SOLO RADIO ASSESSMENT & CHARACTER STUDY'S

POEM ON DRUGS

WHY I CHOSE THIS PIECE:

I chose this piece because the first time I read it, I immediately felt a strong message throughout the piece that was clear. I felt myself envisioning all of these sound effects and characteristic skills in my head and I was getting excited because I thought this could be really good. Not only was it an entertaining poem with a strong message, you do do a lot with it, it had a lot of potential.

The genre of this piece would probably fall under audio poetry, all though it has quite an entertaining theme, i think this is more about getting the attention of the listener. I think it has a more serious theme. I think the performance style is factual and naturalistic, because it bases itself on the journey that drugs can do to you. The context is audio dramatisation of poetry, and I have also done some character work focusing on the way I use my voice.

I separate the text up and include different moods into the text as if the voice that you hear is the drug. The drug starts off as your friend and then suddenly becomes more manipulative and patronising as the journey goes on. I change the tone and the volume of my voice to show this change. I use quite a childish tone to begin with and then suddenly become this warped voice that isn't very pleasant to listen to which I think is quite a big contrast to the giggly child like voice at the beginning. I wanted to do this to highlight particular points in the journey of the poem.

The piece has come a long way since the begging, since then I have researched into the piece, got feedback from the piece and rehearsed with this. I think my diction and character has improved the most since I don't stumble as much as I did on the words as when i first started working on this solo. I think this is because I've separated the text more evenly and this created more natural pauses allowing me to breathe and catch my breathe. It didn't effect the pace however, I did slow some bits down due to feedback. 

WHAT IS THE PIECE ABOUT:

The piece is a poem, based on a structure/journey that drugs take you on. The poem seems to make light of the issue it's discussing and uses juxtaposition. I feel like it does this to to make the listener feel a bit manipulated by "the drug" and this causes the listener to think actually you don't sound pleasant at all, allowing the listener to make up there own mind.

HOW I INCORPORATED PERFORMANCE TECHNIQUES:

The performance techniques I have taken in to consideration include, Script annotation techniques, character profiling, script reading and spontaneity, working with SFXs, Content, and vocal techniques.

I annotated my script with where I wanted to include my SFXs and points to help with my overall performance, for example on my script I have the sound of prison cell bars shutting straight away. I chose this SFX because I wanted to listener to instantly be drawn in. I think prison cells would make the listener think of what this related to, and i think the first thing I would think about is crime, prison and a jail sale. I then annotated next to this "giggly girl, friendly, childish" and "breathe/pause" next to a certain point at the beginning. I did this to remind me and to show how I want this particular part to be changed. I put "high pitched" next to this as well to show how I do this with my voice. I highlighted my SFX's mainly in orange or red depending on the piece. I considered the content of the piece in order to get a feel of the character/ style of performance that I thought would be the most effective. I did my research, I made sure I understood everything I was talking about which helped me decide on the idea of creating a journey.'A small dose of heroin gives the user a feeling of warmth and well-being, bigger doses can make you sleepy and very relaxed." I took this into consideration and this made me think about the way I introduced the piece, I thought I'd make the user feel relaxed and comfortable before i start being a bit more mental. "The first dose of heroin can bring about dizziness and vomiting." 

The poem was quite self explanatory but having extra insight definitely helped. Script reading was considered, for example I needed to look at the punctuation and make sure I used it, in order to get a good pace, rhythm and space to breathe. I did change up some of the punctuation though sometimes in order to up the pace due to the characterisation of the piece. I did this by dismissing some of the commas and doing it faster to get more of a panic feel. This is when I use the intention to make the listener feel uncomfortable and this is where I use ghostly SFX to highlight and make it seem un natural.

RESEARCH RESOURCES:

http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/heroin

• "A small dose of heroin gives the user a feeling of warmth and well-being, bigger doses can make you sleepy and very relaxed."

• "The first dose of heroin can bring about dizziness and vomiting." 

• Heroin is highly addictive and people can quickly get hooked.

