Advanced Production Planning

Rosemary Green – Radio Drama‘Do you believe in fate’

Linked Stories To My Radio Drama‘Curry Poisoning Woman Found Guilty Of Murder’http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8492936.stm#

A woman has been convicted of murdering her lover of 16 years by lacing his curry with a "deadly" poison.

The Old Bailey heard Singh could not bear the thought of her lover's marriage to another woman

Edward Brown, QC, prosecuting, said: "Perhaps jealousy, anger and revenge all playing their part, Lakhvir Singh decided to poison them using an extremely toxic and deadly poison, possibly brought especially from India."

Police later found traces of the poison among herbs in Singh's coat pocket and in her handbag.

‘Doctor jailed for poisoning pregnant lovers drink’http://www.allvoices.com/s/event-4629386/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5pbmRlcGVuZGVudC5jby51ay9uZXdzL3VrL2NyaW1lL2RvY3Rvci1qYWlsZWQtZm9yLXBvaXNvbmluZy1wcmVnbmFudC1sb3ZlcnMtZHJpbmtzLTE4MjE1MDYuaHRtbA

He was found guilty last month of spiking Bella Prowse's coffee and orange juice to make her miscarry.

He was cleared of administering poison in a cup of tea which she drank, and the jury could not agree on a charge that he obtained the drugs without Miss Prowse's knowledge.

He put powder in her Starbucks coffee but she noticed it had been opened. This was not a morality trial, but the nature of this case is unusual in that

it is only the second of its type to be brought before the courts in the last 40 years."

Kosher baker Gil Magira was jailed for three years and nine months last year after pleading guilty to putting drugs into his wife's food to unsuccessfully induce a miscarriage.

I used these story to research my radio drama as it highly featured some of the elements in my radio drama such as revenge, a difficult love triangle and a poisoning resulting in death.

Analysis of radio drama‘Cant Live Without You’

Analysis Of A Radio DramaRadio Four Play ‘Cant Live Without You’ 

From looking on the radio four website at the list of available radio plays there was one that I felt was prominent on the page. A psychological thriller named’ I can’t live without you’ from reading the description it is a narrated play about the story of a married couple whom the wife is on a transplant waiting list.

The play begins with an artistic representation of a man, he discusses with the audience about art, Picasso and birds. This gives the audience insight into his lifestyle and suggests that he is wealthy and middle classed. He then goes onto to discuss his wife and how she is on a transplant waiting list. This creates a sense of empathy between the audience and the narrator. The production also uses soft music in the background whilst he talks which connotes a sense of sadness, and fear.

The narrative layout of the drama is linear and consecutive however in some parts there are chatty style narrations from Gregg the husband not referring to past memories and feelings. There are also a few flashbacks to represent how their relationship has progressed through time and to show that they have a conventional marriage of being and love yet having some conflicts.

The tone of voice used for Gregg is soft representing that he is soft and emotionally hurt by the illness of his wife yet it is not feminine showing masculinity and his strength to hold his feelings and emotions together. His wife Anna’s voice is feminine and typically high pitched connoting vulnerability and her inability to protect herself. This choice of tone of voice represent the story well as it is Anna who is vulnerable and having to rely on Gregg to take care of her and protect her due to her illness. There are also references to reality and everyday life through the use of conventional sound effects such as telephones ringing, door closing and sound effect of a phone hanging up all represent a realist situation and remind the audience that it is based on purely fact and is non fictional.The main representation I feel that the playwright was trying to demonstrate is the love and passion that was once between the couple. The eerie subtle music acts as a representation of the progression of the relationship and the progression of her illness. There are also connotations in the play of when the relationship is going through a rough patch this is represented by the dramatisation of certain words such as ‘red bills’ ‘hospitals’ ‘syringe’ ‘weak’ and ‘selfish’

Narrative Of My Radio DramaThe narrative of my radio drama is strictly linear Although I miss out scenes of the play and fast forward to parts

this does not make it non linear.The code of character – Sinister, complex individual, revenge

seeker, malicious but at the same time charming.The code of action – ‘the jealous ex partner’ can be seen as very

conventional, yet it does not adhere to the ‘happily ever after ending’ making this drama conform to the enigma code (Barthes codes)

The cultural code – I chose to use different dialects in my characters not only to make it easier for the audience to differentiate and to appeal to a wider audience but also to move away from the usual niche audience radio dramas tend to focus on and appeal to.

