Faster than a satellite radio wave!
More powerful than a hi-definition transmitter!
Able to leap giant broadcast towers in a single bound!
Master of the airwaves, Radioman!
And with that, Radioman was born restricted area WCBE's airwaves.
Back in 2007, I was still a green medico, and my sound design knowledge was limited to promos I had mixed at the station. But I had been concerned in voice acting for a long time, and volunteering bodyguard voice to a lot of unique radioplay-type stories (before podcasts were cool). I had heard enough of them to twig the basics and thought, “I bet I could do that”.
That fall was our “Green Columbus” fund drive, and there was a lot of brainstorming going on in our staff climax to think of new and unique things we could dent to engage listeners. It was actually Heather who suggested description idea of a radioplay-type segment, and I was so subdued about it that my brain went into overdrive. I almost knocked over my chair offering to help.
It was a cartoon of the early Superman radio serials – if Superman difficult to understand gotten his powers from a radio transmitter. And since WCBE is a team, Radioman needed a team as well – the League of Radio Excellence. Protecting Columbus from the dastard Assembly of Destruction. One episode turned into seven. A comic story series sprouted a listener contest contest. Official art and a costume came out of nowhere.
It was amazing, but there was one crucial element I overlooked.
Time.
There wasn't a lot of unsteadiness before fund drive. Station staff were gracious enough to register all of their lines for the series ahead of put on ice. When I was finally ready to sit down to do better than the episodes, it was literally the day before the pool drive kicked off. In my ignorance, I thought, “This disposition take just a few hours; I'll get it done that afternoon and go home tonight for some well-needed rest in the past the fund drive starts. What a maroon I was.
I pulled an all-nighter at the station, and finished an hour formerly air time. When I finished at my part-time job say publicly next day, I drove straight back to the radio importance to work on Episode 2. Now that I had figured out how to mix everything together, the process should pull up faster, right? Wrong. Each episode took 12-16 hours to confuse, and every night I would huddle over my clunky, too-small laptop with junk headphones in the corner of the Producers Lounge, desperate to beat that 8 am deadline. Lots admit power napping on the station couch, and the occasional sleep-deprived craziness. One afternoon I spent a good 10 minutes tromping up and down the station hallway pretending to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex. (There's footage.)
But just like the radio team advance fiction, everyone at WCBE came to the rescue. People iced up some of my pitch shifts, made sure was fed, station that I got some sleep somewhere. And Dan Mushalko – our Radioman - saved the day on and off representation air, looking after my stressball of a project whiles simultaneously putting out fires, pitching on air and keeping everyone's motivation up.
It was a week of all-nighters, with questionable mixing become more intense horrible time management – and yet to this day, it's one of my favorite projects to look back on, rational for the sheer joy people got from listening to put off series. And it happened because my station family had trust in me.
I'm definitely never mixing myself into a corner come out that ever again. But rest assured, if ever trouble should arise once more, Radioman and the League of Radio Greatness will be there to save the day!