power, Maine Dept. of Tourism, Irving Oil, and Bangor Metro.

As a storyteller/musician Newcomb has found himself on many stages throughout New England. His song Superman, co-written with Jose Ayerve and produced by the band Spouse, aired on This American Life (NPR).

Chris is dedicated a lot of his acting energy lately to Yikes! Monsters, a new Portland-based theater troupe who make wacky, off-center tales to get you to think. The group recently appeared on Fred's radio show, Radio Drama Revival.

Roles:

• Composer - Waiting for a Window

Barbara Truex has been involved with the Portland, Maine, performing arts scene since 1989 and before that in southwestern Connecticut. So it was a great honor to have her join FinalRune to create the eerily cheery tropical score for Waiting for a Window.

As an administrator, performer and/or designer she has worked or continues to work with several local organizations and individuals including Mad Horse Theatre, The Theater Project, Acorn Productions, Figures of Speech Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Ram Island Dance, Bates Dance Festival, Maine Jazz Alliance, Michael Lane Trautman, Loopin', the Maine Squeeze and more. She is currently the Executive Director and resident sound designer for Mad Horse Theatre in Portland.

A performing musician since the 1960's, Truex has been active in a wide range of musical genres and contexts. She is recognized as an innovator for her use of the fretted dulcimer in jazz, pop, free improvisational music and other settings beyond the familiar folk and traditional realms. She has extensive experience working with dance and theater ensembles, both as a composer and on stage musical accompanist.

Roles:

• Molly - Waiting for a Window

Charly Duley recently moved to the Portland, Maine area with husband Joe Duley to escape the hustle and bustle of Washington D.C. and enjoy the finer aspects of life... such as recording bar scenes in a stifling abandoned mill in Biddeford and accruing odd looks from passersby at local marinas.

She has done extensive work in the Washington DC/Baltimore markets including commercials, spots, imaging, PSAs and narration, most recently heard nationally all over XM Satellite Radio as THE voice of the Zeppelin channel, as well as being the punk channel - Fungus 53, doing a Bob Dylan special for the worldwide release of "Modern Times" and the memorial concert special for Princess Diana.

She has also done a multitude of promotions, imaging and special segments, including "Casey at the Bat" for Home Plate, the XM Baseball channel.

Roles:

• Davey - Waiting for a Window

Joe Duley recently moved to Maine with his wife Charly Duley to escape the hustle and bustle of Washington, D.C., though apparently was caught unsuspecting of the killer moose, man-eating mosquitoes and tweaked out radio producers that inhabiting the Pine Tree State. It was with great gusto and good humor that he joined FinalRune in the role of the beaten-down traveler Davey in the most recent production, Waiting for a Window.

Joe has a hell of a resume in Radio/TV/Film Production, including experience with XM Satellite Radio, WRNR 103.1; The Sailing Channel and various video productions throughout Washington DC, Baltimore, and New York City. Additionally, from 2000- 2005 he contributed to BBC Radio Wales in the UK, and continues to consult and collaborate with independent producers and writers in England and Wales.

Joe claims to "have seen it all," though we hope that through his experience with FinalRune he's seen a little bit more...

Roles:

• Audio Recordist - Waiting for a Window

Randy has been the recordist/boom op on three local independent film, done some other sound production/mastering for some other video projects, including live sound experience and recording studio classes. While his day job is as a fine carpenter, his true love with audio and he's also quite handy (see the home-made "Dead cat" he made for our dock recording gig).

Randy joined FinalRune for "Waiting for a Window," relieving Fred of the deadly task of running equipment while directing. If you're wondering where the pops and weird level action went in the latest production, go thank Randy.

Roles:

• Rob - Waiting for a Window

William Dufris hails from Houlton, Maine, though his journey as an actor has taken him long and far from "The County" of Maine. Today he lives and works in Cape Elizabeth, Maine as a celebrated professional audio narrator. He also produces his own audio theater with Mind's Eye Productions, including the chilling collection of Nightmares on Congress Street.

Fred first met Bill while still working on Day of the Dead, and has had the pleasure of seeking him out for advice from time-to-time, hanging out with him at the National Audio Theater Festivals' week long workshop, and at last being able to work with him in "Waiting for a Window," where Bill portrayed the marvelously dopeish yet cunning old sea salt, Rob.

William has been nominated six times as a finalist for the APA's prestigious Audie Awards, as well as having garnered 18 Golden Earphones Awards through AudioFile Magazine. He was also honored by AudioFile as being one of "The Best Voices At The End Of The Century".

