Key personnel.

Role/ Job	Possible Person	Strengths and Weaknesses of the person
Voice actor	Eden	Is out going and would give a good performance   Can sometimes be immature and lead to retakes
Voice actor	Aksanty	Did drama GCSE and knows how to act well   Is very busy often and can lead to scheduling issues
Voice actor	Joseph	Good to work with and has a good work ethic   Hasn’t done any acting prior therefore performance may be lacking
Voice actor	Caleb	Easy to work with and understands assignments   Isn’t as outgoing and usually quiet
Voice actor	Isaac	Very energetic and is willing to act out anything   Hard to contact and may have issues finding.
Voice actor	Hannah	Understands assignments   May be unwilling to act out some scenes
Directing, editing and voice acting	Alfie	Works fast and understands what needs to be done   Procrastinates therefore leading to deadlines being tight.

Radio Drama Key Personnel  List

 Launch Date

I believe that "To Catch An English Student" would be optimal to release during a holiday season for the target audience, this way it will be able to be watched by as many people as possible. Therefore I believe that July 19th 2024 would be the best date to release the first episode as it is on a Friday during the holidays; I specifically chose a Friday as there are many parents who don't like their children being on their phone during the week however Friday is the last day of the week and therefore I believe that many children would  be getting their phones back. Therefore optimising the amount of people who would be there for the launch date.

Expanding Initial Ideas / Rational

 Why I chose "To Catch an English Student"

The idea that I have chosen out of my initial ideas is "To Catch an English Student". This is for many reasons. The main reason that I chose this one is due to the many different type of sound effects I can create and use for the radio drama, things such as wildtracks of students murmuring in the back of a class room, or a foley sounds of students typing in the background. I'm able to most effectively use sounds in this initial idea to convey the story of my Radio drama and therefore it is the main reason as to why I'm choosing this idea. Another reason is that it won't have to be recorded outside, this means that the audio quality will be easy to control and gives a better quality, there won't be any potential for wind to blow against the mic and therefore disrupt the audio quality and therefore allows for me to get a cleaner and more crisp sound when recording.

Not only this, but it also allows me to use a lot of unique foley sounds to have to replicate what may be happening in the narrative of the show. An example of this would be a foley sound of someone typing on a keyboard to make the entire experience feel more real for the listener. Overall, by choosing this idea it allows me to create and use sound elements that would make the audience the most enticed into the show, rather than the other ideas which would restrict what I wanted to do or can do with the sound.

Scheduling

 Scheduling

The time the episodes would air during the day would be at 6.15pm; the target audience for To Catch an English Student are teenagers aged 13 - 24 and assuming they aren't homeschooled they would get home at around 4pm. By airing the show at 6.15pm this gives them enough time to get home and do things that they need to do such as their homework for the day or any after school activities. Furthermore any adults who are at work are able to get home from work as well as this time which means any of the people who are on the elder end of that age spectrum who do work are also able to get to the airing.

As for the days it would air, the episodes would air on Fridays and get released weekly. This is due to some children not having access to internet during the school week and only get given permission to go online at Fridays and therefore by considering this it will make it so as many people as possible can view the episode. Not only this but by airing it on a Friday it is the final day of work for many people and gives a sense of relief to listen to the episode at the end of the week.

Overall I believe that the timings I suggested are the most optimal time in order to get as many of the target audience to listen to the episodes that air. This way by getting as many children to listen to the episodes they are able to get all of the information they need and therefore understand the dangers of cyber bullying.

Episode running order

 

Treatment

Radio 

To Catch an English Student

A Drama programme

"To Catch an English Student" (TCES) Would be a Radio Drama show that is centred around an English classroom. The overall premise of the show would be that a group of students are told by police to stay inside of an English classroom due to an investigation having been conducted about a girl who had committed suicide in their school. It had been narrowed down to someone from that English class who cyber bullied her into doing it therefore they keep all of the students in there to try and figure out who did it. 

I would use sound in order to make the episodes more realistic for the audience. One way I'd be able to do this is by using sound effects to convey that they are in fact inside of a school, for example using a school belling sound effect at the start of each day to not only connote to the idea that they are in a classroom but also to act as a gateway into the episode as it also represents the start of a new school day. This idea was inspired from THIS episode of BBC Radio 4's Radio drama called "15 Minute Radio Drama" and their use of paper flicking noises to connote to the idea of a therapy office. This made the episode feel more realistic which is what I want to create with my radio drama in order to make a greater suspension of disbelief for the audience. Another way I would use sound in my show is through the use of dialogue. I would use dialogue to share the narrative of the episode but also to reflect the setting their in. For example, if there were to be a private interrogation of one of the children I would use dialogue so that it was just the child and the interrogator who are talking to therefore connote to the idea that they have infant moved rooms to talk more privately. This would be very effective as it creates a deeper sense of realism, therefore making it easier for the audience to understand whats happening in the episode and makes the episode much more engaging for the audience. Not only this, but I would also use music in order to create a gateway into the episode, but also to foreshadow the themes of the overall show. Due to this show having some very negative connotations the actual theme music wouldn't be very buoyant. Finally, I would also use Wild tracks and Foley noises in order to make the environment have even further realism, an example of this would be that while there are people having a discussion in the classroom in the background, this use of Wild tracks to create a sense of realism makes the overall feel much more authentic because realistically if something to this severity would of happened there would be discussions in the background. Overall the use of these sounds in this way would create a better experience for the audience as it would create a greater depth of realism for the listener and make it more engaging for the audience to listen to.

