Story Arcs

Whist doing my textual analysis, I began to think about how the radio play I will be producing is going to be structured. After researching narrative structures, I found this useful information on 'story arcs'. Here is an outline of a story arc in my own words:

• Everyday life where people are going about their business as usual

• Something happens to the main character that is out of their control

• Some action (a "quest")

• A surprise

• The main character has to make an important choice

• Climax!

• A turn-around in the story which is the result of the important choice

• The story is resolved and there is a new "everyday life" situation where the characters are better off or worse off because of their experience in the story

Video Diary 1

Video Diary 1 from Laurence Scott on Vimeo.

Textual Analysis: Lost in the Lanes, Episode 2, 'Calling'

This is my analysis of Episode 2 of 'Lost in the Lanes' entitled 'Calling' which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 23rd September 2012. It was written by Emma Darwin and read by Philip Voss.

Textual analysis: The Archers

'The Archers', BBC Radio 4, broadcast on 18th September 2012. 

Speech

• The accents of the characters are a defining feature of The Archers. They define the location because they are stereotypical farmers' accents (excluding Pawel); you immediately imagine farms, tractors and countryside. Since radio is theatre of the mind, the accents will be important in my radio play and I will have to pick my actors wisely. Accents also help to develop the characters. Everyone who listens to The Archers will have their own unique image in their mind's eye of each character. From their accent alone, you can tell the character's age, class and even job.

• Tone of voice in The Archers varies from character to character and, more importantly, changes depending on which characters are speaking to each other and their relative status in the community e.g. Jenifer speaks to Pawel in a mother-like way as Pawel is young.

• Speech is a good determiner of how a character expresses their personality. Tim Crook, in Radio Drama, challenges the perception that radio is a blind medium. I would say that the absence of the audience seeing the character's clothing, duologue is the best way of telling someone's personality and how they express that personality. For example, when speaking to Pawel, Jenifer shows that she is wise and family-orientated.

• The mode of address is not direct (i.e. the characters are not speaking directly to the audience). The dialogue tells the story with the listeners as audio onlookers. The advantage of this is it is more realistic. However it can be hard to follow at times, particularly if you loose track of the dialogue!

• The rhythm of speech varies from character to character in The Archers. The rhythm depends on the character's age and who they are speaking to. For example, the old characters such as Joe speak slower than the younger characters.

• The Archers uses what I am going to call a 'snapshot' style of dialogue where you don't hear the full scene. What I mean by this is that the dialogue does not give you the full story - it leaves some of it for you to fill in for yourself. For instance, the start of the episode is part way through breakfast.

Music

• The theme tune for The Archers is unmistakable! Arguably one of the most recognizable themes from both TV and Radio. It is upbeat with quite a simple melody. I will be composing my own theme tune so The Archers will be some good inspiration.

Sound effects

• One of the key things I noticed when listening to this episode is how the sound is balanced and mixed to make it sound like the 'action' is happening around you. I will make good use of this myself.

• One thing that could be better about this episode is when Joe is in the pub celebrating his birthday, there should be more ambient sound (unless it was a very quiet pub!) of people talking, eating and drinking.

• There is good use of sound effects e.g. the plates at the start of the episode and the knocking at Jenifer's door.

• The sound in The Archers is mainly diegetic - it is part of the world of the characters and the characters can hear the sounds.

Editing

• The pacing of The Archers is quite slow. Perhaps this is to reflect the pace of life in a small farming community in the countryside? It is also quite consistent - the pacing doesn't speed up or slow down throughout the episode. The only point it slows down even slightly is when David starts to cry and silence is used for a brief moment.

• As you would expect, sound levels are consistent throughout the play, there are no extreme variations in the duologue. The loudest part is the theme tune to catch the listener's attention. The times that sound levels are used well, along with mixing the sound left or right, is when a person is a bigger distance away from where the main 'action' is happening e.g. the landlord of the pub.

• The Archers is edited with a silence (approximately 3 to 5 seconds) in between the scenes to make it clear where one scene starts at the other ends. I like this technique so I will probably use it myself in my radio drama. There is also a fade in and a fade out of each scene to make it a smooth transition.

What I have learned from The Archers:

1. Use sound mixing to make the listener feel like they are part of the action
2. Use transitions between scenes to help tell the story
3. Let the dialogue tell the story
4. It is okay for the listener to join the action part way through a scene

Another good book

Another book I have bought is 'Radio Drama' by Tim Crook. I will be using it a lot for research.

'Made to stick' by Chip & Dan Heath

I once read a great book that, whist it was not directly about radio dramas, I believe will be useful. It's 'Made to stick' by Chip and Dan Heath. They examine what makes ideas that people remember successful.

They came up with 6 principles of successful ideas:

1. Simple - Does the idea get to the 'core'? Is is easy to remember? By 'simple', it doesn't mean patronizing but radio dramas must be easy to follow.
2. Unexpected - Does it surprise the audience? Surprise is vital in any drama. What would you remember in a radio play: the expected or unexpected?
3. Concrete - Will people be able to understand it? How will my radio drama 'paint a picture' in the listener's mind?
4. Credible - Is it believable?
5. Stories - Is there a story behind it? My radio play will have to have a strong, memorable narrative.
6. Emotional - What emotion(s) does it create? Fear? Happiness? Empathy? Or maybe even all of them at different times?

If I follow these principles it does not necessarily mean my radio play will be successful but they will be useful when writing the script.

Time management (September - October)

These calendars above are only a rough guide. I will be posting a short weekly video diary to keep you up-to-date with my progress. At the end of October, I will plan the November to January phase of this project.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog for my A2 Media Studies project where I will be posting my work and tracking my progress.

My task is to write and record a radio play, which is a new thing for me but I'm looking forward to the task ahead.

I will start off with my research and development (worth 20 marks out of 100). Here are my ideas for the research I will carry out:

• Calendar of tasks
• History of the radio industry
• History of radio dramas
• The future of radio and radio plays
• Radio terminology
• Textual analysis of 3 or 4 radio plays
• What makes a good radio drama?
• Survey from Survey Monkey
• Results from focus group
• Comments from social media
• Results/analysis of audience research (including offline paper-based surveys, focus group and social media)
• Target audience profile
• Ideas for locations, characters and sound effects
• Ideas for story lines
• Draft script(s)
• Final script
• Unedited sounds collected
• List of actors & the characters they're playing
• Creating the theme tune
• Screenshots of the editing process