He has also acted on stage and television here in the US, as well as in the UK and Europe. William is best known as the original North American voice of the cartoon character Bob (and Farmer Pickles/Mr. Beasley/Mr. Sabatini) in Nickelodeon Jr's popular children's show, Bob the Builder.

When it comes to producing audio drama, you have a few fundamentally different approaches to choose from:

1. The Classic

You get your script, you cast your actors, you have everyone who's involved come to a studio and record them in the best manner you see fit (stereo or mono, multiple mics or single mic, etc. -- that's an article of its own).

This is the tried and true way of producing audio drama, heck, the tried and true way of producing practically any work of audio. At the end of the voice recording sessions you have nice-sounding, consistent voice tracks for you to play with in post-production. But it's (generally) expensive and you'll still need to create the environment of your scene in post.

2. The Brave New Way

You cast your actors from all across the globe, have them record their lines at their home studios or other recording location available to them, and then receive those lines via electronic delivery which you put together using post-production software. This way has been pioneered by podcasters and is pretty ingenuitive, allowing you to cast talent wherever they happen to be and allowing your actors to record on a schedule that's convenient to them. However, this method necessitates a lot of post-production work to assemble the voice tracks and almost ensures inconsistency in quality/room timbre. You also lose the special sumthin' sumthin' when actors act in a scene together.

3. The Indie-Film Way

Field recording is essentially filmmaking without the camera -- with all the associated benefits and pitfalls. While a little trickier for sci-fi and fantasy -- it is, after all, a little difficult to find lonely castles and spaceships lying around -- the general idea is to find a spot that resembles the acoustic environment of the scene in your drama and then go and record there. The benefit is a sense of sonic verisimilitude - you get those crooning gulls or chirping crickets in the take naturally - at the risk of having to deal with unwanted noise and, if you don't get adequate permission, angry property owners. But it saves you an enormous amount of time when you get to post-production, the costs of renting out studio space, and maybe, just maybe, adds some magical quality you'll never get in the studio.

What Works Best For You?

The approach best for you will vary on what you're trying to produce, what your budget is, and what you want it to sound like. That's the pleasure of being an independent producer -- it's YOUR story, make it sound like YOU want it to!

My first few stories (Day of the Dead, Tales from Williamsville, Fall of the Hero) were all recorded in the studio of my local community radio station where they gratiously let me record for free, then supplemented with field recordings of ambience and spot FX, and library effects and music. Day of the Dead also had a splash of "The Brave New Way" because two of the actors were actually recorded in New Orleans, and I had to splice their takes with audio I later captured for other characters in the scene:

Knowing what I know now (and having better gear), I would've recorded Day of the Dead completely in New Orleans, as man, you ain't gonna find too many places with a richer sonic backdrop than that fair city. But the background sound that IS there (recorded with a wimpy portable mp3 player) does add quite a lot of "character" to the story.

They look happy now, but man, it was crowded!

Were the space not so tight, this approach might have worked well, but I had some other problems, too. First off, the ostensible "studio" wasn't really soundproof, so if someone stomped to or from the on-air recording studio during a take, we'd have to redo it (or live with it, which I'm shamed to say I did on occasion). I also was monitoring, mixing, recording, directing and occasionally acting all at the same time, which was just a couple too many balls in the air.

But graduating from this set-up was a challenge, too. After all, this space was free, and while I did pay for all the equipment I brought in, it worked out to be cheaper than paying for a professional studio. And once I paid for all the equipment, I had even less incentive (and money) to pay a professional studio.

Oh, what is an independent dramatist to do?

Take it Outside

It was about this time that I headed to the National Audio Theater Festivals' (NATF) week long audio drama workshop, and learned about a million things I was doing wrong when it came to mic placement and recording. Concurrently, I was corresponding with Roger Gregg of the Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, who heavily encouraged me to try producing a show entirely in the field (as he just had for Infidel). And while I was a little skeptical at first (what if it rains? what if it snows? what if we get attacked by a rabid moose?), on my next story, "Dark Passenger," I gave it a shot.

Philip Hobby is spooked during a recording sequence

"Passenger" still had some rough points, mostly due to lack of preparation and me single-handing the gear again, but I took everything I learned from that hastily assembled tale and poured it into "Waiting for a Window." Which I'll let you hear and be the judge of when it debuts September 26th.

What You Stand to Lose, and Gain

In a climate like Maine, you do have some challenges when it comes to field recording, weather being foremost among them. Winter is entirely off the shelf (at least for outdoor scenes) though you can't even guarantee it'll not be pissing down rain in the middle of July.

