The document discusses the production of a trailer, poster, and TV listings magazine to promote a new soap opera called "The Insiders" set in a young offenders institute. Key elements included establishing shots of the prison, introducing diverse characters and their backstories, and using music and editing techniques to engage viewers. Feedback indicated the promotional materials were very effective at intriguing audiences and conveying the theme. Some minor revisions were suggested, but overall the trailer, poster and magazine worked well as a package to promote the new soap.

1. Trailer. The genre for our trailer was soap opera and we followed the codes and conventions of trailers by using many techniques. The first was by using an establishing shot of “Her Majesty’s Prison” in Canterbury to enable the audience to understand the setting of the soap, which was in a Young Offenders Institute. Like most soaps we have created a diverse range of characters each having a background and a current crisis, from surprised pregnancy’s to drug issues, enabling the storylines to be more entertaining for the viewers. Also in our trailer we had a main character introducing all of the characters allowing the audience to understand the names of the characters and their backgrounds. Forms and Conventions . The music was extremely important throughout our trailer as it was necessary that we had something which would catch the attention of the viewer and create more of an atmosphere. We had the opportunity to be creative as we made our music for the first part of the trailer on soundtrack pro and this complimented our music that we found on youtube which was “Were the young offenders” by The Young Offenders , so the two could go together. This reinforced the narrative of our soap being set in a young offenders institute and the lyrics would make it very clear for the viewer to make an association between the image and the music. Our decision was to broadcast the soap on channel 4 which followed the channel 4’s convention as it already features Hollyoaks, however we were making a brand new soap aimed at younger viewers which would create more variety for channel 4. One convention which worked effectively was the straight cuts and freeze frames which we were able to produce from using Photoshop, allowing the viewers to be introduced to the characters.

2. TV listings magazine. Also the front cover usually involves something extra than to what other TV listings magazine include, for example “EXTRA, 4-page soap mini mag” and in our magazine we used which was in capital letters to stand out to the reader. “EXCLUSIVE, INTERVIEWS WITH THE CAST AND CREW” We decided to not follow a convention and publish our own Channel 4 TV listings magazine which has not yet been done. This would purely be for soaps/programmes on Channel 4 including E4, 4OD, 4 Music for example Hollyoaks, Skins. A typical convention on the front cover of a TV listings magazine are the use of bright primary colours , for example yellow, blue and red. We decided to follow this convention as we believed that it was very eye catching for the reader and attractive with it then being recognised in shops as a TV listings magazine. Additionally the main image usually involves plenty of eye contact which draws the reader into buying the magazine and includes a studio shot. This image was then linked to the main headline below with drastic words as you can see on the right such as , “Murder?” or “Cheat!” which encourages the reader to watch the episode. Around this central image involves the shot of other characters in other soaps from scenes.

3. Poster. We have used many conventions for our poster. Firstly we have emphasised the title the “Insiders” to establish the name of the soap. Similarly to the poster of shameless we have the channel 4 logo so that the viewer notice what channel it is going to be produced on. We then decided the layout should involve the images that they use in prisons (mug shots), with the offenders holding a piece of paper stating their name, date of birth and offence. From the images and the title of the soap this would enable viewers who had not seen the trailer to understand what the soap could be about.

4. Media Technologies. Into the research of our trailer we used the HMPS website to have a wider knowledge of young offenders institutes, which enabled us to use real life stories and base them on our own characters so that the storylines would seem more credible. Also we used Google maps to find the location of “Her Majesty’s Prison” in Canterbury which was used for the beginning of our trailer as an establishing shot. The JVC 300X mini digital video camera corder was used to film our soap trailer and was extremely important in the construction of our project, allowing us to be creative using a variety of shots, for example high angle and low angle camera shots. We used soundtrack pro to be more creative and create our own composition to accompany the trailer, which would be copyright free. We then researched on the youtube website into music which could fit in towards the end of the trailer with eventually finding “Were the young offenders” by The Young Offenders which accompanied the narrative of the soap. We used Photoshop to create freeze frames for our trailer which enabled the viewer to understand the characters and their information. We then used final cut pro 6 to make our trailer, which involved different effects such as fade in or fade out and straight cuts to add variety to our trailer. For the evaluation stages we used media fire on facebook to download the questionnaire with questions on the trailer, TV listings magazine and poster.

6. Audience Feedback. The audience feedback enabled me to understand what worked well and what needed to be improved for the trailer, TV listings magazine and poster. We received, on average a score of 9.8/10 for the overall package, which suggests that it was greatly enjoyed, with comments such as “ It was good and it made you want to watch the programme, but it held back the right amount of information” with 100% saying that the trailer intrigued them to want to watch the soap, revealing that we had produced an eye catching trailer with engaging characters and storylines appropriate for a new soap. “ It’s edgy and appropriate for the theme it portrays” My audience feedback for the trailer suggested that one scene in particular was unclear, (where one girl is going to get married) which meant that there was a possibility that we needed to re-film this scene to ensure that it is clearer for the viewers. On the other hand the rest of the fast paced frames had a good overall response suggesting that these were clear and entertaining for the viewers. The poster also had a good overall response, with some criticisms on ways to improve, such as instead of using paper to establish the name, date of birth and offence, the preference was whiteboards. In contrast to this we asked, “ Could you imagine seeing the poster on a billboard/bus stop shelter?” and we received 100%. “ It had all the characters with the signs and clearly shows it’s about the young offenders prison” The TV listings magazine had very positive feedback, with comments such as “ Bright colours are good! It’s catchy and I like the slogans because they’re very intriguing.”