• Injecting heroin and sharing injecting equipment can  be very risky, as it runs the risk of the injector catching or spreading a virus, such as HIV or hepatitis C. There is also the risk that veins may be damaged and that an abscess or blood clot may develop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pax7QoV3_KU

https://www.gov.uk/penalties-drug-possession-dealing

Class	Drug	Possession	Supply and production
A	Crack cocaine, cocaine, ecstasy (MDMA), heroin, LSD, magic mushrooms, methadone, methamphetamine (crystal meth)	Up to 7 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both	Up to life in prison, an unlimited fine or both
B	Amphetamines, barbiturates, cannabis, codeine, ketamine, methylphenidate (Ritalin), synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones (eg mephedrone, methoxetamine)	Up to 5 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both	Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both
C	Anabolic steroids, benzodiazepines (diazepam), gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), piperazines (BZP), khat	Up to 2 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both (except anabolic steroids - it’s not an offence to possess them for personal use)	Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both
Temporary class drugs*		None, but police can take away a suspected temporary class drug	Up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine or both

 The image above is my first annotated copy, which includes my first ideas of SFXs, first ideas of character work, pieces of the text I cut, and feedback from my peers and teachers in order to give a more effective performance. Some of the feedback I got for this piece was to use a manipulative tone and keep it girly/giggly.

 This is the script I am giving to Ray. I decided to give him a neat copy with out any added character/voice annotation.

WHATEVER NEXT- JILL MURPHY

I chose this piece because I wanted to show variation. It's a children's story about a little bear flying to the moon, and his adventure along the way.

The story is written by Jill Murphy, and is still very popular with each generation. It was a book I loved when I was a little girl, and I thought it was perfect for a younger audience. I thought it had enough characters to show a variety of skills I could show.  This piece shows four different characters. Baby Bear, Mrs Bear, The Owl and The Narrator. I decided to keep the narrator closer to my voice but clip it a bit more. For example I would keep my voice soft and smooth in tone, but make sure I announce my t's and d's in diction. 

The feedback I got when I performed this to a teacher was to really over play the owl, to make sure they could absolutely hear the difference between the owl and baby bear. I play the Owl over the top and therefore every line the owl says I keep to the same over the top owl stereo type. I decided to play Baby Bear as more of a young boy type character changing my voice to be childish but more in the boy gender. I did this by doing less giggles which I would associate with a little girl more. I wanted to make Baby Bear a boy because I wanted to have clear characters, and seeing as I had already two female character (The Narrator and Mrs Bear) I found it was a good idea to use another male character other than the owl. 

The reason Baby Bear meets The Owl at night is because Owls are nocturnal. 

I decided to use a operatic owl voice which sounds like I'm almost singing. This is because owls seem to have quite a lyrical tone in there voice when they hoot.

For this piece I will be staying in the same place when I speak into the mic. Although there are many characters in this story, due to having to narrate the story too, it's not convenient to move around. 

The relationships between the characters are quite clear, Baby Bear is Mrs Bears child and the Owl is Baby Bears friend that he meets on the journey. 

I've given Mrs Bear a bit of a Yorkshire twang in her accent, but only subtle. I did this to make her and the narrators voices a bit clearer. 

Children's stories are often there to help children learn to read, however they are important in the way they help children see the world. Children's imaginations are very large and I think an audio book is great for a child's development. Children who are partially blind might have audio books like this as a source of main entertainment. This book is based to a younger audience and would be ideal as a after school session on BBC 1 or 2 so that children can relax after school around 3 or 4 pm. 

Here's a quote from BBC iWonder:

'Scientists have found that children who have fiction read to them regularly find it easier to understand other people – they show more empathy and have better developed theory of mind (the ability to understand that other people have different thoughts and feelings to us, which is essential for understanding and predicting other people’s thoughts and behaviour).'

ANTI SMOKING ADVERT

This is the shortest piece of the selection, But I thought it would be good to use to help link my other two piece together. There seems to be a theme of harmful substances along with a childish outlook or theme running with it. 

More harsh and blunt adverts were launched at the end of 2012. They seemed to be proved more effective as they were more graphic images and were actually showing users realistic consequences of smoking/ second hand smoking. Users seem to respond to this a lot more as it's no longer just coming from what we hear we are able to be shown directly what we used to fill in with our imaginations which was probably a lot less than the truth. 

