Radio Drama- Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series written by Douglas Adams (with some material in the first series provided by John Lloyd). It was originally broadcasted in the United Kingdom by the bbc.

Evaluation of Radio Drama, Newspaper Advert and Feature page

Final Poster

This is my finish Feature page

 What ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My Radio drama follows the conventions of real media products and challenges them, such as the radio drama the archers. Theyre drama is located in the countryside and I wanted my radio drama to be in a city like london so I did the opposite although I followed the conventions of having 2 second gaps of silence, inbewteen each scene so it is not confusing for the audience which  is what I did in my radio drama. The Archers use a lot of sound effects such as running water, footsteps which I used in my radio drama to make the audience know what is going on, and the recognised sounds makes the scene clearer. When I researched radio dramas a lot of the dramas were sci-fi and fiction such as hitchhikers quide to the galaxy which a lot of people in my class decided to do but I want to do something different, I challenged and wanted to create a realistic radio drama which genre was a comedy drama although I got an idea from the hitchikers guide to the galaxy to use a news reporter like they did. When researching radio dramas they used regional accents like the archers but all the characters had the same accent which I departed radically from this convention and had many accents such as French, German and English which all gave my radio drama comedy value as some of accents were funny. Films also influenced the making of my radio drama such as The Devil Wears Prada as it about fashion which really influenced me also TV Series, Material girl and Ugly Betty all influenced the development of my drama, the characters and the storylines. Many of the radio dramas I researched broadcasted on radio 4 and radio 7 , I was going to challenged this and broadcast on radio one to be different although i followed the forms and conventions and decided to have my radio drama broadcasted on Radio four extra which is still a very popular channel.  although My Newspaper Advert follows the convention of real media products such as the poster, In her shoes even though its advertising a film it still shows the same conventions on a poster. I show a quote on my poster which sums up my drama in a positive way on the poster and theses conventions are done in the same way in her shoes poster.  It shows at the top of the poster a positive quote about the film which I have done in the same ways.  In the poster Devil wears Prada it only shows a picture of a red shiny shoe, the title, two starring actors and the information at the bottom. I used the conventions of a colour scheme which was red, black and white like the devil wears Prada poster but challenged the convention in this poster by actually having images of my characters and the information in a box, which stood out clearly although I show the title rough cut but it is not standing out like the poster confessions of a shopaholic. The poster which stands out boldly although I took the same idea from the poster of confessions of a shopaholic, as on  the model she is wearing  pink and she is positioned in the middle and underneath her is the title which is in the same colours of her clothes linking the  word shopaholic to her.  I did this with the title in red and the characters Vivienne’s coat links to the title. I challenged the forms and conventions of Ad placement poster as i thought of having my poster placed in fashion magazines as my radio drama it a comedy it links to the fashion industry and in these magazines it’s all about fashion so it would tie in nicely with  my target audience and break the conventions. although i decided to follow the forms and conventions and have my poster advertised in the newspaper The Daily mail as my poster has a quote from them so i thought it would fit nicely in the daily mail which quoted my poster in a positive way.

My Magazine feature design shows a big heading which is a quirky headline of “it’s all drama,drama, drama, in rough cut”, I used a quirky headline to draw the reader in to wanting to know more which is like the Ant and Dec interview which is bold and bright and the same colours scheme, the colour scheme is red, black and white and also linked with my poster although I challenged this convention and had my background black  as all the feature pages I looked at all had a white background so I decided to challenge this and make  my poster different . On the opposite page I have text and have an image in the centre of the article like the ELLE feature page to break up the writing and at the start of my Article. I have a big letter to start the article which I used this convention which is shown in the cosmopolitan Kimberley Walsh interview which I used and in my feature page. I followed the same conventions of having the same style of interview like the Kimberley Walsh interview of having the magazine interviewer in one colour and the person being interviewed in another to break up the text and make in understandable. my ad placement of my feature page was going to be a fashion magazine as i was having my drama broadcasted on radio one although i did not challenge this and decided as my radio drama is being broadcasted on Radio 4 extra that i would have my radio drama broadcasted in the Radio Times which would advertise to my target audience positively.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I hoped for my Radio Drama and the newspaper advert and feature page to work well  together. I think I did this positively by my radio drama actually showing the forms and conventions of a comedy genre which I also reflect in my Newspaper advert and the Feature page. I had done this in my radio drama personally by the different accents used throughout also the good use of sound effects linked with the drama, in scene three when Vivienne is annoyed she is asking her Personal asssistant to get her vodka which we used sound effects of him sipping a drink, and storming around which just added comedy Value to the drama. The audience feedback also shown how well our radio drama was which we had an overall mark of 9/10 which is extremely good we had comments of “good plot”, “well scripted”,”easy to understand stories” which shows that  the audience understoon the drama well, we also had comments of “good use of humour”, “Funny!” “The multi-accents”which shows that the radio drama shown the genre of comedy well.  I believe  our drama was effective especially within reaching and addressing our target audience .

