When we chose the genre of thriller, we then researched other radio dramas in this genre they were very limited, and one of the newest dramas we found was the devil you know (2007) so we tried to take elements of this whilst bringing it up to date to suit a modern audience.
I feel that the unseen has used similar conventions to other radio dramas throughout, such as music, narrative, dialogue, silence sound effects and themes. We have developed the usual narrator, as when we first created the piece, we didn’t have a narrator but with audience feedback, we decided to add this element into our drama. We didn’t want a narrator the whole way through as we thought this would turn it into a story, so we decided to have Kaitlin at the beginning foreshadowing what was going to happen to her. (See clip). Another element i feel we developed was voice, as we have a voice over at the start and end of the drama, it starts with “This is the unseen”, we had this spoken in a deep voice, and to connote to the listener what genre the drama will be. At the end we have jus you have been listening to the unseen, with the character and actors names also the names of the producer, and script writer.
I think we have challenged the usual conventions of radio in many ways. Unlike the majority of radio dramas we did not have music running throughout, we wanted the audience to focus on understanding the characters, and be able to relate to them. Secondly we started off with a prologue, no other radio drama apart from the twilight zone had used one, but as we thought that this was the closest popular radio show to our genre we decided to incorporate it into the unseen. Finally We started off the story in non chronological order this was done deliberately so we created tension and grabbed the viewer’s attention. As you can see from the extract below, Kaitlin is foreshadowing what is going to happen, and then there is a straight cut, where she is then talking on her radio show.
KAITLAIN#: (CLOSE) (Sombre) That’s when it happened (.) Where my whole life changed before my very eyes (.) It’s hard to believe that it only started less than forty eight hours ago (.) I had just started my morning radio show without a care in the world.
KAITLAIN#: (CLOSE) (As before) Little did I realise that by tomorrow I would be about to die.
(ECHO OF GUNSHOT AND PIERCING SCREAMS)
KAITLAIN#: (Chatty) Hello I’m Kaitlain Ross (.) Welcome to my show (.) It is Monday the 23rd of November and the time is nine o’clock in the morning (.) Now onto my first caller.
RUBY#: (OFF) You have a caller on line one.
KAITLAIN#: (Gentle) Hello I’m listening
We used this technique later on in scene 1 where Lucy has called into Kaitlin’s show, as she is telling them of how she loves her husband, but is afraid and wants to leave, she is then interrupted by Darius, and the phone cuts off. We did this so the audience would think that she is dead or seriously hurt, this is another element that is unusual in radio.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Evaluation : Audience
Demographically we have chosen women between the ages of 35-60, we have raised real issues such as domestic violence in our drama, so ideally we would want women from all demographics listening but I think we will reach social class B through to C2, from intermediate managers through to skilled manual workers. BBC radio 4 has very little demographic D and below listeners.
This is the main audience for radio drama listeners. As our genre is thriller we may have the collective identity of women we would expect a few male listeners, but they would not be our primary target audience.
Physcographically, we are aiming at Succeders, mainstreamers, explorers. We are aiming for succeders as these are people who are successful and self confident, and may want to relax and unwind after a long day at work. We chose explorers, as they would enjoy the challenge of finding out who the stalker is.
Our audience will be active, as we want them to get involved in the story and talk to their friends about it.
The uses and gratifications model has four key elements to it, diversion and escapism, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. I think that our audience fit into all these categories. Firstly, diversion and escapism, this is where the audience could build personal relationships with the characters, especially as we would run it as a series. Personal relationships, and personal identity both interact as The relationships we have between Carlos and Kaitlin and Lucy and Darius, people may find themselves relating to, or sympathising for the characters, it is a storyline, that as a series people may go to work and talk to their friends about Finally surveillance, as this is real life, things that happen in the real world.
To attract the audience we would advertise using many different types of media. Firstly we would advertise in magazines, especially the radio times, as this is the most used amongst radio listeners.
we would advertise on BBC radio 4, after popular shows such as The archers, doing this we would guarantee that a huge amount of people would know the show was going to be aired. We would also have an advert in the radio times ( see right).