'There are two types of tobacco smoke:

• mainstream smoke, which is directly inhaled through the mouth end of the cigarette, and
• sidestream smoke, which comes from the burning tip of the cigarette.'

Obviously with radio we can't use our visual scenes, we can only use our ears, and so somehow I needed to create an effective way to get the listeners attention in a short amount of time. 'Second-hand smoke can reach very high levels inside cars because it is a small enclosed space.' This is why the first SFX I use is exhaling/inhaling smoke at the beginning of the piece before the next SFX of a child coughing. I think the listener will automatically connect the two together and realise why the child is coughing. It makes the listener think about why the child is coughing. Then I go on to explain a fact, which is that " Over 80% of cigarette smoke isn't visible". This advert is actually from the NHS and supports the anti-smoking campaign. The piece I am doing is inspired by an advert taken from one of the NHS TV adverts. I adapted this with sound effects as obviously we can't use our sight, only our imagination. The piece on TV has only the sound of smoke, and you can see it filling the room with a child in the room and her being completed surrounded by second hand smoke. It was representing the fact that you can't see the second hand smoke, and so highlighted the invisible substance. 'The adverts follow the Stoptober campaign, which saw more than 270,000 sign up in a mass attempt to quit two months ago.' I researched a lot into what second hand smoking could actually do to you and it turns out that second hand smoke can cause cancer of various types and other problems too. ' Sidestream smoke is about four times more toxic than mainstream smoke, although people inhale it in a more diluted form. This is because sidestream smoke contains much higher levels of many of the poisons and cancer-causing chemicals.' Problems such as heart disease, stroke and breathing problems. Second-hand smoke apparently kills over 12,000 people in the United Kingdom from lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and Chronic, Obstructive, Pulmonary Disease. Second-hand smoke is especially dangerous for children. This is why I have focused on this in my radio solo. Children exposed to passive smoke are known to be at a higher risk of throat infections, asthma, meningitis and even cot death. 

' During your journey, children in the backseat will be exposed to average smoke levels around three times the European recommended air pollution standard. '

' England has seen cigarette smoking rates fall by 10-15%.'

SOURCES:

http://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/addiction-news-6/tips-former-smokers-campaign-ajpm-cdc-release-batch-1505-694427.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20805059

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/smoking-and-cancer/passive-smoking/smoking-and-cancer-secondhand-smoke

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/2289.aspx?categoryid=53&

GROUP RADIO ASSESSMENT

SEEING BEYOND WITH MAYA FANTASMA

Group Radio Assessment: SEEING BEYOND WITH MAYA FANTASMA

CAST & CHARACTERS:

MAYA: ABBI MARLOW

FELICITY: ALICIA PERKINS

TOM: CONNOR CLIFFORD

BECKY: CHARLIE-ROSE LANE

It took us a couple of weeks to find a play/radio script that we all liked and could work with. We finally came across a short scripted stage play, written by D.M Larson around 2005. D.M. Larson, who started writing plays when he was in high school won Emmy's for his work and has quite a lot of experience with the theatre background.  

The first couple of weeks we looked at different genres of radio plays and analysed them with different questions which would help is when we came to perform.

We decided to adapt this stage play to radio after researching and looking at many different radio drama’s and stage scripts. We looked at different stage plays as we decided we could adapt these to radio if we found the right piece. We looked at radio scripts such as, Like A Virgin by Gordon Steel, Ouji Board, No time for Crime which is a segmant of a radio play we looked at from Crime Club. Crime Club stared Barry Thompson and Raymond E. Johnson. 

What the piece is about?

The piece follows a physic called Maya Fantasma, who fakes connection with spirits who are trying to contact their friends/ relatives who are in her live audience. It’s all a show until an actual spirit, Felicity, comes to Maya to connect with her living brother Tom. Felicity is trying to warn Tom of his wife Becky who is watching the show with him. Becky also happens to be a nemesis of Felicity.

Why we chose the piece?