I  believe we had advertised the radio drama well in my newspaper and feature page as these were to advertise the Radio drama so I think they have all worked well alongside eachother. As I used images in my newspaper Advert which shown the characters in the drama it shown what the genre was especially the male version of Vivienne which the male character Vivienne is wearing a handbag creating comedy to the poster. I uploaded to FaceBook  my two posters of Female and male Version of Vivienne which I asked people to comment on to  find out which one was the best. My audeince feedback was that they liked the male version one as it is more comedy compared to the Female Version as its more serious looking although in the Female Version poster vivienne wears a coat of red to signify danger and as she is positioned behind lauren it shows the relationship good vs evil (binary oppositions-Levi Strauss). The functions of the newspaper advert was to advertise the Drama without giving away the whole drama. I only shown the title,channel,time and date in my drama as I used a quote from the daily mail talking about the dishy fashion drama. It clearly shows that the genre of this is comedy but also that it is linked to fashion. The newspaper and Faeature page work well together as I used the same colour scheme and I also in my feature page had an interview with Vivienne in the feature the pictures all link together. The functions used in the Feature page are to engage the reader with the characters in the drama, to advertise the drama and to spill a few bits of the drama. My Ad placement for my feature page is a few weeks after the drama being aired so the reader knew about the drama. My Feature page was shown in the Radio times which advertises all  radio dramas which would also be effective with my target audience. As they would enjoy radio dramas As my drama is linked to fashion  i thought of being in a fashion magazine to draw my exact target audience although I thought it would be best to stick to radio, so I had my feauture in the radio times. I strongly believe that even though my products are doing different functions of advertising they  have worked well alongside eachother advertising the radio drama which is easily understood to the target audience.

  (look at labels:contruction  and construction and planning to see more)

What have you learned from your Audience Feedback?

When we had our audience feedback we were dreading the review as our radio drama is targeted at a female audience so we thought our drama would get very bad reviews considering it wouldn’t be a male’s taste.
 The results come back that in fact our Radio Drama got the best and most results with the majority marking the overall drama 9/10! And in fact was the most liked compared to everyone else’s drama which was extremely good considering the focus group being very biased.
Many of the reviews thought that it was very funny which I was mostly proud of as I thought that many people would not like the humour or find it funny than our own group. There were comments to improve our drama and that was in scene one, there’s a few lines quieter than they should be and the breaks in-between the scenes are too long. So we are going to shorten them down also there was a suggestion that as Vivienne is being played by a males voice, as a part of panto style and that Vivienne can be a males name, and in the fashion world there are many male designers with very different names. Vivienne then would play a male character and a twist to the story that Laurens boyfriend Chris is seeing Vivienne which makes him gay, so we have also shown topics of sexuality in to our drama which also adds more drama.  Other people disagreed as the male voice representing Vivienne as a female character added to the comedy value being ‘panto’ style; Vivienne’s dialogue got the most laughs and positive response from our audience.

 I learnt and developed further from this feedback as I decided to have Vivienne as a male and also the Audience feedback I had on face book thought that it was more comedy which made me feel like I did the right decision which I performed in my Newspaper Advert and Feature page of having Vivienne as a male in my images. I believe that the peer review is a good thing as it helped our group learn from this and improve our drama on the things that were lacking in our Radio Drama.

look at labels construction and planning

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning, and evaluation stages?

I used my blog to organize and to show my research of radio dramas by uploading images and showing a analysis of different radio dramas. I also presented my ideas by scanning brainstorms of my ideas of different codes and conventions of genres, posters and features. I also presented the planning of my work by scanning my rough scripts, character ideas for my drama and rough designs of newspaper advert and feature page. I also used soundclips of my drama to present my work and so the viewer could have an insight to my radio drama. I also talked through the process of editing which I did in video format so I could show the computer and the different tools to edit and cut scenes. I also discussed audience feedback and how I learnt and improved my work from audience feedback.