This is the main audience for radio drama listeners. As our genre is thriller we may have the collective identity of women we would expect a few male listeners, but they would not be our primary target audience.
Physcographically, we are aiming at Succeders, mainstreamers, explorers. We are aiming for succeders as these are people who are successful and self confident, and may want to relax and unwind after a long day at work. We chose explorers, as they would enjoy the challenge of finding out who the stalker is.
Our audience will be active, as we want them to get involved in the story and talk to their friends about it.
The uses and gratifications model has four key elements to it, diversion and escapism, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. I think that our audience fit into all these categories. Firstly, diversion and escapism, this is where the audience could build personal relationships with the characters, especially as we would run it as a series. Personal relationships, and personal identity both interact as The relationships we have between Carlos and Kaitlin and Lucy and Darius, people may find themselves relating to, or sympathising for the characters, it is a storyline, that as a series people may go to work and talk to their friends about Finally surveillance, as this is real life, things that happen in the real world.
To attract the audience we would advertise using many different types of media. Firstly we would advertise in magazines, especially the radio times, as this is the most used amongst radio listeners.
we would advertise on BBC radio 4, after popular shows such as The archers, doing this we would guarantee that a huge amount of people would know the show was going to be aired. We would also have an advert in the radio times ( see right).
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Evaluation : How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
When I first started researching into radio, my primary tools was the internet. I started off by researching about the history of radio and then listening to old and new radio dramas such as Amos and Andy and The Archers, on sites such as www.oldtimeradiofans.com and BBC I player. I also used it to find out information about abuse and how women in particular would feel and act in that situation. We also used it to find a helpline number, as if a programme is covering such topics it is usual to have a number to call.
When creating the radio drama we had to use a recording suite, nobody in the group had used this equipment before, as Sammie was playing Lucy, Keri and I decided to split the role of recording. The recording studio is split in two, so we had the actors on one side and Keri and I on the other; we were connected through microphones and headphones. It was quite a simple process we had to set up a soundboard, adjust sound levels to what was needed and then press record. We recorded directly onto soundtrack pro.
Once we had finished recording we then had to start editing the piece. Once again none of us had any experience with this and so we were all assigned different roles, I started off by listening to it and splitting each scene, then deciding what bits we would keep and what we wouldn’t, as we had recorded some scenes more than once. At this time Sammie was changing the voice levels, to try and make sure that we kept it at the same volume, as parts of our recordings were louder than others. Once we had both done this we then started adding in transitions and sound effects. We created most of our sound effects, such as Carlos falling to the floor, and footsteps but we got some such as thundering, heavy rain, and background noise for the street from the soundtrack pro library.
I had to take my own pictures for my advert; I used a digital camera for this, once I had taken them I then had to turn them into a jpeg file, before I could start editing them. This was my original photo
As you can see this is how my picture first started before editing. I started Photoshoping my picture by cropping it so I removed parts of the picture I didn’t want to use, and then a black and white filter, this was to add an eerie effect. After that I started changing the gradient and darkening certain parts of the picture, to grab the audience attention. I then moved it into Indesign and turned the backdrop all black, as I wanted the poster to be purely black and white which is an unusual convention in Radio drama posters, but I thought that it reinforced the thriller genre.
I also used Indesign for my advert and double page spread. I had to create text boxes for my articles and listings. I used things such as stroke and swatches, to create new colours and change the style of my writing.
When creating the radio drama we had to use a recording suite, nobody in the group had used this equipment before, as Sammie was playing Lucy, Keri and I decided to split the role of recording. The recording studio is split in two, so we had the actors on one side and Keri and I on the other; we were connected through microphones and headphones. It was quite a simple process we had to set up a soundboard, adjust sound levels to what was needed and then press record. We recorded directly onto soundtrack pro.
