Medium
What is a Radio Drama?
I personally think that a radio drama is a story or narrative that is told purely through the use of audio including Foley sounds and background music.
A radio drama is a piece of audio that expresses a narrative/story that is commonly listened to on BBC Radio 4, these audio tracks help the listener to imagine what they are listening to through various different pieces of music. One key element of a radio drama is the Foley sounds used because they are important when you want to make a radio drama sound realistic, in other words the Foley is done by people using every day items and then the sounds created are captured and then implemented into an audio software where multiple sounds form a collage to create a narrative/story. For example if there was a scene where some one would open/close a door and walk over to a table, the Foley created by Foley artists would be the door opening/closing and the footsteps of the person walking into the room. A popular radio drama is called "The Archers" and its BBC Radio 4's most liked radio drama.
i have learned this from https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 According to www.pressgazette.co.uk august 2, 2018, Charlotte Tobit said: |
Survey research
I sent out a survey asking people questions about radio dramas.
Question 1for the first question i asked on my survey, i asked 'what do you think a radio drama is?' and people the majority of peers that responded talked about how they think that its a story told through the use of sounds which isn't wrong but its still useful. one respondent talked about how they thought a radio drama is 'dramatised' and they said that the importance of the use of sounds such as music and sound effects is to help the listener picture and imagine the story in their head, i found these responses as they were helpful, especially the longer response because it was constructive and i found it useful.
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Question 2for the second question i simply asked my peers 'would you listen to one?' and one respondent said no but the other majority said that they would listen to a radio drama. one person say yes depending on what the radio drama is and whether it is interesting in the first couple of minutes.
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Question 3only two out of the four respondents answered this question. i asked them if they said no to the second question why wouldn't they listen to a radio drama. the two respondents talked about how they would listen to a radio drama if it was interesting and they said that if the title or genre didn't look appealing they wouldn't bother watching it
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Question 4for the fourth question i asked 'what do you think makes a radio drama successful?'. i found the responses to this question quite helpful as they were constructive and talked about how a radio drama becomes successful because of the Foley sound quality and the use of convincing actors. one respondent talked about how if its interesting from the start people will listen to it, they also said that if there is a good amount of Foley sound people will listen to it. i found the responses to this question helpful as i can include this feedback when i come to produce my own radio drama because i will know how to make it successful in some aspects and what type of things to include.
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Question 5i asked my peers what they think is the most important feature in a radio drama. one person said audio was important, i can agree the audio is quite important. the other two people that responded to the question talked about how they think that the Foley is the most important, i agree because it means there is always something to listen to which is good because it keeps a listener interested. one of these respondents suggested an engaging story line which is also important as the radio drama wouldn't be very interesting other wise and the listeners would find it boring.
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Question 7for the last question i made an error whilst creating the question so someone put 100 minutes which i'm not too sure about. the other respondents put more suitable times as they chose from 8 minutes to 35 minutes which is a lot more reasonable. the responses i have received for each question have been helpful and constructive as they have helped with further development of my idea and production.
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The Archers
A popular example of a radio drama is a radio drama called the archers and its the most popular radio drama currently on BBC Radio 4 and from looking at statistics, i have found out that 10.6 down from 11.5 million people tune in each week to listen to the archers. that means that just under 6% of Britain's population listens to radio dramas which is quite a big figure and suggests that its successful. i have found out that The Archers have aired over 18,000 episodes which is quite a lot, another thing that suggests its popularity is the fact that it is the longest running radio drama which means that people would've heard about it heard about it at some point and it shows that its been liked or else they would've stopped making episodes because people would've lost interest in them. it is successful because it is on the radio and its online which means that people can easily access it and tune in, meaning that people wont have any issues when trying to tune in. what i think makes the archers successful, are the characters and the fan base because they are quite good at creating believable characters and this is proven by the amount of people tuning in each week which is 10.6 million and if the characters weren't believable and they didn't make the characters interesting or believable, people wouldn't be interested in The Archers. One final thing i think that its popular and famous for is that its the longest running radio drama on the BBC and people tune in because other or past family members have tuned in and then it runs in the family as the show have been airing for around 68 years which is a long time.
