Radio Drama: Research

Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 April 2011

Group feedback and alterations

Our radio drama was played to a panel of media student in higher education. They were asked to give each drama a score out of 10 and also give us feedback on how we can inprove our dramas. The panel gave Rough cut (our drama) 9's they said that the comedy value was definately there and they also suggested that Viviene should remain a man to make the drama more intereting. some of my teammemebers liked this view and took it on board. However i was not that open to the idea. Mainly it wasn't our initail vision for it. However because the panel hve been there before and know what thewir talking about i did take their feedback on board but decided to make Vivienne a Drag that way it would not complicarte the drama or confuse my target audience.

Rough cut

I then moved on to fashion magazines but came to a dead end that is when we came up with Rough Cut. siginifies Lauren's personality. Everyone is rough at the edges and has something if not a feature that is not quite perfect whether it be personality or aqppearnace because we wanted Lauren to be a character our target audience can relate to we wanted her to be as inperfect and natural as possible instead of perfect.

There is also the connotation to fashion with rough cutting of materials or fabrics.

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

Character development: Vivienne

White hair(putting emphasis on cold facial features
black suits (showing barely any skin- sophisticated)
Simple accessories mainly on ears.

Small dresses
Sparkled embroidery
Jet black hair pinned back

Black, white and a touch of red
smoking
Real animal fur (expensive)
Black and White hair

Simple and elegant dress that hugs shape
animal print clothing (cheetah)
Bright white clothing moving away from black sophisticated them to bright and sophisticated

Character Development: Jeffrey

Fonzworth Bentley: P-diddy's (Well known Hip-Hop artist) butler/ sidekick:

Fonzworth Bentley formally known as Derrick Watkins is known to be once hired as P-diddy's personal valet and assistant. One of his major roles involved shielding Sean Combs (P-diddy) with an umbrella to protect him from the sun or rain hence why most of his images are with him posing with an umbrella. Bentley is well aware of fashion and style. His quirky choice of dressing makes him a suitable prototype of a candidate for Vivienne's butler, Jeffrey.


One of Bentley's important duties

The relationship between him and P-diddy is not very formal he is also a friend to him but still holds a superb amount of respect for him. in a way we can say there is a correlation between Bentley and Jeffrey as he has a mind of his own and makes sure his opinion is heard and still knows his place as a butler or assistant. An example of this is Scene 3 where Jeffrey says, 'Vivienne you shouldn't have got rid of her...'

This is a perfect example of the level of freedom in Vivienne and Jeffrey's relationship regardless of the difference in working class.

Alex (Nick Blood) in Material Girl BBC: Alex is Davina's assistant as well as her gay flatmate. meaning there is a level of intimacy and friendship between the two of them as well as the duty of being her assistant. Gay assistants are very common in the fashion industry mainly because a gay guy is less likely to turn on you or fight for power where as a female would eventually do so if opportunity arises. There is also the privilege of getting a males insight or opinion when dealing with relationships or fashion. May be Jeffrey should be gay because Vivienne is the type of person who values loyalty and Jeffrey's character appears to be loyal. This is something the group can take into account when deciding on Jeffrey's characteristics.

Best of friends

Alex Met Ali at Davina's and they fast became best friends and flatmates. He often feels conflicted by Ali's rash decision to leave Davina's and gets caught in the Ali/Davina crossfire where his allegiances to Ali are tested. We can use this scenario for future radio dramas where Jeffrey is fund of Lauren and soon his loyalty to Vivienne is tested when Chris becomes more important to her and Jeffrey is no longer needed. This could be made possible because in our existing script (Scene 3)we have already shown how Jeffrey admires Lauren.

Main characters: Lauren

Curly hair
vintage clothing
neutral colours
Natural makeup
Shows skin
Minimal jewellery

Cheap (charity) printed polyester top
1970's colours
Oversized knitted vests
Thick bright socks
Chunky pumps
Cheap jewellery
Glasses
FUNKY

I WILL SCAN AN IMAGE OF WHAT I BELIEVE lAUREN SHOULD LOOK LIKE BASED ON VARIOUS QUALITIES FROM EACH EXISTING CHARACTER. THIS ISNT VER BENEFITIAL FOR THE LISTENERS AS THEY WILL NOT BE SEEING LAUREN BUT FOR OUR GROUP IT WILL HELP US WHEN WE ARE DECIDING ON THE CHOICE OF LANGUAGE AND DIALOGUE THROUGHOUT THE SCRIPT.

Character development- Lauren Research: Material Girl

Romantic Comedy Drama inspired by book 'Fashion Babylon' about dreams, love, clothes and how we all use them to run away from who we are and towards who we should be.