Layout Of My ScriptFor the layout of my script I put all my characters full

names in bold at the beginning of their speech so they could clearly see when they were expected to speak.

I also separated each scene onto separate pages so to reduce the noise of pages turning whilst recording.

I made sure there were enough copies of the script to make sure all of my actors had there own copy to read from.

I used brackets and italics to indicate how I wanted some bits to be read specifically such as (said in a sleepy tone)

DirectionWhen writing my radio drama my aim was to

influence my audience into having a oppositional reading and see Elizabeth from being an average commuter to something more sinister and malicious.

The representation of her switching her emotions from normal to erratic such as when she switches conversation from a topic onto a sandwich and when she mentions things such as ‘feeling three hundred years of age’ reflects her state of mind and questions what will she do next.

My Potential Target AudienceMy radio drama is for adults and older adults,

as this drama is going to be aired in the evening it will mostly be heard by my chosen audience who have come home from work and settling down for the night.

My primary target audience would be adults 30 – 50 as this is the age of some of my characters and it is a written to best suit this age style.

Technology And Organisation Of My Actors. When writing my various scripts and story I used Microsoft word as by using

this it made it easier to edit than by handwriting it.   Before recording I had to break up my script into the various scenes and work

out at what times I would need my actor and book the equipment so it was available for me to use.

When it came to record my drama on the 23rd March I used a Sony IC recorder. I contacted my actors through SMS and arranged meeting times and place

I then had to learn how to use the equipment; learning how to stop, play and pause when recording as I would need to use these buttons whilst recording.

It took about 25minutes to record the entire script and the device was rather easy to use.

I positioned my actors in a semi circle around the micro phone this would make the sound project equally and make the play back of voices clear and not so distant it also would enhance the dramatic effect of my drama.

I used pausing in the recording making it easier for me to edit in my sound effects later on in my production I also used pausing when mistakes occurred within my actors dialogue making it easier for me to cut the mistakes out when it came to editing.

When I opened my file onto my computer I found that my first scene hadn’t recorded properly due to someone's phone producing signal into the microphone I was using. I first tried to cut this sound out during editing but this proved impossible as I would have to cut out vital dialogue in order to get rid of it.

This in effect caused me to have to re schedule a recording time and place and to gather two of my main characters which caused a few problems with the actors and recording equipment being unavailable.

I re recorded my first scene again on the 8th April and before recording made sure all the equipment was working properly and that none of my actors had their phones on them, ensuring that I wouldn't have to record again.

When it came to editing I also came into problems. To edit I used a programme named audacity which allow you to cut in sound effects and layer sounds. I had organised all my scenes in the correct order and was beginning to add in my sound effects when the programme crashed. This caused me to loose a days work meaning that I would have to re – do my editing at a later date. I re done this editing on the 10th of April

Although this was a hassle at the time it enabled me to have a back up version and a stable editing platform.

Drafting And Re Drafting My ScriptThe process of drafting and re drafting my script was long

winded and difficult and took my seven attempts to reach my final draft

I needed to create the structure for drama deciding whether I wanted it to be linear or non linear

I then needed to decide on the layout; deciding on the scenes and how many they're would be.

