Radio Experiment or About Being A Child In World War II

Come & Listen...

to what part of my family story during World War II has inspired me to produce a little radio drama.

My parents, both are born 1937 and this way have been children during the war. They have told me about this unfortunate experience and I decided to use this assignment to work this out for me.

Further more my grandma was an illegitimate child of someone who was remembered to be Italian and Jewish and my grandpa really was worried while having to live in Nazi-Germany with his beloved wife. He actually listened to a station which was forbidden to listen to. You even could be put to death for this crime. My mother was about five years old when she actually sang the sound of BBC London in the streets, but ... fortunately nothing has happened to them, accept from my grandpa was very angry with my mother. They all survived war without being arrested or being hurt during an air raid. Yet it was a hard time for children, even harder for my dad who has to flee the parts of Germany which has been overwhelmed. He saw dead very early in his live.

I also did work for a friend and scientist, who did research about four clergy man, who actually were put to death because of radio crime. One child of one of them is still alive and can report of how it was when her father was arrested and killed. The Nazis sent the family even a bill concerning the execution.
However, nothing like this happens in the following show.







To be able to produce the show I did the following:
After I wrote myself a rough script, I started producing the show by thinking out some dialog, which is entirely spoken by myself. I simply did not manage persuading some friends to lend me their voice. They are all very busy and really very often have to help me out for my artwork.
Anyway, it is possible in Audacity to change the level of a voice. I used this to create voices of a child, a man and some women.
For some reason I suddenly had the idea to produce the show using two languages. This had made it more interesting to listen, yet it is more difficult to follow the content. I acted out the story in German, the native language of the protagonists, and laid over it a voice interpreting the dialogue.

Whenever I have finished dialogue which belongs together I thought about sound effects and atmosphere. Some I recorded myself, but most I have found on freesound.org. I have listed links to the sounds at the end of the blog.

I used Audacity to produce the entire show. When I started I did not know too much about the software, but I know now. At the beginning I often did unnecessary steps, for there have been tools and possibilities I did not know about. Like this to the end the process has fastened, which was good, for I did run a bit out of time and energy.

I can not say if all the work was really fun. I would need some distance to the process of producing to say this, because it was an intense experience. In the end I was proud, but I also compared to professional produced audio books, which have generally a kind of fuller rounder sound. I presume they have further software and hardware possibilities like sound proofed rooms and very good recording facilities and, yes, experience. Yet I like so much the experimental touch of my work, which always is interesting and exciting.


Líst of links to the sound I have used:
spring atmosphere 1
spring atmosphere & piano
piano improvisation 1
dishes
door
footsteps 1
children playing
ticking watch
footsteps 2
place atmosphere
market atmosphere
old radio music
noise find station
BBC London announcement
knocking
unlock door
piano improvisation 2
air raid atmosphere
after air raid atmosphere
waiting room atmosphere
soft running
spring atmosphere 2
steps on grass
piano melody 1
piano melody 2
piano melody 3
piano melody 4

Origami Planet

To have some rest and relax during spring break I folded a more extensive origami piece and by doing that had the idea of making this the basis of a poster for my radio earth show.

 

 

 

For the origami I was guided by Gérard Ty Sovann, who altered the traditional origami to be able to build a bigger piece from some basic forms.

After finishing the origami with a piece of fabric I build myself a "magenta screen" to have a contrast to the green origami. I took a photograph and then keyed this by using selection tools of a photo editing software.

I built the background from a patterned origami paper. I took a photograph of the paper and created a pattern in Gimp (you can also do this in Photoshop). In Gimp you have to select what will be the basis for the pattern and then in the Edit Menu choose Paste As -> New Pattern. With this pattern I created a background by using the Bucket Fill Tool. Here you have to use the option Pattern Fill and to choose your pattern in the palette.

 

I've never thought of creating a poster. The reason I do now is that with ds106 there is a lot of talking and creating around posters and I got interested in this new challenge. I also came across the idea when reading what is demanded for the radio show project of ds106, yet the first time I decided to create the poster was when I built the origami, or was it I built the origami because my unconsciousness already knew I will create a poster? Who knows?

 

 

After War Spring Poetry

This post is meant to be both, the first scene of my radio show and a weekly audio assignment. The assignment demands reciting a poem, recording it and make it a part of a story. I have chosen a German poem by Eichendorf, which I have translated. Any admirer of poetry may forgive me any roughness in the translation.
For my audio piece I recorded both versions, the German and the English. I also added a lovely piece of sound where you can hear spring noise and a short piano recording. In the end I was in love with this creation. Here it is:





For my radio show the above audio displays the first scene. A little girl plays around and sings in a garden, when something is going to happen. First the story of how she gets to the garden will start and second her foster mum is approaching with news, which will be revealed at the end of the story. The growing spring and piano sound are meant to hint to the following action.

Invitation to Radio Earth

Below you can listen to a piece of audio, which is meant to be a commercial for attracting listeners to tune in to the next Radio Earth show.



This one was interesting. Especially when I recorded my voice and spoke loud and clearly, but it doesn't fit together with the noise of the helicopter. I had to analyse what sounds wrong and the result was, if a helicopter is near to a person this person may shout rather than spoke in a normal voice. Therefore I shouted and my neighbors might have been scared.

