In what way does you media product use, developer challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Through our research and development of research ideas we covered many different types of products and the different facets of BBC radio that produces them. This information inspired our ideas and pushed them to a production par. Most of all, the concept of ‘The Archers’ appealed to us most, the idea of a serial drama, the reflection within radio of shows that we are most familiar on the television  and how it is translated to a radio production. We wanted to influence our drama with what we’re most familiar with, to ensure the codes and conventions of drama are met; products like ‘Eastenders’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’, where the location aides define the regularities of the realism and also allows the rupturing of ‘normality’ to bore narrative storylines, give us the guidelines to work from. ‘Eastenders’, like ‘Desperate Housewives’ has a regular setting yet has irregular events in order to be capturing and dramatic.  We also looked at the ways radio dramas are constructed, the use of sound to encapsulate a location and the events going on within it, how to substitute the lack of visual aid to define the mise-en-scene, the ways in which non-diegetic sound create mood and the lack of any sound creates suspense.

As sound is our only medium, we must pay closer attention to its use. In order to construct a setting, we must fill every void within it to ensure that the location is set and our characters are exposed, we must think outside the box; for example, if we are to set a scene in a café in Edinburgh, not only must ensure the relative sound effects are used, quiet background chatter, clanking of spoons, perhaps a coffee machine in the background, however to maintain the location we may introduce a minor character, like a waitress, with the accent and perhaps the major characters if they’re native will have the accents too. In ‘The Twilight Zone’ the episode we listened to was set upon a submarine, so throughout there was an intermittent creaking from the pressure of the water against the hull of the ship, because of this the illusion of being upon the boat was maintained.  In our radio drama, we tried to maintain this kind of level of attention to detail, for example in the second scene when Gary enters the Windsor household; we have added footsteps on a wooden floor, a slight echo to his voice and some soft background music for effect. This gave the effect of a larger, older, more classic style London town house which, in turn, connotes wealth; this then further explains the character and gives us further implied information on them.

Every detail counts in maintaining the surroundings, and we must maintain clarity in what is going on. From the action of picking up the phone to popping open a bottle of pills, we realised how many individual sounds were needed to sustain the narrative. This posed a couple of issues whilst writing the script, eluding to re-writing sections to fit radio and not to fit television; during the creation and coming together of the narrative we all planned through and envisioned how things would work out and that was the problem, we had planned out all these ideas and scenes only to realise that they wouldn’t translate to radio very well. For example, at one point the murder weapon was going to be a knife instead of a gun, yet we realised the only real way to signify a knife on air would be through the script and, for the kind of scene we were planning, that would only slow the pace of the scene.

The use of background music aides to set the mood and atmosphere; although ‘The Archers’ didn’t use background music, the episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ did, and successfully too, in order to procure the sense that the character really was going a bit crazy. Within our radio drama, we chose our music carefully; we decided that the music for this episode should have a darker edge to it, for example the backing music ‘Beautiful Tension’, we chose this to be Jonathon’s theme track for it too was dark and misleading, appearing initially to be relaxed and then building into a crescendo.

As much as the use of sound is vital, so is the lack of it. Within ‘War Of The Worlds’ silence was used for tension and suspense, to aid the sense of fear and forlorn. Within Pembroke Gardens, we used the silence to transition between scenes, to use silence as nothingness, and at the end of the drama after Lara is shot, for shock factor and surprise especially as there was a build up with the music before as well.

[clip of Waroftheworlds]

Our characters help define the narrative. Having characters of varying social background within our radio drama advocated special attention directed to accents; generalisation is necessary when it comes to certain media products and much like the old Ealing studio films, it is sometimes necessary to have a clear indication of who the characters are, based on their accent. Within ‘Pembroke Gardens’ this is quite clear, Gary’s friends are quite clearly of a lower class to that of Jonathon, Lara and Susan; the accent differences highlight this but not as much as the sociolect that really emphasizes the difference in socio-economic background. Jay says in the opening lines that he “got bang-bang from a proper milf, last night”, this denotes his sense of class due to the use of slang and simplified lexis and imperfect English denoting C2DE background. Jonathon for example, appears to be ‘clearly’ educated, he uses polysyllabic lexis and has a good control over his vocabulary and more of an AB background, for example “You’re detestful, and the only reason I took you, was out of pity”.

The storyline makes it. We very much like the concept of a serial drama, inspired by ‘The Archers’ with a polylateral narrative in order to be able to focus on several plots at once whilst being able to treat each episode individually. Like with many soaps we deal with many ‘issues’, such as affairs, secrets, cover-ups and, originally, a whodunit narrative. Our major storyline arc came to an end within the episode we made, Lara’s affair with Gary, yet, like a classic serial drama, the twist in the storyline opened up another storyline arc, Jonathon killing Gary and pushing his wife over the edge and the kind of repercussions that will bring. Having an ongoing abusive relationship narrative was quite important; it allows a sense of illuminating the issue to a wider audience and to raise awareness, to let those who can relate to the story (Uses and Gratification;Bulmer and Katz) that they are not alone. We also paid close attention to the pacing of text and also the character involvement as to not confuse or bore the listener.

Advertisement Poster

Although it was difficult to find other examples of radio drama posters; the majority I came across were either of cast shots or of character based situational shots and from this I began looking at these conventions to shape and form my poster. The cast shot I aimed for was to show the audience what the characters looked like and also to back the storyline. It shows how Jonathon is controlling and obsessive, Lara’s need for escape, Susan’s helplessness in her want to help Lara and the authority figure that represents the police, on the edge as a hint of what’s to come. This adheres to codes and conventions of product advertisement, referencing film posters that hint at the story behind the protagonist or that of cast shots.

I think I have used a shot that really has a narrative and says a lot, this, combined with cast names, a tag line and branding, I aimed to replicate that of more traditional advertisement. In order to replicate ideas of creating a tone to the piece I kept my fonts classic and differing my logo and tagline, which appeared highlighted in contrast and more fitting to the tone of the product.

Feature
My feature reflected my research made in preparation and thus conforms to the conventions of written features. My layout and use of images is something that is widely used across the board, yet I refrained from using too many, in order not to drown the readers attention. I subscribed to the three columns a page, convention of print and by using a drop capital and removing hyphenation to promote a higher sense of formality and professionalism. The title sustains traditional conventions also by being loud and drawing in attention, being inclusive in text and an interesting tone of interview.