Lamplighter Theatre

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the microphones at a recording session for a radio drama? Well here is an insiders look from one of the industries best, Mark Drury, on what the Foley recording involved for Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince.

Well, you’ve got 53 scenes with some challenging action and settings…it ain’t a Whit’s End or Barclay’s show! Even with 2 of us working on it together (with me doing some stuff on my own), the time commitment will probably end up being around 80-85 hours for the foley. That might be about 15-20% longer than if I was doing this at Focus – in a true foley room with all surfaces and props readily available – but foley is always a very time-consuming process, especially when you have to get very unique sounds like crawling through weeds, jumping on/off wagons, horse dismounts (did that with a real saddle on a stand), building a dam in a stream (used a real stream), jumping on/off a rolling ladder, getting in/out of a boat and rowing, etc, etc, etc. Can’t just get that stuff off of sound fx CD’s and make it sound in-scene or timed correctly.

Foley is the art of recording the natural, everyday sounds that would occur in a soundtrack for a movie or audio recording. Basic sounds would be cloth movements, foot steps, doors opening, body movements, etc. It is the sound that provides a real life aspect in a fictional environment. You may not notice when it’s there, but when it’s not, you would certainly feel a difference. Foley recording involves long days of much physical activity, scrutinizing the performance to ensure accuracy, and a lot of editing. For a high quality, realistic sounding audio drama like Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince, much of the recording would be done at various locations outside the studio in order to capture the most realistic sounds.

Our producers and sound designers have put an incredible amount of effort into making this audio drama the very best that it can be in a relatively short amount of time. There has been a great number of long days and nights put into the creation of Lamplighter’s first audio drama. We can’t wait for you to hear it!

This past weekend a great effort was underway to produce a five minute excerpt of the new Sir Malcom and the Missing Prince Dramatic Audio to send to a very important meeting. Both our audio engineer and music composer spent their weekend working on this, and they did it free of charge. Once the sound designer completed the final mix of this demo, our producer John Fornoff raced around trying to find an open courier who could deliver the demo overnight to the meeting. No one was open, and he had just missed FedEx by five minutes. John was ready to book a flight to Texas in order to deliver the demo in time, but in a moment of wisdom, his wife urged him to contact a recording studio near where the meeting was to take place to see if they could help. Thankfully, a studio employee was working and was not only willing to receive the demo over the internet and record it to a cd, but to ensure it’s delivery to the meeting by 9 a.m. the next morning.

One of the most extraordinary things about working in ministry, is seeing God use people in ways you might never expect. The people that God has raised up to be a part of Lamplighter and Lamplighter Theatre are people of passion and vision, and the years they have spent in cultivating their skills have not blinded their eyes and ears to God’s call for sacrifice and faithfulness.