I have created a 10-minute radio drama for a target audience of 16 to 25-year-olds this would
be played on the BBC radio channel. In order to create this 10-minute radio drama for this
target audience I had to do detailed research into what makes a good radio drama. I did this
by finding out what a radio drama really is and what it consists of, which is a dramatized and
purely acoustic drama. I also reviewed previous students radio dramas Saints and sinners and
Redemption Song, in order to get a feel of what other people my house have come up with
and find out what I should be aiming for. The key aspects that are important in radio dramas
are scripts, tone, characters, sound effects, and dialogue. Other things and I found important
in radio dramas from listening to student radio dramas, is that it is important that the story is
easy to follow, a clear in who is of sound effects and dialogue so that the listener doesn’t lose
track of where the characters are and actions they are performing. It’s also important for the
listener to be able to feel tension and suspense in certain scenes.
I have learned from this brief that when creating a radio drama everything has to be thought
of in more depth as the viewer doesn’t have the visual aid that films have what I mean by this
is that sounds have to be more intricate and detailed dialogue needs to be in the correct tone
and set the right atmosphere for the listener as this can confuse the listener if the set scene
and atmosphere of the production isn’t clear. Some things that I will keep the same is my use
of ambience in my production as this really helps set the scenes and allows the listener to
interpret the scene in mind. Another thing I will keep the same is the use of detailed sound
effects as this really helps picture the scene in the listeners mind and also helps the listener
interpret exactly when a action is performed. If I was to change anything going forward I
would change the ending of my production as from my survey monkey some people said that
the ending was difficult to interpret and that the sound effects needed to be chosen more
wisely in order for the listenership able to understand what happens to Tim. I was to compare
my work to some of the professional ones I have listened to over the last couple of weeks I
would say that my audio quality is at the same level as . I also think that my Foley sounds and
ambience that was in the background of my radio drama who is at a high quality, and is on
par with Tales from Williamsville, as none of my feedback hinted towards them losing track
of where the characters are all the actions that they are performing. My survey people said
that the sound effects were very realistic because a large amount of them were used and gave
the actors a good emotional performance. In terms of script, I believe that is what’s left this
production down as it wasn’t slick and natural whereas in the professional productions, I
watched it was very natural what the characters were saying and didn’t seem scripted. Some
people that filled out my survey also feel the same way that my script wasn’t very natural at
2:13. One person said in my survey that I need to work on the balance of volume between the
Foley and ambience and also the characters, as according to one of them it wasn’t balanced
enough, and you couldn’t really hear the characters at some points such as 5:50 and 7:40. My
survey also informed me that some bits in the production were a bit choppy and could’ve of
been smoother. They said at 0:10 that the dialogue was a bit choppy. And there were other
bits where the ambience on the plane transition to a different ambience (2:40 ) this is because
of the special feature I added in my production which allowed the listener to be immersed
into what Tim was actually hearing in real life. If I was to alter my production as it is, I would
alter the end as you can see from my survey monkey 2 out of 6 people said that they didn’t
really understand what happened to Tim when he was in the water the way in which I would
change this ending by adding more sounds or different sounds that would help the yes and
then interpret what is going on. If I fail to find a suitable sound I will get my actor for Tim to
re-record his dialogue and mention that it’s a shark in the water this would really help the
listener to understand the finale of the radio drama.
