Analysis of my Radio Play ‘Ever Fallen in love with...’

1. Sophie O’Farrell Analysis of my Radio Play ‘Ever Fallen in love with...’

2. Digital technology used in my production • Throughout my production i have used a range of new digital technology inabling me to plan, reserch and produce my radio play. • I used MS Word first to write my story which would then lead to conduting a script using the same format. • Email was a major part of my project as it enabled me to email the people i wanted to use in my radio drama. It was also helpful when i needed to send work home to edit and print out. • I used the internet surfiently to upload all my work onto my blog which was good as i could keep track of what stage of the project i was at and what i still needed to do. It was also good as it enabled me to receive feed back about my work and make changes to better my production. The internet was again very usefull to me while reaserching my chosen theme of radio play.

3. I used a song ux 60 recorder to record my radio play. This peice of equipmet was very useful as it is small and easy to carry around if i needed to record sound effects that were out of the classroom. • To accomany the recorder i used a sony 907 mic which again was easy to carry and light weight proving handy when moving from palce to place to record sound effects and my actual radio play. • The quality of both recorder and mic were brilliant as it blocked out unwanted noises and made my play clear to hear. • Audacity was probabbly the most important peice of technology used as it enabled me to edit my radio play. I was able to cut and paste sound effects and make any changes to my radio play that i wanted or needed to do. • I used paintshop pro to edit photos for both my webpage and advert. It was useful as the vast editing options availiable let me murge to photo’s together to from one for my advert. I wouldn’t of been able to do this not using paintshop pro. • I then used MS Publisher to create an advert for my radio play and a webpage that would be realistic to what you would actually see when advertising a radio play.

4. Conventions of the genre • Genre – I didn’t challenge the genre when it came to producing my radio play. I used typical conventions as i used both male and female voices and changed tones to suit emotion. My play is a illicit love story that follows all conotations of one. The play includes two different lifestyles, reasons as to why it is illicet and a conventional love scene. • Theme - The theme of my play is a love story. It informs the listener that the two main characters have fallen in love which gives the ‘awww’ effect typical of a love story and there is a twist in circumstances of how they met, however the end is not typical of a love story as it is not clear if there is a stereotypical happy ending or not. • Medium - I wanted my play to be suitable for an evening radio show and the audience to be adults and mature teenagers. I chose this because the story line holds subliminal messages that may not be suitable to be played on radio at certain times during the day or for young children to hear.

5. Representation • Representation was a major part of if my radio play. I wanted to get it right as otherwise my play wouldn’t of flowed or sound how i wanted it to. As with a tv drama you can see the actors therefore subconsciencly judging and working out representation in your own mind. I tried to represent all characters, places and ideas as best as i could throughout the play. I chose my characters carefully and selectivly as i wanted to portray certain representations through their voices. As the main character Jake is a young 18year old boy i picked a boy of this age who’s voice was standard of youth today. My other main character Sara is a middle aged woman who makes the first move on Jake in the play, i wanted this to be portrayed in my actresses voice so i got her to speak slowly, seductively with a slight authority sound to her voice. The other characeters were inmates and Sara’s friend. Again i picked carefully and selected older men to do the voices of the inmates as i wanted a sense of realness to my play.

6. The story line of my play is that it is set in a prison, this is clearly represented as it is quoted throughout the play and the story is based around a relationship that brought them together due to this confindment. The setting of the play is very important as it wouldn’t be classed as a illicet relationship if Jake wasn’t inprisoned. • Sound effects also help with the demonstration of where it is set as prison and kitchen sound effects can be reconised clearly.

7. Was planning a success? • There are aspects of the course that I found easy, I felt that some things happened naturally when deciding what to write about and how to turn it into a play, these things i thought i may struggle with as we had the choice to write about anything. • At first I wanted to write about an illicet relationship between a teacher and a pupil, I then decided against it as there has been alot a media hype recently about inapropriate behaviour between teachers & pupils and felt a little uncomfortable writing about it and then having to research it. • I felt doing as many drafts as possible would benefit me, and it did just that. It helped me greatly in deciding what words to use and why, which character should say what and where. • Planning was definately a success for my radio play.

8. Choices & outcomes in my production • As a few of my actors have professional jobs it was hard to get all the actors in the right place at the right time. I tackled this by recording the second scene first and editing any mistakes, there were a few as the actors may have sadi a word wrong or spoke at the wrong time. This was easy to justify as i used audacity to cut sounds out and fill them in with others. • I then arranged a day where all my actors i needed for certain scenes were together and i recorded the whole script within half an hour. It was then easy for me to merge the scenes together adding sound effects and ending up with a finished project.

9. What would i change to inprove my production? • If i were to do this production again then i would start recording at an earlier stage leaving me more time to edit and analise. • I would also record my play a few times using different actors to give a different effect on the radio play • I would have also liked more people to hear my radio play, people from a wide range of age groups in order to assess my faults in more detail and try to cater to all ages, although the feedback recieved was very useful to me. Although i would make changes to my production if i were to do it again i very much enjoyed the creative power i had to produce this play and i am happy with the outcome.

10. Audience & the importance of feedback • From receiving feedback from my radio play it was nice to know that people enjoyed and understood fully what i was trying to communicate. Feedback was important to me as it helped me when editing my play for the last time. It was also interesting to hear from people what they wanted from a radio play and if it met there needs. I believe that from receiving feedback i was successful in communicating what i hoped to have expressed.

11. Technology & the ability to create Using the technology provided I was able to produce an advanced radio play that wouldn’t of been able to be communicated a few years ago. The radio drama I have produced resembles a real life drama, it has all the connotations of a play you would hear on a radio broadcast or website such as BBC radio4. Although the format is similar due to the technology not being as high tech there were a few faults in my play. It was difficult to blur out background sounds and get the sound effects to run perfectly with the play. .

12. Institution When planning my radio drama i had a set audience in mind i wanted to apeel to, this was middle ages men and woman and mature teenagers. I chose this because i knew that i wanted a story line that wasn’t reflective of how many people see relationships. I liked the idea of a postmodern outlook to one, how even though a person could be married or in prison love can still take over. This story line seems to be more common in the media nowadays and i thought it would be interesting to be able to research this and turn it into a radio drama. There is subliminal messages in the play which is why i thought middle aged and mature teenagers would be the best audience to apeel to as they would hopefully be able to read between the lines and come to there own conclusions about how the story ends between the two main characters.

13. As i had a preferred target audience in mind i thought that a good time to play this radio play would be in the evening at about 6.30. Adults are usually home from work by then and mature teenagers are either at home as they have finished college or university but still early enough for them not to have gone out yet. This would tie in nicely for both genders aswell.