Analysis: Radio Drama

1. Analysis:Radio Drama Rebecca Franklin

2. How does your production fit in with the values of radio 4 and its place in British life? • My production fits in with a number of values of BBC Radio 4, such as it has clear representation of social class, is aimed at a specific type of audience and is aimed at a specific age range. • Radio 4’s radio dramas are aimed at middle class white people, so this enabled me to incorporate this into my drama to and still have room to push the boundaries and break conventions of an average radio 4 radio drama. • For example, I had a middle aged white family, but made it contemporary and relevant to a more youthful audience by making references to Cinderella.

3. My target audience should be able to relate to Cindy’s emotional state of vulnerability and wanting to be loved. • Middle class teenage girls are rarely educated about the dangers of grooming, it tends to be seen as a lower class problem and that it doesn’t affect middle and upper class people. However, with the growing interest in the media, I found it an excellent opportunity to educate and warn young girls of the dangerous predators that they face in life.

4. BBC Radio 4’s values allowed me to engage their regular audience as well as my target audience through the use of intertextuality. By making references to Cinderella, Eastenders and a modern tale of deceit, I was able to make the complexities of my story line attractive to both middle class and lower class people.

5. Portrayal of emotion • I successfully portrayed the underlying emotions of a teenage girl who has been left orphaned by her parents. People often expect children to show the usual emotions such as crying, being withdrawn, acting out etc, but people tend to forget about the underlying emotional state of the child. Cindy shows how a child can feel lonely, vulnerable, seek love and a responsible older person in their life to take care of them seeing as their parents are no longer around to do so. • I also successfully portrayed guilt in the Prince when he is confronted by the step sisters. Firstly when he is confronted about his relationship with Cindy’s sister, he is very defensive and gets quite confrontational with Cindy’s sister by calling her names. This shows that he feels guilty and knows he’s in the wrong which is why he is trying to overt attention onto her sister. • Also, when he is confronted by Cindy’s second sister, he gets malicious and threatens her which again shows that he is hiding the fact that he knows he is in the wrong.

6. I also successfully portrayed the feeling of betrayal through Cindy. When she heard the news of what happened from her sister, she immediately assumed she was lying and looked to Prince for reassurance and immediately believed every word that came out of his mouth because she loved him and wanted to be loved and wanted. It’s the feeling of knowing your family are always going to stick with you no matter what but a guy may not because there is no ties.

7. What are Radio 4’s audience issues? • Radio 4 has a variety of issues with their audience members: • Social class; radio 4 quite obviously targets a middle class audience and isn’t broad enough. Lower classes of people may not feel welcome if they were to listen to radio 4 due to the content. However, if they were to hear a modern story line to which they were able to relate, understand and be engaged with, then Radio 4 may be able to get more ratings from a wider variety of social classes. • Age; radio 4 quite clearly aims it’s shows at middle-aged people which limits their ratings and the amount of people that could benefit from the content that they air. That’s why my radio drama is open to a wider range of ages. It relates to all people who have encountered fairytales at some point during their life (which is almost everyone, no matter what nationality, each country has their own versions), and people who like realistic story lines that are exaggerated. It attracts young teens all the way up to middle aged people and beyond, just as they are interested in soap operas on TV. • Race; radio 4 aims directly at white people, which eliminates a large amount of possible audiences seeing as our nation is now widely multicultural. My radio drama, is an easy listening piece which can be enjoyed by a wide range of races as it’s not directed and there are no direct references to races.

8. How does your drama relate in terms of style ideas and language to the audience? • There are no language barriers within my radio drama as all the characters are English. There are a range of different social classes and therefore accents however with in the English characters. I have a lower class cleaner who is cockney, I have the prince who is middle class but who doesn’t necessarily talk poshly or pronounce every letter. I then have the main sister and Cindy who are rather well spoken. So it is easy to follow for a range of audiences. • The style of my radio drama is keeping in the natural conventions of radio 4 as it is in chronological order so it’s incredibly easy to follow the thrilling storyline. • I also have simple sound effects such as church atmosphere, roadside sounds, a church door, and Cindy running out of a church. These sound effects work because the audience are already aware of these sounds and already have schemas for them and what they mean.

