Research |

LEGAL/ETHICAL

During the research period of the project, there were multiple legal and ethical issue which arose with the idea behind the drama the main of which being that we were taking inspiration from ‘War of The Worlds’ in their approach to conning the audience into believing that the content of the drama is actually happening in the real world. As we are effectively lying to the audience, there is a possibility that they may become distressed by the radio drama if they were to be convinced by the content. We, as a team, decided t0 accept the ethical issues that arise from the idea of conning the audience and decided to continue with our original approach to the piece as the main aim of the drama is to create a modernised version of the War of The Worlds radio drama that was aired in 1938.

Another issue which arose during the planning and script writing phase was the use of swearing and some adult themes which meant the drama would only be suitable to air later in the evening after the radio version of the ‘watershed’ which is the time of day that certain themes and language, aimed at an older audience, is allowed to be played on the radio. Following on from the adult themes, one of the characters in the drama is under the age of 18 which meant that we were either going to have to go through an extensive compliance process with the actor and a guardian if they are the same age of the character due to the 18+ themes or try to find an actor who is over the age of 18 who can effectively portray the innocence and the age of the character. To combat this we decided to play it safe and advertise for an actor who is 18 or over who is capable of playing a younger character and to our luck we casted someone who turned out to be perfect for the role.

GENRE

The the genre of the piece was decided to be a mixture of a drama and thriller.

This is because some aspect of the drama where written it with a sense of suspense that built up through out the piece with that being the relationship of character towards each other. With using this type of suspense we wanted to have our audience be draw and create the same feelings that the character’s are experiencing towards each other. With that we had a relationship of a father and daughter that at the start of the drama being light hearted; laughing with each other and throwing banter which you would find in most relationships between those two relatives. After when the drama progresses the relationship starts the crumble and things start to go wrong that drags both party’s into it. which bring in the tension and the suspense on weather the relationship will get better.

Also you have the situations that the character themselves with the bring of a multi million pound company being brought down to it knees, with files and plans of product going missing. A normal teenager that trying to survive through high school but ends up not being able to cope and is put in drastic measure’s. With picking the genre we did we where able to bring the concept together and create it into and exciting, suspenseful, dramatic piece.

TOPIC

The topic that we seem to have within the drama, is the matter of illegal selling of products when contracted by the government/ organisation, the point of when a someone or one person is able to effect a multiple people with something small. Also the topic of suicide and the things that are out there to support.

Within the world there is a considered amount of people and company that sell illegal goods to other and to people and company’s from other country’s. there are millions dollars and pounds that are lost sure to the pyramid scheme’s. ‘ What is a Pyramid Scheme?

Direct selling or network marketing should not be confused with Pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal in the UK and many other countries and is a type of fraud which is disguised to look like direct selling’ (DSA direct selling association,2018) For use to put this in the drama, it gave a look into what can happen to a company if a hacker or someone is able to get the information and details so easily and bring down a corporation that quickly.

Throughout the drama and the ending we have the on going struggle of different character that are struggling though on the action of others. With something simple that happens it can cause a continues string of event’s are able to then be set off.

At the end of the drama you have one of the main character speaking to someone from the suicide helpline as she is standing on the bridge. With the group we stated that we wanted a massive build up point for a character which we decided to involve a teenage girl. In the UK ‘Data from the Office for National Statistics shows in 2015 there were 168 males aged 10 to 19 and 63 females in the same age group who took their own lives‘ (Mathew Davis, 2017) However to national statistics ‘ in 2016 in Great Britain, persons aged 40 to 44 had the highest age-specific suicide rate at 15.1 per 100,000 – this age group also had the highest rate among males at 23.7 per 100,000; the age group with the highest rate for females was 50 to 54 at 8.1 per 100,000.‘ (Office for national statistics, 2017. We thought that from our audience being over 18 and in some case can be parent’s and i would give them the shock and emotional factor that this can happen to children and teenagers who are put into these situations. With this we do advice that anyone who does feel effected by the drama or anything to get in contact with the suicide help line and talk to someone.

more information on : NHS UK Suicide getting help

AUDIENCE

Because of the mature themes present in the drama, the drama will have to be broadcast after the watershed. The watershed in broadcasting is the time in a television or radio station’s broadcast schedule changes from family-oriented content to more adult themes. Because this drama will be broadcast during the change in the schedule due to the mature themes present. This drama’s audience doesn’t include anyone under the age of 18, there isn’t an upper limit to the age range of the audience however.

In terms of the genre and style, this drama’s audience caters to listeners who like the original War of the Worlds novel by H. G. Wells and listeners who enjoy the horror, thriller, suspense and sci-fi genres. Another group of individuals that will potentially enjoy the drama are fans of the Jeff Wayne musical adaptation of War of the Worlds. Especially considering that it is one of the main inspirations for the drama; our drama takes inspiration from certain aspects of the musical including the narration style and the use of 2 main characters with only a handful of side characters throughout the narrative.

TECHNICAL

For the technical research, we had to look into the hardware setup we would need to record the voice actors, the first stage of this research was to look into the different microphones we had available, these include:

Dynamic – Durable, inexpensive and don’t require phantom power however, Dynamic microphones have a lower sensitivity than other microphones which also means reduced clarity compared to other microphones.
Condenser – Condenser microphones aren’t as durable as dynamic microphones and do require phantom power but have a higher sensitivity and clarity than Dynamic microphones.
Ribbon – Ribbon microphones have the highest sensitivity of these microphones but are also extremely expensive, require phantom power and are fragile.

When it came down to choosing microphones for our setup, we initially chose condenser microphones as we wanted the highest clarity possible, without risking using a fragile ribbon microphone however, due to a problem with the desk, (the problem is highlighted in the production blogs) we had to settle for dynamic microphones, more specifically a pair of Shure SM58’s. The rest of the setup included the Audient desk, 2 pairs of Beyerdynamic MT1000 headphones for talkback and 2 shields for the microphones to reduce leaking of sound into the other microphones.

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