Radio listings

This is my radio listings page, my 2nd ancillary task. I think it went well and I included my radio drama as pick of the day in order for it to stand out.

Evaluation; Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience for our radio drama is 16- 30 year olds, so young people, mainly female. We would expect the audience to be a passive one that enjoys soap opera style dramas. The audience is fairly specific for our drama which would maybe make it difficult to maintain listeners because our audience are probably more inconsistent listeners. It would be likely that we would have to rely on the older people from our target audience because many teenagers don't listen to much radio. Many 25- 30 year olds listen to radio and I expect they would be interested in our drama.

However, with the right advertising campaigns it is likely that it would gain more younger listeners, if it was played through BBCi player on the internet and via other sites such as you tube in a video format with an image, aswell as in cars. Many young people drive and work late and it is possible that they would listen to the drama whilst driving home.

Despite the drama having an, obviously small audience I think there is room to expand it and dramas like these can change peoples opinions on radio.

Evaluation; What kind of institution would distribute your product and why?

I expect that BBC radio 4 would host our radio drama because they're well known for broadcasting dramas. My second choice would have been BBC Radio 2 but I think BBC Radio 4 is the safer bet. Our radio drama would appeal to a relatively specific audience which does limit the institutions that would distribute our drama. I think it would gain more interest from television institutions if it was made as a TV series because you could make it very visual that way and we would get a bigger audience because the audience we are aiming our radio drama at is a younger audience. People from this particular audience are more prone to watching television than listening to dramas therefore If it was successful as a radio drama I think it would make a very successful television drama on Channel 4 or ITV.

Evaluation; How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents 'teenagers', it is aimed at a young audience and is acted by a young audience. We kind of follow the social group that 'Skins' go under apart from our drama is abit more serious than that. I realise that radio as a media format is listened to mainly by an older generation so our listeners would be slightly older than our target audience, realistically. I expect that our audience will be mid 20's but we may be able to gain a younger audience if it is played on the internet.

Evaluation; In what ways does your media product challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our radio drama follows the conventions of a radio drama; it had a theme tune, it has only a few characters and settings so that it doesn't confuse people, it tackles issues that you would expect to hear in everyday life, it uses sound effects to emphasize and dramatize the situation.

We also challenge the conventions of radio drama because we don't use narration, many radio dramas use narration to introduce the characters and setting but we felt that you could learn enough about the characters without narration and this also added to the mystery. We have a monologue which you wouldn't usually find in a radio drama but we felt it was neccessary to build tension.

Evaluation; How did you use Media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

I used media technologies at every stage of my coursework, at times I have enjoyed it but at times I have found it challenging. After a year and a half of practice I think I have perfected my use of Photoshop and In Design which I now enjoy using as a pose to this time last year where I hated them both...alot. I found the radio suite easy to use, we had no major problems and it all ran rather smoothly. I used programmes I have never used before such as soundtrack pro and Audio Hijack Pro and I was lucky to have Jess in my group who seemed to pick this up very quickly and she got on with the editing of the recording whilst I looked around for sound effects that I thought would work well; we then discussed this and started applying them to the radio drama until we had our finished product.

Later on for the ancillary texts, we used digital photgraphy because we needed to have our own photo for the front of our poster. We took a lot of photos and I eventually came out with one I liked. I did well in photoshop this year when in other years I have struggled with it. It didn't take me much longer than 2 hours to complete my radio poster using photoshop and In design. The radio listing double page spread went well aswell but was very time consuming.

Evaluation; How important is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For this task we were aked to create a poster advertising our radio drama, I enjoyed this and thought it was a nice addition to our work to really make it our own.

The combination between the ancillary texts and the drama is vital; without advertisement it would fail like many radio shows in the past. Publicity is important for people to even want to listen to it so the poster has to draw listeners in straight away, then they see 'Listen' as the Pick of the day in the Radio listings and it becomes almost inevitable that people would give it a go.

Then we had to make a radio listings double page spread where we had to fit our own drama into it. This, metaphorically speaking, if this was the proper industry would be a very important advertisement. To be on pick of the day it would be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people and 'pick of the day' almost acts as a review and effectively says 'Listen to this!'

Research and Planning; Silence

We used silence to separate scenes, to signify hesitations and pauses like in this scene where Roxy is scared to tell Belle what happened;

Belle: Roxy’s what’s happened?
Roxy: It’s, It’s (she hesitates) Its nothing, don’t worry.
Belle: Oh come on Rox, you have to tell me now
Roxy: No, its ok, it was just about work next week but nothing important…How is Max?

We used elipses as a cue for Emmy when she played Roxy so she knew to pause before she changed the subject. Also the part parenthisised at the top suggests to Emmy to take a brief pause after the hesitation before she carries on.

