Analysis of radio drama.

1. Analysis of radio drama. By Malika Yohannes A2 Media Studies.

2. The use of new digital technology in my production. • Due to my inexperience regarding directing and creating a radio drama I had to research radio dramas to increase my knowledge of them. This was easy for me to access due to the internet, I used these three websites quite a lot when making my radio drama, www.youtube.com, www.google.com and www.bbc.com. By doing this it enabled me to listen to a variety of radio dramas from different genres. After listening to those radio dramas I was able to think of a storyline which I then continued to pursue till there is a place without ignorant people. • When recording my radio drama I wanted it to sound professional which therefore needed a clear audio. To record I you used, ux 60 recorder and a Sony m 907 microphone. Once I completed recording my radio drama concerning you to be around was recorded.

3. I used a range of technology when creating my production, such as, Microsoft word, Microsoft publisher, my blog, the schools network, shared areas, Sony ux 60 recorder, Sony 907 mics and audacity. • Each piece of technology allowed me to incorporate different styles and provided a variety to my work. • I would say the most beneficial technologies that I used regarding my production of my radio drama was using the Sony ux 60 recorder, Sony 907 mics and audacity. Using these various digital technologies, it allowed there to be a range in media and allowed me to overcome difficult situations when regarding uploading, transferring files, editing and saving. • Audacity enabled me to use my highest level of creativity to try and produce a radio drama that would be perfect for the listeners. It allowed me to play around a little bit with the editing, moving around and merging pieces togethere.g. the non-diageticsounds of people talking outside the recording area, doors slamming shut, the school bell going off and unnecessary diagetic sounds: pauses, words or sounds the actors make with their clothes etc.

4. I would say that audacity is quite a manageable use of technology and very beneficial when you are doing something like a radio drama or any type of voice orientated work. • Microsoft word and publisher helped me with the production of my web page and advert. • The Sony pieces of technology enabled me to work more into my radio drama and it provided me with more of a diverse medium. • The schools network created a way for myself and my teacher to communicate about my production whilst we were not at school.

5. Conventions of the genre. • The way in which I applied genre into my radio drama was in a way that I thought people would think it’s very typical for it to be about a man raping a young girl. The only way people would find this a typical storyline would be because when we meet something new i.e. My radio drama, our minds already contain a set of existing ideas we have picked up over the years from experience and what we have read or been told what it should really be about. • Another point would be that sometimes people can be rather highly conditioned to expect certain things within a particular genre, to the extent that they can be highly critical or even reject it completely. • Genre can affect the form, structure, style and content.

6. Genre also conditions us to see as entirely natural and realistic certain aspects of what we read and see. Thinking about the type of characters that survive and those that end up being horribly mutilated in a horror story or film, for example or try to think how we sympathise with the ones who are murdered in a gangster film. Some characters have your sympathy where others make you feel as if they deserve everything they get. • Regarding my radio drama I think I have stuck to the normal conventions of the genre and how to portray the character. Allowing the audience to really have a feel of how emotionless the main character really is. I tried to capture his rudeness, disrespect, his cocky personality as best as I could within the radio drama.

7. Representations. • I have chosen to represent my characters each in a specific way. In doing this I am enabling the audience to identify which character is speaking and when. This means that I can stick to the normal conventions for this type of radio drama which is based in a rape, enabling me to represent the good, the bad and the people in the middle. • I chose to represent my main character – Mr Taylor – as a typical rapist, who doesn’t care about anything or anyone apart from himself. Representing him in this way in my radio drama clearly shows that I am sticking to the norms of conventions and allowing people to have pre-conceived thoughts about him. • I decided to make the lawyer the heroin of the radio drama in the sense that even though she does have to defend Mr Taylor she doesn’t do a very good job of it; clearly intentional. I’m therefore stretching the norms of the conventions and modernizing it, in the sense that I am allowing the female lawyer to be the heroin of the radio drama. I also tried to make her the character that every viewer empathises with her, due to her difficult working conditions.

8. I thought that having a narrator in my radio drama would make it more dynamic, however, I then thought to myself that maybe transforming her into an actual character, narrating the things that happen with the lawyer. Her accent is also very distinctive. • Another character that has a distinctive voice is the ‘boss man’ that I used in my radio drama. I decided to use a range of characters who had a range of accents, this way enabling the audience to clearly depict which character is which.

9. Audience feedback in relation to representation. What was effective and not effective from the feedback received by the audience. • The audience’ feedback enabled me to know what people thought of my radio drama and whether the preferred reading was met. • They liked how I represented Mr Taylor and how empathetic they felt towards Janet (suspect’s lawyer). • I have clearly shown in greater detail the audience feedback on my blog.

10. Choices and outcomes in the production. • I made quite a lot of changes from my first draft to my final edit. There were various reasons as to why I made the changes to the script, reasons varying from the way in which the character’s language technique fits in to the character profile to the swearing being cut out. • I decided to put more characters in to ensure the whole piece is easier for the audience to understand what’s going on. • I elongated the final scene in the final edit to allow there to be more of an interrogation feel therefore allowing the audience to get more information and understanding out of the drama. Also, to hear how the suspect reacts to certain questions and how he answers them.

