Master of Radio Part II: The Faceless Man

Hosting my own show on Radio Säteily was a wonderful experience, but for me the real ecstasy was found through the revelation that no one can see you. If reading a book inspires the reader to utilize imagination to its greatest extent, explicitly refraining oneself to listening is the next best thing. A world of sound is a world of hints and leads, an ongoing detective story challenging the mind to build a scene only based on what one hears. It's almost like telling a bedtime story, though even then it is possible to understand a lot through facial expressions and body language. Radio (and audio books) negates any such help.

As a storyteller I became curious in crafting soundscapes formed by sound cues such as effects, dialogue and music. The specific narrative means of a sound-only dimension introduced an alternative approach into giving life even to the most outstanding scenarios, which would visually be challenging. Discovering radio in the form of theater was exhilarating. I am a man of movies, especially of the adventure genre, but producing even short features of wonder with satisfying results is truly challenging. By removing the need of visual expression, I suddenly realized that I could now create any story I wished and still maintain a good level of credibility.

This is probably what it felt for George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson to discover the possibilities of CGI. I just hope I won't go overboard like they did. ...... I hate the three of you so much for the Star Wars prequels, Indy 4 and the Hobbit. So much. Well, Spielberg less than the others, since Adventures of Tintin was awesome and it compensates a bit. Just a little bit. Because Tintin is everything Indy 4 should have..have..be... I'm starting to cry, please excuse me....

...sigh...

*2 hours later*

It's a shame that despite the name of my study program, audiovisual mediaculture, there are little to none audio related courses. Recently the university has acknowledged this problem, which of course doesn't really benefit me at this point, but its great news for the rookies. I among other old timers have had to learn the tricks of the trade the hard way. School gave us the very basics, but everything extra has been learned through trial and error. Nonetheless, audio-oriented projects have turned out to be some of the best episodes of my personal daily show thanks to the awesome and just plain weird friends of mine who I've had the honor to work with (I'm pointing at you, Antti Lindholm, Atso Akujärvi and Antti Pekkala). We have created magnificent things. We have created terrible things. All the same, the amount of laughter has almost hospitalized me.

Rehearsing an episode of The Serling Effect (2015) with Sami Nyyssölä and Antti Lindholm.
© Emma Kähkönen

And if sound designing is a blast, I won't even start with voice acting. That, my friends, is the core element of all the joy and happiness, and more importantly, it's what decides the outcome of any audio play. Even if the story itself doesn't carry all the way, a talented voice saves the day. It's also very difficult to interpret a story "as intended" with only effects and music . Dialogue is essential in completing the process. Oh, I must specify that I am discussing about the audio plays that we've produced which have deliberately not included a narrator. We attempted to create a movie-like experience, and in movies narration is mostly seen unnecessary. Thus, to compensate the loss of narration, we had to emphasize in writing dialogue that explains enough without becoming unnatural. Quite often audio plays include a narrator, because it helps a great deal in depicting environments, emotions and action. Nevertheless, we embraced the challenge and the feedback has been encouraging. I am very proud of us.

As a small piece of advice to all of you little to-be-sound-designers, less is more. Only sounds that really count should be used when needed. It's not necessary to fill a soundtrack with everything even if "in real life" there would be much more to hear. I believe the same logic abides to movies as well. And is not our hearing also selective? We "hear" a lot. But our brains filter most of the sounds around us, so that we can concentrate on what really matters. When creating a soundtrack, the approach should mimic that filtering. Another classic piece of advice that is devastatingly accurate, is to KILL YOUR DARLINGS. Many fantastic ideas, jokes and twists seem masterful, when in fact they momentarily deviate the story off-rails. It's good to call for a pair of ears which are unfamiliar with the project to help identify what things work and what don't. Your potential target group doesn't have pre-knowledge either. If an outsider doesn't catch the idea, it might be best to put it aside.

As you command.

I am seriously thinking of making a career out of voice acting. I am not the greatest, but I'm practicing. The easy thing about voice acting is that you can do it anywhere, anytime and the worst that could happen is that bystanders think you're crazy. In a sense, I am talking to myself, almost in a schizophrenic way, but FOR A REASON. I'm not mad. I'm not. Completely sane. No red mists. The red mist doesn't talk to me, I swear...not anymore.

I'm just a voice actor.

I developed my keen interest in voice acting around the time (SKIP!) I began my university studies. I can't decisively say what was the exact spark that ignited the interest, but I'd almost say that it derives from me as a child enjoying cartoons and especially documentaries about science, history and nature. At the time, I was still planning to become a scientist, which lead my desire to watch what the world was made of, but I also developed an admiration for Jarmo Heikkinen, Tuomo Holopainen and Juhani Rajalin, the voices presenting the stories. And even though the quality of Finnish dubbing in cartoons can be questioned (pretty much only full-length features are top-notch), some actors rose above others, particularly Matti Ranin, Veikko Honkanen and Jarmo Koski. They contributed so much to my childhood that I almost feel indebted. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to pass on their legacy to future generations of TV-audiences.



In English I've taken after the low-pitched voices of James Earl Jones, Christopher Lee and Peter Cullen though my voice can't (yet) reach the same depth. Of Japanese voice actors my favorite is Akio Ōtsuka.

A RECOLLECTION OF SÄTEILY PROJECTS

2011
I made my proper acting debut in Antti Pekkala's Satumaa (Finnish) comedy show. There were five other actors in total. Satumaa won three awards: Best Program, Best Program in the Entertainment Category and Listener's Choice.

I also lent my voice for a few ads for the sponsors of Säteily and acted three roles in another audio play, the pseudohistoric drama Vida o Muerte! (Finnish), which unfortunately isn't uploaded online.

2012
I read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (Finnish) live on Säteily. It took me 13 hours and was demanding, because I had to carefully alter my voice for different characters without accidentally going too far and using it up. I also produced all the ads that year with Atso Akujärvi. I was awarded Best Male Voice and Radio Persona of the Year.

2013
I produced the 2 h 23 min action-adventure audio play Codename: Dawn Breaker. I ended up playing over 20 characters myself, and was accompanied by seven other voice actors. The sound design was by me, Antti Lindholm and Heikki Tikkanen. I heavily utilized film and game music in the soundtrack for achieving a cinematic feeling. The play would turn out to be the first of a "trilogy" of audio plays created by me and Antti Lindholm.

2014
As an attempt to create something of a "double-bill feature", I and master Lindholm took the midnight train and presented the audience of nightcrawlers two adult-oriented "B-movie" shows. The night would begin with an episode of the middle installment of our "audio play trilogy", the highly controversial sexadventure Don Julio & Pepe: Conquest of Paradise. You can find it on YouTube, but be aware that the material is intentionally provoking and tasteless, also NSFW. We apologize nothing. Following our ridicule was my Christopher Leeish reading of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories with the show Calling Cthulhu. Don Julio & Pepe won the award for Best Jingle.

2015
If Codename: Dawn Breaker was essentially my creation and Don Julio & Pepe our both, the third installment, The Serling Effect, was rightfully the mind-child of Antti. As a homage to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, The Serling Effect told six individual episodes of mystery. Four of the episodes were penned by guest authors, with Antti and I adapting them into our narration-less format. Two of the episodes were in English, the rest in Finnish. Unfortunately, both of us were overwhelmed by work and as a result the series is uneven with both well and not-so-well executed episodes. It's a bit ironic that Don Julio & Pepe is the best of the trilogy, and it's so immoral that we can hardly enter it in our showcase.

To be continued...