Once we had finished recording we then had to start editing the piece. Once again none of us had any experience with this and so we were all assigned different roles, I started off by listening to it and splitting each scene, then deciding what bits we would keep and what we wouldn’t, as we had recorded some scenes more than once. At this time Sammie was changing the voice levels, to try and make sure that we kept it at the same volume, as parts of our recordings were louder than others. Once we had both done this we then started adding in transitions and sound effects. We created most of our sound effects, such as Carlos falling to the floor, and footsteps but we got some such as thundering, heavy rain, and background noise for the street from the soundtrack pro library.
I had to take my own pictures for my advert; I used a digital camera for this, once I had taken them I then had to turn them into a jpeg file, before I could start editing them. This was my original photo
As you can see this is how my picture first started before editing. I started Photoshoping my picture by cropping it so I removed parts of the picture I didn’t want to use, and then a black and white filter, this was to add an eerie effect. After that I started changing the gradient and darkening certain parts of the picture, to grab the audience attention. I then moved it into Indesign and turned the backdrop all black, as I wanted the poster to be purely black and white which is an unusual convention in Radio drama posters, but I thought that it reinforced the thriller genre.
I also used Indesign for my advert and double page spread. I had to create text boxes for my articles and listings. I used things such as stroke and swatches, to create new colours and change the style of my writing.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Evaluation : Media Institution that may distribute my media product.
When first deciding what station we wanted to pitch our idea to we had to choose whether it would be public or commercial, we decided straight away it would have to be public, as we wanted to attract a big audience. We looked into, stations such as BBC Radio 1&2, both these stations are chat shows with presenters, such as Chris Moyle’s and Chris Evans discussing the latest news and gossip, and playing music from the charts . We decided not to go with these stations, as they are not known for playing radio dramas and would not attract the right audience.
Stations such has 1Xtra, Classic Rock, BBC 6 Music, Planet Rock are all predominately music shows and would therefore attract the wrong audience.
This gave us Radio 3 and 4 we then started considering these for a long time, but in the end determined we would pitch our idea to BBC Radio 4 as Radio 3 is more focused on music, here as Radio 4 has huge amounts of Radio Dramas such as, the archers,which has been on air since 1951, and short stories such as Home Planet, and Generation Gap. Another reason we chose BBC Radio 4 is because in the past it has had very high ratings with dramas in the thriller genre.
When choosing a time for the unseen to air, we had to consider legal issues such as watershed , we also had to consider the audience that we wanted to attract and the adult language that we had used in scene 5 (see below) , from this we choose that we would have it on after the watershed at 9,00pm.
CARLOS#: (Scared) What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
DARIUS#: Isn’t it obvious.
LUCY AND CARLOS IN URISON#: (Both of them sound frightened) Why can’t you just lower the gun.
DARIUS#: (Coldly) I don’t think so.
(GUN SHOOT CARLOS’S BODY FALLS TO THE FLOOR AND LUCY STARRTS TO SCREAM, AFTER A FEW SECONDS SHE DROPS TO THE FLOOR CRYING)
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Evaluation : Representation Of Social Groups
Social groups can be defined by age, gender, ethnicity, occupation and many more. It is a group of people that share similar beliefs and values.
When we were choosing the names for our characters, we wanted to choose a variety of different ethnic backgrounds. In particular the men’s names we chose were from a Mediterranean background, Carlos and Darius. We chose names from a similar ethnic background, because we wanted to establish that Kaitlin had a stereotypical type of man that she went for.
DARIUS#: (Quickly) This is my wife Lucy.
CARLOS#: (TO LUCY) (Bored) Hello Lucy.
LUCY#: (LOW) (Nervous) Hello
CARLOS#: (Concerned) (TO DARIUS) Is she okay?
(LUCY BURSTS INTO TEARS ON THE WORD YESTURDAY)
DARIUS#: She’s okay (.)