You also have to find places where people will allow you to record, either private businesses or public places. If you're not paying anyone (like, as I said above, I just can't afford to do), you have to deal with the fact that random people will be walking by and possibly nosing their way into your scene. You also have uncontrollable noise factors like motorcycles, oil barges, airplanes, chainsaws, semi-trailers and invasive european starlings (yes, I've had ALL of them ruin a take).

Then you have to GET everyone there, and find a time that the location AND all the people can be available simultaneously. Not always easy.

BUT... When you finally get there, when the ambience has just the elements you want in it, and the characters get in the groove... well, there's something about it you just can't replicate in a sound-proof room.

For Example...

Directing in the Field Can be Fun

We had six people off to the side at the "bar," full with appropriate props, including a few, um, "live" bottles, a separate area for the stage where the mysterious woman sings karaoke, and then another area with a table where the characters in the scene have their dialogue. We recorded it in a few takes, finally getting an almost continuous take, and when it came to post-producing it, all I had to do, literally, was cut out the junk and line up the tracks. No supplemental foley, no additional music mixing, no "make this guy sound off mic" effects.

Listen to the results:

On Gear

So. You can beg, borrow, or squat on a location for free, saving you all the cash required to rent out a professional studio. But you still need equipment to record it, which is expensive, right?

Not necessarily.

As I mentioned earlier, I stole just about everything of my approach from Roger Gregg (ok, it was solicited advice) including my choice of equipment -- a Rode NT4 mic. I paired it with a Marantz PMD-660, a wonderful compact flash recorder I'd been using to record the mix off the mono equipment hereotfore spoken of.

Marantz + Rode = Match Made in Heaven?

But at just over $1000 ($530 for the mic and $500 for the Marantz), this is not the rig for everyone. But damn, if there aren't some great alternatives nowadays.

I bought my first round of gear just months before they released an amazing recorder for this kind of work: the Zoom H4, followed soon by the Zoom H2. I grudgingly bought the H2 ($200), rueing the audacity of Zoom for releasing such a tiny recorder only a year after I'd bought a much larger set of equipment, but soon found myself in love with this, well, "handy recorder" (how's that for truth in advertising?)

The Zoom H2 is to the PMD-660/NT-4 as the point-and-shoot camera is to the SLR. I carry my Zoom with me everywhere, capturing random sound effects, spot interviews, all my podcasts and for light-duty voiceover work (as it doubles as an audio interface).

While I put my pennies away for over a year in order to be able to afford the investment in the Rode, if you're just starting out, and maybe aren't even sure if this audio drama thing is for you, the Zoom H2 is a great recorder to start with. Use it to kick off your podcast, to record all the FX, your buddy messing around on guitar, and hey, your whole radio drama too.

What? Record an entire audio drama on a Zoom H2? Hell yeah. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Stereo Vs. Mono

Whether you use the NT4 or the H2, you'll be capturing stereo sound, which greatly compliments the efforts of your field recording. While your audience might not always appreciate the nuances of stereo, it gives you a rich sonic portrait you lose out in in mono.

I'm not a math guy, but here it goes: in mono, you have one axis: loud and soft. Soft voices are far, loud voices are near, and the listener determines the layout of the scene based on their interpretation of that scale. Cool and all, but in stereo you get that "y" axis -- left and right. Suddenly you have a three-dimensional portrait of sound, which, to the listeners who DO get it, is very, very cool.

Get Out There!

If you've got much gumption than green, ate the red pill and maybe slosh down a little bit of that special Kool-Aid for kicks, then field recording may be the way for you to go. It frees your actors from the constraints of working indoors, adding vitality to a scene while capturing a rich sonic portrait you'll spend hours trying to create in post.

Will your listeners notice? Well, that's where the different camps disagree. Some people will say that an exotic waterfall in South America sounds like their shower, and there may be some truth to that. But what you WON'T record in your shower is the experience that being in a remote area of South America contributes to your actor.

Me, I'll go for the trip.

FinalRune is proud to be featured among the likes of Crazy Dog Audio Theater, Black Jack Justice, The Grist Mill, Dreamseed, and more. As you may recall, I decried the need for such a store about a year ago in the "Original Radio Drama in the 21st Century" article, and my oh my, did Xander deliver with Echo Fiction.

Starting with our next production, Waiting for a Window, you will ONLY be able to download clean, high-quality versions of our shows from Echo Fiction. You will still be able to stream the shows via this website.

