Analyses

1. Analyses Rebecca Allen 13 Angela

2. Introduction • For my media coursework, I had to produce a radio drama. Over the last few months I have listened to various radio dramas on BBC 4 to get the idea of what a radio drama sounds likes, so that I could begin planning and producing my own. Once I had the idea of a story for a radio drama, I could begin work. A radio drama is challenging work in that every noise, or silence that is used in the drama has a meaning, so in the editing process one has to be very careful. I found the project of producing a radio drama a great opportunity, as I could get an insight to how much work and dedication is needed when producing a radio drama. The next slides will show the stepping stones I had to do , so that I could produce a radio drama, like BBC 4.

3. Digital Technology in my production • The first piece of technology I used was Microsoft word. This was so that I could firstly write my story for my radio drama. Once I had wrote the story out, I then had to make the story into script form. To do this I used Microsoft word, as Microsoft has the best way of formatting your work. E.g. you can layout your work in script form easily. • As for my radio drama, I have shared the coursework with a friend in that instead of having a 5 minute radio drama, we have made a 10 minute drama. So that we could produce this drama together we have had to be in constant communication, and being able to show one another the work each of us has done in our spare time. How we did this was by the schools email, access of the schools shared area and word press. • As my radio drama is about teenage love life which evolves broken hearts, stalking and nights out. I researched many a website on the effects teenagers have when there in a relationship, teenagers who have been stalked by an admirer and teenagers who enjoy the night life. I looked at all this different types websites so that when I was producing my characters I would have the knowledge of real life experiences and be able to supplement them in my radio drama. By looking at different websites when your producing a radio drama gives you the knowledge to know how to follow the story out and also shows you scenarios from different angles. By having the ability to look at all sorts of different websites, meaning I could see peoples different opinions on a situation actually inspired me to make a radio drama where at the end of the drama the audience are not sure who the hero of the story is or who is the villain of the story is.

4. To record my radio drama I used Sony ux 60 recorder and Sony 906 microphones. Sony ux 60 recorders are USB-direct connection digital recorder with 512MB built-in memory it also has mp3 stereo recording, music playback and PC data storage capability with one device. Simple Drag & Drop file transfer to PC without any PC software. Windows and Macintosh compatible Sony ux 60 recorder made the recording for the drama an easy transmission in that you select a file, press record, record then because it has simple drag and drop file on to the pc, It then became easy and straight forward, to move the file to audacity. • The ECM-MS907 one-point stereo microphone was created for the advanced amateur to make instrumental recordings. Ideal for usage with MiniDisc Walkman and DAT portables, or any number of recorders on the market. The Sony 907 Mid/Side (MS) Switch
 allows you to select the pickup angle between left and right channel--choose 90 degrees for a single voice or instrument, or 120 degrees to pick up many voices and instruments, arranged across the stage. The Sony 907 was an excellent piece of equipment to record my radio drama, in that it captured the sound of the actors voices clearly and effectively. • Audacity is free software, cross platform digital audio editor and recording application. It is available for windows, MAC , and BSD. Being able to have audacity for my radio drama I was able to use its features of Importing and exporting WAV AIFF, MP3, Recording and playing sounds, Editing via Cut, copy and paste (with unlimited undo), Multitrack mixing Noise removal, Audio spectrum analysis using the Fourier transformation algorithm, Support for multi-channel modes with sampling rates up to 96 kHz with 32 bits per sample, The ability to make precise adjustments to the audio's speed while maintaining pitch (Audacity calls it changing tempo), in order to synchronize it with video, run for the right length of time, etc., The ability to change the audio's pitch without changing the speed.

5. To make my advertisement and my webpage for marketing my radio drama I used Microsoft Publisher and Paint Shop Pro. Paint Shop Pro enabled me to be able to edit parts of my picture e.g. cutting and cropping as I wished and have the ability to change the colour of the picture to give the picture an different look and therefore meaning, where Microsoft Publisher provided me the service to set out my advertisement in a professional and clear manor. • The school network was a massive help in producing my radio drama, in that it allowed me to save work on large files. My work was always safe in that if my computer crashed I would be able to retrieve it on another computer, because we used a disconnected network, which was able to store large files.

6. Conventions of the genre • My radio drama follows the genre of typical teenager’s love lives. The story is split, in that it has to different perceptions e.g. the audience see the story from the boys point of view and the girls. • Conventions of a teenage love story include characters of a boy and girl and their friends. So for example in my radio drama the boy and the girl who have a relationship do not talk to each other about the relationship but look for advice from friends. • Another convention of teenager love life is to include ‘dilemmas’ which is problems in the relationship. In my radio drama the girl will not respond to the boys texts and calls.

7. The love life you have when your young is immature and irresponsible but has adult content , in that the decisions you have and make are in the middle of childhood and adulthood. Therefore I think that my radio drama is suitable for both children and adult audiences .Adults because they can reflect on their own teenage love life and now see the situation from an adult point of view, and for children in that they can relate to the situation as there experiencing these sorts of situations in there day to day lives. • A typical convention of teenage love lives is for the boy and the girl to end up together and be hopelessly in love or spilt up. My radio drama goes against typical convention in that in my radio drama the girl of the story ends up dating the boy she’s dating brother.

8. Representations • When representing my characters, I choose to try and have a range of all sorts of different people, with different opinions. This was partly so that when the audience is listening to the drama it will be easy for them to distinguish who is who. As my radio drama is designed so that the audience see the characters from two different perceptions, they representation change, depending on who side of the story your following e.g. the girls story or the boys story. • When representing the character Chris I choose to represent him as a respectful, educated and shy boy but he is also represented as needy, stalker and desperate. Chris is a young British urban teenager. How I’ve represented him to be urban is that he uses slang in his speech e.g. “ init, oh my days and man” .

9. Representing Alicia she’s shown to be regretful, full of confidence and naive. But she is also represented as sexy, hard to get and shy. I thought when representing Alicia I would go for a typical convention of a young girl and have her as a heart throb for young boys e.g. her gigerly girl laugh which is often heard when she talking to boys. • I choose to represent the character Sean as a lady's man , confident and self centred. E.g. ‘what happened to link them and leave them, what’s the point in going out with a girl with a good personality if you can’t even look at her cos her face is jacked up’ he is represented to see love and girls as a game unlike his brother Chris who is more sensitive to his emotions. • The character Robyn is represented as a sensible girl, who looks out for her friend Alicia and is always happy to give advice and make her feel better. E.g. “ just forget about it, no point getting worked up about it”.

10. Representation successful /unsuccessful • The first original plan of how my characters where to be represented, changed. In that I decided I wanted to show my characters to be represented from two different opinions, so to give the audience hopefully more entertainment whilst listening to the drama. • Also i created more characters to the radio drama e.g. the main girl and boys best friend and brother. This was so to develop the main characters personalities , and so the audience could get to know the characters lifestyles better. E.g. brother Sean talking to Chris ‘ I don’t recognize you, this is not my brother, you normally treat girls like crap”. By having the characters have this conversation we get to see what Chris's life was like before meeting Alicia.

11. Technology and the ability to create • The technology I was able use, due to modern technology was satisfactory for making a radio drama. In that I was able to record, edit, and add sound effects. However after listening to many radio dramas I see the technology that is used I can hear that the equipment that they use is more ‘high tech’ in that every sound is crisp and clear and original. • But it is only to be expected that a proper professional radio drama to sound explicit , because they have many people working on it e.g. sounds adviser, editor, director, script producers and web page designer. • As for my radio drama I had to do all this roles by myself, so they would turn out good but not perfect.

12. Challenges’/ problems with production of the radio drama • The main problems whilst producing my radio drama was the recording process. I recorded my drama once, but when I went to listen to it, I found it had not recorded. I then had to arrange to have the actors come back and record their voices again, which was a very difficult process as the actors were not always available at the same time. • Another problem which arose was editing small little unneeded sounds from the radio, as sound is very close together its difficult to cut at the right time and not cut the sounds you want to keep.

13. Positive feedback • I feel that my radio drama was a success in trying to make the drama spilt “ seen from two different prospective” in that I used the right codes and convention to illustrate to the audience the spilt in the drama. How I did this was by the wording in the script, sound effects and voice over's. I feel for a first time attempted radio drama it was pretty successful.

14. Institution, BBC and Radio 4 • BBC radio 4 is the third most popular radio station in the United Kingdom and receives 9.5 million listeners weekly. • The majority of these listeners are male with 51% and women listeners of 49%.the most common age of the listeners is over the age of 65. Only 4% of people ages between 15-24 listen to BBC Radio 4. • If my radio drama was to be played on BBC radio 4, I feel from looking at the statistics it would not be popular therefore unsuccessful. I say this because the target audience for my radio is for the ages 12-25, which falls under the category of BBC radio 4’s ages 15-24 where the percentage that listen from that age group is 4%