We have represented the men very differently in their roles. Carlos is a nice guy, a good boyfriend, who is generally interested in the welfare of others as you can see from the extract above, when he asks lucy if she is ok, he is generally concerned. Whereas Darius abuses his wife and is obsessed with Kaitlin, you can see from the above that he can’t handle hearing that Kaitlin loves anybody but him, and snaps at Carlos. Although we wanted to show that the two men are very different we also had to give them both a similarity, this is how protective of Kaitlin they are. especially in the scene below, Darius gets angry quickly when carlos says that kaitlain never talked about him. from the clip below you can distingusih instantly between them both.
Collective identity is a group of people that share a common interest or social activity; we chose the collective identity, of working women. This group consists of women, between the ages of 20-35, middle class, who are professional, this is Kaitlin and Ruby. You can see that Kaitlin is successful through her radio show and is a professional Kaitlin. As you can hear from the clip.Kaitlin and Ruby are very familiar with each other, they interrupt each other constantly. They both have similar regional accents, which shows they are from the same area and class.
Lucy is part of a collective identity of abused women, this group consists of women in a relationship who wants to leave but find it impossible. As you can see from scene below she is terrified of Darius, but she stays, because he says he loves her.
LUCY#: (D) (Terrified) Every night (.) When I came home he’s there (.) Always there (.) In a rage (.) I don’t know what to do (.) I know it’s gotten worse (.) What’s next (.) He already hits me (.) I just want to escape (.) I want to run away (.) I don’t want to come home anymore (TAKES A DEEP BREATH) Don’t ask me why I stay with him (SIGHS) Because I love him (.) That’s the simple answer isn’t it (.) He said he loves me and now this (.) I know I need help (.) But every time I try to tell someone I stop (.) I thought if anyone could help me it would be someone like you (.) I’m afraid (Close to tears) I live in fear every minute of every day (.) I fear my husband (.) and I don’t (.) I just (.) I’m scared-
Lucy feels that she has to keep up appearances as coming from a higher social status she feels she can’t let people know what she has become, as she doesn’t want to disappoint or upset anyone.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Production Diary 14
Still making adjustments to the Radio show such as sound levels on people speaking and sound effects, to make it sound more realistic. We have been given another task of creating a double page spread for a magazine such as the Radio Times.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Production Diary 13
We re-recorded particular lines that had background noise on from scene 3, so it could be used in the final piece, also finished my advert.
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Evaluation : How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts.
For the ancillary tasks we were asked to create an advert, and a double page spread for the Radio Times, It was very important for our drama, to have an advert and a double page spread advertising the show, as this is the main way that creators of radio communicate with their listeners.
I started of this task by researching into other radio adverts, I decided that wanted mine to be dark and eerie and for it to attract the viewers attention. I took pictures of Kaitlin and Darius. which I edited in Photoshop. I wanted for it to look that Darius was stalking her as if Kaitlin was scared but also unaware that he was there. I decided that I would air my radio drama on BBC Radio 4; I thought that it was crucial that I had their logo on my poster; otherwise people would not know what station to tune in for. I added quotes from reviews from respected sources, such as The Sunday Times and The Radio Times; this will hopefully influence people to listen to it and then make their opinion. See below for final poster.
When I started my double page spread I looked at listing from the radio times, and followed a very similar format, I decided that having The Unseen as ‘Today’s Choice’ would catch the viewer’s attention and encourage them to read about it.
Overall I think that the drama would have very few if any listeners, if I didn’t have a poster or a double page spread, as they are both hitting different spectrums of my audience. The poster would be in The Sunday Telegraph, which hits the higher A through to C1 part of my audience and The Radio Times hits B to D.
I started of this task by researching into other radio adverts, I decided that wanted mine to be dark and eerie and for it to attract the viewers attention. I took pictures of Kaitlin and Darius. which I edited in Photoshop. I wanted for it to look that Darius was stalking her as if Kaitlin was scared but also unaware that he was there. I decided that I would air my radio drama on BBC Radio 4; I thought that it was crucial that I had their logo on my poster; otherwise people would not know what station to tune in for. I added quotes from reviews from respected sources, such as The Sunday Times and The Radio Times; this will hopefully influence people to listen to it and then make their opinion. See below for final poster.
