It’s going to be better tomorrow

Nowadays, more and more people are affected by depression. Although this issue is receiving increasing public attention, it is often evident just how difficult it is for those not affected to understand this illness. Whilst the symptoms are frequently addressed in popular culture, they are rarely explored through the lens of a fictional narrative. We therefore want to fill this gap and have produced a fictional, immersive radio play.

The aim of this production was to use immersive techniques to help outsiders grasp the emotional world of a person experiencing depressive symptoms. We want to offer the opportunity to step into the mind of a person affected by depression, thereby giving people not affected the space to empathise.

In our radio play, we depict a fictional therapy session. The patient, Nina Thiele, tells her therapist, Jochen Hess, about various everyday situations that are made more difficult by her depression. The session explores ordinary everyday scenarios, such as getting up in the morning, doing the washing or going shopping. However, these seemingly ordinary situations are too much for Nina Thiele to cope with; she talks about being unable to get out of bed, having no energy to do the washing, or feeling overwhelmed when shopping. The situations she describes are portrayed in a dramatised scene.

The role of Nina Thiele was voiced by Romy Sukiennik. Romy also voiced Nina Thiele’s inner voices, which convey her thoughts. These inner voices were very important to us in terms of content, as we sought to make the inner world of a person with depression audible. The therapist was voiced by Aron Elias Eichhorn.

The voice recordings took place at the Media Campus in Dieburg. We used the anechoic chamber for the inner voices to create a strong sense of intimacy between the speaker and the listeners, and the radio studio for the therapy session.

In the sound design, we worked with various effects to illustrate the patient’s sense of being overwhelmed whilst shopping, doing the washing and trying to get up. Just like the sound design, the music also reinforces the patient’s emotions. At certain moments, however, this music also suggests a way out of this situation. This way out was very important to us in order to show that even in such a situation there is room for hope, as the therapist Jochen Hess so beautifully puts it at the end of the radio play:

“I see a way forward for all. And because you can’t see yours just yet, I’ll help you find it.”

This production was mixed using the Envelop for Live Plugin Suite, which enables creative and technically high-quality work in binaural and other 3D formats. This plugin suite is free of charge and, in addition to decoders, encoders and panners, features creative reverb and delay effects.

The radio play can be listened to on SoundCloud. We recommend using headphones, as this is the only way to fully experience the effect of binaural 3D audio. The link can be found below.

We welcome any questions and feedback! Please email us at: hoerspiel@vincentruhl.com

Listen to the radio play on SoundCloud now (headphones required)