From the blog

Turn off the lights and I'll glow

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Science Brian in Science Leave a comment

The sun isn’t a tidy sphere. If you go a little closer, you’ll see it looks a bit… fuzzy. Its plasma doesn’t sit as a smooth surface; it’s a roiling sea, throwing itself high above the sun, responding to magnetic fields that would tower many times over our entire planet in a way that would make any sane person feel very tiny indeed. So best not to think about the scale of it too much. We get enough existential panic from the possibility of a Michael Bay remake of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Some of this plasma gets enough of a kick to leave the pull of the Sun altogether, and it heads out into the universe. It’s barely there – just some electrons and protons held together by the merest hint of a magnetic field. But it’s there. After about 18 hours, if it’s lucky, it’ll hit the Earth. Now, it might have whizzed passed Mercury and Venus, but the Earth is slightly different – we have a magnetosphere.

Editing Episode 10 - When the Boat Comes In

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Producer Dan in The making of... Leave a comment

Growing up in the north-east of England, it was impossible to remain unware of the region’s industrial heritage. In particular, shipbuilding on the Tyne has a distinguished 800-year history. As a child of the 1970s and 80s, however, it was also impossible to ignore the decline in shipbuilding – indeed, in all forms of manufacturing industry – in northern England at that time. Unemployment rose, and once-busy docks and slipways fell into disuse, lending a melancholy air to the river, and a sense of dispair to the region as a whole.

Since then there has been massive regeneration. Like similar areas in cities such as Sheffield and Birmingham, Newcastle’s Quayside has been transformed into a centre for arts and culture, as well as new housing developments.

So what does all this have to do with Editing Episode 10? Well… not much. But after 10 episodes, I’m rather running out of things to talk about.

The Anatomy of an AST Script

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Action Dan in The making of... Leave a comment

As runners of a moderately successful free audio drama, people often ask us what the hell we’re doing in the garden, and threaten to call the police. But we’ve stopped garden dipping recently, and have instead spent more time on our scripts.

You spend hours working on a script, and it ends up like this.

So, how do we do it? Well, we’d recommend Celtx – it’s free! And it does all the formatting for you. Which is good for us because we’re quite lazy. So that’s the tool, what about the constituent parts? The anatomy, if you will, of an AST script?

Let me take you through it:

Title

My favourite part of the whole thing. A great place to stick in a pun, play on words or, better still, something that is almost a pun or play on words but actually isn’t. Nothing like confusing the minds of a select group of the population. And you are a select group aren’t you? Of course you are. Look at you, sitting there. Reading this. Probably eating something sticky. Don’t let other people judge you. We don’t judge you. We think you rock. Have another one, handsome.

Our place in the Universe

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Science Brian in Science Leave a comment

So any time there’s a transit of Venus, everybody gets excited. Astronomers go on special trips, physicists prepare sensitive equipment…okay, not *everybody* gets excited, but a lot of scientists do.

But what is so exciting about it?

Well, for a start, it was how we first worked out where we are.

Editing Episode 9 - More Cable

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Producer Dan in The making of... Leave a comment

Why yes, I would like to borrow your
Zoom H4n Handy Recorder

At the end of last month’s thrilling instalment, you may recall that the heretofore reliable AST technology had undergone catastrophic working-properlyness failure. Episode 8 was eventually rescued by a man on a motorbike, but we couldn’t rely on that happening every time. So, I had to find a way to make sure that we could get safely through Episode 9. For reasons that now escape me, the first step involved inviting Action Dan and Science Brian to my house and feeding them steak and chips.

Seriously – I’ve got to work out what they’re putting in my water.

See all blog posts

Action Science Theatre is...

Latest Podcasts