Radio Plays anyone?

RosieRo

Hello,

I'm doing voluntary work with a radio station based in North Wales and I'd love to produce a radio play. I've been keeping an eye out for scripts for quite a while and thought perhaps this would be a great opportunity for someone on these boards. If anyone would like to hear their work produced and broadcast then let me know.

Since this will be broadcast to a welsh audience it would need to be understood by them and so not too much Irish slang and such.

I'd be very interested in reading what any of you come up with.

Cheers,
Rosie

r3nu4l

Would the authors be paid? Do you have permission from the station to solicit manuscripts? What station is it?

RosieRo

Yes I have permission, I wouldn't ask for scripts unless it was possible to use them. I don't want to waste anyones time or efforts.

Unfortunatly we have no budget hence I and everyone else work on a voluntary basis and so the author would not be paid (but it would be good for a portfolio of work and it demonstrates versatility of writing skills and ability).

We're a community based radio station with a five year licence due to start broadcasting in May. The name is an issue at the moment, and so undecided.

r3nu4l

Hi RosieRo, thanks for replying. I'm not sure whether this type of discussion is allowed on this forum so I hope the mods don't mind.

I think people might be interested but they would need some more info such as guidance on final editorial control, retention of copyright by authors etc.

Also how long should the plays be? 10 mins airtime, 30 mins? When in the schedule would plays be broadcast? What is the target audience, farmers, at-home mums, young trendy urbanites, kids? Are authors free-to-choose a target audience? Are there any themes that might be prohibited by the license?

I'm not trying to create difficulty (or more work for you) but a brief would be a good idea, otherwise you might get all sorts of submissions .

I might be interested but I'd need proof of legitimacy before sending a manuscript to anybody. It's a sad world we live in when I have to say that but such is life When the station has a name and address as well as some proof of legitimacy I might submit something.

Finally if you're based in Wales come visit us at boards.org.uk, there's a Welsh forum there

RosieRo

Hiya again,

Rightio, where to start. Well I don't think the mods will mind, I'm not soliciting clients for profit or running a business through the board, it's a bit of fun which will benefit the portfolios of both parties, I hope!

I don't want to set a brief set in stone because I want anyone taking a shot at this to write what they write best. Likewise it doesn't have to be a set length because it doesn't have a pre-ordained slot, so whatever length you feel best rounds off the play.

Scheduling will depend upon the genre and tone of the piece which again is entirely up to you.

Target audience is the community, so we will be running a number of diverse features to suit a diverese and ever changing community and so there is no set target audience.

Copyright of the written piece belongs to the author. If there's a problem or an alteration needs to be made it will be made with the authors permission before production of the piece.

The copyright of the production will belong to me as all production efforts will be mine. It will be broadcast on our community radio station and it will form part of my creative portfolio.

As for proving I work with the radio station I don't know how I'm supposed to do that, any ideas? I'll talk to the station manager and see what she thinks too.

Any more questions?

monkeyfudge

Good to see the community radio movement taking off in Wales.

If you want to cross post this request in the Radio forum then feel free to do so.

Radio drama has always been an interest of mine. In college when everyone else was making radio documentaries I was always making dramas.

But at the moment I have the possibility of gaining funding through the Sound & Vision fund in Ireland to produce some original drama for broadcast.

RosieRo

Thanks for the support MonkeyFudge, perhaps we can all get something out of this.

I'm based in the Wrexham area and acquiring the five year licence was a big sucess for us, alot of hard work went into it and three RSL's. Although of course there's plenty more hard work to be done and I think radio drama is often over looked or at least it has been so far with our radio station.

I hope we can rectify that.

monkeyfudge

My community radio station has been going for 11 years now and we're currently negotiating a new 10 year license.

But drama is definitely something we've always been lacking.

We've recently been given funding to produce a series and I'm currently looking into buying some specialised equipment for producing it properly. In particular I want the ability to make a multi-track recording so that there is more scope to play around with things when bringing it all together on a PC.

RosieRo

Yeah multi track gives you alot more versatility. What sort of software will you be using?

For a uni assignment I'm currently trying to record alot of sound effects and folely myself, it's great craic, do you think you'll get up to much of that? Very time consuming but rewarding.