I used the internet to find out research such as the BBC Website to listen to different dramas to get ideas for my own radio drama. I also looked at myths and stories for ideas in the making of my radio drama but I wanted to use comedy and a fashion storyline so I looked at different films such as Devil wears prada, in her shoes, confessions of a shopaholic and different TV series such as Ugly Betty and Material Girl to get inspiration and ideas. I also looked on google researching for examples of posters and feature to progress my work .  To get more research data and audience feedback I used the social networking site Facebook to get feedback on my poster work to see what I could improve and find out what they liked about it the comments I recieved was they thought my poster was comedy which was good as my radio dramas genre is comedy.

For my poster I  used the programme photo shop. I already knew  how to use it from previous tasks in media although on a few things like creating transparent box which I done by creating a box which was black and I created a new layer and on the layer I decreased the opacity which made it transparent. Which I found out by I looking on the internet for photoshop tutorials. I asked freinds to be my models so I photographed them to be my characters of vivienne and Lauren for my poster, which enbaled me to show their realtionship on my poster of good vs evil. I edited my photographs using the programme photoshop I used the  quick selection tool to highlight around  images to cut around their bodies .if I didn’t cut completely around it, I used the Alt button to deselect an area, once I got the image perfect I refined the image by changing the radius and smoothing image. The colour scheme I used was Red, Black and white which I made my own colour swatch of the Red using the swatches tool on the right hand side in Photoshop and clicked on new colour swatch. For My feature pages I used the programme in design. . I already knew  how to use it from using it last year for coursework. Using the tracking tool which makes the text closer and either increase or decreases, the amount of space between each letter which I made the letters close together. The colour scheme I used was Red, Black and white just like my poster. Which I made my own colour swatch of the Red using the swatches tool on the right hand side and clicked on new colour swatch. There was no specific skills only to know what icons do to you poster and how they can change them. Photo shop and In Design are quite easy programmes when you get familiar with them.

When I edited my radio Drama I really struggled at first, I think that it is skills that take a while to learn as well as getting used to the programme soundtrack pro which we had To cut out clips, using the razor tool over the clip where I wanted cutting and the tool cuts it and using the arrow tool and pressing the delete button gets rid of the part you did not want, in scenes I faded scene to end scenes which is not easy. I believe I that I have used my blog effectively showing my research and planning well showing the products of my Radio Drama, Newspaper Advert and feature page.

look at  labels of production

Development of poster!!

 i started my feature page by creating a heading. i played around with the positioning of the heading and using the tracking tool which makes the text closer and either increase or decreases the amount of space between each letter which I made the letters close together. The colour scheme I used was Red, Black and white just like my poster. Which I made my own colour swatch of the Red using the swatches tool on the right hand side and clicked on new colour swatch.

 I Then decided that i wanted my background to be black because of the feature pages i analysed they all has used white background so i challenged this and decided to be different. i am doing my feature page on Vivienne so i added a photo , i used the the quick selection tool to highlite around the image to cut around his body.if i didnt cut completely around it, i used the Alt button to deselect an area, once i got the image perfect i refined the image by changing the radius and smoothing image. i am now going to add my article and interview to the feature page.

I added in my article which i broken up the text by the interviewer being in the red and the person being interviewed in white text which made the poster stand out but also made it clear and understandable. i also made changes to the heading by using commas to make the sentance more clear and correct instead of using ...

I added page numbers and the title of the magazine at the bottom which was the radio times i used radio times to follow the forms and conventions of radio dramas. i added in a image in the middle of my interview/article to follow the forms and conventions of the magazine ELLE which i researched and decided to follow as it breaks up the text and makes the feature more interesting.

I used the following image of showing stephen (Vivienne) in heels to create comedy to the interview and make it panto style as in the article i made Stephen look like a fun guy rather than the guy he plays on air Vivienne who plays evil.  i only cropped the image as the image was quite bright, i didnt cut around the image as i thought it would not look right on my feature page although this image looks like it was took in the studio.

Rough Designs

These are my rough Layout Designs I will be following the forms and conventions which are shown in magazines such as:

• Big headings
• Introduction
• colour scheme
• columns of text
• pictures
• page numbers/date/magazine
• interview style.. Q:, A: or breaking up text with different colour

My first layout design shows a big heading  and a image below it and an image which will be on the left hand side and then i start my article with an introduction leading into a interview which the question and answer would be broken up with colour , the colour scheme would be red,black and white linked with my poster. On the opposite page i would have text and have an image in the center like the elle feature page to break up the writing.

My second design shows a big heading and the text below the bold heading and on the right hand side it shows a big image like how the Kimberley Walsh interview was layed out. The colour scheme would be Red,Black and White linked with my poster.

