Production Diary #19

Today I went out and took some photos for my magazine advert. I will need to edit them into Photoshop and i have thought of the idea of adding a layer of blood over the top. Here are my photos:

Production Diary #18

We finally got back into the radio suite and were able to record the last bit all over again with help from Clare and Sophie. We also decided to add another bit on the end which would indicate that the drama is part of a series. Here is a clip of that bit.

Production Diary #17

This week I wrote up my article for the double page spread and typed it up into the spread. I finished off my double page spread with some lines to set it out like it was in the Radio Times to give it more of a professional touch.

Production Diary #16

This week i carried on with my double page spread and here is how it looks so far. I have nearly finished it but just need to write up an article for our drama to be in the pick of the day section and do the right side of the page.

Production Diary #15

I decided I needed to start on my double page spread. I got a copy of Radio Times and thought this would be a good template to use. I used InDesign to create it and it did take quite a long time so i think i may have to spend a couple more weeks on it.

Production Diary #14

We got our audience feedback this week and found out what was good and what needed improving or changing in our drama. A few people made it clear that they couldn't understand the ending any where it fitted into the story so we decided we would have to re-record this bit with different characters to differentiate it from the actual drama. We also realised we needed to put a theme tune in.

Production Diary #13

This week i carried on using InDesign for my magazine advertisment, I finished it all just needed to take and add a picture in. My original idea of a run down bedroom and a shabby mattress seemed a bit adventurous so I decided i would change my picture to an old looking hotel and edit it in Photoshop.

Production Diary #12

This week i decided to start my magazine advertisment, i drew up a rough idea of how i wanted it to look and then got started in In Design. I had to decide what it was going to be broadcasted on, when and at what time, Below is what i've done so far on InDesign:

Production Diary #11

This week we carried on editing our drama and added all of our sound effects, we had then finished editing our drama. We put it on to a CD because we were soon to be having a radio drama listening party to gain feedback from an audience about our drama.

Production Diary #10

This week we spent alot of our time looking for sound effects we could use from Soundtrack PRo. We found quite a few good ones which we could use such as the door creaking and walking on gravel. We also got given our other two tasks which are a double page spread in a magazine and a magazine advertisment.

Production Diary #9

We took our radio drama and put them onto the Mac's and opened them in a programme called Soundtrack Pro. Once our drama was on there we were able to cut out the bits we didn't needed like the outtakes.When we had done this we had our finished drama without any effects added on.

Production Diary #4

We then created character profiles for our main characters. We decided on three girls as we thought as we are three girls it would seem more realistic to the listeners. Our three main characters are Tracy, Joanie and Debbie.

Production Diary #8

We carried on in the radio suite this week and finished recording. We ran through it quite a few times so when we got to editing it we would have lots to choose from so we didn't have to go and re-record bits to save time.

Production Diary #7

We booked out the college radio suite and started to record our drama after learning how to use Soundtrack Pro. As we hadn't done anything like this before it took quite a while and didn't get it finished in one lesson.

Production Diary #6

We went onto the computers and typed up our radio drama in the correct format.We underlined things to put emphasis on some of the lines, put sound effects that needed to be added in, in red etc. We also decided on who was going to play who in the drama. Alice was Tracy, Olga and Mr Pike. Catherine was Debbie and I was Joanie. This is a page from our typed up script:

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The most likely media institution to distribute our radio drama is the BBC as they. It would probably be broadcasted on BBC Radio 4 as this is the predominant radio station for all genres of radio dramas. Radio 4 are constantly growing and gaining new listeners and this is good because Radio 4's listeners are normally of the older generation but as they constantly grown this should lead younger listeners to tune into Radio 4. This would help a lot as our drama consists of young people and is aimed at the younger generation.

Production Diary #5

We then started scripting our drama out rough and got most of it done in the lesson. As we went through scripting it we changed some things to the story as we thought it would be better and flow easier.

Who would be the audience for your media product and how did you attract/address your audience?

Oue main audience would be both males and females between the ages of 17-25. This is because it is based around a group of young girls around the same age and has a horror effect. Normally it is teenagers who are interested in the horror format.Our characters are all different to each other so the listeners could create a relationship with one and find them their favourite.