When I started my double page spread I looked at listing from the radio times, and followed a very similar format, I decided that having The Unseen as ‘Today’s Choice’ would catch the viewer’s attention and encourage them to read about it.
Overall I think that the drama would have very few if any listeners, if I didn’t have a poster or a double page spread, as they are both hitting different spectrums of my audience. The poster would be in The Sunday Telegraph, which hits the higher A through to C1 part of my audience and The Radio Times hits B to D.
Friday, 12 March 2010
Evaluation : Audience Feedback
After we had finished our dramas it was decided that we would have a listening party. Where we invited people to come and listen to our radio drama and give is feedback. They were given a sheet with four headings. What did you like? What did you dislike? What could be improved technically? And finally what could be improved in relation to plot/storyline.
1.What did you like?
We had four things that most people commented on. Firstly was the prologue, we had comments such as, “intriguing and interesting” “you could picture it “. Secondly was the Storyline, one listener said “it grabbed me in straight away “. Other commented on the issues that it raised, such as abuse and stalking. We also had a large number of comments about the acting. comments such as “ was very convincing” and that the dialogue was clearly spoken. Over 75% of people said that the sound effects used were very affective, in particular the scream at the end of the prologue.
2.What did you dislike?
The most predominant thing that people disliked about The Unseen was sound levels in particular the footsteps and the phone vibrating in scene 5. I agreed with this and have changed this as they were far too loud and didn’t sound realistic. Secondly the voices faded out too quickly at the end so it wasn’t always clear what the person was saying. The final comment was the change of storyline (prologue).
3.What could be improved technically?
Technically two main issues came up, Sound effects and volume. In particular the sound effects at the beginning, as the listeners thought that they were not clear enough. The volume throughout was very mixed at parts it would be very loud and others just a normal volume, In particular the footsteps and the phone vibrating.
4.What could be improved in relation to plot/storyline?
We only had two comments in this section. The first was to not have a prologue, as it was confusing. The second was there was too many characters, and was hard to distinguish who was who.
I was very pleased with our feedback, it was crucial that we knew what people liked and disliked about the product as we felt that it wasn’t at its best and could be improved. After the feedback, we went back into the recording suite; we created different sound effects for footsteps and the phone. After this we re-edited the piece and changed some of the fades, finally we changed the sound levels so the drama was easier to be listened to. Some of the listeners thought that the storyline in particular the prologue was confusing, we have not changed this as I believe that This is an issue with the audience that we had listening as around 50% were students, social demographic E, where as we were aiming from B to C2. Overall I think the feedback we received was very positive, and the audience seemed to enjoy it.
1.What did you like?
We had four things that most people commented on. Firstly was the prologue, we had comments such as, “intriguing and interesting” “you could picture it “. Secondly was the Storyline, one listener said “it grabbed me in straight away “. Other commented on the issues that it raised, such as abuse and stalking. We also had a large number of comments about the acting. comments such as “ was very convincing” and that the dialogue was clearly spoken. Over 75% of people said that the sound effects used were very affective, in particular the scream at the end of the prologue.
2.What did you dislike?
The most predominant thing that people disliked about The Unseen was sound levels in particular the footsteps and the phone vibrating in scene 5. I agreed with this and have changed this as they were far too loud and didn’t sound realistic. Secondly the voices faded out too quickly at the end so it wasn’t always clear what the person was saying. The final comment was the change of storyline (prologue).
3.What could be improved technically?
Technically two main issues came up, Sound effects and volume. In particular the sound effects at the beginning, as the listeners thought that they were not clear enough. The volume throughout was very mixed at parts it would be very loud and others just a normal volume, In particular the footsteps and the phone vibrating.
4.What could be improved in relation to plot/storyline?
We only had two comments in this section. The first was to not have a prologue, as it was confusing. The second was there was too many characters, and was hard to distinguish who was who.
