Letters From Home

This week we made a presentation of our progress which was shown to Zara and Peggy. From this we gained some good and constructive feedback. Peggy encouraged us to continue research throughout the production process which we agree is an important task to keep up with. Research has already stopped us making some errors, for example our Postman character would have more than likely been female rather than male. Although it would have been possible for the character to be played by a male,  we felt that the fact that the post service hired 30,000 female staff to replace the men fighting needed referring to in some way.

We also received feedback from our historian. Richard, who is a Lincoln tank historian, seemed to enjoy the script and gave us a few corrections to aid authenticity. Non commissioned officers would not have been referred to as Sir so we corrected this to Corporal. Gas masks were also at this point not operated with straps and were more of a bag that was placed over the head. This among other corrections has helped our script massively and we as a group are glad we talked to Richard.

Lastly, we have arranged to record scene 5 with our actress Dilys Twiggs and our now female Postman, Madeleine Krivonozka. Dilys will be coming from Bristol to come do this part so heavy preperations are being made to ensure this goes as smoothly as possible.

Letters-From-Home-Work-in-Progress

Casting appears to be going well. Not long after we posted on Casting Call Pro we received many responses for each role. It appears Anthony will have a difficult task of sifting through each application to find the actor right for the roles. Many of the male actors who applied are actually quite local. Most seem to be coming from Sheffield and that surrounding area meaning that transport costs should be low. Unfortunately this will be a key factor to consider as we have little to offer to fund travel costs.

Anthony has got in contact with a few hopefuls. One has already sent us an audio clip of him speaking. As exciting as it was to hear the script through an actor, we felt that he sounded too deep to play Adam who he applied for. We have not completely ruled him out at this point as we are yet to audition others. We may potentially cast him as the Sergeant or Corporal.

As we are tasked with recreating the battle of the Somme through sound, collecting sound effects is a must. Unfortunately we do not have the resources to record our own original sounds however, we have been told that David Chiddick may have archive footage available. After visiting him in his office, he showed us a database full of the kinds of sounds that we are looking for. Unfortunately for the time being the server is currently not working. He does assure us that it will be back in working order very soon. This will be a great resource for creating our battlefield.

After telling people about our project, one recurring recommendation we received was to go visit the Museum of Lincolnshire Life as they had a replica trench and a collection of letters written by actual soldiers in the war. We felt this would be an ideal trip for both sound design and to check if the language of the script was correct. So, in what could only be described as school trip nostalgia, we got a minibus up to the museum.

Like typical students, we were quite relieved and excited to learn it was free entry to the museum. After been given a map we headed straight to the military history section of the museum where the letters were neatly displayed in a cabinet for people to read. Upon reading some of them, their was a clear variation between linguistic styles of soldiers. Some went into great detail of particular incidents whereas others were simple “missing you” letters with little elaboration. After doing research into the war, it surprises me that some letters made it home at all. Defence of the Realm act was a strict law put in place to keep morale high back home. Any letters or media produced must report positively about the war effort, otherwise it was censored. This is the same law which causes Adam’s letter to be rejected in the story.

Next to the letters is a door hole which led us into the mockup trench with soldiers in freeze frames and flashing lights to replicate explosions. Visually it was quite impressive however; what was more of a benefit to us was the soundtrack they had playing in the background. Concentrating on it, we could here constant, randomised explosions, gunfire, voices etc all put together to make something rather immersive. For our production we need to try and aim for something similar as most of our story takes place within the trench. While the characters are out in the trench, the sounds will be loud and clear. If they are in a bunker, the sound will be more muffled. This we feel will give the listener a sense of where they are and illustrate the change in location through sound.

After establishing the basic storyline, during the writing process it felt important to flesh out the script as much as possible. One thing we picked up from a lecture with an actor who had a history of radio drama and voice over is that the script is the fuel for the actor. Without a good, fleshed out script the acting cannot possibly be good.

To do this, we needed to consider who our characters were and how we could expand on them. Upon initial first draft, Thomas and Adam seemed to be quite well crafted. Thomas being from a well off background will speak in complex sentences whereas Adam uses more colloquialisms where possible. What is interesting about dialogue between the characters is that, when put alongside each other, they seem to be even more polar opposites than when alone. This will illustrate the class divide between the characters and make their unlikely friendship even more special.

The Corporal is perhaps the third most important character to the story and acts as the barrier between the soldiers and the home front. To make him a more believable character, it is important for us to give a sense that the character has aspirations beyond our story. To do this, in Scene 3 he hints at the idea that “soon everyone will call me sir” suggesting that he wishes to work up the ranks by any means necessary. He has little regard towards lower ranking soldiers and will try to look as favourable as possible among his superiors.

As we continue to write, research is paramount to provide authenticity. Once the script has been finished, our producer intends to show the script to a local WW1 historian to check if what we refer to is correct.

We also took a look at a WW1 drama which was broadcast on BBC 4. Homefront takes place back in Britain which is interesting as our play is obviously on the battlefield. Hopefully We’ll be able to create something similar to this in scene 5 between Mrs Peterson and the postman. It is interesting how they use historical information in this radio drama series to influence the story. In a similar way to us using Defence of the Realm as the barrier in the story, in Homefront, key developments both politically and on the battlefield affect the characters back home. One thing to learn from this is that research will be key for our drama to be successful. Hopefully when the script is finished we will be able to get into contact with a historian to check the script’s authenticity.