As radio dramas aren't visual the audience relys soley on audio to gain an understanding of the drama. This can be harder to get across your story and adress the audience but it is done using a variety of factors such as lexical choice, accent, tone and sound effects.

Our drama represents different types of girls so we adressed them in different ways throughout the drama using the different factors mentioned above.One of our characters were represented in quite a negative light (Debbie) as being a bit promiscous etc. This is done in alot of media products such as Skins and The Inbetweeners. While the other two characters (Tracy & Joanie) come across in a more positive light as they're commited to their jobs and always just want to get on with things. We did this because we didn't want all three girls to be presented in a negative light. This also gives a variation to the characters.

We felt that we needed to relate to our listeners more so at the end of the drama we added abit of audio in which were the presenters speaking about the story and they go on to say about how scary it would be if that happened when they were staying in hotels when going to univeristy open days etc. This is relevant to our audience because people around the ages of 17-25 are thinking about university.

Production Diary #3

We then wrote up the basic urban myth about the body in the mattress and brainstormed more idea for the drama such as characters, setting and storyline.

Production Diary #2

From our research of urban myths we brainstormed stories for each of them such as how it would work, what would be the climax etc. After doing this we then decided that the urban myth about a body in a mattress would be the best idea.

Production Diary #1

This was when we were first given our task as a whole to create a radio drama, our group (Me,Alice & Catherine) decided to base ours on urban myths so we went onto the internet and researched urban myths and noted the ones down that we thought would work well.

How have you used sound effects, voice, music and silence in your radio drama?

All radio dramas incorporate sound effects, voice, music and silence.

In our radio drama we used quite a few sound effects such as car noises, phone rings and walking on gravel. Sound effects help set the scene and enable to drama to be understood easier. In our drama we had quite alot of phones ringing as we scripted some phonecalls, if we did not place the sound effects in the listeners might be confused as to who is talking to who and even that it is a sound effect. Also when the three girls were driving to the Travelodge we added exterior and interior car noises to ensure the listeners of the setting and also when they had arrived used the sound of footsteps walking upto the Travelodge so that the listenenrs know there is going to be a change in setting. Sometimes the sound effects seem a bit to obvous but as there are no visual aids they need to be to ensure complete understanding for the listeners. Also to create a creepy element to the Travelodge we made the doors creak.

Regarding to voice, Alice played four characters so she had the hardest job of differentiating her voice within the charcter roles. It worked out quite well except from the end which we then changed. As well as a main character Alice played Mr. Pike, Olga and a radio presenter at the end. Olga's voice was easy to differentiate because she had an transylvanian accent and Mr. Pike's by lowering her voice. The difficulty came at the end when the drama was over and it was the presenters speaking, after getting our feedback we realised it was hard for listenenrs to tell what that bit was actually about.

Regarding to music we had no music in our drama whatsoever, in one scene the girls sings to a chart song and we were going to play the song in the back so it seemed like we were singing along to the radio but we then decided agains that. After listening to other radio dramas we realised we needed to add a theme tune.

We didn't have alot of silence in our radio drama only when there was a change of scene to ensure the listeners know that there is a change of scene. We didn't feel it was needed as throughout there characters were always talking and in traditional horrors silence creates tension but we didn't think this would fit into our drama as it is not a straight out horror.

How does your radio drama represent particular social groups?

A radio drama isn't visual so it is harder for the audience to understand what is going on and what is trying to be presented. Because of this the audience rely on aspects such as dialect, tone, linguistic features etc. The three main characters in our radio drama are women and I think were quite easy to portray, Debby was a student and you could tell this because of the lexical choices used such as "fit" and talks about bringing boys back to the hotel room at night. I think Debby represents students quite well but must remember that not all students aren't the same so we can't just class young girls and promiscuous. The other two main characters in the drama Tracey and Joanie are a bit older than Debby and we were able to show this by their lexical choices and their choices in the drama. For example Tracy is a woman with a full time job and is dedicated to her work, when things start to turn Tracy seems to pull things back in before andything bad happens and seems wary "Let's just get checked in first" Joanie is quite similar to Tracy with the fact she has a job but she seems more relaxed and not as controlling as Tracy. When writing the script we had to make sure Tracy and Joanie didn't slip into any slang or say anything out of context to keep inline with their character roles.

