1. In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Date Barcode Price puff Horizontal page orientation One main image Tagline Masthead No effects on the cell line fonts Weekly listings All the storyline focused on the new soap, no reference to other soap operas No eye contact Masthead positioning No eye contact Aimed at two age groups
3. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Audience questionnaires Photoshop CS4 Real media Storyboarding Final Cut Pro
4. What have you learnt from your audience feedback? Peer evaluation Audience questionnaire
Editor's Notes
As a whole, the combination of all three of our media products (soap opera trailer, TV listings magazine and poster) are very similar and are to the same standard of real media products that are advertising popular soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street.I produced the TV Listings magazine front cover which is called ‘TV Now’. I chose this name for the product as it was suitable for the type of magazine, i.e. a TV listings magazine that is produced weekly, therefore containing relevant TV programme times as to what is being shown right now. I choose to follow real conventions used on current media products such as the date (positioned at the top of the page), the masthead (positioned at the top of the page), price puff, tagline and barcode. With these features I used them in a similar format as real media products do, for example the positioning of the masthead is at the top of the page. The reason for doing this is to allow the masthead to be visible when displayed in a shop on a point of sale display. All of the features on the TV listings magazine are related to the one soap opera ‘Westbourne Way’. This is un-conventional because most other TV listings magazines include details of numerous soap operas. ‘Westbourne Way’ is a new soap opera, therefore I wanted the main focus to be entirely on this soap, so readers can familiarise themselves with the new soap. When researching audiences of TV listings magazines I discovered that the majority of consumers who read this type of magazine were women aged 45+ (National Readership Survey), also when issuing the audience research questionnaires we asked the audience (18-24 years old) if there was a TV listings magazine aimed at their age group, would they buy it? The answer was no, so this indicated that I needed to produce a magazine aimed at the parents of the target audience. My TV listings magazine is aimed at both women aged 45+ and teenagers/young people. I have done this by creating a sub-section on the main page that is dedicated to a younger audience, so when their parents buy the magazine, they then too will have interest in it.A typical convention on a TV listings magazine is to feature two of the actors out of character, both with eye contact. I chose not to follow this convention and positioned my actors in character, with one character (the antagonist) facing and looking at the other character. I think this was successful as it creates the impression that everyone is looking at this character, and gives some indication that there is going to be a bad relationship between these two characters in the soap opera.For our poster, we decided that the page orientation was going to be horizontal. This is unconventional as posters usually appear vertically in places such as bus stops. By having the poster horizontal we were able to display the image much more professionally and create a dramatic scene. The masthead ‘Westbourne Way’ is positioned at the bottom of the poster, and initially we assumed this was un-conventional as it was at the bottom, yet actually it is very conventional as it shows that the soap opera is very recent. The model in the image has no eye contact with the audience (her eyes are shut), this is un-conventional as in real products all the models had eye contact with the audience. I think our poster is more eye catching as it will make the reader want to find out more about this situation, why is she on the floor? Why does she have her eyes shut? Therefore, by having her eyes shut I think this makes the poster more appealing and will encourage the audience to watch the soap.
Our trailer combines both conventional and un-conventional factors. We have focused on including many stock characters such as the troublesome teenager which are common in any soap opera. In our trailer we have included; the troublesome teen, the antagonist, and the pregnant one. Stock characters feature in every soap opera. The storylines touched upon within the trailer contain rites of passage, such as births, deaths and marriages. These are conventionally used within soap operas to enable the programme to screen for a long period of time, for example Eastenders features characters who are generations of the same family. At the beginning and at the end of the trailer, we have used the Channel 4 logo to identify that this programme will be shown on this channel. This is conventional, as viewers would know which channel to watch the soap opera on when the advert was promoted on other channels. The clips within the trailer are mainly related to one storyline (the drunk girl) with smaller teaser clips from other storylines, these included a pregnancy test and a proposal. We choose to focus on one storyline, which is un-conventional, we choose to focus promoting the first episode which is to be shown. The reason for this is that it would make people want to watch the episode, then after watching that entice them to watch the episodes that follow, which contain more detail from the smaller clips. Within the trailer there is text which appears in-between clips. The use of this text provides the viewer with more detail as to what is happening within the trailer. When constructing the trailer, we initially decided not to include text. Yet after watching the trailer we decided that more information needed to be added. Words such as drugs, lust and frustration are all quite striking. If someone were to glance up and see just one of these words, then they will be intrigued to find out more, therefore by watching the soap opera.
