We’ve just wrapped production of the cyberpunk thriller Cold Reboot, Synesthesia Theatre’s second season.
When we finished producing Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken we told ourselves that next time, we’d produce something with fewer actors. Trying to get sometimes six or seven actors around a single mic in a single scene proved problematic.
So what did we do when producing our next season? Add more actors, naturally!
I made a fair effort in the writing of the script. The serial focuses on Erica, the protagonist, to the point of including many solo scenes featuring the character talking to herself. However, there are a lot of secondary characters. While we never had more than two or three actors on mic at a single time, we still ended up having to work with almost a dozen schedules, and that makes coordinating time to record difficult.
We had a few things going for us this time around.
We weren’t recording in the living room
Iron Horses was recorded entirely in our own apartment, but this time our audio guy, actor-comedian Bill Bullock, arranged for us an actual studio space. While we had to tote our gear further than the living room, audio baffling let us finish our recordings without interruptions from leaf-blowers, sirens, or beeping trucks.
The Benefit of Experience
And, of course, we were able to apply the lessons learned during the production of Iron Horses to Cold Reboot. We knew what to expect, and we were able to plan more effectively. All together, it only took us three days to record every episode.
A touch of Bronchitis
Of course, both Kat and myself were hit with a severe bout of bronchitis. We were fortunate in that it hit me a week before we started recording, so that I was weak but no longer contagious, and it hit Kat immediately after we finished. This did delay how soon we were able to get started on post-production, but we managed to get everything without infecting our entire cast.
Eternal gratitude to our actors and for the generous people at Cards Against Humanity for allowing us access to their recording studio.
