How to Write Radio Drama Essay

Here atomic number 18 some horrible truths head-nigh radiocommunicationcommunication out birthing play is very badly written. Radio gaming is an jeopardise species. It has never taken a hold of importantstream programming on commercial-grade radio in the UK. It used to be the mainstream in the States and Australia notwithstanding mixed-up out to TV in the middle to late fifties. It is under terror in spite of appearance public radio services including the BBC because of the pressure of monetarist ideology and the situation that authors and radio drama reckonors withstand been as well as complacent. IRDP is a significant oasis and continues to support the principle of the original wanton.Ground rulesThe BeginningThe beginning is every(prenominal)thing. If this parting of it does not work you atomic number 18 up shit creek without a paddle. Your attenders will desert you. You take on failed. You do not dwell as a dramatist. BoooThe Moment of ArrivalThis is how you drop your listeners into the story. Dont give them a warm bed with comfortable pillows and a tempestuous water bottle. The backcloth and sub-text of previous histories is better searchd through with(predicate) revelation in melodramatic action. So parachute your listener into a top dramatic moment. Not the climax. That would be premature. Find the MOMENT to join the story. Avoid the long-winded snails explicatory route. Kick em into a high force trip and whoosh them through the rapids.StructureSet up campaignresolution. You can reverse this if the pay back-up is to a greater extent dramatic and explosive than the resolution. Regard your play as a series of phasesThe mendThis is the story with lots of twists and turns. The to a greater extent the merrier. Most listeners like good exciting spots. Without a good piece youre eating a souffle that has gone flat. You need while, more piece and more fleck. Run at least two story lines. twain sub plots would be interesti ng. Keep the plots linked logically within the corresponding play. The best system is a major and aminor plot line linked to one another. Get them to come together at the end. amazementPeople are hungry for entertainment. If they wanted boredom they would be choice out their tax returns instead of listening to your radio play. net concourse afraid, but also excited.CharacterYour main event must(prenominal)iness have the sympathy of the audience. Your audience has to identify with your main role. If this does not happen you have created a failure. BoooConflictDrama = conflict = audience. There has to be an frantic, financial, human, moral, carnal struggle so your listeners can express joy or cry. Yes, you want your listeners to laugh or cry or laugh and cry. If you dont, give up.Polarities or ExtremesThe art of story telling is exploring the extreme limits of our psychological or tangible existence. To pitch one polarity against another.The ClimaxI apologize for the know ledgeable metaphor. But there is something in this. The better sex has foreplay, development, sustained excitement, rage and affection, nay love followed by an explosion of ecstasy. Good radio drama is not all that different. If you dont use it, you lose it. conferenceThis is how we engage dramatically with the initiation. Characters inform, argue, amuse, outrage, argue through the ebb and flow of confabulation. When we do we talk and that is how great radio plays are made..by talking in dramatic confabulation.Atmosphere / AmbienceThis sets the emotional spirit of the play. It determines whether yourlisteners believe in the world that you have created. Worlds are not created by dramatic dialogue alone. There is attitude and atmosphere. This is determined by detail and relevant detail. It could be in a sound effect. It could be in the writing. It could be in the music. It could be in everything. But the result is that the fifth dimension of radio writing the imagination of the l istener is stimulated to become a get wind palace of the mind.EmotionGot to be there. You have to generate an emotional reply from the audience.preferably to the main component.also not so strongly in relation to the other characters. Emotion = love, hate, admiration. Never mind about the attribute of emotion..concentrate on whether it is there or not. worked up connection mingled with the writing and the listener = good radio drama.Balance Character and PlotYou have to have both. You cannot trade. One can predominate over the other. Where they are balanced equally.it can only work if characterisation relates to plot development. If your main plot is character intensive, make sure that your minor plot is plot intensive.PurposeCrooks golden rule is that every word, every line, every barb must serve a dramatic purpose in terms of characterisation and plot development. Drop anything that does not have a dramatic purpose.Tension and HumourTo stop the listener dropping off or swit ching off, maintain the tautness incessantly and throw in the mental capacity. Tension, pique, tightness, wittiness, tension humourlike the foxtrot..Make the emotional cadence of the play dance on the listeners heart and mind. shape and alarm, charm and alarm. But theyve got to be linked. Your character uses humour to react to the tension in the moving picture or play. Keep one character who uses humour to deal with difficult situations. Make sure the humour is verbal. Slapstick belongs to a differenttype of play or entertainment. Make sure you do not have characters taking it in turns to be funny. This is not stand up comedy or sitcom. Make sure that the character who uses humour has a consistent find of humour.Get your listener inside the world of your play. How?a. Sympathy or empathy with the main character.b. A bloody good set up.c. A big, nasty antagonist or villain.d. great PlotGreat Story.twists and turns.e. Crisis at the beginning is dramatic and a great start.f. Emotional intensity. Hit some high points.g. Escalating conflict so the structure climbs with tension and humour. h. Strike the colours with detail so theres an atmosphere, mannerambience. I. Modulate charm with alarmhumour with tensiontension with humourfunny policeman nasty policeman. j. Surprise, surprisethats what you do to the listener, through the plot.The principle of developing scenes1.Introduction.2.Character onegoal and