A2 Media: Radio Drama Blog: Newspaper Advert

Research

Radio Drama Posters, themselves, are hard to find, however as sampled above and from TV drama posters I can pull together a closer idea of what to use as general style model.

Radio drama posters usually tend to have images of a full cast, as introduction to the characters, or something that holds high relevance to the content of the radio drama itself as a teaser. Both of which are usually of simple design. With reference to earlier blog entries and using these we can see how location shots help the audience to understand the drama better (The Archers).

Looking at 'Truth... over the airwaves!', we see how this poster abides classic codes and conventions, adhering to a sense of 60's style. This creates both a sense of nostalgia to the audience and sense of 'retro' to a younger audience, appealing to both. Having the only image of who's involved as caricatures, it hints to the style of the peace and keeps mystery at the same time.

"Having" is a more classic radio drama style poster, having the main focus on an image that gives hint to what the narrative is. From this image, we can derive themes of wealth, via the large house and expensive car coupled with the fact that she is wearing a suit, and suggested legality, her style and body language with interaction with props almost suggests that she appears to be reading a press statement. With the only coloured text on a black and white poster being in the production teams name, this promotes ideas of recognition, that they are well know and official.

Brainstorm and rough ideas

Development

After settling on the the concept of having a character shot, to promote the episode itself, being the finale of the storyline arc, I mocked up a layout of what I wanted and the kind of image I wanted to present. I wanted to make sure the characters and their individual situations were really conveyed, that the image itself held narrative. I wanted to expose Jonathon's controlling and obsessive behaviour, Lara's sense of helplessness under Jonathon's rule, Susan's concern and helplessness to help Lara and the Police representation, slightly detached from the image center as to imply of what's to come.

Having originally planning to use older models for the cast shot, we decided against it in the end as trying to correlate time together wasn't working at all. Instead, whilst we were booked in the photography studio to do our cast shot, we decided to take the character shots as well. We all tried to channel out characters as best as we could, to give the image the greatest impact possible, with the resources we had. Below is our best shot, slightly photoshopped to clear up skin, bags under the eyes/blemishes/skin shine and some smudging done to 'Lara's eyes to create an effect of being tired and having cried a lot.

I decided to have a landscape photo, that way the cast could be shot with enough space around them so that the narrative was procured. I chose Zapfino as the 'signature' text for Pembroke Gardens as it was both delicate and statement, and it also looks elegant, something that adheres to tone of our piece. The font itself is is quite thin, so instead of bumping up the font size, I decided to change the font width and height to make it larger and bolder. The tag line, 'where everybody has secrets...', adds to the mystery of the narrative of the image, implying that theres a lot more going on, this draws the prospective audience in.

Having created the basic layout, I came across that the BBC Radio 7 logo, only came in yellow and black and with my image the black blended in far too much with the image. In Photoshop, I cut the necessary section, placed it on to a secondary layer and I inverted the image and then compressed the layers to create the "new" logo.

Having created and placed everything on Indesign, I decided that it would be simpler to recreate it all on Photoshop and that way, I only need to add the text for the review and the cast names as when trying to add the banner across the bottom I had forgot that I had already placed the BBC Radio 7 logo on the background image.

The only thing left for me to add was the review and the cast names. The review's five stars were created by using the polygon frame tool by setting the number of points to five and the gradient to 50%, then, when resized, were replicated and aligned.

Final version

My advertisement would be well suited for billboards and magazine/newspaper advertising, to aid attract the target audience and stir interest in the show.

Rest Of The Groups Photos

Lorraine's Poster