What is a radio drama montage?
Montage is a rapid sequence of cross-faded or straight-cut ‘segments’. Sometimes the montage mixed over a bed of music, or some other sound bed.
See also montage
The placing of the montage is usually the following:
As the opening hook of the play
At the mounting climax of the play, usually as a prelude to a decisive final scene.
Montage gives a sound impression, as a summary, in a crucial place in the play.
The montage gives a resume of previous action, and may not take the action forward or introduce new material.
Creative exercise details
For your exercise, you invent the details of this invented play of yours, and explain that the montage material belongs to previous scenes, and where it belongs.
Montage is usually nightmare, or chase, or an impressionistic rapid sequence of action.
Design and script your montages for the following:
Who? Jimmie (female or male) as protagonist, with companion
Villains are nationalist terrorists
Police smuggling squad is involved
What? Smuggling-criminal nightmare
Where? Urban, British, a lot set in night-time and clubs
Site in the story? After the shoot-out, and the police with Jimmie are closing in on the villains
Design and script a montage lasting 1 minute
Script with suitable music bed
Who? Hero or heroine of an Afternoon play, typical of Radio 4.
What? Rite-of-passage play
school, college, marriage, birth, death, adolescence, love
Where? Domestic scenes and public scenes
Design and script a montage lasting I minute
Script with a music bed if you wish for the hook/beginning of the play.
Who? Your choice of protagonist
Where? Your choice of situation
What? A sit com? Farce? Your choice.
Design and script a montage lasting I minute
Place this where you wish in the invented comedy. (The comedy is of your invention.)
