Distribution of our product and our audience

Looking at the content and language used in our radio drama, it seems that it would have to be broadcast, after 9pm, meaning that our target audience hast to be of a certain age. It seems to me that the sort of age group we would be looking at interms of audience, would be anywhere from the ages of 18- 40. Although this is quite a large age range, I feel it is important to show that our drama is not picking on a niche audience. Transgression would be entertaining for most adults, and crime drama's and films are very popular with many different age groups. I feel our show has enough excitement and youthful slang to appeal to the younger group of adults 18-30 and then the raw grittiness and mystery to appeal to the older adults. I also feel though, that our drama would be better suited to a male audience, as it contains themes and content that in most cases appeal to males more.

Along with this, come distributation, and what radio channel would be best suited to broadcasting our radio drama. I feel, looking at all the mainstream radio channels, radio 4 looks like the best option. Radio 4 is known for it's broadcasts of radio drama's and I think this would be a good place to reach the current audience of radio drama fans. In the long run though I feel that Radio 3 would be a good channel for us to be on, putting us alongside 'The Wire' which is quite similar to ours could attract a huge audience, which we wouldn't get on Radio 4.

Media Technologies and the Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation of our Project

Planning:

The main technology I used for the research part of my project was the internet. The internet is key in finding out information in todays society and seemed like the way to go in finding more about radio drama's and film noir. Once we had chosen to do our work on Film Noir, it was simply about researching what we needed to know, to link our own piece to the genre of Noir. I also used films to help me continue this research. I watched a few films from the 1950's which used the same conventions we wanted to display in our drama. I also listened to a number of radio drama's on Radio 4, and some ones from the past, such as 'War of the Worlds', 'The Twilight Zone' etc. This helped build my knowledge of how I wanted our drama to be constructed and how I wanted to make the audience feel and think while listening to it.

Construction:

For the construction of our radio drama we used Mac, instead of Windows. We did this because we are used to using the technology on Macs rather than windows for creating things. I also used Mac's to create my Poster and Radio Times Feature. For recording we used the software Soundtrack Pro, which none of us had any clue how to use before we started this project. Fortunately we all had experience using it's video opposite Final Cut Pro, and although it was not the same, it had many similarities which gave us an upperhand when it came to recording and editing. We had a soundboard and high quality mic's to work with during the recording stages.

For the Poster I began by borrowing a Digital SLR camera from one of the technicians, and started taking pictures of my subject. These camera's are high quality and produce great results for our poster. Once I'd taken enough pictures I used Adobe Photoshop to edit the poster in, turning the plain picture into a poster to advertise our Radio Drama. The tools in photoshop are almost limitless, and because of my basic knowledge in the software, I could create a high quality piece of work.

Similar to the poster, for the Radio Times Feature I used the software, Indesign. With the experienced I gained in the AS year when using this programme, it wasn't too hard to create my double page spread. Similar to Photoshop, Indesign is a high quality piece of software, and with it I was able to create high quality work.

Audience Feedback

Here are some different things people liked and disliked about our Drama:

'Good use of sound effects'

'Sounds were perfect'

'Hard to Follow'

'Good storyline and script'

'Accents are unconvincing at times'

'Created Tension Well'

'Sound levels are not quite right'

'The Narration worked really well'

I think from the feedback the audience gave us at the listening party, it is easy to see what could've been improved in our drama. Although peolpe like the story overall, many seemed to find it confusing and hard to follow. In future we would try to improve this by making the dialogue more clear, and giving the script a simpler set up. I think that people found the story hard to follow because of the sound levels, something which we did not get right. At somepoints it was very hard to hear what people were saying, and this made it hard for listeners to understand what was being said in scenes.

Although these are the negative things, there were many positive things to take from the audience feedback. The storyline seemed to go down very well, and people enjoyed what they got from it, even with it being confusing. Sound effects were also complimented a lot in the feedback and people seemed to enjoy the effort and detail we went into making the atmosphere and tension build up. I feel overall the critical opinions of our drama in many ways are correct, and if we had a chance to go back and change things, I think the levels would be the first thing to change. Overall though the audience seemed to enjoy 'Transgression'.

How effective is the combination of Transgression and the Ancillary texts?

