Among the comic books recorded by Sound Tropez are such hits as Thorgal, Kajko and Kokosz, Conan the Barbarian, The Witcher: House of Glass, Funky Koval, and The Walking Dead.

 “The Walking Dead was the first title we worked on. Actually, we thought the basis of the series was a book, but it turned out to be a comic book. After a short period of hesitation, we decided to convert it to a fully-fledged audio play complete with actors, music, background and action sound,” says Michał Szolc.

It turned out that to register some of the sounds surrounding the zombies in the comic book, unusual items  proved indispensable for the recording studio, such as: celery and leek, the breaking of which successfully imitated the breaking of extremities; or cabbage that was sliced with an axe when a skull-ripped-open sound was needed.

 “We provide people with multifaceted entertainment, comparable with watching a good, emotionally intense, film,” says Michał Szolc.

Eminent Polish artists take part in the recordings of radio plays at the Sound Tropez studio. Among them: Sonia Bohosiewicz, Jacek Rozenek and Jarosław Boberek in Thorgal. Creating an audio play from a comic book takes the Sound Tropez studio about half a year – from the beginning of working on the script, all the way to its montage.

Sound Tropez began expanding to French and Spanish markets. In the upcoming weeks there will be a premiere of The Walking Dead audio play in Germany, which is Europe’s biggest audiobooks market.

Audioteka also bases its business on audiobooks and radio plays. Just like Sound Tropez, it is expanding its reach into global markets. After the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Sweden and Italy the time has come for Spanish-speaking countries – not only Spain, but most of all huge Mexico, Argentina, Chile and other Latin American countries. Audioteka was founded in 2009. Under the extension audioteka.mx, .ar, and .cl, it is winning the hearts of overseas listeners. In 2005, the company entered the Turkish and Brazilian markets.

The business success started with a Narrenturm audio play, based on the book by Andrzej Sapkowski, first part of his Hussite trilogy.

“We invested more in it than we had turnover. With our super-production, we wanted to attract the attention of as many listeners as possible. This utter insanity paid off – it was a milestone in Audioteka’s development,” says Audioteka’s head Marcin Beme. The next production of the company was a 14-episode Święty Chaos (‘Holy Chaos’), based on the book (or rather a multi-novel) by the well-known director Cezary Harasimowicz. “Świety Chaos was the first attempt at creating a narration method for the Internet. Even though the Freemantle company quickly bought the rights to Święty Chaos, I was left with Polish rights, therefore it was possible for me to create a radio play, before the traditional book. Its director was Krzysztof Czeczott, who gathers prizes comparable to radio’s Oscars,”  says Cezary Harasimowicz. He then adds that the novel was brilliantly converted to the language of sounds, because, as the director, he just cannot get rid of certain screenwriting habits.

Big audiobook and radio play productions involving many actors, music, and sound effects, became Auditeka’s quality sign. In later super-productions, it reached for world bestsellers, e.g. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. 130 actors took part in the project, for which Audioteka got a prize –  a Golden Duck. “We recorded a Cockroaches super-production by Jo Nesbo, to which we completely provided sound in Bangkok, where the novel takes place. We sent our production team and a composer Wojciech Mazolewski there” says Marcin Beme. “I believe our super-productions ensured we have new clients and many new, devoted Audioteka fans. Our user base is constantly growing, be it audioteka.pl, audioteka.es or audioteka.de, and in other languages” adds Beme.

ALEKSANDRA STANISŁAWSKA, KAROLINA KOWALSKA