The overall target audience for the show would be Teenagers from 13 - 24 of no specific gender who are from England and are interested in investigation shows. The reason why I feel it would be targeted toward a younger audience despite having some mature themes such as suicide is due to it also acting as an informative - sound is used to Inform, Educate and Entertain, and as it is centred around cyber bullying and the effects it can have the younger audience would be much more able to relate to the show as they are more likely to more often use social media than older generations therefore having that informative effect that sound should have. As well as this, it would be targeted towards a specific gender due to there being many different gendered students in the classroom who are all apart of the investigation and therefore a much more diverse spread of characters in which the audience are more able to relate to which makes the show more enjoyable for everyone.

 Radio Programme Analysis

THIS episode is about a man called “Richard Fallon” who is a man who is struggling with a mental issue and is talking to his therapist. The episode opens with the theme music for the show and then leads into the main narrative, Richard goes into detail about all of the issues he’s currently having an episode is mostly filled with him ranting to his therapist about all of the things he’s worried about, he talks a while about how global warming is making him depressed due to the social paradox of being told not to buy things however also being told that they are needed in this daily life; he also talks about how politicians are clueless and talks about how he feels that they only say things to stay in power. The episode then closes with the therapist telling him that they have ran out of time for that session and he leaves as the episode fades into the theme music. Its set in the modern day and touches on many real day problems that many people may be worried about such as who to go to for help when most of the people you are meant to go to are higher up don’t know what they’re doing.

The episode targets an English, male audience who are in their 50’s as the episode gives the perspective of a father of someone who is active in modern political aspects such as being vegan and climate change. We see this at 7:50 – 8:04 when he talks about how he didn’t know how long we had to fix the planet, this displays that it might be aimed for an elder and more “out-of-touch” audience as Richard states “I thought we had 40!”. 

The main narrative device used in the episode is dialogue, its heavily used to represent the setting of a therapist office as we see our main character Richard saying at 12:29 – 12:38 as he talks about how he finds it funny that she gets paid there to just sit and listen, therefore connoting to the fact that this is therapy session. Not only this, but the long string of dialogue from Richard from 3:03 – 12:12 displays that this is also a therapist session as he is mainly talking, this connotes to the idea that she is on the other end listening to this all as we heard her at the start of the episode, therefore reflecting what it would be like in an actual therapist office. 

The episode uses dialogue in order to explain how Richard is struggling with mental issues and we can see this connoted through the episode. At 9:21 we can denote that he states “God, I’m so depressed.” This denote the idea that he is struggling with mental issues in his daily life, however this also connotes that he may reflect the views of some of the population of England, as he says this due to not understanding how we’re meant to stop global warming, which many listeners can closely relate to, therefore it enables the audience to become more engaged in the episode.

The episode also uses dialogue as a gateway into the episode to get people more focused. We can see from 0:00 – 0:14 a melancholy tune plays into the episode and then fades out near the end of that time stamp to acts as a starting point for the episode, but also kind of foreshadowing what the episode will be about. It creates a suspension of disbelief as the audience can hear that the episode is going to start and therefore become prepared and more accepting for the episode. Not only this but it allows the audience to prepare for the episode as it foreshadows what the episode is going to be about so that the audience will know that it is about upsetting topics.

We are also able to hear sound effects used near the start of the episode to further reinforce the setting and create a further suspension of disbelief for the audience. We are able to hear at 0:00 the diegetic sound effect of a page being turned, this (as we learn) is the sound of a folder being flipped through as a therapy session has just started, and by reinforcing this setting that they’re actually inside of a therapy office it creates a further suspension of disbelief by making the audience actually belief what they’re hearing. This then further engages the audience by making the surrounds more realistic.

Overall, the episode is very well made and I would take the use of dialogue and sound effects for my own. The way I would use the dialogue in a similar way to the episode linked is by reflecting the style in which its used, in this episode its used in majority to the person who is speaking to their therapist therefore it displays how a person is actually talking to a therapist and getting things off their chest. I would do something similar in my radio show by having the dialogue patterns match the theme of the episode. Not only this but I would also use the similar aspects of sounds effects that they used in this episode, such as the sound of paper being flicked through to show that this is an official setting which then makes the episode more believe and the environment that the characters are in more believable.