I then needed to add in conventions and non conventions to make my drama for specific for my target audience

I then needed to re draft my dialogue making sure all my dialogue had meaning and was relating to my character such as when Elizabeth says ‘And who am I too them? Theirs father first love or their mothers best friend?’ applifying the dramatic effect

After writing my first script I analysed it thoroughly and decided I wanted to add in a Shakespearean Macbeth type theme and then created a checklist of things that I would need to include to make my drama to make it as successful as possible this included changing most of Elizabeth’s dialogue to make it more sinister and occult natured I done this by adding in references to potions and astrology and changing existing scenes and adding in new ones. Such as adding in the train scene and meeting two other characters allowed me to explore some of Elizabeth’s emotions and allowed the audience to gather information regarding her life and love life. I did this by adding dialogue between the characters

I also added lots of references to the occult world encoding to the audience that she is a believer in dark things some of the references I added in later scripts were;

‘Feeling has nothing to do with believing’ ‘I have an appointment with destiny’ and references to the ‘Book of shadows’ and ‘ ‘burning times’ allowed my audience to pick up on the representation of my main character. I also decided to use the switching of conversation to connote her erratic behaviour

I decided to add in a Friar Lawrence from Shakespeare style piece of monologue to show what she is planning to do when she reaches her destination whilst this was

‘Within the rind of this small flower poison lays with medicine power, being smelt will not be felt but being tasted slays all senses of the heart each part.However only having 5minutes of production time I had to cut this out in later drafts as it was not vital to have and took up a large amount of time.

Also when redrafting my script I had my chosen audience and medium in mind so I had to edit each piece of dialogue and character to adjust to this such as I added in a middleclass gentlemen passenger as this the most common audience for radio four.

I decided to voice Elizabeth softly and to vary her speed of voice when saying different phrases to connotate her fragile state of mind.

I also included awkward speech of Elizabeth on some parts such as ‘I tried to magic one up earlier but was tire... late and ‘Delay at Donc... Stevenage’ this awkward pauses indicate when she is lying and enables the audience to piece together what is going to happen. The speed of her voice will also encode to the audience when she is becoming irrational.

COMMUNICATION THROUGH PLAYWords, Sounds, Music and Silence – the four aspects to making a radio drama

WordsIn the drafting and re drafting of my script it enabled me

to adapt the words and language to best suit my characters.

The language I used was neither complex or formal.For one of my characters Passenger 1: I wanted to use

words and conventions to reflect an elderly lady this included words such as ‘Lovey’ and ‘I'm ever so sorry’ I also encoded that she was elderly by using the sentence ‘ Was he young like you?’

However for the second passenger I contrasted this by using formal language that simulated a business gentleman ‘Slumber’ was one of the words I used to do this.

For my main character I used a lot of codes in her dialogue such as ‘ I’m still into my herbs and spices you know’ to encode what is going to happen later in the story I also used lots of witchy terms to encode her fantasy life of a witch such as ‘sometimes I feel three hundred years of age’ and ‘feeling has nothing to do with believing’ her erratic behaviour was also portrayed through my script with jumping from serious conversation to talking about a sandwich.

Sound effectsFOOTSTEPS DOOR SHUTTRAINTRAIN PULLING INTO STATIONPHONE DIAL TONEHANG UP OFFF PHONECAR SOUNDSCAR HORNCAR DOOR SHUTTING, ENGINE STARTINGTWO SETS OF FOOTSTEPS KEYS IN DOORDOOR OPENING

Music I chose not to use music in play as when researching I found that most murder radio plays featured mysterious music which I felt was dated so chose not to use this convention and make my production more modern.

SilenceI used silence a fair amount in production to signify

the shift on time and scene. It was to important to use just enough silence to signify the time change and to use fading in and out to reintroduce dialogue and sound effects.

To create the silence I used audacity ‘generate silence’ button where you enter the time scale of silence you require and edit it into your production.

I used silence as a connotation of passing time and also to giver the audience space to reflect and digest the narrative.

History Of Radio Four - The station where my drama will be broadcast

Radio Drama was invented in the 1930’s and 1940’s in the midst of depression the target audience was families and they done plays such as ‘little orphan Annie’

Radio allowed the listener to create their own images of characters and settings, a luxury that we no longer have in these days of television.

The BBC Home Service was the predecessor of Radio 4 and broadcast between 1939 and 1967

Radio Four AudienceRadio Four dramas reach almost 6.5 million

viewers per week. From research the audience is 51% male and 49% female

The average age being 54 although they advertise to forty-something listeners.

They have also been accused of ‘dumbing down’ there plays and have lost 200,000 viewers of ‘The Archers’ due to this.