Then at the end we have this to show the end of the radio drama which includes a sudden silence before the music comes on;

Belle: No Roxy don’t…Noooooooo…
(sirens, long horn sounds, tyres screeching, Belle Screaming, people gasping)
( sudden silence, siren fades out)

Research and Planning; Music

Music wasn't as influential to our radio drama as the sound effects however there is one particular scene which combines, good use of voice and music to create a perfect emotive piece. I am going to use this one as an example again like I did for 'Voice' but this time with the music included;

MONOLOGUE WITH BEYONCE TRACK



I think this is used well to create abit of mood for this reading because it would sound silly using other sound effects whilst Belle (Emmy) is reading. The sound clip is taken from Beyonce's 'shut up and drive' and I think it works well for this scene even though I very much doubt it would in any other part of the radio drama. Here is the clip without the music;

MONOLOGE WITHOUT BEYONCE TRACK

Research and Planning; Voice

We wanted the drama to sound realistic and a major part of this was going to be through our voices, in a way I feel this let us down a little because at times we sounded like we were acting, this is suggested from the audience feedback we obtained. The scenes were dramatic and about belle being raped and considering suicide therefore we had to show emotion, anger, love and hate in quite close proximity. The best examples of that is either when Belle (Emmy) and Roxy (Steph) scream at the end after a long emotional chat in the Suicide Bit or when Belle (Emmy) reads out the suicide note; this shows how upset she is;

SUICIDE BIT WITH NO EFFECTS



MONOLOGUE WITHOUT BEYONCE TRACK



I chose these two, without sound effects to showcase how important the voices are to these scenes and because I think they capture the emotion the best.

Research and Planning; Sound effects

Sound effects were very important to our radio drama. Quite simply it wouldn't be a drama without them. If you look at some of our sound clips, the ones without the sound effects you will notice the huge drop in tension. We put our sound effects on via soundtrack pro when we finished recording our radio drama, this was a long phase but it was hugely successful and we were very happy with the sound effects we had used. We then used Audio Hijack Pro on the MAC to download more effects from the internet so that we could choos from a wider range.

These are some clips that we used, one is without sound effects and one includes sound effects;

SUICIDE BIT WITH NO EFFECTS


SUICIDE BIT WITH ALL SOUND EFFECTS


As you can see the one with sound effects is far more effective than the one without and is much more dramatic.

We did the same here but this time in a slightly different context, this time the sound effects are used more to just create atmosphere and not make the place sound dull and empty which you should notice in the clip without sound effects;

HORT CLIP WITH FOOTSTEPS AND RAIN




SHORT CLIP WITH FOOTSTEPS

Research and Planning; comparing genre with alternative media formats

Writing for radio is obviously similar to writing for Television/film; the only thing that differs is how you get across to the audience what you want to. With television you would script the action, with radio you have to be a lot more elaborate about the sound effects. You need to make the sounds louder and more clear than they realistically would be in order to allow the audience to understand what is happening.

LISTEN - FINAL RECORDING

Research and Planning; Radio drama as a form

Radio drama is a form that became popular in the 1920s which was the same decade as it's introduction to the radio. It became inceasingly so in the 1940s.
Radio Drama was made as an interpretation of life, it is realistic, yet unrealistic at the same time. It takes things that happen in everyday life, things that are maybe taboo, that don't actually happen very often and it turns them into something that happens alot. This makes listeners interested because it allows them to escape from aspects of their own life or understand aspects of another person, they may know or have heard of; this is 'escapism'.

What makes it dramatic?
It can be anything, a twist in the plot that is unexpected and makes the audience feel tense or uncomfortable. Radio drama's as a form generally tackle issues such as 'murder', 'rape', 'drugs' but do it in a lighter way than a thriller or a horror would. Sometimes they include lighter topics such as 'love', 'sex', 'affairs', 'getting burgled', 'house burning down' but whatever the twist, the notion is that it should have the listener on the edge of their seat.

Obviously Radio Drama cannot use the same techniques as television to create dramatic sequences because obviously there is no image of any kind. Radio relies on sound effects, voices, silences and music to create dramatic parts. Creeking of doors or floorboards, low, unfriendly voices, long silences with only a few sound effects in and low, slow paced music can all be used to create drama through radio. This is just a general stereotype of radio drama sound effects.

Evaluation; Audience Feedback

We got some good feedback, some bad, more constructive than bad. The comments were positive towards the plot, script and sound effects, however they were less so towards the acting. 20 out of 20 people that were asked said that they liked the sound effects, the plot or/and the script.

The acting was negatively reviewed, a few people also picked up on the sound levels being too low and at times it was unclear because of this. The other fault was a random big bang at the end that we are unsure about ourselves and we would definitely look at sorting that out if we were to redo our radio drama.

