Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiggo
Thx for the insight.
I personally don't listen to audiobooks, but I'm a big fan of radio plays and wonder how much they cost?
|
Hugely more. BBC sadly dramatically cutting back on radio drama.
You need a studio instead of a booth.
You need a group of actors
Script
Music and effects (both seriously detract from audiobooks)
Much more gear. A mixing desk, mic per person. Audiobook only needs one or two mics and a pocket Zoom H4N or similar is totally fine for recording.
Maybe practising and several takes for some bits. A good narrator can simply sit down and read for 30 minutes to an hour and might record a book in 10 to 25 sessions. Some people can only do one or two sessions a day. Others can manage maybe 4 or more in a day. A voice Actor and good Narrator can be the same person, but often different talents, skills and experience. A good narrator's recording will need little editing and few or no retakes.
Director, Producer, sound engineer on mixing desk, editor.
Last time I was in anywhere with studios was Lyric FM (RTE) in Limerick a few years ago. Tape was gone by then. When I started the audio recording was on tape and editing involved cutting it up. Time code editing video tape came in first. Then by 1990s audio and video was all workstation based digital. Free Audacity today on a laptop with a Zoom H4N for recording is better than 1990s. A laptop is too noisy in the same room unless SSD and fanless. The H4N and newer replacements can do maybe 10 to 12 hours of uncompressed four channel recording on an SD card just on Alkaline AA cells. Longer on two channels.
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discus...tinuing-dramas (TV)
A TV soap episode is cheap drama. Only reality TV without celebrities is cheaper (which is why it was invented, no actors, no script, low production values).
TV is still stupidly costly. It's why there was outrage IN the BBC in 1970s about video tape being reused instead of archived. Maybe €85 then for a " width tape reel. But production cost maybe £5,000 to £50,000 per episode.
No Dr Who or other BBC episodes lost. Deliberate destruction. They even scrapped 16mm film to save a pittance on storage
Radio Drama on the BBC is about £20,000 per hour. TV is x10 to x20 that.
So 10 hours of Radio drama about £200,000. Maybe 10x to 50x the cost of a no-name narrator and an audiobook.
DIY Audio book is just about possible and once off outlay of hardware less than €300 if you have a PC or laptop, recorded in your bedroom. At a minimum a radio drama needs experienced amateur actors, about x4 as much time per hour of drama, a proper studio with separate control booth, mixing desk and multitrack digital recording (used to be firewire from desk to PC, but it's maybe 20 years since I was involved).
BBC R4 radio drama is the hidden jewel of BBC and they are killing it.
BBC R4 has had a massive drop in listeners in the last two years purely due to the BBC. Not old listeners dying.