Thoughts.com Blogs - Week 1: Live Audio (Radio) Drama, what?

Introduction
Monday a quarter to four.... University of Cape Town....

I have been allocated to the "Live Audio (Radio) Drama" seminar as my second choice. So why have I choosed to do this seminar? Well I have always been interested in producing media, and producing things are not what my time in the academic world of university has been giving me to much of. So let's say I was interested in doing something a little different., cause that is what Anthony a.k.a. Brother Sloan gave the impression of at the introduction lecture.

I walk impatiantly around in the arts-block cellar pathways with bsolutely no idea of what I am going to be workig with from this day on. Well, that is not entirely true, I have an idea, a weak little glimps of an idea. Let's take it from the basics. I know what a radio is. I also belive to have a good sense of what a drama is, and the term live is quite familar to me as well. But to be sure I looked up these to words on Wikipedia, here is what I found, and my thoughts on them:

Radio:
"Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio

Okay...?, so we are dealing with a transmission of signals. We are dealing with the fact that we are transmitting a message through this medium called the radio. A sender and a reciever. As radio is non-visible, we will have to communicate through sound. That sounds simple to me, but what message shall we transmit? That must be my next question.

Drama:
"Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.[1] It is derived from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek δράμα / dráma), derived from "to do" (Classical Greek δράω / dráō)." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama

Fiction represented in performance... So firstly we are dealing with fiction. Fiction, the non-existing reality that we construct in various forms of media such as books, film, theater etc. Secondly we perform, we have to perform ficton. We have to act out this constructed reality that only exists in our work. That I understand as well, but it does start to not sound that easy.... hmmmm...

Live:

I was not able to find a specific definition of the term "live", so I have chosen to see this course's work as a form of art.

Therefore Live Art:

"Live Art is an art form where an artist makes art in front of an audience." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_art

Artist? Am I an artist? Phew... it really starts to sound difficult, am I going to make it through this seminar? Well, let's take it all down the basics again. We have to make art, and we have to present it to an audience.

Okay so far so good. Let's try to put all this together!

We, the students (the artists), have to produce an audio/radio drama in front of an audience. I now feel that I have the basics checked for continuing this seminar. I will now look into a little background and history of this form of art.

Live Radio Drama History:
As far as I what I have found out, Live radio dramas was born in the 1920s and earned much popularity between the introduction and the introduction of television in the 1950s where the interest for radio dramas fell.

The first radio dramas where often converted from popular musicals and operas and famous actors and actresses performed the plays live in the radio.

In 1938 Orson Wells directed the most famous radio drama of all time, War of the world, a radio drama about an planetary invasion of earth, which at the time was so convincing that many people actually believed in it and panicked.

Today it seems as live radio drama has limited popularity in mainstream radio.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama

This weeks work and outcome:
This week brother Sloan asked us to come up with a venue and some characters for our collective script.

We ended up with a place we called A16. A beach/restaurant/theater resort.

Our characters are as follows:

Manager
Events-coordinator
Bartender
2 x Waiters/Waitresess
2 x Cleaning staff
Life Guard/Security guard

We also had to do a third person narrative of another person, that we are going to record soon. I guess this is an task to practise writing a narrative and reading it loud on a tape/audio medium.

I feel more comfortable now, but I am still a radio drama newbie. Let's see where Brother Sloan takes us this week...

Dam da da daam... [Mystic music]