I was very pleased with our feedback, it was crucial that we knew what people liked and disliked about the product as we felt that it wasn’t at its best and could be improved. After the feedback, we went back into the recording suite; we created different sound effects for footsteps and the phone. After this we re-edited the piece and changed some of the fades, finally we changed the sound levels so the drama was easier to be listened to. Some of the listeners thought that the storyline in particular the prologue was confusing, we have not changed this as I believe that This is an issue with the audience that we had listening as around 50% were students, social demographic E, where as we were aiming from B to C2. Overall I think the feedback we received was very positive, and the audience seemed to enjoy it.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Production Diary 12
This week I focused on editing my photo in Photoshop. I chose to keep my advert simple, and I wanted to keep it eerie looking I did this by turing the picture black and white and tinting it.
I then started to think of taglines for my advert.
How Voice, music, silence and sound effects they affected my radio drama
Sound effects, voice, music and silence are all very important elements of radio, as you don’t have actions or expressions to show how a person is feeling or where the scene is set. My radio drama is a drama thriller, meaning that we chose for the listener to get to know the character more and the emotions they feel through their voice rather than a show such as the twilight zone which is hugely based upon sound effects, although the sound effects we did use are very important.
Sound effects
Below is first part of scene three. In particular this scene is very focused on sound effects as the audience have to know that Kaitlin is on the phone to ruby. We had to incorporate background noises for both of the characters without confusing the audience.
KAITLAIN#: (V.O) So much for that show Ruby.
RUBY#: (D) (Cheerful) I think you were awesome Kate.
(TRAFFIC LIGHTS ARE LOUDER HERE AS KAITLAIN IS CROSSES THE ROAD)
KAITLAIN#: (V.O) (Upset) Maybe I’ll feel a little bit better if I had actually managed to help that first caller today rather than feel like I’ve failed her.
RUBY#: (D) (Sighs) (Bored) She’ll be fine.
(OTHER SOUNDS START TO FADE AND HER HIGH HEELED FOOTSTEPS ARE LOUDER. THE THUNDER FROM THE STORM CAN NOW BE HEARD IN THE DISTANCE)
KAITLAIN#: (V.O) (Unconvinced) Oh please (.) She didn’t get disconnected (.) We both know-
(OTHER BACKGROUND SOUNDS, APART FROM THE RAIN ARE GONE. WHILE KAITLAIN IS WALKING ANOTHER PAIR OF FOOTSTEPS ARE SOFTLY ADDED IN ON THE WORD MONSTER)
We created many of our own sound effects, such as Carlos dropping to the floor, footsteps, door opening and closing. In particular we thought it was very important to have background noise in the cafe to create an ambiance.
We also included clips of knocking doors, different types of footsteps so that the audience could distinguish between men and women walking, we had high heels for women and a gravelly scratching noise for men. We had dialling and hanging up of calls as you can hear below. We have used thunder and heavy rain to connote something bad is going to happen.
Voice
Voice is a very important part of production as it is where characters convey their emotions, and as we don’t have a visual aid of facial expressions, it is all down to the voice. Scene five in particular is focused on the way in which the characters speak. Darius and Carlos are two completely different characters we had to make distinct differences to their voices and the way they spoke for the audience to understand this. As you can hear from the clip below, Darius has a deep voice, he asks questions but only gives short answers, where as Carlos is a friendly nice guy who tries to make conversation.
Music
The music we chose was an eerie tune that we used throughout. See below. Firstly at 20 seconds after the prologue, this was placed here to create atmosphere for the audience, and also to separate each scene. The second time it was used was at the end of the drama to conclude it and tell the listeners that the programme has finished.
Silence
We very rarely used silence as it wasnt needed, we used techniques such as fades and cuts to distingusih between scenes.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Production Diary 11
We went back into the editing suite and reedited issues that had been raised at the listening party, such as footsteps, they all sounded the same so we decided to them mix it up, when Kaitlin was walking we had a heel sound, where as when it was Darius it was more a scraping of gravel. These effects have made them sound more true to life. I also started on designing the layout for my advert on Indesign.
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