Weekly Log 11

In week 11 I started to create my poster. I finished adapting my image in photoshop and placed it in my poster. I struggled for inspiration at the beginning but once I got started I think my poster looked relatively proffessional. I kept it to a limited colour scheme with mainly black and white to make it look dramatic but added a bit of pink to stand out and make it look different and eyecatching.

Weekly Log 10

Week 10
In week 10 me and my group took photos which we could use for out radio drama poster. We took about 60 in total then all chose very similar one's without noticing. I enjoyed this lesson, we organised ourselves into different positions, situations and took relevant photos portraying the emotions we wanted each character to do. This was difficult at first but we all settled into our roles and finally came out with 5 or 6 really good photographs that could be used for our posters. I chose the photo I wanted, uploaded it to the computer and then started to adapt it in photoshop.

Weekly Log 9

Week 9
In week 9 we listened to other peoples radio dramas. Ours turned out pretty well. Ours showed a few weaknesses. The acting wasn't amazing, the phone dial sound effect wasn't brilliant and gets a bit annoying and there is a big bang at the end of the broadcast which none of us are aware of where it came from. What I liked about it however was the final music, sound effect collaboration that is used to introduce and at the end of the drama which I think worked very well. The script was not bad, the conversational style definitely came across and I think if that was on the radio, with a few minor adaptions people would listen to it.

Weekly Log 8

In week 8 we made finishing touches to our drama. I was in Los Angeles for most of this week on a Media residential so missed some of the sound effect changes.

Radio Drama Poster

This is my radio Drama poster

I chose this photo out of about 40 that we took because I felt it captured the sincerity of the drama. Simon, on the left is posing as Joe; he is Belle's boyfriend who is played by Emmy and is hugging him in the photo. On the other side is Belle played by Jess who is in love with Max played by me. My face is sincere as I am supposed to be playing a rapist.

I chose to darken the photo and put it in a kind of sketchy style because that way it portrays what we want it to as I mentioned above.

I have used a big bold title for my poster so that people are aware of the name, it stands out but doesn't look tacky and keeps up with the dark colour scheme.

I didn't want to overload the poster with too much information, only what is neccessary. What? Radio Drama called 'LISTEN'. When? Every Thursday at 8.00pm where? BBC Radio 4 Why? Because the reviews tell you to listen.

I included a bar of colour at the bottom because it contradicts the rest of the poster and may represent mystery or that it is not all bad, something good does happen. I was originally going to put some text in the colour bar but I decided it would look like I've tried to hard to get parts to stand out and will take away the mystery of the drama. I knew it needed abit of colour but without doing to much and I thought, abit of pink (Bright colour) will work a treat.

I have included the names on the top of the screen because none of them are well known and therefore don't merit big splash headlines because no one will recognise them, infact it would take away the sincerity if they did.

I have included reviews because it is important that the listener is provided with relevant feedback. If the audience see's a trustworthy source or someone/a newspaper that they like giving a good review it is more likely that they will listen. I also wrote a very small sentence to let the audience know that it is new and exclusive to the channel which is also there to attract attention.

I have included the radio channels logo because it is easily recognisable and have added extra information with the bandwidth and the web address to the left.

Research and Planning; Radio as a medium

There was alot of notable inventions and activity that led to the invention of radio; the telegraph and the telegram were probably the most important of these along with physicists and inventors that predicted the existence of radio waves but it wasn’t until 1901 when an Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio signal, he sent it over the atlantic after 2 years it was replied to. Then, a further 20 years later in the 1920s, radio started being developed and being used for the purpose of entertainment. It gained huge popularity and reached its peak in the 1940s when it was, before the invention of television in the 1950s one of the biggest entertainment forms.


In 1912 the Titanic sank, while it was in bad times it contacted other ships using wireless. After this, wireless telegraphy using spark-gap transmitters quickly became universal on large ships. The Radio Act of 1912 required all seafaring vessels to maintain 24-hour radio watch and keep in contact with nearby ships and coastal radio stations.

In 1916 the first regular broadcasts on 9XM (WHA) on Wisconsin weather updates, these were delivered in Morse Code.

1919 brought the first clear transmission of human speech on 9XM after voice and music experiments the years before.

In 1920 the regular wireless broadcasts for entertainment started in Argentina by a group called Enrique Telemaco Susini.

In 1922 Radio broadcasts were made in Chelmsford on the AM frequency. The BBC was started with help from the Post Office and other manafacturers. Daily broadcasts also began from a London radio station 2LO.

In 1933 FM Radio was patented; Edwin H. Armstrong invented it. FM uses frequency modulation of the radio wave to minimize static and interference from electrical equipment and the atmosphere, in the audio program.