objective.3.Character twogoal and objective.4.Purpose of scene in overall plot.5.One of the characters achieves a goal.6.Link to the next scene by introducing or pointing to location of next scene or presence of character in next scene.Question marks in the mind of the listener. Always dungeon one, better two or threeThe Principle of Character1.Believable and recognisable.2.Purpose within the plot.3.Characters have to have function. Character has to be consistent with function.4.Characters have to be intentional.5.Start with a stereotype to ensure rapid r ecognition, then twist thestereotype. take exception the homily that there is nothing new under the sun by making it new under the moon.6.Give apiece character a predominate physical or behavioural characteristic. Make the controlling characteristic purposeful. Make it extreme.7.Your main character must be active.8.Active character / urgent plot. The characters energy has to fight the urgency of the plot and the urgency of the plot makes the character more energetic.The principle of Hero / Heroine1.Listeners look up to main characters, want to admire them because we all want heroes and heroines in our lives. Lifes eternal fantasy that transcendent people and transcendent moments conquer adversity. 2.If you are very clever you can transfer the hero from the obvious to the modify and make great the inferior or character who has greater potential for human dignity. 3.Charisma. Characters need intensity and conviction. They may not be faultless but they are attractive. You cannot identify with people who are unlike ourselvestoo perfect, no beliefstake themselves too seriouslylack a sense of humour..4.Give your characters private moments when they drop their guards and allow us into their minds and hearts. Make the listener privileged. aim this moment for revelation. 5.The main character has to change and has to be changed by the plot. 6.You must have a main character and vicarious characters. Your main character changes. Your secondary characters are probably more singular in their characteristics. Your secondary characters are already committed. Your main character is still weighing up the options. 7.You must have characters who are extreme in relation to each othercharacters that are different make drama.Where are we now?Well, we should be here.a. The main character is in the middle of the story.b. Youve used dominant characteristics.c. The listener likes the main character.d. The listener cares what happens to the main character.e. The listener hates t he antagonist.f. The main character is developing.Principles of Dialoguea. Dialogue must be a repartee to a situation, plot or action.b. Dialogue must be a response to each character in the scene.c. Dialogue must be derisory relief.d. Dialogue must connect to the next scene.e. Avoid reflective, passive and neutral. Go for active, and direct and emotional. f. Dialogue must be believable by creation specificby being specific to the characters background and emotional state. g. If dialogue is reacting to action or situation then it must be dramatic and poised on polarities. The goals of the characters in each scene should be different. h. Dialogue should be continuous. Tipcharacters often take a tag by repeating the last word spoken by the first character. i. Dialogue must relate to function.j. You can mix direct with indirect between two characters because they have different goals. k. Humorous dialogue is not a character telling a joke but a line or lines responding to the dramati c situation. l. Heightened dialogue vs naturalistic dialogue. Heightened expression is the language of the theatrehigh octane communicationpoetic, philosophicalcharged..the expression of the dramatistIt serves not only the development of the plot and character, but it also presents the absorb of the writer. Works well in radio. But there is now a tendency for more naturalism. Radio producers like to go out on location and explore realism. In these situations you must stick to natural dialogue.Principles bizarre to Radio1.The inner existence.2.The tension and conflict between the national and exterior.3.More psychological.4.Easier to explore the real and the surreal and to delineate the line between the two.5.Have to work in the fifth dimensionthe energy of the listeners imaginative participation.6.The interior existence offers exploration of personal thoughts, fantasies, emotions and conflicts.7.Alllevels of external conflict can be explored.8.The precipitating event through plo t has to threaten the inner purport of the main character. This is the kick-off in radio drama. 9.The end or resolution in radio drama is more deeply rooted in the emotional equilibrium and insight of the main character. Changes are internal as well as external. 10.Time transposition and translocation are faster and more rapid and more complicated. Flashbacksflashforwards different ages. 11.Radio requires less rather than more characters. Characterisation needs to be strong and fascinating. 12.Maintain the focus of the main character and plot.13.Economy of words underlines subtextual surprise and network with the listeners imagination. 14.Wit is vital because language is so important chicness with wordsenergy with words..humour with wordsWit is advanced by affect the listenerbeing aggressive with the listener..being fast, short and clever with the listener. 15.Irony is pathos and bathos. Its conflict between the inner life and outer action.Other radio drama producers in the world Norway NRK kulturkanalen, P2 RODD- 0340, Oslo, Norway.Swedish Radio, SR S-105 10 Stockholm, Sweden.YLE Finnish Broadcasting Company Radio, PO Box 79 FIN-00024 Yleisrdio, Finland. HR, Hessischer Rundfunk Bertramstrasse 8, 60320 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. DR Danmarks Radio, Radio Drama Department, Ewaldsgade 3-9, DK 2200, Copenhagen N Denmark. ABC Australia, ABC Ultimo Centre, aim 5, 700 Harris Street, Ultimo NSW 2007. CBC-SRC, Radio Drama Department, Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada MSW 1E6 SDR Suddeutscher Rundfunk, Neckarstrasse 230, 70190, Stuttgart, Germany. Radio television Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, m 30 Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Other radio drama producers, SABC, South Africa, Los Angeles Theatre Works, LA, California, Public Radio, New Zealand.