Peer Review Assessment-Focus Group

We had a focus group based on our radio drama, which was very gender biased considering there was about 20 males compared to four women as we couldnt assess our own drama. We were dreading the review as our radio drama is taregted at a female audience so we thought our drama would get very bad reviews considering it wouldnt be a males taste.
 The results come back that infact 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 elses 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, theres a few lines quieter than they should be and the breaks inbewteen 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.
Vivienenne then would play a male character and a twist to the story that laurens boyfreind Chris is seeing Vvienne 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 believe that the peer review is a good thing as it helps our group improve our drama on the things that are lacking which will improve our grades and create a great Radio Drama.

Whats next....Editing!!

As a group we edited the radio drama to make it seem more realistic with sound effects to make a dramatic effect to scenes and changes to voices making them either sound louder or quiter or fading. in the first scene we added sound effects of phone ringing and jazz music to set the scene and to match taste of certain character as Vivienne is a old french designer we thought jazz music would link well and as she is quite posh as it matches the characters taste. In other scenes we added other sound effects like scene three when Vivienne is angry because her fashion show, she wants vodka so we added sound effects of water being poured, ice cubes being added and sipping sounds which were very noticed setting the scene. In the very last scene i thought it needed to end with a bang so i come up with the idea that lauren should slap chris and we have Vivenne laughing to create tension and then lauren runs of and gets in her car and speeds off so we add footsteps and a car door slamming and screeching wheels we creates drama in the last scene which interests the listener for the next episode.

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
the tools i used to edit my radio drama were:

The selection tool: the selection tool  is shaped like an arrow which enables you to click on parts of the scene which i used to edit my work for fading, cutting etc.

The blade tool: was the tool I used to cut parts of scenes which using the selection tool , I would select the part needed and using the blade tool of the part I wanted cutting I would click and the tool cuts it and using the arrow tool and pressing the delete button gets rid of the part you did not want.

Fade selector tool:  I used the  fade selector tool to fade scenes, I did this by clicking the part Iwanted to fade using the different shapes. If Iwas to fade the start of a scene the line would start off at the bottom and increase upwards in a curved shape .So the scene would start quiet but fade slowly in to the noise of the sound clip. Ending scenes i would fade using the same tool but the shape would be the opposite as its fading from sound to silence.

Sound Effects:  I used sound effects in my drama which are  Located in the Browser Tab area, where you can find click the Search Tab, which will automatically take you to the sound effects and type in what you wanted which was what i did of footsteps and screams also car effects etc. 


 Increase/decrease volume: I decreased some voices in the drama as the levels were quite high in some parts of the drama. Doing this I had to double click on a  part of  the clip , then a purple box comes up underneath the radio drama clip (in green) .which you double click and little black points appear which you can click again  and the points join, you then move them up or down to increase or decrease the volume.






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3RWAOB13D0<< Click on this clip to to listen to the scene i edited myself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-QrWM_No_4 << Click on this clip to listen to a scene of our radio drama which we edited as a group

THATS A WRAP!!! Production log! we have recorded the whole of our drama!!!

We had a practice session with the recording equipment, to learn how to use it properly and confidently as a group. We also noted down some important tips to remember when recording the drama which was always do a test recording,check everyone’s levels are at the same volume
format the drama to mp3 at the end of each session  and save the work.
As a group we got people to be our actors for our radio drama which some had to play different accents. Our actors had to play different roles, who played lauren had to play a sweet innocent voice and like the others playing Chris and stephen ]had to put on a  deep accent although Viviennes part was french. Other actors like jeffrey and the newsreporter who played a german accent and a girly high pitched voice too.
Whilst Recording Myself and Natalie were putting the drama together by using sound track pro and starting the recordings and pause and playing them back and keeping a check on the levels making sure the voices were not too loud although some characters such as Vivienne have to shout in some scenes so the levels are quite high. We completely recorded the whole drama we had a few hiccups of actors having to retake but overall it went really well and our group is really pleased with the drama.

recording button to start the drama

Using Soundtrak pro i was in charge of breaking the scenes so i used the recording button when everyone was ready and stop the scenes using the stop button to get ready for a new scene. I also had to look at the levels of everyones voice when recording so the recording doesnt sound distorted .