Initially when researching the trailer, TV listings magazine and the poster we focused on looking at mainstream soap operas that are well known, such as Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. Using resources such as google and youtube we found images and videos that are real media versions of the material that we were creating. Researching these allowed us to compile together questions for our audience research questionnaire. In this we included details of what we had found on the internet to ascertain what our audience wanted from our productions. For the trailer the main aspect of planning was creating a storyboard, this is used commonly in real media to create each single shot within a moving image production. Creating a storyboard allowed us to plan every shot in a lot of detail; such as the setting, the length, sounds (whether they were diegetic or non-diegetic). Preparing this plan way in advance to actually shooting the trailer allowed us to be much more prepared. It saved a lot of time as all we had to do was follow the storyboard to know what clip we were filming next. The storyboard was very successful. Planning for the TV listings magazine and poster was based upon our audience research questionnaires. We used this information to plan how many characters were going to feature on them, what setting, whether they were in or out of character. After this we were able to draw plans which were a replica of how the final product would look like. After producing the sketch, I wanted to create a digital plan, just to finalise details such as the days down the side of the page.Constructing the trailer was the most challenging aspect of the project. We all had to familiarise ourselves with using the video camera and tri-pod. After we had filmed the scenes we needed to edit footage and add sound, this was all done via using a Mac computer post filming. We used the software called final cut pro and soundtrack pro to edit and organise our soap opera trailer and the soundtrack for it. The program final cut pro allowed us to add text to the trailer, add transitions and also let us transform the colour of clips, in our trailer we converted one scene to back and white to indicated in had happened in the past. Constructing the TV Listings magazine and the poster were both done using computers, for the listings magazine I used the program Photoshop. This program allowed me to layer images, edit images, create shapes, create text and delete the background behind the characters. Using this program I was able to create a product that resembles other TV listings magazines such as TV Now.
Positive/successful elements, narratives were well conveyedWe issued a audience questionnaire which allowed us to gain an understanding of what their opinion was of our final productions (trailer, TV listings and poster). Within that, lots of the questions asked for the audiences view (both good and bad) on the products. From the information they gave us we have analysed that they understood the storylines and interpreted the themes being conveyed within the trailer. For example, we asked the question, Which themes/life events (e.g. death, marriage, drugs) can you identify? The majority of the audience answered: alcohol abuse, drugs, pregnancy and violence. This is the answer that we were looking for as these were the narratives that we included in our trailer. Therefore we have conveyed this well, meaning it is successful. Peer evaluations when text was at a draft stageDuring the process of constructing our soap opera trailer, within the class group we each evaluated each others texts. We filled out forms that highlighted areas of success and areas for improvement. This allowed my group to improve our trailer, and make it more suitable for our target audience. The peer feedback we received was that the trailer was too long and seemed to reflect aspects from a TV drama rather than a soap opera. Therefore with this information we reduced the speed and duration of the clips, filmed more scenes with new characters and changed the music to a more upbeat sound which suited the style of the trailer. Identify if the audience were engagedAsking questions which asked the audience to note details that they saw in the trailer allowed us to see if they were engaged or not. The answers to these questions taught us what areas were successful and which ones that were less successful. The viewers were shocked when they saw the violent scene at the end of the trailer and this left them wanting to know more about what had happened to the girl. Identify areas for developmentAreas for development mostly are within the poster and TV listings magazine. The audience did not entirely know who the magazine was aimed at, therefore this shows that improvement can be made to indicate that it is for an older audience. The audience also were unsure of the meaning of the cell line featured on the poster, there was a lack of understanding as to how it related to the image displayed.
