2. The Spy and the Traitor – Ben Macintyre
The name KGB stands for “Komitet Gosudarstvennoy
Bezopasnosti” or in English, “Committee of State Security.” It
was predominantly a government security agency, but it also
had roots in military policing. Because of this, a lot of KGB
officers and agents were used as spies, guards, elite police
and secret police. They were responsible for the Soviet Union
getting plans for nuclear weapons, starting hundreds of proxy
wars around the globe and instilling fear of the state into the
Soviet Union. Loyalty was the single most important thing in
the KGB, blindly following orders without asking questions.
This is highly relevant to my work, due to the setting. The
protagonist of my story is a KGB agent who’s returned from an
undercover operation to discover dissent in the ranks and
double agents everywhere. This is inspired by events that
have happened throughout history, such as KGB agents being
moles in important positions in the CIA.
3. Survey Results
I made a survey to research how much people actually know about the KGB. I asked some loaded
questions, but the results are quite interesting. I wasn’t expecting the large percentage of people
not knowing much about the KGB.
To start with, I asked for age and gender. They aren’t really relevant questions, but they work as a
starting point in my head.
The first proper question asked which sounded like the KGB, a government security agency,
assassins, shady spies, Russian spies or a police force. I find the question was a bit bad, as
technically they were all four. However, officially they were a government agency. 11 people chose
that option. The other ten are spread fairly evenly between a shady organization and an oppressive
police force, with four each and then one on the final answers. This is helpful to me, as it shows
that over half of the people who answered the survey know, at least officially, what the KGB is.
The second important question is about what countries the KGB operated in. I gave the respondents
15 countries to tick, but only 8 ticked all of them. I find this interesting as some of the results were
very… obscure. For example, when given obvious choices like the USA and France, one respondent
only ticked Britain. The results of this question suggest to me that not many people realise just how
far the KGB operated, having agents in practically every country in the world.
In the last question, I asked if people knew the difference between illegal and legal spies. This is
fairly important to my work as I will have the protagonist being debreifed after being a legal agent
training the Viet Minh in North Vietnam for four years. The most interesting part is that only 7
people actually know the difference between a legal and illegal agent.
Unofrtunately, the survey hasn‘t had the intended results as I failed to send it specifically to my
target audience and instead let anyone asnwer it. This is unfortunate as I have potentially wasted
time trying to get answers I probably already knew.
4. Market Research – Hosting Platforms
• Pandora – Not available in UK
• Spotify – Predominantly music, largest % of people listening in 2019
• iHeartRadio – Most popular in 2017, just podcasts
• iTunes – Increasing popularity, contains all forms of audio. Music,
podcast, audiobooks. Difficult to get noticed
• Audible – Market for longer dramas, probably not good for 10 minutes
• Soundcloud – Open for anyone to upload, like YouTube for audio.
Difficult to get noticed.
• Google Play – No audio dramas available, using as app store to
download something to listen to.
• Podchaser – Podcast streaming service.
• Local Radio – Could get it played as it’s only 10 mins.
• Could host on own website.
In my research, I found that 63% of podcast listeners are male, the other
27% being female. Unfortunately, non-binary individuals aren’t included
in this study.
5. Production Research - Script
I’ve never written an audio script before, so this research has
proven vital. I’ve found that the whole layout is entirely different
to that of a screenplay. This is because it doesn’t have to be in a
font or centred. It does, however, have rules.
1. You must number your lines
2. Don’t write speech over pages
3. List characters
4. Write a description, regardless of it being only audio
I will try to follow these rules when I write my script. I found the
layout interesting too, as I’ve only seen screenplays before. The
main thing is that it’s not centred and the font isn’t Courier. It
can be anything, but it’s generally easy to read fonts like Arial or
Comic Sans. And the fact that the actual main body of text isn’t
centred is rather throwing too.
This example is taken from the BBC website, so it’s clearly an
official or at the very least professional.
