I wanted to maintain a form of impartiality within the piece, which I aimed to achieve via the way my scripts were read: maintaining an observational tone, as though the narrators were having a rational, intelligent or dispassioned debate with the listener.
The piece is meant to play like a dialogue, whilst lacking an opportunity for response or contemplation through the constant flood of whispers and talking, such that it feels like there is no time for a change of heart or action in both its immediacy and its link with the past.
To reflect this, I gave my two volunteers (Ross Deeley and Liana Obradovic) a set of instructions to follow while reading their respective scripts. The instructions ensured that the texts were read calmly and evenly without great variation in emphasis or tone, and also helped maintain consistency between the different audios, despite them being provided by three different narrators (myself included).
The exact instructions I provided are below.
Please read slowly and pause briefly between sentences.
Just read it straight as if you were giving a presentation, there's no particular need to dramatise it (but not monotone).
If you could please do two recordings, one of you reading it normally and as above, and another of you whispering the whole script (audibly).
Please record it/send it to me in a format I can export the audio from (e.g. Mp3, .wav, Mp4, etc.).
Ignore any 'editing directions', those are for me.