In the 1950's Radio was weakened as an entertainment form due to the introduction of television, however it was still listened to by many, many that couldn't afford televisions. Since then, radio has differed in popularity at times.

In 1960 Sony introduced their first transistorized radio, small enough to fit in a vest pocket, and able to be powered by a small battery. It was durable, because there were no tubes to burn out. Over the next twenty years, transistors displaced tubes almost completely except for very high power, or very high frequency, uses.

Nowadays radio is mainly listened to by people who are travelling in cars or want to hear some news quickly whilst they are getting ready, not quite like it used to be when people sat down with a view to listening to the radio. Obviously it still happens, mainly amongst the older generations who are less technically advanced.

Although most people in the modern era use radio mainly for music and news some people, generally adults listen to different genres of radio which is important for radio's vital link with television, it acts as a survey if you like. Many radio drama's, thriller's etc start out on the radio because there is less room for fault, it's cheaper to produce and there is less of an audience; when they gain popularity, if they do then they make it to the big screen like Clitheroe Kid, 1957 did and Little Britain, 2003.

Research and Planning: Styles

Styles
We wanted our radio drama to be related to teenagers, therefore we had to make a generalization of teenagers, what they would find interesting and what would happen stereotypically in a drama about teenagers. The audience for a drama about teenagers is only really teenagers so we have a limited audience. We gained inspiration from current television drama's Skins and Shameless which are very big amongst young people however you don't really come across radio drama's made for teenagers so we thought we'd make one.

We looked at styles of radio drama; 'killing me softly' touches on subjects we use in our radio drama about passionate and dangerous love affairs but it is more of a thriller than a drama, 'we need to talk about Kevin' is again vaguely related to what we wanted to do with our drama but this is based more on the parental story than the teenagers account. We have adopted the Soap opera type style that is conveyed in 'The Archers' and I would say our drama shares more similarities with this than any other radio drama despite the very different audiences; we want to appeal to 16- 30 year olds, 'The Archers' is aimed at 40- 60 year olds.

Research and Planning; Cues and links

Cues and links
Whilst writing our scripts we had to think about how we wanted to fit the intro, scenes and credits together; we had to use transitions and changes in sound to show our previous episode to make it obvious it was separate, we also had to have a sound that signifies the start and end of the show, a theme tune that would make our show instantly recognisable. We used pauses to indicate the end of one scene and begginning of a new one. An example of when we used cues in our drama would be;

Belle: I’ll ring him now to come down for a drink if you like
Cue: 2 seconds (telephone rings)(ringing noise whilst previous music and chatting and clinging continues)
(Max’s voice sounds like it's coming through telephone)
Max: Hey babe, you alright?

The cue here was important for us to know, when recording how long we would need to leave for sound effects to be later added in. We also have a brief description of the situation so that we could act the next part in the right context however it is in brackets to ensure we didn't get confused whilst acting it out.

Weekly Log 7

Week 7
This week we continued to edit with sound effects and then we added non- diegetic music. We added final touches and made sure that it was ready to present as our final piece.

Weekly Log 6

Week 6
We made good progress with our editing in this week. We put in extra time outside of lesson to finish this aspect. Jess did most of the cutting parts out to put other parts in whilst I tried to find sound effects that would work with our production.

Weekly Log 5

Week 5
To my surprise I think this part ran much more smoothly than expected. Most of the outtakes were my fault if I’m honest but we got there in the end and finished it in one lesson. I think this was because we were more organised than we thought we were.

weekly Log 4

Week 4
We made slow progress with the script in this week; we found it hard to find a time where we were all their due to illnesses/holidays/university open days therefore we wrote very little, however the script did start to take shape and we were editing it to try and get it to fit the 5-6 minute slot we were given. We added the sound effects to the script so that we could set cues and links for when we were recording our radio drama.

Weekly Log 3

Week 3
This week we rewrote again and again, mainly because parts I wrote weren’t feminine enough and didn’t capture the gossipy style the girls wanted the female characters to be e.g. ‘hi babe’ was changed to ‘hey babe’ and then what the girls wrote for the male characters, I felt and Kieren who acted in our radio drama agreed it was not what a male would say. The use of the word ‘babe’ we felt was used too frequently from a male viewpoint. Even at this stage, Jess took a leading role in our group which everyone else was happy for her to do; it was a healthy decision because it allowed everyone to make a contribution and challenge decisions but also saved arguing more than we needed to because Jess was more decisive.

Weekly Log 2

Week 2
We finished the plan before starting the script was also a slow process; we had good ideas but putting it in to writing proved more difficult and the hardest part was knowing we had to cut it to 5 minutes of footage. We drafted a few times in this week.