Ancillary Task 2- Magazine feature Analysis

Now I have finished my poster advertising my Radio Drama, I now need to proe duce a double page feature for a magazine to promote my radio drama and interest my target audience. I am thinking of Advertising my Radio Drama Feature page in the Radio Times or a Fashion magazine, which would be better for my Target Audience as its targeted to a female audience.
I have looked at feature pages in the magazines ELLE and Cosmopolitan to get ideas and see the forms and conventions in these magazines:

In the Cosmopolitan magazine i did an analysis of an interview with Kimberley walsh which would traditionally shown the conventions of a big headline instead it shown a massive P at the start of the article which is usually done in magazines but not that big. The magazine editor  may of done this  because on the opposite page there was a huge picture of Kimberley Walsh and she is famous so there was no need to introduce or headline what this article was about. At the start of the interview their was a paragraph positively talking about Kimberley Walsh career and how great she is, then it goes in to a interview style which is broken up to be understood by the question in pink and the answer in black which is a form and convention in magazines. They also have the name of the magazine at the bottom of the page with the page number and the date and in the top left the have a little heading which say "Women we love".  The colours scheme is traditionally a set of three colours which has been done in this magazine of Pink, white and black which makes the feature page fun and girly.

In the Cosmopolitan magazine i did an analysis of an interview with Ant and Dec which  traditionally shown the conventions of a big headline  which said "Britains most wanted" the font is quite bold on the wanted more formal and the britian most less formal which is done in quite a comedic way ,which links well with the images behind it of them standing side by side in black and white photo.  They show a quirky intro to get the reader to read more. The use a colour scheme of Red, white and black which shows the forms and conventions in a magazine. Theyre layout of a interview is set like this question in red  which is cosmo talking ,then A:.. to show Ant talking, then D:.. to show Dec talking.They also have the name of the magazine at the bottom of the page with the page number and the date which are forms and conventions in magazines.

In the Elle Magazine i did an analysis of an interview with Johnny Knoxville  which has a little heading in the center saying Elle interview and then a heading which is a bit bigger saying ELLE Q&A Johnny Knoxville and then underneath is an introduction positively talking about the celeb.The article begins with a paragraph about his career and then it goes in to the interview which is very different to cosmos layout as they have ELLE:... then JohnnyKnoxville:.. set out like that and they break the conventions of the colour scheme as it just black writing on a white background which looks quite bland although they, have an image of Johnny which is also a black and white image in the center of the article. This breaks the writing up and gives the magazine a sophisiticated look. They still do the same forms and conventions of a page number and magazine title.

Our groups posters!

These are our posters which we have done individually:

This is Jo's Final Poster



this is my Final Poster



Audience Feedback

To get Audience feedback I uploaded my two posters of the Male version and Female version of Vivienne. The Posters which are promoting my Radio Drama i uploaded to Facebook  so i could get feedback on what one the audience preferred, thought looked best and more professional . heres the linkhttp://www.facebook.com/update_security_info.php?wizard=1#!/photo.php?fbid=10150137903723342&set=a.59032173341.71706.554013341&theater
 i had comments of "its comedy" so i think my audience feedback went good

 

Final Version of Posters & Ad Placement

Scott Mills

Placement of drama: My idea for my radio drama to be on Radio one as it is a very popular radio channel which doesnt usually have radio dramas on, so i thought i would break the forms and conventions and have my drama played on a popular radio channel. I decided on every tuesday at 5.30pm in the middle of scott mills show which would be before newsbeat and it will be the time when people would finish work so they would listen to it on their way home which hopefully would hook the audience in especailly as the genre is comedy it will draw people in and make my drama popular . Although this may not work and draw my audience in as it is usually a music radio channel  so i followed the forms and conventions of having my radio drama on Radio 4 Extra, i did this as many people who enjoy radio drama would listen to the drama so it would be better to advetise my drama and engage with my audience.

This is the channel my Radio Drama is going to be broadcasted

Advertising/Ad placement: I would want my radio drama to be advertised in the Daily Mail Newspaper as on my poster they quoted what they thought  of my drama, so the advert could go in their newspaper. I also would want my poster to be advertised in the radio times as people who read the radio times are obviously interested in radio dramas so i think it would fit nicely advertised in there. i would also want my poster to be shown in many female fashion magazines which would challenge the forms and conventions as Radio is a popular than what it was not many dramas are advertised in female fashion magazines as more people are interested in TV drama so i would challenge the conventions but as my Radio Drama is aimed at a female audience and most women are interested in fashion etc it would be advertised well in womens magazines such as the magazines , more, company, cosmopoliton, elle, vogue would make my drama advetised positively
.Although this may not work and draw my audience in as it is usually shown in newspaper so i followed the forms and conventions of having my poster in the Daily mail as they quoted my poster positively  so it works togther nicely having it advertised in their newspaper, i did this as many people who enjoy radio drama would listen to the drama so it would be better to advetise my drama and engage with my audience.