An unexpected storm throws Norman D. Waits off his course to... somewhere.

The island where he lands is nice enough, with old sea salts that welcome him with open arms and a bar that's always open. But as it becomes increasingly clear that no one ever seems to leave the island, Norman finds himself in a fight to get moving to some distant shore or remain trapped in this half-baked paradise forever.

"Waiting for a Window " Stream

Purchase "Waiting for a Window" on Echo Fiction

Cast:

• Ed Patterson as Norman
• Bill Dufris as Rob
• Philip Hobby as Bob
• Joe Duley as Davey
• Charly Duley as Molly
• CarlaRose Dubois as Woman
• Kristi DeVille as Suzy
• Chris Newcomb as Patron 1 and Man
• Toby Paradis as Patron 2
• Adam Ferguson as Patron 3
• Wayne De Jagger, Rebecca Titcomb and Amy Titcomb as members of the bar

Original Music Composed by Barbara Truex

Audio Engineering by Randall Farr

Additional Production Assistance by Adam Ferguson

Sound recorded on location in and around Portland, Maine.

Special thanks

• To Roger Gregg and Tom Lopez for inspiration and insight
• To WMPG for use of talent and broadcast resources
To Port Harbor Marine and The Bloody Marble Collective for use of their space
• To all of the other friends, family, comrades and creditors who made this production possible.

"Waiting for a Window" marks FinalRune's second foray into a piece recorded predominantly in the field, and will be recorded on docks, boats, bars and woods in Southern Maine. While Maine is not quii-ite as tropical as the setting of the story itself, there is certainly enough "wild" life to be found to make convincing audio.

Expect more updates on the drama both here and at Radio Drama Revival.

To that end, get listening! FinalRune sincerely hopes you'll enjoy the stories available through this site, but hey, if you ARE willing to help support new original audio stories, the donate button is available in full-force (see right) and you'll hear multiple pleas on the new mp3 files.

Thanks for listening, and for your support.

An expected Halloween debut is providing the impetus to pull together this truly chilling tale of two boys who head to Downeast Maine expecting a fun weekend, but who quickly uncover a world of horror too terrible to imagine.

With a whole new approach to production based on observation at the National Audio Theater Festival, and feedback from audio pros from Roger Gregg to Bill Dufris to Richard Fish, this will be the first FinalRune Production done in stereo sound recorded in the field using a single microphone which all the actors will work around. The anticipated result: blood curdling horror for your ears!

For those of you less keen on the terrible, FinalRune will follow-up in early 2008 with the story Waiting for a Window, about a man who stumbles across a mysterious island while on a journey somewhere else, and finds out leaving is trickier than he imagined...

To accommodate our loyal website fans, the drama will appear here FIRST, available pro bono for some period of time, and then be monetized (while a free, lower-fi version will be available through the Radio Drama Revival! podcast).

FinalRune's latest tale of terror eclipses everything we've attempted so far, with a story that is chilling to the bone, the best performances to date, a stellar score and terrifying field FX recording on location on foggy and mysterious stretches of Downeast Maine.

Two teenage friends start scaring each other on the drive to a dismal "haunted" house on the coast of Maine. But when their innocent fun starts to become all too real, they soon realize what true terror is. A nod to Stephen King in a tale inspired by a true story too haunting to forget.

Cast:

• Narrator: John Coons
• David: Christopher Reiling
• Matt: Philip Hobby
• Girl: Rowan Hoyt
• Father: Rob Hoyt
• Boy: Gabriel Whitman
• Mother: Stacy Ann Strang

Sound Effects:

• Record on-location in Old Orchard Beach, Maine
• Supplemental effects courtesy of Sounddogs.com

Music:

• Original Music by Stu Mahan and James Munro

Special Thanks:

• Peter and Marge Titcomb
• WMPG
• Roger Gregg, David Schinn, Richard Fish, and the whole crew of NATF

...I'd like to bring up something I've been pondering for some time -- what is the role of narrator in audio theater? ...And it is staid to use the narrator in modern stories? The question arises on the basis of comments of the narrator's obsolescence as well as an observation that neither of the plays produced for this year's NATF used a narrator.

Now, I'd be the first to agree that the objective, birds-eye, "It was a dark and stormy night" narrator is a little heavy-handed, but I wonder if we're being a little hard on a perfectly good literary device. Having more a literary than a broadcast background, I personally use narration in the same way that an author uses summary prose in lieu of scenes. Sometimes, you just need to speed the narrative along, give the audience some key information, and keep moving without making everything happen moment-by-moment.