How does your radio drama use, develop or challenge forms and conventions?

A radio convention is something which you expect to see/hear and which are the same across a certain genre. There are many radio conventions which are in radio dramas, such as sound effects, volume, interaction, lexical choices, and also if the narrative is open or closed. Many radio dramas also include enigma which is when the audience doesn't know a particular piece of information until the end when everything is tied up and becomes clear.

After researching radio dramas I found that there was not many horror themed radio dramas so I will compare my radio drama to horror films. We used sound effects in our radio drama to make it sound more realistic and enables the listener to picture the drama in their heads. We also used sound effects to create tension. Many horror films use silence with sound effects to create tension for example footsteps. In our radio drama I think we could have used more sound effects to create tension to give off the impression that something freaky was going on. We gave a few clues away that something was wrong by the smell of the hotel room and the smell on the wall but i feel we could have included some more build up of tension by adding spookier sound effects.

The volume of the three main characters stay pretty much the same all the way through, but when Olga is introduced she comes across alot louder, also Olga has an transylvanian accent, which helps differentiate characters and it also adds tot he spookiness of the drama. Films also use this effect too, for example Daybreakers. Also when Mr Pike is introduced he has quite a low toned voice and speaks slowly. When recording our drama we had to ensure we carried out the characters dialect and pitch all the way through as not to confuse. The 3 main characters didn't have and different accents because we wanted to keep it as realistic as possible and there was no need for them.

In our radio drama we created enigma, we did this because then when ending the drama it made it easier to tie up. In our radio drama the audience doesn't know that there is a dead body under the matrress in the hotel until right at the end. They might have a clue something is not quite right because of a few clues throughout the drama but they wont fully know and shouldnt lead the drama to be predictable.

When writing out script we didnt have to think much about our lexical choices because we were trying to keep it as realistic as possible so we just wrote what we would say in real life. When we recorded the drama we realised some things just didn't sound right so at time we didnt just stick strictly to the script. I think this allows the drama to sound like how we wanted it to as we just play off each other.

How does your work use cues within your radio drama, and what style of writing did you apply when creating your scripts?

When we began to draft out our script we wanted to keep it as casual as possible to make it sound more realistic so we slipped in slang and a few jokes so as not to make it as rigid and structured. I think as the characters were around our age and all girls it made it easier to write and act out. Also all three of us are good friends so it made the whole script flow easier and sound more realistic.

Our radio drama has a few different genres within it, as it has horror parts and also reality. It starts off as relating to teenagers going to university and then ends up with a twist of horror at the end. As it was an unknown horror we had to say certain things within the drama to give clues but still keep the horror aspect concealed until the end.

When writing the script we used cues to show where we needed pauses and sound effects, we inserted alot of sound effects into our drama such as car noises, walking and creaking doors. When writing this we put our cues in a red font and put them into brackets to make it easier to differntiate between the script and directions. This also made it alot easier when we were recording our drama because we could slowly see how it was going to be put together.

Radio Dramas

The Archers-

The Archers is the longest running radio drama since 1950, there are six episodes a week and it is broadcasted on BBC Radio 4 at around 19.02pm. It is very popular as it is the most listened to non-news programme on Radio 4. It is set in the fictional village of Ambridge in the county of Borsetshire. The storyline is mostly based on the family of the Archers who own a farm but contains other families aswell. The Archers often base their episodes around real time so having shows to do with what is going on in reality on the present day. The series is often based upon the class of the different families within the village.

I have listened to a few episodes of The Archers and from this can identify the certain conventions of radio dramas they use. At the start of the drama it starts off with the theme tune which is called "Barwick Green" which is an upbeat maypole tune. This gives the drama recognition for the listener even if they do not know that the show is going to be on. They also often mention names to whom they are speaking to just to clarify the characters names and so it is easier to understand and it can get confusing if you cannot see what is going on. The Archers also use alot of fades and sound effects when settings change to ensure to the listener they know what is going on in the drama. The use of accents and dialect in The Archers is also important as it allows listeners to differntiate between characters even more and make the series seem more relalistic, it also can differentiate between the different social classes of the different families. Also in one particular episode i listened to i spotted that it use the technique of self reffering by reffering to Radio 1, im sure if i listenened to more of the episodes that i would find alot more self refferential parts.