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.