FORMS AND CONVENTIONS USED IN THE PRODUCTION

1. FORMS AND CONVENTIONS USED IN THE PRODUCTION Conventions of verbal codes are used when Sarah says to Joe ‘mum’s bought some tasty food’ this shows the connotations of an even middle class lifestyle and Sarah’s families kind nature to willingly provide for Joe; this also shows that Joe is a nice and trustworthy boy. However, the way in which the actress playing Sarah read the word ‘tasty’ made it seem seductive which translated the line into a humorous line, bringing black humour into the play which I thought made it more entertaining for the audience to watch

2. The sound effect of the women putting a drink down on the table is quite harsh which shows the connotations of urgency and fear as the women is urgently trying to get Joe to drink the drink as it has been spiked The women’s order ‘drink this’ also produces a sense of urgency The line follows on with ‘you look like you need a drink after the day you’ve had’ which would be conventional of a conversation between two older people however the comment seems odd and out of context as the women is directing it at a young teenage boy This could also be seen as black humour as it is such an obscene comment to aim at a young boy that the only way to take it is to make it humorous.

3. The music at the beginning funeral scene carries emotion through the connotations of upper-middle class funerals through the classical music I directed my actors to sing, giving power to the scene creating a sense of distress on the audience The emotion is enhanced through the overlap of the mothers speech and the Priest’s prayer Overlapping the three elements in the funeral made it very easy to ensure the audience would understand the intensity of the scene

4. The women’s voice in this scene is also high pitched to translate to the audience that Joe’s misfortune was down to her and she was glad about it. This contrasts with Sarah’s call for Joe down the phone as her voice is lower in pitch and therefore more serious and genuinely worried about Joe.

5. When the women repeats Joe’s name to check if he is intoxicated the pauses between each call of his name are silent presenting the connotations of Joe’s loneliness and isolation in which the women has created for him

6. When the women refers to Joe as ‘kid’ this undermines him showing to the audience how vast their age gap is to make their developing relationship even more unsettling

7. The conventions of the word ‘kid’ followed by ‘not many like you anymore’ gives Joe an innocence that the audience are able to identify

8. Therefore, the audience expects to understand the relationship between Joe and the women purely platonic and simply two strangers meeting at a train station

9. However, the women’s line of ‘here’s my number, call me and I’m sure we can figure something out’ goes against the conventions of a relationship between a teenage boy and an older women as it starts to become more personal and close

10. When Joe tells the women that him and Sarah had an argument because he spilt his drink on her this shows childish connotations as if you are older and spill a drink you apologise and it is understood to have been an accident however when you are younger spilling a drink is seen as bad and something to be angry over. Therefore, this shows the audience the complete vastness of Joe and the women’s age gap as Joe is still getting into arguments about such minute things, such as spilling a drink

11. The pause in the radio drama before Joe says ‘I think I need help’ creates tension through the build up of whether or not he is going to answer the phone or not This keeps the audience on edge as they are unaware of whether he is alive or not

12. Use of Media I was able to use the computer to log onto the internet and research articles to give me inspiration for my radio drama plot I then copied and pasted these articles into word and used word to highlight and make comments on the articles that were relevant to the plot of my radio drama

13. I then used Microsoft word to write my script The format worked well as it was easy to use and I could highlight and comment on certain lines It also allowed me to edit the script easily which was necessary in trying to translate exactly how I wanted my script to sound to both the audience and my actors Therefore, I had to choose each word in my script carefully to see if they would work, for example I had to think carefully about whether or not the women would say the word ‘kid’, if it was too old fashioned or too undermining towards Joe

14. I used coral paint shop pro XIto make up my advert This allowed me to put text in front of my advert picture relevant to what a radio advert would look like

15. I used my phone camera to take the main picture for my advert I went to the church where I took the variety of pictures and took them from a variety of angles I was able to use the camera on my phone as technology has developed in such a way that phone cameras are just as good as straightforward cameras

16. I used a microphone attached to a MAC PC to record my radio drama so that the radio drama recorded was able to save straight onto the PC to then be sent via email to my school computer where I was able to edit it

17. I used adobe Premier to edit my radio drama It enabled me to look at my script in timeline form so that I could edit out mistakes made by my actors and to add in sound effects

18. I used YouTube to download sound effects to add into my radio drama I also used the internet to convert the YouTube clips into MP3 form so that they were able to be inserted into adobe

19. I used my blog to upload all my files so that I was able to put them all together in one place The blog gave me a sense of authority over my work as it allowed me to move, edit and control all I had done for others to see

20. I used PowerPoint so that I could put information into different slides to brake it all up into small and easy to read points

21. However, using media proved to be difficult as it took time to learn how to use adobe premier effectively to edit my radio drama well Also, it was hard to upload files onto the blog as the site tended to crash Downloading sound effects off YouTube into an MP3 was difficult as many of the websites I used to do this were blocked on the schools internet When I wanted to work from home it was hard as the files I emailed to myself did not always work from my home PC as I had a different word package to the school’s word package

22. Combination of Main Product and Ancillary Texts I wanted to produce something which challenged the stereotypical femme-fatale. I made one of the hero's a killer. I used the normal conventions of the little black dress, tousled hair code of female sexuality this was completely at odds with the cold and casual way in which she used Joe. This is normally the behaviour of the male psycho.

23. The model I used is also pictured in front of a church with Rosary beads in her hand and blood on her hands in order to show that she literally has blood on her hands The references to God, the Church and Rosary beads, show distinct opposites of good and evil and how the women is rebelling against the good

24. Understanding of the Significance of Audience Feedback Message>>>>>Medium>>>>>Audience People have said to me that there are many sexual connotations within the script that have come though in the recording due to the way in which the actors have said their lines. And so, the line ‘tasty food’ seems more promiscuous rather than playful. Also, the line ‘I can thank you properly’ is said seductively making the relationship between the women and Joe seem already too close and unconventional; Joe here seems out of his depth. Many people also asked me why the women killed Joe and what drove her to do it; however, I believe this question would not have arisen if the killer has been male as people associate murderers with males more than with females and so it is always a greater shock when the killer is female as it is unconventional to what the media portray killers to be.

25. In order to make my radio drama work, I had to consider the audience of Radio 4 Therefore, I got my actors to speak in RP and standard English dialect to allow the audience to relate to the characters in the drama and balance out the unconventional and daring radio drama targeted at a younger and modern audience and the connotations of snobbery associated with the listeners of Radio 4