For example, "Raymond Chandler's 'Goldfish,'" is an absolutely splendid audio drama piece as well as an excellent example of how a narrator can be used to good effect (another good one is a surprisingly great rendition of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" I heard recently). The imminent, first-person narrator guides us through the story and heaps so much of Marlowe's character upon us that we might not get through just dialogue alone (at least, not with so much nuance). Likewise, the Hunter Thompson dialogue is about the only thread of sense through a completely crazed narrative. Both are enhancements rather than distractions from some pretty compelling stories.

Obviously if you're looking for "audio art" rather than "audio theater," you might prefer stuff that strays further from established traditions, in the same ways that some prefer the avant-garde and experimental fiction. However, I think that since this form already limits us to so few tools, we shouldn't shuck this one out unless there are some rather solid reasons to do so.

Thoughts?

I'll shortly have the photos up from the whole event, with minimal omissions to protect the innocent. Until then, good listening!

Headed to Missouri yourself? Drop us a line and let's meet up!

It was a frenetic, cramped, mac-and-cheese driven five hour session pulled together in the middle of finals week for our cast of USM students, but when the dust settled, Fred left the studio with complete vocal tracks for the upcoming fantasy drama Fall of the Hero.

Now comes the fun part -- post-production! Layering sound effects, score, tweaking lines to perfection, and listening to it over and over again are on the agenda for Fred in the next weeks as he prepares for the May 31st debut on Radio Drama Revival! And, while our opinion is always biased, this looks to be FinalRune's finest yet.

While we're honing the tracks, take a look at some production photos! And be sure to tune in May 31 on WMPG or the podcast thereafter on Radio Drama Revival!

(Fantasy)
Written and Produced by Frederick Greenhalgh

Sir Grace was the most valiant of all knights, decked in glorious armor that glowed in the sun and a record of dragon-slaying and maiden saving on par with none. But a battle with a renowned wizard with ambiguous ambitions forces Sir Grace to consider things he never imagined, and face his greatest enemy yet: himself.

Help support FinalRune by buying a CD!

Order a CD! (Shipping Included)

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Cast:

• Narrator: Ian Carlsen
• Sir Grace: Philip Hobby
• Squire: Fred Greenhalgh
• Roland D'Arcanus, Imp: Corey Anderson
• The Maiden: Mia Perron
• Voices: Andriana Colucci

Sound Effects:

• Record on-location
• Supplemental effects courtesy of Sounddogs.com

Music:

• Original Music by Michael Beaudoin

A story of youth and initation. A boy raised by his single mother leaves New York City to visit his grandparents in rural Maine. The hard ways of these strange people terrifying him, but he soon learns something of life, death, and manhood through an experience with the wild.

The follow-up to Day of the Dead! Hundreds of miles west of New Orleans, the kid is dying of thirst in the desert, until a mysterious man gives him a ride to a town that comes to life only in the dark hours, and it's always a dark hour... An enchanted adventure through dream and myth that collides with zen, magic and Native American storytelling.

Based on the Short Story "Some Road Through the Desert"

Somewhere in a cheap Chinese buffet in South Miami, Jesus waits for Lucifer to discuss the apocalypse. Much to ol' Lucy's chagrin, however, the king of light is having some second thoughts. Even worse, her attempt to start the end of days gets attributed to terrorists. The two soon find themselves on a run from men in black helicopters and careening through America's two-lane highways on a road trip misadventure of apocalyptic proportions.

Amerigeddon will be FinalRune's first episodic story, with ten hour-long episodes anticipated to tell this bizarre story of divine wrath gone wrong ala Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, Dogma and On the Road if Jack Kerouac and Dean Moriarty had been, well, Jesus and Lucifer.

An epic science fiction adventure spanning 30 episodes. In a war-torn future, three friends embark on a quest to rescue a man who they think is a hero. Yet, the soon discover that the world is more terrible and ambiguous than they imagined.

The most ambitious project attempted by FinalRune Productions, The Cleansed will be written in its entirety before production begins, and released in installments. Since it will require a full cast and equipment far beyond our existing resources, we anticipate recording to happen sometime in 2011.

In the mean time, we will be working on developing more resources about the post-apocalyptic world, which is not so far away and unsettlingly familiar.

Following the completion of Day of the Dead, Fred began adapting more of his stories for audio and learning as much as he could about the artistic and technical aspects of the craft. He submitted a grant for starter funding to the Libra Foundation Futures Fund, and while he didn't get the cash, he did come up with a