Amusement Park on the Moon (APOTM) is one of those projects that I will always look back so fondly upon. This is up there with my peak as a musician (joking… mostly) when I got a professional gig in the pit of North Central College’s performance of Renascence on cello (granted with great assistance from my boyfriend at the time). Led by probably the most organized, driven, and motivated director I have ever worked with, Lexy Hatch, this project was truly a massive success and I can’t wait for the wonderful opportunities this beautiful story will surely encounter. This was also probably the biggest project I ever worked on thus far–and still is at the time of writing–in terms of sound design and composition work, and I am super proud of the result we ended up with.
Franken 5.1-Atmos -> Stereo
Without spoiling the show, it discusses themes regarding the lifting of the gay ban in the boy scouts in 2013. The play was set outside, at a fictional Camp Wonder Lake and as such we decided to truly immerse our audience in the experience. I had planned on doing a budget surround system to create a soundscape where specific sounds–such as the coo of a mourning dove–could be placed within the space. I had planned a 5.1 setup, with LCR in the front above the stage, and the two rear channels downward firing above the audience seating. In fact, many of those atmospheric tracks I did mix in surround sound originally, but had to mix down to stereo in the end. Unfortunately, due to some mix-ups with the budget being submitted, and my very narrow bandwidth at the time (as I was also preparing to mix an IU Theatre Department show, Head Over Heels) we decided to forgo the surround sound setup that would require custom brackets for stage pipe to mount some home theatre speakers, for the house stereo pair instead. Although somewhat disappointing at the time, I truly am grateful I knew that I didn’t want to sacrifice quality over trying to throw together a surround set-up. I think the execution of the stereo mix turned out much better since I was able to focus specifically on that.
Music Composition – Scenes 14 and 17
This was the part that scared me the most, but actually turned out very well. When I first met with Lexy the December before this whole show process started, she mentioned how her and the genius behind the show, Tucker Ransom, had wanted some music theming throughout. I remember my heart sort of jumping as that wasn’t something I was super confident in. I just had to take stock in the fact that I had done something like this previously in high school when we we also wanted some music written for a play, When She Had Wings. While at the time the form that this would take on for APOTM was very nebulous, we ended up with a fantastic result. Below is a whole video of the show, but time stamped to one of the pivotal scenes in the show, scene 14:
I had written, played, and recorded cello and piano for this part. I’ll never forget the setup I had in my dorm room trying to get the cello tracked for this show and the blisters I got on my fingers from this. It had been a long time since that “peak” as a cellist I had mentioned before, so getting a halfway decent recording I could comp together took several hours. However, with enough splices, anything’s possible…
After 1.14, scene 17 would take place in the rain, with a storm, and the main character would just let it all out. So of course for this part, I opted for a dramatic performance of the original theming used in 1.14. However, this time just played on a solo piano, with some heavy harmonic embellishments. Getting this lined up with the performers was hard to say the least. I remember when we got it, it hit hard. Unfortunately, it seems like on the recording day it was one of those days where it didn’t hit. While the intent is that “it doesn’t mean it isn’t true Ethan” lines up with the ceasing of the piano and the thunder strike, Christian (the actor for Tom Sawyer) played it off just fine and no one other than Lexy, I or anyone that worked on that show would have noticed. (I suppose that goes for you now too, reader).
The Radio SFX
One of the big themes/symbols throughout the show is the radio. It functions as sort of a gateway or bridge between the problems and controversies in the adult world and the scout world. As such, it was one of the biggest actual SFX pieces I had to do, beyond the atmospheric sounds we did. Thankfully, I knew about SDR (Software Defined Radio) and I knew that WebSDR existed which made this SFX creation process much easier. I essentially just recorded some scrubbing sounds from that, pulled in whatever content we wanted from the “news”, summed it to mono, band passed it to just mids, and squashed the hell out of it. The result was pretty convincing:
Conclusion
Overall, this ended up being to this day, the biggest show I have worked on in terms of sound design demand. I didn’t even think it would be that big as there weren’t many conventional “sound effects” for the show, but we did end up deciding to have an atmosphere going essentially the whole time. We ended up with nearly 80 sound cues, and 3 different atmospheric mixes for morning, afternoon, and night. With the hours put in sitting on my porch at my house over the preceding winter break putting cues together and in the practice rooms at College of DuPage writing the music for this show, I’m glad it ended up as well as it did. This show will always have a special place in my heart.
