Creating audio dramas has given me a whole new appreciation for sound itself.

On a film set, it's very easy to notice the camera, the lights, the actors, the costumes and everything happening in front of you. Meanwhile, somewhere nearby, the sound department is quietly listening to absolutely everything and holding for the next plane in the sky...

Working with audio has made me appreciate just how much sound really does! Music can tell us how to feel, alongside all those tiny background sounds telling us where we are. Footsteps, doors, traffic, birds, rain, a clock ticking somewhere in the room - if we took the visuals away, it would be left to the sound building the entire world for you.

📖 Turn the Page...
“Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories.”
Stevie Wonder

Originally, when I started out scriptwriting for audio, it was an adjustment. I was having to think about the sound more rather than the 'how will this look on screen?' question. While my audio-verse is eventually intended with the cinema screen in mind, the main question that became a priority was: how can I shape and tell this story through sound only?

It's been such a learning curve having your story isolated to just one storytelling element. It's also a skill. Can you tell your story without fancy costumes and A-lister endorsement? If the story was nothing but the script, is it still interesting?

I love researching new sound elements and effects for my work. What's even more exciting is choosing certain soundtracks that suit specific characters and what they will be officially represented by.

We all have a soundtrack that never quite leaves us. I always loved Marion's Theme in Indiana Jones. Jack Black superbly explains this concept of people being born with a theme tune inside them in my favourite rom-com, The Holiday.

I think my favourite characters to find a soundtrack theme for are... actually, I can't choose! It's a combination between the light-hearted, vulnerable characters and the bittersweet, dark antiheroes that demand justice.

☕ Coffee Break...
“Sometimes all it takes is three notes to travel back in time.”
Pen and Paper Girl

There's something satisfying about finding that one piece of music that just seems to belong to them. I use copyright-free music in my audios, so there isn't exactly a John Williams orchestra waiting in the wings, but that almost makes the search more fun. You can listen to track after track and then suddenly one clicks.

And maybe that's because we do exactly the same thing outside of fiction.

We attach music to people, places and different versions of ourselves without even realising we're doing it.

A song can take you back to a particular summer before you've even registered what you're listening to. There are songs that remind us of holidays, relationships, childhood, friendships, heartbreak and those completely insignificant moments that somehow became memories.

They aren't necessarily even our favourite songs but have just so happened to become part of our soundtrack.

That's what I love about sound. A photograph can show you a memory, but sometimes a piece of music can make you feel it again.

So perhaps that scene in The Holiday had a point. Maybe we really are all walking around with our own theme tune?

As for mine? I'm still auditioning tracks...

The Pen & Paper Girl

XOXO

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