Final Versions of  Posters:

These were my final version of my posters advertising my Radio Drama although as i have changed the channel from bbc 1 to bbc four extra, i changed my posters.

 when i get my Audience feedback i will choose one of these posters as my official Radio Drama poster.

Development of poster

Development of poster:For my poster i have decided to do two posters of a male Vivienne Version and a female Vivienne version which i will get feedback on facebook which i will find out what poster people liked the most. i took photos for my poster and here are my images to show my development of my poster.


before i edited..



After i edited..



quick selection tool i used to edit photographs

  This was my image to start with which was going to be Lauren using the program photoshop i used the the quick selection tool to highlite around the image to cut around her body.if i didnt cut completely around it, i used the Alt button to deselect an area, once i got the image perfect i refined the image by changing the radius and smoothing image. i then save it and clicked on the image to realise that the picture had a very low resolution (the pixels) so it become blurry so i had to change my image and do the same process i did previously.

before..

After..

This is the male version of Vivienne which i used him wearing a handbag to create comedy to my poster which fits and shows the genre. i edited this image like the other images using the program photoshop i used the the quick selection tool to highlite around the image to cut around his body. if i didnt cut completely around it, i used the Alt button to deselect an area, once i got the image perfect i refined the image by changing the radius and smoothing image.

image before i edited it on to my poster



My poster with the edited pictures

 This is my female version of the poster developing, The photo of Vivienne i cut around the image and refined the image and made the image quite sharp like the other images.The image represents Vivienne as fierce and significant with the use of props like the smart, deep red coat to create a fierce look compared to what Lauren looks like, more plain jane which represents there status which I added text which I did in a Fancy Font to give the poster a classy look I also made the text closer by using the tracking tools which changes the amount of space between each letter which I made the letters close together. The colour scheme I used was Red, Black and white which I made my own colour swatch of the Red using the swatches tool on the right hand side and clicked on new colour swatch. I also included images of logos of designer labels which will draw the audience in and it shows the audience that it is linked to fashion. I also had to cut around the stars using the quick selection tool place them on different layers- i did these stars with a quote which is has been done on many posters

This poster is adevetising a film but i have used this as an example of a poster which has used quotes from Newspapers and Magazines although this poster dosent have star ratings only quotes/revies from the magazines or   newspapers they have used a score 10 out of 10 instead of star ratings but i have used stars as it gives it a classy look to my poster and matches well with the font and genre where as this film is advertising to children/teens so they have used there rating/review in a more fun, bold way.

This is the male version poster of Vivienne which is the same as the other poster apart from the model of Vivienne although I did one change to this poster of the information of the time, channel etc. which was  i added a  transparent box which I done by creating a box which was black and i created a new layer,and on the layer I decreased the opacity which made it transparent. the box has made it look quite proffesional.

Ideas and rough designs for my Newspaper Advert

Ideas:For my poster I have been thinking of doing a poster in the colour scheme of Red, Black and White like the Devil wears prada poster as it gives the poster a sophisticated look. I have also thought of doing a image of lauren and Vivienne behind lauren this will show there relationship especially as i will have Vivienne posing with a fierce look. I then thought of having the title, time,day and Radio channel of my radio drama on the poster as i dont want to give to much information to my audience. From our focus group people suggested Vivienne to be a male as their are many fashion designers with unique names so i am going to decide whether to have vivienne as a male or female.
Here are my rough design layout for my poster:

I show the forms and conventions of a poster which doesn't show to much information. i am only going to show images and the title of the drama, time.day and channel of my radio drama. I also  thought of having two images of the main protagonists Vivienne and Lauren which so binary oppositions(Levi Strauss) Good Vs Evil with vivienne wearing a red coat suggesting danger and a colour scheme of Red, White and black influenced by The Devil wears Prada poster and it gives the poster a sophisticated look . 

I thought of having a image of lauren who is getting paparazzi, so images of camera flashes also using props of bags of shopping suggesting fashion which will draw in the audience. I also thought that as it women that are our target audience , that the colour scheme to be pink to draw the viewer in to looking at the Advert.