Season 2, Episode 12
SOUND OF HOSPITAL PAGING VOICE (FILTERED, IN BACKGROUND)
JOSEPH
(stretching) Oh it's been a long night. The nurses say there's been no change. I think I'll go down the hall and get some of that awful coffee. Do you want some Miranda?
MIRANDA
Oh no thank you, Mr. Calvin. I never know whether that stuff makes me feel better or worse.
JOSEPH
I know what you mean.
MIRANDA
Mr. Calvin, do you think he'll have to be put back into that pressure chamber again?
JOSEPH
I really don't know Miranda. I don't completely understand the bends. But I do know that putting the body back under the kind of pressure it was experiencing underwater can give it a chance to adjust properly.
MIRANDA
I was reading this book a couple of hours ago.
JOSEPH
Let's see that. Where was I.. I must have dozed off for a while.
MIRANDA
Yeah I think you did. Anyway since Zack didn't have time to decompress..
JOSEPH
(interrupting) Oh, Miranda, there's the doctor..I want to catch him.
We begin this episode in a hospital.
Season 2 began with a lead character Zackery Calvin having been caught at the edges of an underwater explosion. As a commercial diver, he was trained and experienced, but when his suit was damaged at depth, and he had to surface too quickly, he was left with a condition called “the bends.”
This serious condition—also known as Decompression Syndromes—occurs when dissolved gases come out of solution in the bloodstream, forming gas bubbles in the circulation. It’s caused by a rapid change in pressure during diving. Symptoms include joint pains, fatigue, or numbness of the legs or arms, even paralysis. Zackery is a commercial diver, not a SCUBA diver, meaning he’s using different equipment designed to keep commercial divers safer during long work sessions at depth. However, in this case, the explosion causes equipment failure, leaving him vulnerable to this condition.
So, how do you portray—using only sound—an accident that happens underwater, where sound is transmitted in such a different way. How do you performances and sound effects to paint a clear visual picture? What we did with the scenes in this technically challenging storyline was to “show” the explosion both from the surface, and from the site of the mishap on the ocean floor. At the surface, we used a fairly standard-sounding explosion as a background layer, they we added a complex array of clanking metal in the foreground to indicate shifting of the oil platform’s metal plating and other flying debris. Meanwhile, our actors—Dave Krebs playing Ron, the dive master on the rig, and Colby Chester playing Zack Calvin underwater—had to progress through three pages of dialogue that began with routine safety checks and moment-by-moment job-site reporting, to increased tension as Zack began to notice a problem, to his in-helmet-filtered-via-radio screams as the explosion shoved him through the heavy force-field-of-water, separated him from his air supply, and ripped his protective suit.
And it was Dave Krebs, in his double-duty role as foley (sound effects) artist who created everything from the topside clanking to the glub-glub of bubbles that accentuated Colby’s performance as Zack struggles to survive the accident. I believe the succession of scenes we created in this storyline are one reason Mlford-Haven USA won an award at the New York Festivals, the equivalent of the Oscars for radio broadcast programs. I was beyond thrilled with how my professional team brought my script to life!
Once Zack is plucked from the water at the surface, it’s clear he’s suffering tremendous pain, and a helicopter flies to the rig to airlift him to the nearest hospital. But if you think the “fireworks” were over, think again! In true soap-opera style, another drama unfolds in the hospital corridors when the two women Zack has been dating meet outside his room, Miranda and Cynthia each discovering for the first time that she is not his exclusive love. Oh dear, poor Mr. Calvin, senior . . . Zack’s worried father, left to come between two cats whose claws are now out! And poor Miranda has walked right into . . . the Trap.
Other storylines include Sally, who has reported Jack Sawyer’s scofflaw behavior to the Environmental Planning Commission; and Jack, who has hired his assistant Kevin to keep an eye on Samantha, who is trying to find the son she gave up for adoption, whom Jack has recently discovered is his own son, too. Are we in soap-opera land yet? To find out . . . tune in!
So now . . join us for Season 2 by downloading the episode or subscribing to Season 2, tune in to your favorite device, and join us in . . . Milford-Haven!
By the way, if you missed Season 1, it is now available at _____