The protagonist in this drama is Ali Redcliffe,
A talented fashion designer, feisty, impetuous and ambitious, she knows it's going to be tough in the world of fashion for a down-to-earth girl. Despite her training she considers herself a fashion outsider with no connections to the industry.
She finds it difficult to trust men ever since the man she loved, Jed Nicholle, left her in pursuit of his career. Ali is the focus of Davina Bailey's personal vendetta, since Ali walked out of her job after a huge row. She refuses to be compromised creatively.

I believe this is the main source for our storyline Ali is down to earth gutsy and knows what she wants these are the characteristics we want to be portrayed through Lauren. The fact that she is British makes our characters more alike. your environment plays a big role on your perspective of life and your personal rationalism through our drama we hope to show this through actions Lauren chooses to make and discussions.

The adversary in this case is FORMER sister/ best-friend figure Davina Bailey a British sister of 'Ugly Betty's' manipulative Willamina crossed with Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada.' Benig the success thirsty business woman she is she just could not stop her habbit of backstabbing Ali in the process. After a mjor arguement Ali decided she had enough and left Davina to make it on her own. however Davina still has not come to terms with Ali's new found confidence and success, so she continues to sompete with her in a poor attempt to win popularity.

Heres a trailer of what the series is about.

Research: Ugly Betty- Character development of Lauren

Betty Suarez is smart, sweet and hard working. The only problem is that she's not thin and beautiful like all her coworkers at Mode, the high-fashion magazine where she works. The only reason the publisher hired her to be his son's secretary, is that he thought Betty was someone who Daniel would never sleep with. Betty's hard work and determination earns Daniel's respect, as she helps him find his way through the shark infested waters of the fashion industry. Ugly Betty is based on a Colombian television-novel "Yo Soy Betty La Fea".

Ugly Betty is a TV series comedy drama.
As soon as we came up with our story line we found and immediate correlation between this drama and our own. Betty, like Lauren is the Protagonist (main character) with a love for fashion but isn't always understood, but once in a blue moon she gets lucky. She is far from perfection which makes her character lovable because nobody is.

Some story lines include themes such as:

Family affairs
Love
Rejection

And so on these are all things we can base future radio dramas on .

The Adversary in this case is Willamina Vivian Slater played by Vanessa Williams. Willamina is a conceited, self-absorbed diva and former supermodel who lives for two things: MODE and BOTOX. Betty and Willamina have a strange relationship. Willamina being a powerful woman in the MODE Magazine industry and Betty being a personal assistant, Willamina is very much superior to her. Instead of rebelling against this Betty (being the nice person she is) has much respect for her. This respect allows them to get along regardless of the working environment hierarchy.

Research: The Devil Wears Prada/ Character development: Lauren

Other than the setting being realistic, the characters must be aswell so we researched a few existing TV shows and Films relating to fashion for an insight as to what our main character Lauren should be like

The Devil Wears Prada

A comedy drama about a naive young woman comes to New York and scores a job as the assistant to one of the city's biggest magazine editors, the ruthless and cynical Miranda Priestly.

BEFORE...

The protaganist in this case is "Andy" (Anne Hathaway) who is an aspiring journalist fresh out of university who lands in an fashion job despite her ignorance towards the proffession. During the film we share her struggle to fit in or be accepted in the fashion industry.

This shows her 'Go-getter' quality as she strives to improve in a feild she has no interest in. This is a quality we would like to be portrayed in Lauren.

AFTER...

Andy then began to learn the ways of the fashion industry and also began to sound and dress the part. To show development we can mention that Lauren had all the knowledge to make it in the fashion industry but she lacked confidence. As Lauren grows in the drama and facing some trials to do so she gains confidence, but has she gained too much confidence? Has all these challenges got the best of her? These are all questions that can be answered in future radio dramas.

The adversary in this case is powerful and demanding fashion magazine editor Mirander Priestly, (played by Meryl Streep). She is a non-negotiable part of the fashion scene. And expects anyone who comes across her to realise that.

From this image alone we can see the relationship portrayed between the two in the fim. The levels in the image show Mirander to be more superior to Andy as she is standing and Andy is seated. Also the distance between them shows a level of respect.

However in the film they do grow fund of eachother although Mirander doesn't show this due to her proud and proffesional character whereby Andy being younger and having no real repuation to keep up has no problem expressing herself.

Setting research

It is very important to us that our radio drama is realistic even though it is not a visual drama. we had to make sure our target audience can relate to every last bit of the drama including the setting. so we searched for a venue located in the heart of London as our radio drama is. Initially we anted it to be in Royal Albert Hall because it is extravagant and well known for that however it wasn't realistic. so we looked for venue's where fashion shows had been held before via Internet.

This link: http://www.eventwise.co.uk/html/fashion-show-venues-london/ proved to be quite useful during our search it revealed a number of possible locations for our drama to take place. When searching our requirements were: