Planning: Radio Advert

For the magazine advert for my radio drama, I decided that I wanted to keep the advert as simple as possible. Busy posters and adverts, I feel, often distract from the product and sometimes alienate the reader, something which I wanted to avoid at all costs. Since one of the conventions of adverts of this kind is to keep the text to a bare minimum, I decided that I should keep the information as basic as possible, telling the reader what I was advertising, the title and where and when they could hear it.

Wanting to use imagines in my advert in keeping with common conventions, I have worked at sketching out the compositions of the both the texts and the images for the advert. I was opposed to overlapping text and image since I find that that this difficult and betimes infuriating to read. However, knowing that this might not be the case for the majority, I discussed the situation with a variety of people, most of who agreed that it was easier to read text without the background image, especially if the picture alternated between light and dark which would then compete in some ways with the font no matter its colour.

Below are some rough sketches of composition ideas.

Radio Drama Soundtrack

Having listened to a variety of radio dramas I found that one thing they all had in common, with the exception of war of the worlds and a few of the audio books, was a recurring soundtrack which originally preceded the drama along with a voice over, introducing the play’s title, writer and the majority of the cast members. The same soundtrack would then be played throughout the drama, sometimes as an undertone to monologues or more often as a useful indication to the listener that the scene was about to change. Realising that the soundtracks helped to set the mood of the radio drama as well as providing an ordered structure it was decided that we should include a soundtrack to the radio drama, especially since the first half consisted of quickly changing scenes, which might confuse the listener if we did not provide breaks of something more than silence between then dialogue.  

Since we decided on a science fiction drama with comical aspects it was thought the soundtrack should have a solemnity to it in order to juxtapose the surface of the genre we had chosen and to highlight the more serious undertone of our plot. One of our ideas was that the building was a living, reproduction of a planet suffering from the abandonment and abuse of the biological life forms which had once lived there, and keeping with this theme the first idea was simply a heartbeat, as this is a clear indication of life but when played at the right speed and volume it can incite fear in the consumer, something which was felt would help grab their attention.  However this idea was eventually discarded because having listened to a number of radio dramas it was felt that a heartbeat differed too much from the customary jovial, soothing or disturbing melodies that were played through other dramas.

Spirit of Albion by Damh The Bard

The Wheel by Damh The Bard

Two soundtracks which was considered were the Spirit of Albion and The Wheel by Damh the Bard as we felt that it would help to illustrate the point we were trying to make of global warming as its focus on the land, nature and it's glory would almost become an ideal that the characters, and the building in particular, were trying to reach for. Due to the pagan feel of his music however we felt that ultimately they would be too unsuitable for a science fiction drama set in space and we discarded this idea for that reason. Listening to the Damh the Bard it was also decided that for the purposes of our drama we wanted to keep the soundtrack instrumental, so as not to distract from or be confused with the voices of the characters, particular since we wanted the soundtrack to play as a backdrop to the narration.

Hope Springs by Roy Todd

Deciding against openly jovial music and singing for the soundtrack we decided to look into instrumental music and came across Roy Todd’s beautiful and emmotional piano music where we looked at ‘Hope Springs’ among other compositions. We had chosen to look into instrumental music as we thought it would be far more effective in setting an undertone for our radio drama and because we believed it would be better in keeping with our theme, our thinking was further enhanced with listening to ‘Hope Springs’. After much debate however we set the music aside, believing it to sound, as the title had suggested far too hopeful for the mood of either sadness or simple peace that we wanted to achieve.

Research: Website Design

In looking at various websites for radio theatre such as Chatterbox Audio Theatre, Radio Drama Revival and the BBC it became clear that the majority of existing websites concerned with audio theatre focus on a range of dramas, and those members involved, rather than one series. Many of the sites I explored, such as the aforementioned Chatterbox were also part of non profit on line communities, producing drama for free streaming and downloads meaning that they were perhaps not the best examples of monetization. However the sites always had a friendly, personal, and unthreatening feel to them which I thought engaged the audience and if this were applied to my radio drama I believe creating a website almost as a friendly continuation to the story line would be a good way to gain further support for the series, which would then lead to commercialisation at a later stage.

