Week 1

Through out the summer break The team would speak about what was happening and the ideas of the drama piece that I had put forward. Through this I started thinking of what the drama narrative could be and also weather we where going to have multiple characters or weather it was going to be a single character that the drama was revolved around. With it being a Remake or and interpretation of H.G.Wells ‘War of the worlds’.

With the first meeting back after summer myself , Alfie and Callum sat down and spoke about what was on the original. With this the group produced a new mind map with a set of ideas to develop the idea further.

What we came come with was what character we would want to focus on and what way we want the narrative to have and how we where going to incorporate or homage to the original radio drama, that scared the world thinking there was a real “martian’s”. within the meeting as well we discussed as a group What target audience we would consider to hit also What age actor we would be looking for to take the roles of the characters. The roles that the group member’s would take on.

Week 2

The first meeting with Dylan was on the Monday to discuss the idea of the drama and weather there was any areas of the drama that we as a need need to change, research and also consider is we are able to actually pull of the idea we where proposing.

Within the meeting after tell Dylan the ideas that the group had come up. Dylan did then  suggested a couple point that we needed to think about:

• What where we going to to have the audience understand what is happening even with it be an abstract piece?
•  what sound effects are going to be used ?
• Are the “Martians” going to be spoken of between characters or are they going to be something that only the audience can hear ?
• How abstract do we want to piece to be and if to be alot is it going to confuse the audience to much and become unrealistic.

Week 3

• going thought what we need to research
• blog was made and all members of the group added to the blog.
• through the mentor session we  have a looked at what we needed to do for copy right and who we needed to contact people who still had rights to H.G.Wells war of the worlds content.
• within the meeting there was also a sheet that was handed out with what was required of the blog.
• Blog was set up with  the whole team and tutor Dylan able to access the blog.

Week  4

Started re-listening to the Jeff Wayne, War of the worlds sound track. with listening to the soundtrack I gave me a chance to draw inspiration from it before writing the script. With it being a music and our being a drama I looked into key point of how the narrative. and the relationship that the character have and the dramatic suspense that it has. With listening it follows one character on his search for his love one and to get away from the machines. Through the narrative his emotion are put to the test with him trying to be strong to then becoming defenceless and start to break.  This is how I wanted the character of our drama to seem and trying to get there emotion and relationship to start strong and then breakdown. With the music with the story I took that with areas music can help with the atmosphere.and example of this with when they are speaking about the red weed and the use of the music it built the atmosphere with giving the physical object but giving it a sound presences. With the use of the music I thought that i could be added with dialog with the actors when they are in deep thought to show the space of themselves and reality,  however with each character that has a thought there would be a certain sound/ instrumental piece.

Individual Proposal : Media Project 1 individual proposal ELC.

Week 5, and 6 and 7 

Through week 5 to 7 it was time that it would being the development of the script and research into some areas and for paperwork to start get done. For Alfie he was getting on with starting paperwork. For myself and Callum it was sitting down and writing the script together.

With writing the script it would be a case, we would be on celtx and use there structure to make write up the script. With this we would take it in tun to write some of the script and we would pass it over if we found one of use needed a break or needed some help from getting block. The majority of the script was to do with my overall idea with where I wanted the drama to end up with. However Callum did put in some good ideas and added some interesting twists to it.

During this period of time the boys did have to go a couple of days with me on family business and myself having to go back to Milton Keynes for a funeral. However at this time the script was finished and I was able to look through and correct any mistakes that I found.  the boys i set with them to get ready to start getting the casting call ready.

Week 8 and 9- Looking and doing casting calls for drama 

When I arrived back then I was able to meet with boys and get on with the casting call. We put our call out on a couple of websites. but we found that we got a some replies from the website Stars now.

 

When we where getting replies we found that there was not many male actors that where going for the role of Edward Riverton and I personally though that we would have difficulty getting female actor’s in but i was not the case. When looking for a male actor I remember from first year there was a male actor we used and has done alot of work with student at the university. Alexander Doddy i found on Facebook and contacted him asking weather he was interested in doing some more radio drama work with myself.

(With the point in messaging the script was currently going through checking stages with me and also took time as of traveling the country)

 

With having this contact it helped the group alot and we was able to fill the role quickly. going on through the week we got emails from other actors and we whittled them down to 4 With all main casting filled. with side roles the team used other known friends that they where able to get in contact quickly and record anytime. Also we all thought that I would be interesting to have ourselves appear like Alfred Hitchcock did in his film weather it be a passing person or a small line.