11. The things I would change are, how the judge spoke (make it more powerful and aggressive), try and make the receptionist (narrator) more involved in it and would like to try and put the suspect in the court scene. • The things I do like about my radio drama is how it evolved from my first draft and into my final edit. Having the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve produced a radio drama, collecting all the characters, ideas, sound effects, thoughts on storylines and scripts. • Receiving positive feedback from both my peers and my teacher.

12. What I would change. • If I could change anything in my radio drama it would be the amount of time spent on organising the actors. What I mean by this is that I would have taken more time in briefing each actor individually about their character in my radio drama. • I also feel that if I did spend or have more time with them I could have got them get into their characters much more then they were and this would have been a very beneficial factor in my final edit. • I found it to be very demanding when looking for actors to play my characters because I needed to have more males than females and going to an all girls school this was quite difficult. • The actors I did find I had to find out when they were free and tried to merge them altogether to be at one place at same time(the actors needed for each scene together). • Another thing I would change would be being in a place isolated from everything else and being able to record my scenes accordingly and efficiently to create a smooth run through each scene.

13. Positive outcomes of production. • All in all I am most pleased with how Mr Taylor (main character), Janet (suspect’s lawyer) and the receptionist (narrator) were portrayed in the final radio play. • I think that they all encode the preferred reading in the way they appeared on the radio drama and this is what I hoped for.

14. Audience feedback. • I asked a few of my peers and also my teacher to give me their opinions on my radio drama and to write down what they thought of it as they were listening to it. I received both negative and positive feedback, which then allowed me to go back and work into it more. • From the feedback I received it enabled me to add in more sound effects, shorten the silent gaps between each scene and the quality of the sound effects used. • The majority of the people I asked to listen to my radio drama understood the story, however, there was a small minority of people that got confused when it got to the scene with the officer at the front desk was asking the lawyer why she took so long. • The audience definitely gave the preferred reading to the text and I was very happy when every single one of them came back to me and said how they hated ‘Mr Taylor’ the main character and how they hated how cocky he was with himself. This allowed me to feel a sense of relief to know that the audience understood the message behind the words.

15. Technology and the ability to create. • Due to the fact that we have such advanced technological equipment than many years ago that we can use with out production it really allowed us to take full advantage of it. We are now able to communicate a wide range of media to the audience. • My radio drama is similar to the ones that I have listened to throughout this production. Unfortunately I’m not able to make my radio drama come out as clear as theirs, clearly because of the reason that our equipment wasn’t so advanced compared to theirs. • Also, regarding sound effect’s I would pretty much say this was one of the difficult limitations I went through when producing my radio drama. The reason for this was because I found most of the sound effects that I needed to sound so unrealistic and nothing like the actual sound itself. Due to this problem some sound effects I had to add in whilst recording the characters.

16. The challenges that occur in my radio drama. • The audience may find my radio drama at certain points too deviant – references to the rape and the swearing in scene two. • I feel that the audience can relate more to Janet (suspect’s lawyer) because she is the character who is finding it really hard to cope with the situation she is under. Having to defend a man that she knows is guilty but is forced to defend him and prove that he is in fact innocent.

17. An example of this would be, needing to include a person shutting the door, I needed this sound effect for the beginning of scene 3 but what I had to do instead was merge it with other sound effects and fade some out which would then not cause too much attention to the sound being made. • We had previously studied radio dramas before we even started thinking about making our own one up. At first I was terrified but then I thought that we were familiar with which conventions to follow so there shouldn’t be any problem in explaining what we did. We had to produce radio dramas from our own imaginations, however due to the school and it’s motto we were limited to an extent, meaning that we weren’t allowed swear words.

18. How my related and contrasted to the broadcasted medium. • Comparing my radio drama to other radio dramas I think that the lack of experience and execution in the actors used effected the way in which the dialogue sounded. • Some sections in the play sounded a bit too obvious that the actors were reading it from the sheet and not just a natural expression which isn’t the case in the plays broadcasted on Radio 4. • Due to the fact that I used quite a lot of teachers I wasn’t able to re-visit and re-record the parts I wasn’t completely happy with therefore I wasn’t able to make the changes I needed or wanted. • This particular type of problem could have been avoided if I was able to schedule times and dates for each actor to come and record. Also because I don’t have the appropriate skills needed to make the radio drama as successful as those that are broadcasted on Radio 4. • However, the conventions of broadcasted radio dramas e.g. Radio 4 and my radio drama are similar, in the sense that they both have sound effects and words to create meaning.

19. Institution – The BBC and Radio four. • BBC radio 4 is the third most popular radio station in the United Kingdom. • It gets 9.5 million listeners weekly. • The majority of these listeners are female who are over the age of 65. • Only 4% of people ages between 15-24 listen to BBC Radio 4. • Looking at these statistics doesn’t really have an affect on my radio drama. This is because I think that my story can be viewed and listened to by anyone for various reasons. In the radio drama there are no explicit descriptions of what happened to the girl whilst she was being raped, there is no swearing in the drama and there isn’t any violence. In my head I think that the people who would be interested in this radio drama would be the people who actually care about their children, friends, loved ones etc.

20. The problems with my radio drama. • Technical problems • The most frequent problems that occurred involved recording my actors and being happy with the final outcome. • The background noise from girls and teachers outside the recording room. Therefore, the recorder caught some on the recording. • Another factor that affected the recording was the mobile phone issue. I found out that the phone signal does in fact disrupt and interfere with the ambiance. I then had to edit out or even re-shoot the recording of the scenes.