Style, Cues & Links

When talking about the style in which this radio drama was created, we underline that the way that the piece is written will vary depending on the genre that the story is based. The terms Cues and Links refer to the spaces or gaps that appear to separate the different sections of a scripted piece. This includes introductions, scenes, credits etc.

As my radio drama begins with a prologue, if you will - this is basically the introduction to the play which portrays a portion of the ending that is later revisited as the finale to the drama. This idea to format the script in a slightly non chronological way was simply to grab the listener's attention and retain their concentration to figure out how the events of the story lead up to that same beginning point. It ended on a harsh blood curdling scream which is one of the highest parts of drama within the play which contrasts dramatically with the calm mundane first scene. To further establish this as the introductory part of the main story, we used the voice of the main character Kaitlain, to narrate her thoughts on the terrifying events she was to encounter later in the story. Throughout the play, we indicated scene changes by fading down the ends of scenes and then fading up the next scene, as well as leaving slight gaps between. These are clear segmenting of the sections that needed to be included as most scenes don’t involve music, but instead more background noise so we didn’t want the listener to get confused by too many similar sounds effects. Other indications of new beginnings can be interpreted through the social introductions being made at the start of certain scenes. In scene four, the first line of dialogue is a cheerful good morning – a new day and thus a new opening – also captured in the final scene as the doorbell rings and a door is opened to let people in at the beginning.

After immense editing, I would say there’s difficulty in establishing the tragic psychotic thriller genre in which my group based our initial storyline on, however the characteristics of this still appear within the remaining drama. A sense of heroes and villains is included in the form of ‘the Unseen’s psychotic obsessive murder, Darius and Kaitlain, the female victim he pursues. Suspense is created at fitting points in the story to keep the viewer on edge, for example at the end of scene three.

DARIUS: “That’s right Kaitlain, run home to see your boyfriend... while you still can.”
SE: (DRAMATIC MUSIC)

...And the scene ends. However instead of including on-going action, our script contrasts dramatic events with calmer following events, again keeping our audience’s concentration intact. Scene one opens with normality, and showcases a mystery caller who gives a dramatic insight to her abusive marriage –then suddenly gets cut off! And the sense of normality returns again as the radio shows goes on. Similarly, scene three ends with a threatening tone and we see Kaitlain running off followed by sounds of a coffee shop and typical conversation between two friends in the fourth scene. Of course, tragedy is shown by the simple point of sad events which lead up to a startling scene of death in the end. Although we had planned for our drama piece to be part of a continuing series of radio shows, Kaitlain is the only one to survive at the end of this story – again reiterating the element of tragedy. Otherwise, there are no specifically happy events, only normal everyday goings-ons. This is then followed by the ultimate dramatic ending.