For the piece I mixed my voice with some powerful sounds to evoke an atmosphere of powers at work. Like this the listener may become excited of tuning in to the powerful story announced.
The links to the sounds are:

• Helicopter
• Thunder
• Heavy Wind

In Audacity I arranged the sounds and the voice by starting with a thunder and the approaching helicopter. When the helicopter is nearest the voice appears to advertise the next show. Then the voice gets lost in thunder and storm noise. I like this. I just asked myself several times if there is any guidance how to produce a commercial or if it is OK to just go for what my intuition tells me is right here.

About Earth' People

For a part of a imagined radio show I intend to produce a little story. The radio show is to be announced via a radio bumper which you can listen to below:




I started with recording my voice saying "This is Radio Earth on DS106. Come and listen to stories of people from all over the world." (Anybody, who finds fault in my language, I am not a native speaker in English.)
After this I opened the file in Audacity. I added some echo. In the internet I found a funny Ukulele piece which I combined with the voice. I also did several improvement and had the idea to arrange single words of the voice according to the music, which sounds a bit split, yet it also emphasizes and sounds more interesting.

For a comparison I listened to earlier audio pieces and found I have improved at least in recording my voice, which has become clearer and more confident.

I like producing audio, but I find my concentration is utterly demanded. When there is noise around me I even get angry. Working with visual media means you can 'close your ears', even listen to some good music during work. This is not possible while creating audio pieces. I wish I had a quiet place in the country.

Lisa's First Spring

A script for my first radio show.

DS106 regular students are guided to produce a radio show. I think this is an exciting task for me, too. Today I even had an idea for the show and thought it might be good to write a script which leads me during the production stage.

 

I imagine 'Lisa's First Spring' is an episode of a weekly show called Earth Radio. Earth Radio presents narrative episodes which concern history and ethnology or other sciences. Core ideas of Earth Radio are that the little stories take place in all parts of the world and that they lead to changes in the worlds society. Here you can a sketch of the logo of earth radio:



But now let et us go  to the script of the story.

Title:

Lisa's First Spring
by Earth Radio (Stefanie Jeske)

Content:

Lisa was born in 1939 in Germany during World War II. Her mum, Erika, is an illegitimate child of an Italian soldier, who belonged to the Jewish community. Although Erika has never met her father, this made her an opponent of the Nazi regime.
Her husband and father of Lisa, Hans, was worried about someone suspect about the Jewish father of Erika. The uncertainty of what happens to people who are partly Jewish set Hans's mind, who loves Erika, against the Nazis, too.
Hans looked for help and support in his opinion and decided to listen to enemy transmitters. He knows how dangerous this is and that people are threatened to put to death for listening to BBC Radio.
 Lisa was just a little girl when she imitated parts of the signal sounds of the BBC Radio station. Afterwards Lisa's father was arrested for listening to an enemy transmitter. Erika even frightens about he will be put to death.
Early in the year 1945 Berlin had a severe air raid. Erika took her daughter and they ran for shelter, already arrived at the shelter Erika asked a neighbor to take care of Lisa, because she has to go back to the house where she has forgotten a pocket watch, which is highly valuable to Hans. Erika doesn't return.
After the air raid the neighbor takes Lisa to their parents house, but it was destroyed. Erika is missed. Lisa is brought into the country, where people offered to give shelter to needy children. An old Lady became her foster mum.
Lisa doesn't know about her father, nor about her mother.
She is now five and a half and the war is over, but providing is bad. Nevertheless while playing in the garden she enjoys the green leaves and blossoms on the trees. Then the old Lady mysteriously calls her into the house. Like behind a mist she realized two people who look like her parents. With barely audible voice Lisa asked Mum? Dad?

Scenes (about a minute each):

1. Lisa in the garden of her foster mum.

• Spring sounds
• rain barrel (sound)
• Lisa sings (LaLaLa)
• Foster mum appears mysteriously

2. Introduction into the world war ii situation.

• Voice over introduction

• Family situation Mum, Dad, Lisa talking
• Lisa's age (5)
• Mum partly Jewish, no one knows
• Hans worried (listen to enemy transmitter)
• pocket watch

3. Radio scene:

• Hans listening to radio (BBC intro)
• Lisa sitting around bored, starts imitating (faint)

4. Walk scene

• Hans for a walk with Lisa (film sound 1945)
• Lisa imitates BBC radio
• Hans gets angry

5. Hans is arrested, Lisa stood back

• some words of officials
• Hans says good bye to Lisa and Erika (embrace sounds?)
• don't worry, everything will be fine

6. Air raid scene

• air raid sounds
• putting things together sound
• running sound
• talk to the neighbor

7. After air raid scene

• mum hasn't come
• neighbor goes with Lisa to parent's house, Erika is missed
• neighbor tells Lisa that she will go to the coutry

8. Again Lisa in foster mum's garden

• voice over is telling: Lisa is brought into the country, where people offered to give shelter to needy children. An old Lady became her foster mum. Lisa doesn't know about her father, nor about her mother. She is now five and a half and the war is over, but providing is bad. Nevertheless while playing in the garden she enjoys the green leaves and blossoms on the trees.

9. Lisa meets parents

• Lisa hears faint talk, enters house

• quiet, Lisa whispers to herself, makes funny noises, but also noises of uncertainty
• foster mum tells that there are two people who wants to see her
• quiet
• Mum? Dad?