Evaluation

1. Evaluation Zoe Nightingale

2. Conventions of Radio 4 Drama • Middle-class audience and voice actors • Most of my actors had middle-class accents. The one who didn’t, Scorcher, was possessed by a demonic spirit. I think this is very BBC! • Magical realism • This isn’t necessarily a recurring theme, but the BBC does seem to have a penchant for magical realism and fantasy, like Dr. Who. In radio it is perhaps less popular (as it may be difficult for a distracted listener to keep up) but some examples include ElvenQuest, Only You Can Save Mankind and Ruth Rendell Stories. • Fun fact: Ruth Rendell wrote a story called ‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ which was ‘Bulletproof’s original title. • Calm, suburban drama • None of my conflict scenes are particularly heavy, loud or aggressive. This is a convention of radio 4, and its programmes, that I have followed.

3. Conventions and Signs Casting and Convention: • The actors’ middle-class accents conform to a normal Radio 4 production and would relate to the audience. Verbal Codes: • During the final scene, my actors’ voices broke and cracked through the emotional speeches, representing to the audience a familiar sound that connotes grief. • Gabriel’s elision: “y’alright?” signifies a degree of familiarity, and it could also be a sociolect or dialect matter.

4. Codes • The action code could possibly be present in this: • Gabriel: Do you want a drink? • Catherine: I really do. • The idea of really wanting a drink is subtle, but has connotations of being stressed out, celebratory, upset or angry. Catherine in this instance has just said, ‘I’m happy,’ so the combination of these ideas would paint the audience a picture of somebody who has just gone through something difficult, but managed to find happiness in it, and this was my intention. • At the end, Gabriel slowly begins to slur his words. I wanted this to happen so that around the time Catherine realises – “you’re drunk – the audience will realise at the same time, giving them something to relate to and understand. There was, of course, a problem in this, as to some it may appear that he suddenly becomes drunk, but some of his words and sentences beforehand were a little off, or strange, so they would link them together, hopefully, and the sign of slurring words would be the final link in the universal code of being drunk.

5. The Riverside Death Scene • So called because it happens by the river and Gabriel dies in it, the ‘riverside death scene’ has a lot of effects and factors that contribute to its meaning. • Catherine speaks quickly and as if she is about to cry: this is because she has just learned that it is extremely dangerous for her to be around Gabriel … she got the impression that the supernatural forces (that possessed Scorcher) are done playing nice, and she fears for his life. She is trying to leave, but cannot explain why, and this comes across in her tone of voice.

6. The ravens caw occasionally to remind the audience partly that they are outside, and partly to reinforce the idea of being surrounded by ravens. This introduces an intertextual link between the advert and the drama: in the advert Gabriel is surrounded by circling ravens, and in the drama he dies surrounded by them. Birds in fiction are often given such a role, often delivering souls to heaven. The audience will draw connotations and associations from the ravens cawing. • The ‘lunar violin’, or the low, ominous hum behind actions that the spirits seemed to take control over, was present during the moment Gabriel said the fatal words “I would give you my soul” just as they were when Scorcher was possessed and time seemed to stop. This is to put the idea into the listeners’ mind that Gabriel may not have had any control over his words; alternatively it could just be interpreted as an ominous buzz. Either way, it is a subconscious link back to the evil the audience encountered minutes ago.

7. Use of new media in productions The Internet This was a very useful tool for things from research to the actual publication on of my work and ideas on Wordpress.com. Cameras I used a digital camera to take pictures for my advert. I experimented with zooming and with flash on and off.

8. Photoshop CS5 I used my favourite graphic design programme to manipulate my images to create appropriate representation and trigger the right connotations from my audience. A detailed report on how I use Photoshop is in the Advert section of the blog. BBEdit This is simplistic HTML editing software for Mac. I like it because it is effective and easy to navigate. I used this to code my webpage. I also used Microsoft’s Notepad for a small portion of that as well. Microsoft Word I mainly used Word for planning, and accumulating and combining ideas and research for my productions. I prefer its interface to the simpler text editors like TextEdit (Mac) and Notepad (PC). I used it for presenting how I used Photoshop.

9. Microphone I used both a microphone and a digital sound recorder, and the recording function on my laptop to record dialogue and sound effects for my radio drama. In some circumstances I actually wanted the grainier quality from the microphone, whereas for the dialogue I wanted it to be as clear as possible. GarageBand My programme of choice for editing, recording and revising my radio drama. I enjoyed using this software a lot as it was not overly complicated and got me the results I wanted.

10. Combination of main text and ancillary texts I hoped that each text would relate to one another well, creating a form of synergy. The advert and the webpage are the most obviously interlinked as they are visually-based; both finding their meaning in the juxtaposition of white and black, but even more in the greys and inhuman purples in between. This represents the idea that is shown in my extract, that not everything is black and white, and contrast doesn’t have to be ugly: one of the themes of my protagonists’ romance and therefore plot.

11. Finally, as I touched on earlier, the ravens encircling Gabriel in the advert are linked to the ravens who caw loudly during Gabriel’s fatal final words. It should present to the audience the idea that ravens have a sort of mystical power and are interlinked with death, souls and the afterlife. There are myths that show birds as being entrusted with carrying souls to the afterlife. They are also sometimes synonymous with freedom. “Free as a bird.” This link is relatively subconscious and omnipresent, I think, and I like it.

12. Understanding the importance of audience feedback I asked a few people what they thought of my extract, and got some helpful ideas that contributed to my final project. The actor playing Gabriel suggested there be no other ‘apparitions’ in the Scorcher scene other than the mother, and I had to agree that this would make more sense, and be less crowded generally. Another person I tested it on in its early stages suggested there be some sort of noise indicating that they had left the club, rather than just fading the voices and music, so I added in a slamming door to connote urgency and a more explicit transition from one place to another.