A2 Media Coursework Checklist
Use this guide as a checklist and physically go through and cross out each
part once you have done it. Bring this sheet to every coursework session
that you have. Words which are underlined are the categories for your
posts. Please try and keep the same blog titles as the ones used
throughout this guide.
Research and planning
Overview of radio drama’s
Pretty much your first post to your blog needs to demonstrate your
awareness of the key differences between radio and other formats.
Ideally, a brief overview of the history of the radio industry should be
included, as well as your comments about how effective the medium is in
contemporary society. Try and answer the following questions:
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Do young people listen to the radio anymore?
Is it a dying medium?
What benefits are there of radio over television production?
How will this influence your drama?
Radio drama analysis
Your first posts on your blog need to include your analysis of a number of radio drama’s. You need
to analyse a minimum of three, effectively reviewing the drama’s and making specific comments
about how music, sound effects and language is used throughout. You have access to the
following radio drama’s on Moodle:
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War of the Worlds
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
The Twilight Zone
The Archers
It would be useful for you to demonstrate that you have also listened to a radio drama outside of
the above four, check out the BBC iplayer and have a listen to a contemporary piece.
Ideas development
You will need to make a post to your blog talking about how your ideas developed. What we need
to see is that you can come up with a range of ideas and select the most appropriate idea to
develop. We would like to see you explaining your reasons for why you have selected one idea
over another. For example, you may have had an idea for a drama based in the White House, but
none of you can do American accents, so you had to forego this idea. Mindmaps would be helpful
here to demonstrate that you’ve really thought about it.
Narrative
Within this post you should be discussing how your story is going to unfold making direct linkages
with some of the theory we have looked at so far this term. Try to relate Vladimir Propp’s work on
Russian folk tales and narrative structure. Think of the work of Claude Levi-Strauss and binary
oppositions, and talk specifically about what binary oppositions you will include in your drama.
Finally, discuss the work of Tzvetan Todorov on narrative – he did all the stuff about equilibrium’s
and how they get disrupted. Clearly state what the equilibrium is in your drama, how it gets
disrupted, recognized, repaired and finally restored.
Characters
Your development should include the second major ingredient - interesting and arresting
characters to deliver your story. Inclusion of mindmaps for each of your characters would help to
show that you’ve clearly thought about them.
The protagonist
You need a central character, who will be the protagonist of your story. The protagonist
makes things happen. Your protagonist must have clear motivation to achieve his or her
aim in the film. Motivation arises from inner character and experiences in the central
character’s past and present life. It can also arise from a deep desire for self-improvement,
or freedom from all types of tyranny. But top of the list of main goals for Hollywood
movies is the deep desire to have lots of money. If it is not money, then it is the
consuming passion to ‘get the ideal girl’ or to ‘get the apparently perfect man’.
Make your choice. Create a protagonist who can achieve a goal and try out a situation
where he or she can be tested. Movies where protagonists do not achieve their goals by
the end of the piece have a habit of leaving the audience feeling depressed and
downhearted. This may is definitely not the best way to end your first drama.
The adversary
The protagonist will usually have an adversary. This is a character who has the job of
making it as difficult, and often as dangerous, as possible for the protagonist to achieve his
goal.
Setting/Location
Choose a location that you know you will be able to
get to and use. A big city that you live near is fine, but
you can also choose somewhere more intimate – a
narrow boat on a canal, a woodland, the seaside, a
town. It would be helpful if you could research your
location in quite a bit of detail in order to make your
radio drama seem realistic. For example, should your
drama involve car travel and the closing down of motorways, go on to google maps and look up
directions to travel from A to B, identifying which roads you will need to reference in your drama.
Also, discuss how location will have an impact on the sound effects you’re going to have to find. If,
like The Archers, your drama is set in the countryside, you will need access to sound effects of lots
of farmyard noises and the occasional tractor in the distance.
Script development
By now you should have a number of different versions of your script which you will need to post
to your blog. Note that your first draft will need to be scanned and posted as an attachment so
that we can see all of your annotations and notes from the read through. This is your evidence.
You need to also discuss in your post what went wrong during your read through, why it went
wrong and what you have done to rectify it. The final version of your script should be posted as an
attached Word file with no annotations.
Production Log
You need to update your blog with details of what you have done every single time you either
head in to the recording studio, edit your work or make any changes to your script. Entries won’t
be particularly long, but your log posts should illustrate that you are fully involved in the
production process, discussing software, hardware and evaluating any problems that may have
occurred.