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Cabin Pressure
Another example of a famous and/or popular radio drama is Cabin Pressure which is actually a sitcom. According to: BBC News 2019 "It has won numerous awards, broken BBC Radio 4 records, launched the career of "a once in a generation writer" and spawned a devoted, international fan base with a particular enthusiasm for travelling lemons and otter storage dilemmas." this shows that its famous because it has broken numerous records. it has also been on air for 10 years which suggests that it got quite popular. one thing to note is that the programme nearly didn't get made which means that its good that it did get made because they ended up breaking records which
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Focus Group
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I found the focus group in terms of developing my idea further as the feedback from the people in it was quite useful, at this point i haven't really thought of character names and one of the people talked about how giving names to the characters would mean that the audience would care more about the characters which is quite important in terms of the story. naming the characters is important because it makes the characters seem more important and relevant in the story. the people in the focus group talked about using a lot of Foley because it means that there is always something for the audience to listen to and it helps set the scene. Personally, i was going to use a lot of Foley anyway as it makes the story seem more convincing and as mentioned before it does always give the audience something to listen to. in terms of improving my idea the people in the focus group suggested that i make the characters interesting, and make sure that the characters talk about the surroundings to help set the scene and give the audience a better idea of the setting, i found this information helpful as its not something i looked into and now i can get the characters to talk about the surroundings in the radio drama. I then asked them how long i should make it and from what i gathered, they said that anywhere between 5 minutes and 15 minutes is quite a reasonable length for a radio drama, their reasoning behind this is that if its not long then it becomes quite boring because that would make the story line seem quite short and they also said making it longer would mean that i would have to make it interesting i think i can manage. however I'm not sure i will be able to make the radio drama any longer than 10 minutes as I'm not sure the story is long enough but i will try to make it interesting as best as i can. overall, i found this focus group to be quite helpful because they gave me some constructive feedback which i can use to further develop my production and improve on my current idea to make it more interesting.
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Genre
i think that genre is where you associate the film/radio type with, for example if a film is quite funny you would associate it with comedy and if a film is scary you would associate it with horror. my chosen genre will be a fictional adventure radio drama where the characters are teenagers and they go exploring in this underground railway station that has been abandoned for many years. i have chosen adventure as my genre because i think that its interesting and you aren't limited on ideas because for mine i could say that they found anything and there aren't any visuals which makes it easier. According to Collins Dictionary (2019) "A genre is a particular type of literature, painting, music, film, or other art form which people consider as a class because it has special characteristics." this shows that genre is what people class for example films based on their characteristics.
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Speaking in more generalised terms, my piece falls under the category of radio drama which means that within the media my piece will fall under the category of radio, hence the term 'Radio Drama'.Speaking in more specific terms of genre within my piece, my radio drama will be more of a mystery drama as i have been told my idea is very similar to the popular kids TV show 'Scooby-Doo' because the main characters and they go exploring in a place they dont recognise and they are trying to figure out some information about the place and why its there. in my piece the main characters are a group of teenagers and they go exploring in the underground railway station because they lose a football down there.
Codes and Conventions
A Drop in the OceanVoices : the voices used in this are quite convincing as they make it believable that they are down in a submarine and the actors have very good characterisation techniques because you can understand when they are feeling different emotions, such as frustrated just by listening to their voices at around 15:50. they made the situation they are in sound convincing by changing the pitch and pace of their voices, when i come to recording dialogue for my radio drama i will make sure that the voices and characterisation is convincing enough to make it sound like we are in the situation we are supposed to be in.
Speech: the actors are good with the speech as they are good at controlling the way that they speak because whilst i was listening to the piece i was able to tell when the characters were nervous or frustrated for example. i personally thought that they spoke well and they were quite convincing. in my production i will try to make the characters quite convincing. Words: in terms of words they have done this well as they talk about things that would be in the situation as well as themselves,for example they talk about radar systems which can be found on the submarine. they also talk about not being able to get a signal which helps me as a listener understand whats happening in the situation a lot better and at 16:07 he says "we need to surface right now" which implies that they are under water Aural Signposting: in terms of aural signposting, music is used to imply to the listener that something is about to happen and it is done correctly in this piece, there is one part where it is done well and the characters are getting hold of another character and you hear them say "pinch his nose" then you hear a strange intense sound followed by a loud scream. i will try to use aural sign posting in my production to make it more interesting at 9:01 there is a little sound effect when they say "pinch his nose" Sound Effects : there are a variety of sound effects which help convince me that they are in a submarine, for example i hear large metal doors opening and closing which suggest that they are on a submarine. another sound effect that i noticed was the beeping sound of the radar system which suggests to me that the characters are near a radar system and and they are checking for anything near by. in my production i will use sound effects to help the listener imagine the situation and help them feel that the story is convincing. i will use sound effects as it always gives the listener something to focus on. Music : i like the music because its quite eerie and mysterious, it starts at 1:58 and you slowly hear choir voices fading in at around 2:21 which i think helps add to the mystery of it and it fits with the situation as the characters are unsure about whats happening and the music sounds eerie and it sounds like the type of music you would have deep in the ocean Silence: the silence is used after something has happened to give the listener a chance to take in what the characters have just done and/or said but you can still hear a system in the background scanning or you hear a radar system beeping which shows that it hasn't gone completely silent this happens at 15:20 for example where you can still hear the metal creaking. Fades: there is a lot of fading used throughout the piece, the first use of fading is at 1:58 where the music starts and is used quite well i think that they have used a lot of fading because it gives it that mysterious effect as an example the background music fades in and out and so do the radar sound effects. towards the end you hear strange unsettling singing that fades from being quiet to being loud i think this is good as it gives the listener something to focus on and it also makes them curious as to what it is |
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The Man In The BarnVoices : the voices used in this piece are quite convincing as its easy to understand what type of people they are and how they feel at different points during the piece, the actor who we first hear is good at using his voice because we can understand that when he speaks he is using his inside voice to talk about his thoughts. the other two characters who we learn are called Gracie and Jimmy, are convincing as we can understand that they are elderly from the way that they sound and they are good at characterisation as you can tell when they are for example frustrated or happy.
Speech: from the way that Gracie and Jimmy speak we understand that they are an elderly couple and they are quite caring, we notice from the way that the first character speaks in his head that he is quite different to the other two characters as you can hear there is no emotion in the way that he speaks so that makes us as a listener quite confused. Words: from listening to this piece its easy to understand that the characters are in a fairly normal situation as there is nothing intense or scary going on and we know this because of the way they speak and the words they use, in my production i want to use correct words which will indicate whether the characters are perhaps confused or scared. Aural Signposting: i didn't really notice any aural signposting, apart from one audio clip where it is sounds like crickets chirping but the first character says its a beeping noise. when the beeping sound does happens the scene becomes more intense and at the end the woman who was looking for him looses him when the beeping stops which i thought was quite effective. in my production i wont do beeping sounds for my aural signposting, instead i will do a piano melody that slowly becomes louder towards the end Sound Effects : at 8:20 you can hear cutlery tapping against plates which suggests that they are sat down having a meal, another sound effect heard around 8:20 is a fire crackling in the back ground, in my production i will have footsteps on metal which will suggest that the characters are walking on the metal railway tracks Music : there wasn't really background music but there were little audio clips which indicated that there was something strange or mysterious when the first character speaks the only other music they have in this production are in the intro and outro where they talk about the piece and the sponsors. Silence: i didn't really notice any silence whilst listening to this piece, however i think that this is good as it means that the listener does not loose interest Fades: after listening out for fades i discovered that they faded out from sound effects and small audio files which i found were quite effective as they helped to create a mysterious feel and in my production i would like to do a similar thing because i want my production to come across as mysterious so the listener is interested. |
Contents
My radio drama is about a group of teenagers who become curious about this abandoned underground railway station and so they go exploring to look around and come across people who are living down there
After reading this article by Cavt949 i have discovered that this story is quite mysterious and there are some unexplained things such as the furniture and the amount of people that the person found in there, in my idea i want to try and do a similar thing where the main characters in my story go exploring through an abandoned underground railway system and as they explore they hear strange sounds. eventually the characters come across these people who they discover live in the underground railway system and they find out why the railway system became abandoned and why the people live down there. id like to make it similar to this article and have the people from the underground own some furniture down there so that they can live down there. i like this article because its quite mysterious as the person narrating in the article was just doing their job inspecting the underneath of some bridges where they came across a small crawl space where they became curious and decided to look through and discovered some people living in there. in production the group of teenagers will become curious and look around the abandoned underground railway system.
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The way i see my idea, is that it will be similar to the picture on the left. the picture is of a subway tunnel in Kiev and as it says in the description that some sections of this tunnel are reminiscent of scenes from the James Cameron classic, Aliens. the description talks about how the tunnels are often flooded, in my idea the tunnels/railways wont be flooded but there will still be water dripping noise which you will be able to hear. you will also hear little creaks which help make the characters feel paranoid
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For this part of the content i have looked into what makes the characters so curious to explore abandoned placves and what helps to lure them in and make them interested. After reading this article about a group of teens who were arrested for exploring the underground which was written by Jake502120, i have discovered that it is quite similar to my idea which is helpful but the only difference is is that the group of teenagers in my story wont get arrested. in this article i learned that they didn't get to fully explore the areas they wanted to explore, but i learned that they became curious because they heard a faint "music box" playing so they became curious as to what it was so they decided to try and break in through through the chains to find out what the music was and where it was coming from. in my idea i will use some similar eerie music which will make the main characters become curious as to what the music is and where its coming from. although there is some music playing in this article, i will have some eerie sound effect in my piece instead of some music as i think it would sound more realistic or i might have a piano melody that plays on repeat which eventually gets louder but i will use the channelling feature in Adobe Audition to make it sound like the noises are happening around the listener. Personally i think that the idea of music playing to lure the characters in is a good idea as it helps to give context as to why the characters are so curious, not only that but the music is another piece of audio for a listener to listen to.
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Test shooting
This video explains how you can add an echo effect in Adobe Audition, i would like to add echo to my Foley sounds as the characters are underground and that would help to make it more convincing. in this tutorial the man explains how you can add echo to audio files in Audition and he also explains how to make the audio either louder or quieter which is helpful because i can make it louder or quieter depending on how close the characters are or whatever sound effect i will have. this tutorial was helpful as he showed how to do it clearly and explained what problems you might face or see and how to fix them which is useful as i will know what theses issues mean and how to fix them.
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This video is by the same person as the previous video, and in this tutorial he explains how to correct the channelling so that you choose whether the audio comes out of the right channel, the left channel or both or even how much audio comes out of each channel, for example you could have it so that it is louder on the left side than the right side which i will try to include in my production as it makes it unique and more interesting for the listeners. Again in the video he talks about the problems and issues you might face or see and how to fix them if they do happen which is quite helpful.
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Artists/Professionals
Orson Welles this article talks about how Orson Welles broadcasted War of the Worlds on Sunday October 30 at 8 p.m and they had a weather report which was interrupted by an announcement and it made a lot of people who tuned in quite frightened and or shocked because they didnt know what do. the announcer on the radio said "Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory had detected explosions on planet Mars" which sounds quite believable and Orson Welles caused a "nation wide panic" with the war of the worlds broadcast. the listeners were also told that a "meteor had crashed into a farmers field in Grovers Mills in New Jersey" this also made the listeners quite scared. Orson Welles is famous for this specific broadcast as he managed to frighten a lot of people
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Serial / Sarah Keonigthis article is about the seasons of 'Serial' by Sarah Keonig and how she talks about real events that happened which are quite serious. according to the article, the series illustrates that even a couple of days spent in an american jail can change a persons life, and it can be a lot worse than a couple of days for anyone that gets entangled by the criminal justice which is quite interesting. the article talks about how season 3 of 'Serial' talks about how Keonig put herself in Cleveland to observe criminal justice and injustice and Keonig is best known for this and her podcast called 'Serial' which is quite popular.
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I admire these professionals as they are different and they stand out because of what they have done. For example Orson Welles managed to create a nation wide panic at the age of 23 which i think is impressive. i dont want to do the same thing but he stands out and i also want to stand out in terms of having a creative radio drama. i admire Sarah Keonig for putting herself in realistic situations to observe justice, i admire her for her confidence and courage to do this and i want to try and build my confidence which will help me in future.
Platform Research
In terms of platform, my radio drama could be listened to on BBC Radio 4 which is a radio and an online site where people can tune in and listen to things such as podcasts and popular radio dramas e.g The Archers. This good as it will target the more sophisticated side of my target audience and also BBC Radio 4 is very popular and if my production airs on there then a lot of people will be given a chance to listen to it. another platform my radio drama could be listened to on is Sound-Cloud and this is also good as it can target the younger side of my target audience which includes teenagers and young adults who are more likely to visit Sound-Cloud than they are visiting the BBC Radio 4 site. when i sent out the survey, I'm not sure what happened but there was only one question on the survey when i had a couple of respondents, so that is why it says that they have skipped the question. one respondent said they would listen to a radio drama on sound-cloud which is good as i talked about how the younger generation use sound cloud quite often. I'm not 100% sure but i think its the same person who managed to respond to the second question and their reason for why the platform is good, is because it releases fresh content which is good because that implies that a lot of people visit Sound cloud quit often.
Target audience research
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the results from this question were quite surprising because it shows that a lot of people don't particularly like radio dramas. i think this is because people might find them boring and i would like to try and make my radio drama quite interesting so that people will listen to it without getting bored of it
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I asked the respondents if they would prefer to listen to a radio drama or listen to a podcast and all of the respondents chose podcast which suggests that they don't like listening to radio dramas, you can also understand this by looking at the previous question. i will try to change the minds of people who think that they are boring by making my radio drama interesting
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for the final question i asked the respondents what genre of radio drama they would listen to if they were actually listen to a radio drama. 50% of the respondents chose romance as their genre, 25% chose horror and the remaining 25% chose action. my idea comes under the mystery genre which includes elements of horror and action, i think that its good that the target audience like action and horror so that they can enjoy my radio drama.
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From this survey I learned that my respondents were all 17 and they liked the same genre of radio drama as what I was aiming for which is helpful because it means that they will enjoy my piece. my genre is mystery genre and the respondents liked action and horror which I think is a combination of the both of them. I noticed on the 3rd question that they didn't like radio dramas and i want to aim to change their minds and make them enjoy radio dramas again. overall the target audience research has helped me because i can focus on my genre which is mystery because i think the audience will enjoy it and it helps because i can see what type of people I'm aiming my production at