The website of Cosmic Forces however deals with one specific radio series at a time, that series currently being The Soul Patrol, a website which provides information concerning the characters and the separate episodes as well as allowing the consumer to download sneak previews of each episode onto their computer.  

One feature of the websites was an certain degree of interactivity between those involved in the radio dramas and their consumers. For example in the case of the Radio Drama Revival, the site offers budding scriptwriters the chance to produce their own dramas for show, Chatterbox being similar in its page inspiring community spirit and participation to create it’s audio theatre.

In the case of Ground Floor Up however I thought it would be unrealistic to offer recordings of a radio drama, especially since the website was going to deal with the idea or one radio series. However I want to maintain a certain sense of interactivity and as such I am looking at the idea of forums.

The Snow Child

One of the BBC’s Books at Bedtime, 'The Snow Child' is a radio adaptation of Alaskan author Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel which itself is based on a Russian fairytale. The drama runs over a series of days, each episode lasting no more than fifteen minutes.

Like 'Paperwork,' 'The Snow Child' is an audio book rather than a radio drama and as such there is only the one speaker’s voice and no music or sound effects throughout the reading, a silence which I feel gives far more power to the speaker’s voice since there is nothing within the drama itself to distract the listener.

Despite being presented as science fiction and fantasy story, the script gives the impression of a couple's relatively normal, if sometimes somewhat miserable, life in their new home in Alaska. Among the scenes of normality, the listener hears that Mabel is childless, her one child having been stillborn and that it has caused misery in her and Jack, her aging husband’s, lives, a fact which seems to be slowly destroying their marriage. Whilst there is no outright hatred between Mabel and any of the other characters, it is clear the character feels uncomfortable around them, believing that they see her as a burden to Jack. Through this social awkwardness and Mabel’s grieving over her childless marriage in the first episode the audience is allowed to connect and empathise with the main character, something critically important for the success of the overall series. The script also never leaves Mabel’s point of view, which enables important information to be covered only briefly, for example those who do not already know 'The Snow Child' would find nothing significant about the fleeting appearance of the fox, being unaware of its connection to the later character of the wild girl. Also masking the fox’s appearance among other things is the amount of details and description given to the audience, since if the descriptions were more used more sparingly the audience would naturally assume that everything mentioned carried great significance in the play, further illustrating the importance of script in drama.

Ancillary Products: Website

As an ancillary product I have created a website for my radio drama, which you can view live via the link below.

http://radiodramagroundfloorup.weebly.com/

Final Product

Above is our final product, Ground Floor Up, the begining of the first episode in a science fiction radio drama.

Voice and Paperwork

Unlike in visual medias, we, as an audience, are unable to rely on mannerisms, facial expressions and actions when it comes to the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Therefore the speaker’s voice is an important convention of radio since through pitch and tone amongst other things the voice can create the correct emotion which might otherwise have been lost to the reader since audio plays do not often have all the freedom of text in describing events and surroundings.

One example of when the voice is a most important convention is the BBC’s twenty eight minute adaptation of Ruth Rendell’s 'Paperwork.' A talking book rather than a play, 'Paperwork' follows the story of a man, whose name is not given, forced to confront the miseries of his childhood after he inherits his grandmother’s house and all of its contents. 'Paperwork' relies on the speaker’s voice and description to convey its plotline. There is no music or sound effects involved at all and it gives you the impression of being the speaker’s confidante as he tells his story. The lack of sound effects, I feel, gives the voice far more power than it might otherwise have, adding to the illusion of silence and loneliness that is present throughout the entire play. Throughout the adaptation, the speaker’s ‘storyteller’ voice remains even and calm, rarely changing in pitch meaning that when the changes are apparent, they are emphasised by the sheer lack of quantity. For example, when the speaker confronts his grandmother about his absentee mother she says that one day he will find out a number of things which she then begins to list, one of these being ‘the murder’ which is dropped into the speech as calmly as though it were as normal as ‘it might rain today’ despite the fact that this is the first time the listener hears of the murder.