After several weeks of production, I’m pleased to release my latest audio drama, Fall of the Hero. This is a 30-minute audio drama written by acclaimed audio dramatist Fred Greenhalgh (Locke & Key, Homefront).
Synopsis:
Sir Grace is the most valiant—and most vain—knight in the realm. Roland Fierro D’Arcanus is the most powerful wizard in the realm, and one with an undying, unwavering purpose: to regulate the folly of Man, and prevent the powerful from taking advantage of the weak.
Sir Grace answers the summons of Roland, expecting to vanquish he whom he deems evil. Instead, he finds himself at the mercy of Roland’s power, eventually waking from a deep slumber in the barn of an old farmer and his fair daughter. His humility gained at the mercy of the farmer and the manual labor with which he pays his debt, he runs off with the maiden in the summer night in the hopes of consummating his love for her.
Fate decrees otherwise, and he is faced with a decision that will decide the destiny of his life ever after: does he forsake a past of valor and power for the prosaic existence of a farmer’s life, or does he claim for himself again his right to blood, iron, and pride?
Luckily for me, Fred is very giving towards the audio drama community, and offers a number of scripts of his through his personal site www.FinalRune.com for non-commercial production.
While I’ve produced another script of his in the past (see A Drink Before the Dark), this is the longest script I’ve yet to produce as an audio drama. This work contains a cast of five actors, along with music composed by me. I handled all other aspects of production, including casting, direction, sound design, and mixing.
Casting proved to be a breeze, as I immediately found some amazing actors who filled their roles admirably. I utilized Reddit’s r/recordthisforfree subreddit as well as the Facebook group “Audio Drama Auditions” as my sources for casting.
Music was composed using Ableton Live and Presonus Studio One. I utilized a number of VSTs, including Native Instrument’s Kontakt’s factory library, “Session Strings,” India Discovery Series, and Spitfire Audio’s LABS. All parts were recorded using an Akai MPK249 MIDI controller keyboard.
I used Adobe Audition for the arrangement of actors’ lines, sound design elements, and music. Mixing of the project also took place in Audition.
My sister produced the cover art for Fall of the Hero using Procreate and an iPad Pro.
As working for an extended period of time on any project will inevitably leave you numbed to certain aspects of the production, I felt it was a good idea to receive some feedback regarding the mixing, sound design, and overall production of the work before officially declaring it “done.”
To accomplish this, I set up a few groups of beta listeners that I reached out to for feedback. The first group consisted of eight listeners and included the cast as well as some family and close friends. I received some great high-level feedback from these listeners, which I took into account to adjust some of the levels of my mix, as well as placement of certain sound design elements.
The second group of listeners consisted of five listeners and included some of the more technically-minded colleagues that I know through either my audiobook production work or school. They were able to provide more detailed feedback as to the mix, which was valuable for my continued adjustment.
I used Spreaker’s free tier as my podcast host, where I submitted to Apple, Spotify, Google Play, and Amazon Music.
You can listen to the audio drama here on my website, as well as on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, and Amazon Music.
Below are the credits for Fall of the Hero:
Crew:
Devised and written by Fred Greenhalgh (www.FinalRune.com)
Produced by Carter Wogahn
Directed by Carter Wogahn
Sound design by Carter Wogahn
Music by Carter Wogahn
Cover Art by Manon Wogahn (Instagram)
Cast:
Narrated by Jerry Kokich
Sir Grace played by Sharaf Alakhfash (Twitter)
Roland played by Sharaf Alakhfash (Twitter)
The Maiden played by Katie Walker-Cook
The Imp and additional voices played by Daniel Noland
The Squire and additional voices played by Charlie Smith-McMahon
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