This document analyzes several media texts including a documentary on violent video games, a movie poster for the film Portal, and a radio trailer for the TV show Doctor Who. For the documentary, it notes the use of interviews, gameplay footage, and shots of people arguing different perspectives on violent games. It also analyzes stylistic elements like lighting and shot types. For the Portal poster, it discusses the design elements like fonts, colors and imagery that appeal to gamers and convey the tech/science theme. For the Doctor Who radio trailer, it analyzes the conventions used including voiceovers, sound effects, quotes and persuasive language to promote the season finale.

1. Textual analysis

2. • Violent video games: do they affect behaviour?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxUeDIiBYMY
• From this documentary, I have gathered the idea of using many different people
for my groups documentary, for example, maybe getting in contact with local
video game creators and seeing if we can get an interview with them
• Videoing the screen when playing a game with a voiceover
• Documentary uses convention of people talking to the camera which is very
common in documentaries
• Clips of young children playing video games (maybe a year 7/8/9 playing GTA
which is a18)
• Majority of shots are medium shots of men wearing suits which connotes that
they are professionals and how serious this topic is
• Dark lighting around some of the people speaking makes sure that the viewer is
focusing on what the people are saying
• Other clips have a video in the background on a computer, which may distract
the viewer
• Have half of people arguing that video games does affect behaviour and other
half of people arguing that video games doesn’t affect behaviour
• Extreme close up of a black boys eyes whilst he’s playing a video game connotes
he’s very into the game, whilst there is a voiceover on top of him explaining how
there is a lot of violence in his community and how video games distract him
from this (i.e. keeping him off the streets)

3. Portal movie poster
The purpose of this poster is to advertise a
video game film, in order to get people to
watch it
Would appeal to fans of video games as it
lacks in text and gets the message straight
across to the viewer
Black font connotes power, elegance,
evil/mystery and death (which is what
video games are associated with)
When black is combined with orange (the
main colour), it gives a very aggressive
colour scheme
The main image background is orange,
which connotes energy, fascination,
creativity, determination, aggression and
stimulation; these are all factors of a video
game player
Part of the image is white, which connotes
that what is being advertised, is a tech
product; in this case, a video game
The tagline ‘for science.’ is very relevant to
the product which is being advertised as
the film is about video games

4. • Doctor who radio trailer
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB6e-WvIASc
• Trailer is of BBC family drama doctor who
• 42 seconds
• This radio trailer follows the conventions of a normal radio trailer, which are:
voiceovers, the slogan of the drama, sound effects when needed and persuasive
language to make the listener want to watch the drama. The clip begins with a
male voice over that tells the audience straight away that doctor who is being
shown on BBC. After that voiceover, there is a quote from one of the episodes,
whilst she is speaking, music starts playing which kind of sounds like sci-fi science
fiction music. The man’s voice over then goes on to say that it is the series finale,
which may make the audience want to watch it. The background music is non-
diegetic and starts off low but then builds up louder and louder slowly. By using
quotes in the radio trailer, Doctor who fans will recognize the characters voices
and they will recognise the show. In doctor who, the ‘doctor’ plays a
stereotypical male in a TV drama and comes across as powerful and strong.
• With some other radio trailers that we have analysed, we noticed that radio
trailers usually end in the main information that the viewers need to know about
the show. The male voice over that was speaking at the beginning of the radio
trailer also announces the essential information at the end of the trailer too.