Andrew Foster

Director of Proud Songster by Stephen Todd

'Hit records are being produced in bedrooms. Films are being shot on handycams and edited on laptops. The Internet offers amazing opportunities for undiscovered talent to bypass the giants of the entertainment industry and expose their work to millions. Digital Radio is at the heart of this revolution.'

Andrew on directing Proud Songster

We planned a very relaxed record day, so that we had plenty of time to work with the actors, and get a ‘natural’ feel to the scenes. It was successful. We had a lot of fun and were surprised at the speed with which we were getting through the script. I think a lot of this atmosphere is reflected in the intimacy of the performances.

Unfortunate snag
We hit one unfortunate snag however. After sending the actors home we discovered that due to an inadvertently flicked switch, the last few scenes had been recorded at low resolution. This basically meant that they sounded tinny when heard next to the scenes recorded at full quality.

It was an incredibly frustrating discovery, none the least because I’d really felt as though we had really captured some magic in the performances. The only option was to re-record the affected scenes at another session. But I was still reluctant to loose the vibrancy we had captured that day. As it turned out the scenes affected were all set in Rwanda, and the lo-fi sound actually gave them an edge which set them apart from the lush feel we had captured for the English countryside. I guess it was a kind of sound design concept born of happy accident.

Transfering directing skills from other media radio drama
I’m interested in the idea that drama is about the audience. They place meaning on what they experience. As a play unfolds it builds pictures in people’s minds. This is true of a book, of a play, and of radio. The job’s the same whichever medium you’re working in - the basic rules of storytelling don’t change. It’s a little like learning a new language, the grammar might be different but you’re still ordering a glass of white wine.

That’s interesting - working in a new medium: learning the way the language works. I remember an interview with New Order where they were asked, “How does a band survive the death of a lead singer? It doesn’t happen.” The answer stuck with me. As Joy Division, none of them knew how to play their instruments. They taught themselves guitar as they went along. So when they reinvented themselves as New Order, they choose to abandon guitars for synths and computers, and literally start again. I really like the idea that artists take inspiration from exploring new mediums.

Challenges faced and surprises found
Proud Songster is set in the English countryside and rural Rwanda. With the constraints of budget and time, we knew we weren’t going to be able to find real locations to approximate these within London. So we decided to record our vocal tracks ‘dry’ in a studio environment and place them into the backgrounds in post-production. In fact the Rwandan soundscapes were supplied by a Rwandan broadcaster. It’s much the same way that American film’s are made. By recording individual sounds in a studio, you’ve control over the eventual sound of the scene. It’s quite a ‘sculptural’ approach – and I think sits well with the almost dream-like, fragmented, multi-voiced way in which Proud Songster’s story reveals itself.

This method is tricky for the actors. They’ve got to pitch their performance as if they’re  walking in the country - whilst standing still in a studio. It’s the sound equivalent to ‘blue-screen’ work, and requires a lot of concentration. But I think it’s resulted in something very lyrical. Sound designer Steve Bond has done a fantastic job, tying it all together.

The actual location
Our recording approach meant that we were looking for a relaxed studio environment and the Fish Factory was just fantastic. Tucked away behind an old school fish shop it was introduced to me as the studio that Lilly Allen used to record her album. It had that kind of feel. You could imagine getting lost in there for weeks and creating something really great. Apparently bands love the place. We certainly did.

Being mentored by an experienced radio drama director
I met John Dryden in New Zealand, where he’d been hired by Radio New Zealand (NZ’s equivalent to the BBC) to revitalise their radio drama department. I’d been working on a devised theatre project and John suggested I attempt to devise a radio drama set around the upcoming General Election. This is something I love about John’s approach; he’s a very lateral thinker with a knack of playing to people’s strengths.

We recorded our scenes on location using current events as a backdrop to the drama. I even sent an actor into a polling booth with a DAT recorder to record his character voting, after he had voted himself. I was very conscious of trying to somehow capture the mood of the election during the course of the drama. But with hours of improvised scenes to edit each night this became a difficult proposition. John really showed me the value of good editorial rigour. He taught me how to strip away a scene to reveal its meaning.

His work is hugely inspiring. He’s borrowed from the vernacular of film and television, and done something quite revolutionary with Radio Drama. If I had a pound for the number of productions I’ve heard that have been influenced by him…

The appeal of the script and the writer's vision
Stephen’s play is quite unlike anything I’ve worked on before. It has a beautiful fragility to it. It has a  fragmented ‘dreamlike’ structure which allows it speak on a number of levels. Because of the multiple points of view and the wonderfully metaphoric presence of landscape, sound designer Steve Bond and I found a lot of room to experiment.

At its heart it is a lament. The play unfolds with an uneasy tension as the precious and ephemeral experience of childhood is viciously stolen. So much is suggested in a series of fleeting scenes; I think that Stephen has achieved something very special. I admire the delicacy of his writing.

Music in Proud Songster
There’s a presence in the script, which is never voiced - a sense of loss, of children, and of memory. When I started thinking about directing the play, I had a feeling that music might take on this role. I also knew that we were going to create the backgrounds after recording the vocals, so there was a real opportunity to sculpt the 'landscape' in which the play occurs.  

As soon as we had a basic edit of the dialogue, and drafted the backgrounds I loaded a rough mix into Logic, on my laptop. The music started with the sounds, or instruments. I mucked around with a ‘modeling synth’– and tried to create sounds that sat well within the scenes. Eventually the two most influencing factors were the birdsong, which populates so much of the play, and the rhythm of the performances. Once I had a pallet of sounds the music came quickly. It grew in and around the scenes. It’s funny how listening back now, it doesn't feel as if I wrote it. It seems to belong so completely to the piece.

Andrew’s thoughts on how radio drama could work on Channel 4 Radio
Francis Ford Coppola’s wife secretly recorded him during the making of Apocalypse Now. The footage eventually became Hearts of Darkness, a fascinating documentary about the uneasy relationship between art and commerce. It chronicles Coppola’s famous fights with Hollywood Studio Bosses over budget and time overruns, whilst desperately trying to re-write his film on the fly and manage an increasingly unruly group of actors in the middle of a jungle in the Philippines. It’s a great watch.

At rock bottom he laments that film making will never be an art form until a teenager from the Midwest can make a film in her bedroom. In other words: until the technology becomes as accessible, and as easy to use as a pen, it will not be capable of speaking from the heart.

Well perhaps we are arriving at this ‘utopia’. Digital technology has transformed contemporary media. Hit records are being produced in bedrooms, instead of studios. Films are being shot on handycams and edited on laptops. And the Internet offers an amazing opportunity for undiscovered talent to bypass the giants of the entertainment industry and expose their work to millions. I think that Digital Radio is at the heart of this revolution and will open the doors for a generation of young film and theatre makers, writers, musicians, and teenagers in Midwestern bedrooms, to make and air work.

Andrew’s aspirations for directing Channel 4 radio dramas
I’d love to record a drama on a small portable digital recorder. There’s this little machine, not much bigger than your hand called a ‘zoom’. It’s amazing. You can plug professional mics into it, and it records high quality audio that you download straight onto your computer. I’m thinking a thriller, or a horror with the ‘hand held’ feel of an indie film. I love working with actors and I think this method would capture very intimate, very real performances. And then there it all is on the computer - it’s a hands-on, sculptural, Francis Ford Coppola kind of thing I guess.

Something else I’ve always wanted to do in this context is collaborate with a band, a kind of radio drama ‘concept album’. Music video’s often play out a mini drama and I’m intrigued by the idea that songs could become a part of the landscape of radio drama.

Check out the other directors for The Radio Play's The Thing

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