Solo Radio Project (The Cat In The Hat)

Transcript Key:

*SFX*

Voice Techniques

(Vocal Prompts)

The Cat in The Hat

Who? The target audience of this piece was obvious from the start, this piece is aimed at young audiences, so the energy of this piece needs to match theirs, which is why this piece challenges my vocal techniques of all three, purely for the fact that if the piece isn't fun and silly, then the young audience will not be engaged.

What? The piece is taken from the famous children's book "The Cat In The Hat", by Dr Zeus, the extract I have taken is from the first chapter, and its a lot of setting the scene, and introducing characters.

Where? This piece is set in the young boys house.

Why? I chose this piece as the variation of vocal techniques I need to use are challenging, but this also makes it differ from the other piece, which is why it fits perfectly in my transcript alongside the other texts.  

Voices:

The Narrator:

Deep tone with clear diction. I want it to sound as if he could describe every detail, he should have a raspy tone to his voice kind of like the dramatic trailer voice over. But light, kind of like the narrator from the new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The Boy: Higher pitch, his diction will be average and the will be a tone of boredom to his lines.

The Cat: The Cat has a deep tone to his voice, that frequently spirals out of control into higher pitches, its slightly psychedelic.

The Fish: Raspy high pitch tone, with a fast paced moaning noise.

SPEECH:

*Rain can be faintly heard in the background* (28 Seconds)

The sun did not shine. it was too wet to play. so we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day.

I sat there with sally. we sat there, we two. and i said, 'how i wish we had something to do!' too wet to go out and too cold to play ball.

(Bored Tone, slowing the words, like whining)

*The Sound of a ball bouncing* (2 Seconds)

so we sat in the house. we did nothing at all.

so all we could do was to sit! sit! sit! sit! and we did not like it. not one little bit. and then something went BUMP!

*The Sound of a bump* (One Bump)

how that bump made us jump! we looked! then we saw him step in on the mat! we looked! and we saw him! the cat in the hat!

(Excited, Pace quickens, pitch high, lines sharp)

And he said to us, 'why do you sit there like that?' 'i know it is wet and the sun is not sunny. but we can have lots of good fun that is funny!' 'i know some good games we could play,' said the cat. 'i know some new tricks,' said the cat in the hat. 'a lot of good tricks. i will show them to you. your mother will not mind at all if i do.' then sally and i did not know what to say. our mother was out of the house for the day.

But our fish said, 'no! no! make that cat go away! tell that cat in the hat you do NOT want to play. he should not be here. he should not be about. he should not be here when your mother is out!'

(Telling of the character, Loud, high pitch tone.)

*Swishing of water is heard* (3 Seconds)

'now! now! have no fear. have no fear!' said the cat. 'my tricks are not bad,' said the cat in the hat. 'why, we can have lots of good fun, if you wish, with a game that i call up-up-up with a fish!'

(pitch gets higher on each up)

*Swishing of water* (3 Seconds)

The Narrator:  I had chosen these aspects because it distinguishes the characters from the narrator easily, which is important because the switches between them a quick and pacey, the diction is important as the narrator as he is describing the action. I wanted him to have a dramatic edge to his voice because, all the characters are meant to be drastically different from one another, to make it quite quirky and bouncy.

The Boy: The boy's tone it's self is pretty self explanatory, it had to be high so that listeners could tell who he was just by the sound of his voice, now his energy has to be high because he is a child but his diction is interfered with boredom, so the things he'll say will be a little whinny and so strong diction isn't a must for this character.

The Cat: The Cat In The Hat, needed to have the weirdest and wackiest voice, it's got to be something the target audience can remember, as he is after all the main character, so what I have done is played with the pitch and tone and instead of constantly being at one level, I use my vocal folds to create different levels.

The Fish: In my opinion the fish has to have a funny voice, because it will make the audience laugh as they wouldn't expect a normal household gold fish to sound like that, so I've gone for a high pitch voice as they are small animals, with a quick pace to his lines, because it is almost like he is telling of the kids and the cat all the time.