I feel listening to our Radio Drama and looking at my Poster and Radio listings, it easy to see the similarities. With the poster I tried to create an image, that is recognisable of Film Noir, and an image that would describe and show the imagery that the radio drama conveys. The darkness in the image in my poster holds the similarities with Noir. The triliby hat being a significant item of clothing when it comes to American crime drama's. I feel the poster just reinforces what the drama is about, the line being 'The City Never Sleeps', shows great mystery and intrigue. This line invites the audience in and completely sells the inner city themes which we wanted to portray in the radio drama. This also went well with the radio times task, with this feature I tried to sell the programme a lot. All the imagery used with all three pieces of work have got the same feel. Continuing the ideas of Noir to create very dark mysterious pieces of work, complimenting each other.

Representation of Social Groups

Most of the social groups used in our drama are quite simple, as there are only 4 characters. Within the drama the main group which are represented are the police force, two characters are shown in that group. One being the main character, and regular detective, Officer Justice. Officer Justice is shown as a brash, but experienced police officer, who is commited to solving the case, and finding his friends killer. In the first scene, he is heard narrating his thoughts as he arrived at the crime scene. It is displayed that he is taking a last drag of his cigarette, showing the audience that he is a smoker, making them feel he is more of a tough, and unproffesional police officer. His gruff voice also gives this impression, adding to his characteristics. He descibes the area in a negative way, using corse language, increasing his representation as a tough police officer. The character is later shown as a good hearted civil servant when it is explained that he is staying late into the night, to work on the case to find his friends killer.



The next police officer to be represented is the Chier Seargent, who is introduced in the second scene when Officer Justice is trying to find the killer. The Seargent sends Justice home, telling him to get some rest. Showing him to be an understanding boss. He later raises his voice, telling him that it is to early to rule out the infamous killer, The Sconer, which the audience may see as suspicious. Later we find out that the Seargent has a daughter working at the station, Abi. She is introduced in the same scene, and is described as very attractive by Officer Justice. The representation of these two Police officers are very different, and represent different people within the police force, although neither are shown in a negative way. Officer Justice is shown in a lot less proffesional aspect to how the Seargent is, but is shown to be good at heart. And although the Seargent is displayed as being a more model employee, he is still represented as being good at heart.



Both police officers are also male, representing as a stereotype towards the police force in general. We furthered this stereotype by shwoing Abi as an office worker at the station, and doesn't get involved in the physical aspects of stopping crime. This is stereotypical of most police stations.



This representation is later twisted when it is revealed that Abi is shown as confident, femme fatal, who murdered Officer Justice's partner, after being represented as innocent in the scene before. This shows the strength in women, and challenges the audiences assumption that a male was the killer, in The Sconer.

Forms and Conventions

Conventions were one of the most important elements of our radio drama. Because we chose to base ours round the genre of Film Noir, there were vital conventions we had to carry if we wanted to make it as closely linked to this genre as possible. Because our drama was inspired by the Noir films of the 50's, there were perticular characters and themes that needed to be used within the plot of the drama. We chose to use conventional characters, such as the rebellious police officer, the femmme fatal, and the evil villain. These characters are important to make any piece of film or radio, into a Noir. The locations were also important for the way in which we used the conventions of Noir. We set it in the Detroit, which is well known for it's inner city, and he underground crime. Which we felt worked well with the plot. Another way in which our radio drama uses the conventions is in the plot itself. Our drama is about a policeman avenging his partners death, and trying to find the killer. This is a clear crime narrative which fits in well with the genre we were trying to portray.

The difference between our depiction of Noir, and others, is that most other example that can be shown as examples is that most are films. And one of the clear conventions of Noir, is the atmosphere created visually. This is done with the lighting within it, using carefully chosen lighting to create atmospheric tension. We obviously had to come over this fact, while making our Radio Drama, and creating this atmosphere was very difficult. One of the main ways we solved this problem was using the narration from the main character do set the scene and to describe the surrounding, to give the audience a feel of where they are.

When comparing our Radio dramas to others, is difficult, because I feel ours is very unique in it's plot, characters and all conventions. The narration definitely helped this uniqueness, but I feel the plot was a lot more dark than a lot of other radio dramas. I think comparing ours to War of the Worlds, is a good comparison. Although ours is not Sci Fi, I felt ours had a very similar atmosphere and feel. I think this was acheived, because bother dramas use narration, to describe the setting. The Twilight Zone also holds similarities with ours, with the tension that is built throughout, and the dialogue used in it to build that tension.

Overall I feel our drama followed similar codes and conventions of a Noir piece, film or radio. Although it holds many similarities with the conventions of Noir, I don't feel as if it is to relatable to other Radio drama's, and in that way it challenges the usual conventions of most popular radio drama's today.