Bioshock: Radio drama analysis

The narrative and how it flows:

The drama opened with a long spell of music music and then
conversation started with a conversation between a search group
and a control room. At firs there are only two characters Stevenson
and his commanding officer. They have discovered an abandoned
research centre.

Who are the characters:

There are two main characters Stevenson and his commanding
officer on the oceanic exploration centre trident, who are on an
exploration mission following the title patterns of some strange
objects that washed up on Icelandic shores about a week ago. The
commanding officer is very demanding as you would expect form a
commanding officer, however he is often unsure of his decisions
and is unwilling to carry out the actions he ask of other people by
himself. Stevenson is unfortunately for him what some would the
commanding officers jester, he does everything he is asked to do
though he may question It at times if he doesn’t agree with it. This
makes his character seem strong but held back like something is
stopping him but you don’t know what.

What effects did foley sound have?:

There are lots of wind. Radio feedback and feed steps, they are
well used and placed in perfect fashion aiding the flow of of the
drama. When they are dropping down into the depths of the water
you can hear the water bubbling around them, this is to let the
audience know how long they are under water for, without this we
wouldn’t have a clue when they were and when they weren’t under
water. They also used the sound of water sloshing and splashing
when the transport ship entered and left the water at the landing
zone.

What genre is it:

Its is a sci-fi fantasy based on a book and video game called
Bioshock. We know this as they tell us at the start however we
have to workout that its a sci-fi when they start entering the
underwater city, as this isn’t a very realistic thing and therefore for
something like that to work under water would be impressive.

What I would and wouldn’t use n my own production:

There were a few things that I thought were really good in this
production, for example one thing that seems to be a reoccurring
theme in these more professional radio drama is the idea of good
high quality Foley sound which seems to aid the productions
greatly particularly in this one where there is a lot of object that are
unorthodox and otherworldly and things that we don’t have an
actual sound to associate them with, for example the shuttle that
they enter at the start, in this production, they describe it as UFO
looking and we don’t have UFO at the moment. They also used the
effects of eq-ing well and to a good extent when playing the voices
of other people talking through types of sounds systems and
radios.

Some Things that I wouldn’t have used from this productions

would be the use of, third person speaking. When the main
character or the Commanding Officer as we know at the start of
the production documents there finding into a type of recorder, I
think this is quite boring and draining on the audience as it become
predictable on what is going to be said, which doesn’t bring any
excitement to production.