9. Reflect on the representation of people • Firstly, the actor playing the Priest in the opening scene was successfully identifiable as not only the dialogue that was said was obvious, but the sincerity in his voice, the clarity and the deep tone. All of these characteristics are associated with priests. This type of character would definitely appeal to radio 4’s original target audience as a priest is a respected member in a community. • Cindy was clearly an upper class teenager as she didn’t speak as a lot of common teenagers would. E.g. Cindy says “Prince, tell me she’s lying”, whereas nowadays a teenager in the street may say “Oi, she’s gassin’ yeah?”. This type of character would appeal to radio 4’s target audience as it shows teenagers acting in an appropriate manner with no swearing or shouting etc but on the other hand, taking everything very maturely but with the events that have happened to her, it would also relate to a contemporary audience too. The actor playing Cindy was extremely successful in portraying the correct emotions through the tone and stressing of specific words. The actor also took direction very well.

10. The actor playing Prince was a very successful one as he had clarity in his voice and also had a deep voice which worked well seeing as he was meant to be an older man. He was really good at portraying the emotions of his character and stressing certain words to get this across to the audience. He took direction extremely well. • The actor playing Lily was a very well spoken and very good at portraying sarcasm etc. that was vital to her role. She was easily directed and really understood the role I wanted her to play. She understood the importance of proxemics as well as vocal tone etc. • The actor playing Amy was less successful as the clustering of words and phrases proved a problem later on in the editing process. Her voice lacked emotion and was very bland. She tended either not to listen or not to understand the direction that was given.

11. Reflect on the representation of places • I was successful in presenting the mise-en-scene of a church wedding as I incorporated the correct priest’s speech as in a real wedding and real church atmosphere. It was difficult to begin with to get the right sound for a church as it is meant to echo and to have an congregation especially when recording but the sound effect on top of the recording proved successful for this. • I was also successful in presenting Cindy running out of the church with footsteps followed by a door and was also successful in presenting the mise-en-scene of a roadside with cars whizzing past, gear changes and wind etc. This would help the reader to believe that it’s actually happening in these places. • I was unsuccessful in presenting the mise-en-scene of a wedding reception being prepped. I failed to incorporate sound effects such as clinking of cutlery etc. which would enable the audience to relate to their schemas of prepping a reception etc.

12. Ideas • I successfully used intertextuality as a form of communicating a message through a medium to my audience. I used the audience’s schema of fairy tales ending happily and turned it upside down to add a more contemporary twist. By using the names “Cindy” and “Prince”, it automatically makes the audience make references to Cinderella and her falling in love with her prince. I also used the basics of Cinderella’s story of loss of her parents to communicate the idea of loneliness and vulnerability.

13. How did you follow, extend of break conventions of a radio play • I successfully followed some main conventions of a radio drama such as Propp’s narrative theory of using characters as functions e.g. Cindy is the maiden in distress and Prince appears to be the person to save her until he turns out to be the villain and her ‘evil’ step sisters turn out to be the Knights etc. • The style of my radio drama fits in with serial drama and soap operas. This makes it attractive and successful as it’s an appreciated style as shown by The Archers which has been airing since the 1950s which makes it the longest running soap. • I successfully broke radio 4’s conventions of a radio drama by making it more open to a wider variety of audience.

14. Reflect on how digital technology has made it possible for you to become producers of media texts. • Digital technology made it possible to do extracts of the recording process in different orders without affecting the final outcome. It was extremely helpful in being able to re-do things with ease by just cutting the bad bits out such as replacing a lined that has been said wrong with a later version. • Corel Paintshop Pro: this programme made the process of editing my photo for my advert much easier as it is easy to use but proved a problem when it kept crashing and not responding. • Recorders & Microphones: The recording machines proved a problem when they constantly ran out of battery and the microphones were often left on for hours by other members of the class which affected their performance. I had my actors talking across the microphones to one another rather than into them so that the sound wasn’t too fake and it wasn’t too loud. • Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0: This was one of the main programmes used during the process of creating my radio drama, it was extremely helpful in editing the good and bad parts of my extract to make it sound more professional and clean. This programme proved to be a problem when it would save a project and then when it opened again, there would be no audio. It meant that it had to be re-imported which wasted production time. • Standard of equipment available: The standard of the equipment available in the school proved a problem with issues such as internet connection, documentations being available and the computers actually working. This proves that in order for a better result, a school needs to invest in better equipment.