Out of all the radio scripts and and stage plays we read I think we all clicked with this play the most, as it was funny but also had an interesting plot, which we could really dwell with. I think we cast the play perfectly on our strengths too. For example I think I work well playing Becky because I had one of the more mature  voices, which i could sculpture around the sort of patronizing character that i have to portray. I think Alicia works well as Felicity because I think she has the right charisma and tone of voice for the cheeky, mischievous character she has to play. Obviously we worked with how we were going to act and so this would effect how we spoke, and how we positioned our pallets to get the right tone, volume, clarity and accent if we had one.

I don't know why the piece was written as such, however the piece obviously has a hidden theme about somewhere. I think perhaps it makes the viewers, or in this case, the listeners think about a number of different sub topics. I first thought about psychic and how no one really knows if they are putting on a show or if what they are saying is real. This comes into religious views, as some people will create an argument against this, or maybe they would be for the mystery. I had a look around on the web and even asked my friends about it in class. The question I used was "Do you believe in Psychics?" The question branched out to many different topics. For example some people who said they don't believe in them, would use examples like big tragedies that have happened. The impression was that if they were real they'd be able to predict terrorist attacks and stop so much heartache. The opposing impression was that even if they could see this, who is actually going to believe them? Many opinion can be drawn from this. It was written in 2005 when the radio drama Red Panda Adventures was also first aired. This is a light hearted radio drama which has similar traits to our play in the sense of the comical aspect but also has mystery story lines. It has recurring episodes. Other plays around the same time were Mercury Fur, Playing With Fire and Romance. All different genres. This light hearted radio drama would contrast to a full on comedy sketch as it has a set in story for the audience to follow but doesn't have the full on comical sketches and over the top voices it might include. Ours is like a toned down piece. 

This Radio drama, has a comical undertone, but had a mystery feel running high over the top of this. It’s a drama that has funny aspects in the play but leaves the audience questioning why Becky and Felicity hate each other.

Real life versions of Maya are actually out there in the world. It's up to the opinion of yourself whether you believe in it or not. The subject of belief comes under religious studies and citizenship. It's a very personal topic, and often this will effect the way you see this. Examples of mediums and spiritualists that go public with shows are Colin Fry and Psychic Sally. There are debates all over the internet discussing peoples opinions on whether these people are real or if its all for show. 

Character:

Becky, patronizing, manipulating, not very happy, demanding, high maintenance, I think she loves tom, but gives him a hard time possibly because she is feeling guilty? Maybe because she’s guilty about something that has happened between her and Felicity, something that Tom doesn't know? I think this might trigger her frustration and angry side to her. I think when I first read the script I imagined the characters to be older than how we are playing them, however I am glad that we made the characters younger because I think then we could play it to a younger target audience. I think Becky was initially late 30’s/40’s and we've brought it down to late 20’s. I think I make this work because of the way I put a more mature tone on my voice by articulating and putting a slightly upper class touch to my vocal tone.

In my head I’m imagining the fact that Felicity hates Becky is because Becky may have cheated on Tom and Felicity maybe caught her or found out, and Becky maybe murdered her? I think our group decided that Becky had been caught cheating on Tom, by Felicity and Becky and Felicity got into a dispute over this. This resulted in Becky pushing Felicity down the stairs and killing her. 

I think Becky is the type of wife who would make Tom carry her shopping bags for her and pay for the shopping. I think she obviously has a reason why she wants to be with Tom. Perhaps he is rich. I see Becky as a bit of a gold digger who obviously wears the trousers in the relationship. I start of whispering with Connor (Tom) in the audience and this straight away adds some sort of connection with them. We have to make the audience understand that they are husband and wife and so we have the witty banter/bossy relationship at the beginning. It's like the typical old married couple where the woman is bossing and moaning this time. 

I based my character on Jean Ainslee from the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. 

She's quite bossy and definitely wears the trousers in her and her husbands relationship. 

We are planning on having Alicia slightly behind and Tom and Becky together in order to get the effect that Alicia is in some other world and Tom and Becky go through Maya to talk to her so we will probably have her placed in the middle. 

The play was never actually resolved online as on the website where I found the script it had this message from the web master;

“

Hey students!

Write your own scene 2 for this play and send it to www.freedrama.com at pocolocoplayers@yahoo.com

The best scene will be published on the website and the student will be given co-author credits on the play.”

So no one knows exactly what happens next.