 Week 10 – recording the drama

This was the big week to get everything ready for the the big recording day. We had booked out the radio drama  studio from 9 am to 5 pm. and booked out the equipment as well. With booking the space and equipment I book it all out. making sure there was a spare condenser microphone just in case any microphone we had did not work. The team met at 9 am in the studio to start setting up for when the actor’s where arriving at 10 am and meeting them in the car park area.

When getting into the studio we hooked up all of the microphone and set up and connected everything to the desk. Turning on and putting phantom power through to the microphones. This is when the team suddenly his a wall.  There was a consistent buzzing nose coming through. We didn’t know weather it was because we had got the set up wrong or if it was the microphones or if it was the desk. We went to the office and Chris came through to listen. by this time I had to leave the studio as the actors had arrived early. after collecting the actors I explained to them the technical issues that we where having. As a group we had been in the studio 1 hour days before to check that it was all work and we where setting up correctly. getting back into the studio I let Callum and Alfie do the briefing to the actors with what was going to happen while i spoke to Chris to see what was happening and there was suddenly loads of people in trying to find the problem. His conclusion was that there was a problem with the phantom power getting through to the microphones. This was then we had to switch the set up to dynamic microphones, which we would have the quality of audio we wanted however we would have close to it. With speaking to Chris we had the actors running through the script each other and gave them pens to see if they had a difficulty with line or words they where able to change them so that it would flow better for themselves. some spelling mistake where found with the line that I had missed.

After getting the microphone set up we started recording with fist getting the narrator/ new present line out the way so that she was then able to leave early as she requested. this gave a chance for one of our actors Bex Holland to see how the session will run and what will be expected of her with this being her first time. the recording session went well throughout with having actors recording together and me directing them. this was so that they where able to get a chance to play off each other’s emotions. When doing this the team took the actors away for lunch and the team went back early to listen to the audio to see what needed to be done. after lunch the team went thought and did a solo recording of all lines again with actor’s so that if any lines where missed or where wrong we where able to have a back set of audio/ recorded line. When finish the actors where escorted back to the car park. and other actor where brought in to do the small part in the drama.

Week 11 & Week 12 and extension period – editing the drama 

editing stages we started by getting all of the dialog into the scene on the audition file and in the correct order which is what Alfie did. I was there when Alfie was editing just in case he needed a break and I could come over ad edit some of the drama but I was mainly getting on with the paperwork itself. Callum was out collecting different sound effects. (his list can be seen on the Post production plan)  knowing we had a extension period due to my family business and having to be a way we knew we would have time to make sure that the drama could have abit more time to be worked on. Christmas was turning up and other things started to take over and I had ran out of time to record with one of our talent Jess Wrightson as I was busy. However with Skype i was able to talk to her while she recorded the audio on her phone. When listening to the audio she recorded it was not the quality that I would have wanted but she was only available after the deadline. Working with the audio I had I was able to put it in the audition file and the scene she was in it did fit the atmosphere to a certain degree however when listening can stand out abit. If I was able to go back I would have done the recording at the time with the actor’s, however after the deadline there is nothing stopping going in the studio and recorded the lines and re edit the drama.

Alfie and Callum had gone home for the holidays and me wanting to finish the editing of the drama and put all of the sound effects in because with writing the script. I had a certain way I want the drama to sound. taking it scene by scene I edited the drama and found some fault with the original edit. first off was some of the dialog was missing. This was a case that some lines had not been put in when Alfie was sorting out the dialog and i just had to go through and find them in audio files. However with one line there was no suitable like recording. Luckily i was able to get hold of the actor Holly Rhodes and record the lines I needed with my own zoom microphone.

Editing the drama started to flow and I recorded my own lines with a zoom recorder and editing them in. For sound effect Callum had collected some from free sound and had recorded some himself. Most of his own recorded sound effect where good however would have a couple of heave wind being going through when recording them and I wan not able to get rid of it out of the effect without disturbing the sound effect. I did have to collect some more sound from free sound so that I was not repeating using the same sound in every area. as some of the location in scene where different. After finally finishing the first edit I was able to listen through the drama and edit where sound where to loud or to quiet to make sure that it flowed as well as it could.