15. A reflection on the decisions you made to cut words, cast characters, edit the drama, making and use of sound effects • Cut words: I chose to cut some words and phrases that were unnecessary or that sounded out of place such as in the last scene where Cindy and Lily are talking about what has happened to Cindy, some of the phrases were unnecessary but didn’t affect the story line being understood by the audience. • Casting: the actors that I chose fitted the characters that I created such as I chose Dewi for Cindy because she is a teenage girl that understands the feelings of the character and portrayed them really well when she performed. I chose Joshua for Prince because he could have a deep voice, was comfortable in stressing words and playing the character. I was successful in choosing all my characters apart from Amy. Lisa played Amy and created problems during the recording and editing process due to the way she performed her lines (clustering and lack of emotion). There were also a few issues with people being absent or late to rehearsals, run through sessions and recording sessions.

16. Sound effects: my sound effects of roadside traffic was pretty simple to obtain by just standing by the road and recording but some of the other sound effects proved difficult to obtain such as the church atmosphere and a woman running away in heels. I wanted genuine church atmosphere but was unsure whether I was allowed to record a sermon, but went into church and recorded the sounds. This was hard to manipulate because of the congregation really only being quiet during the times when the priest was speaking which obviously I wasn’t able to use. So I manipulated the sound to lower the bass (priest’s voice) and just have the other sound. Also, the woman running away in heels was hard to record because in the church, the aisle had carpet so you weren’t able to hear the footsteps so I had to have a woman run around the outer of the church.

17. How the themes of the product are communicated to the audience through your three media texts • My theme of grooming is clearly shown in this picture. The connotations of this picture show that it’s a wedding day picture due to the fact that the girl is in a white dress and the man is wearing a posh suit. The control is shown by the hand that looks like a claw on the girl’s shoulder. The grooming is shown by the clear representation of age in this photo.

18. Listings page; my theme of vulnerability is clearly shown in my preview on the listings page as the story is advertised without ruining the plot. This preview clearly shows that it is a clear twist on Cinderella.

19. How have you used linked ideas to create this synergy that goes with the product? • My advert consists of a few themes and ideas. It consists of grooming, control, vulnerability, innocence and falsified happiness. The grooming is shown by the age difference between the two models. The control is shown by the claw-like hand on her shoulder. Vulnerability is shown by the fact that she is sitting down and he is standing up and the fact that she is holding a fluffy toy. Innocence is shown by the age of her, the smile, showing that she thinks she’s happy and the white dress which represents innocence. Falsified happiness is shown by the pretty scenery, beautiful weather, smart clothes, the smile on her face but it shows through that it’s all fake by the look on his face which gets the message across to the audience that he is a cynical and dangerous man.

20. How did you use signs and codes to reinforce your preferred reading of the text for the audience? • I wanted the audience not to like Prince for what he’s done which is why I made him a ‘loud mouth’ character. I added in his malicious moment so that people could see how manipulative he is and it makes the audience immediately not like him. • I wanted the audience to feel sympathy for Cindy so I had it so that she was the innocent one in all of what has happened. The target audience is mainly teenage girls so they can relate to their wedding day supposing to be the happiest day of their lives and to have someone ruin it, would be one of the worst things that could possibly happen.

21. How did you listings page reflect the audience profile? How did the preview use narrative hooks to entice the listener? • The colour scheme of my listings page reflects the modernised design that youthful people like nowadays. It also has a picture of the writer with no background which shows a modernised touch rather than having a standard appearance of a photo that is a square/rectangle. • The layout keeps with the conventions of a listings page and the layout of the listings also. • The preview used narrative hooks such as a series of questions to entice the reader to listen to the play. It uses language that is appropriate to the target audience and uses emotions that the target audience can relate to. • Also, the name “Pride or Groomed?” is attractive to my target audience because of the original “Pride and Prejudice” and the re-make “Bride and Prejudice”.