Evaulation

The brief I have chosen for my advanced portfolio was to produce a TV trailer for a new soap opera. In order to produce this from scratch, it meant that planning and research needed to be done so that I was able to follow the conventions of a trailer but also add the aspects found in soap operas. I also had to choose two auxiliary tasks to do out of the following: a listings magazine cover for the new soap, two hyperlinked WebPages for the new soap’s website, and to create a poster for the new soap. The two I chose was the TV listings magazine front cover, and the poster. The reasons why I chose these particular products to make is because I feel that they are necessary ways of advertising, especially a new soap opera as not everyone goes on the internet, but if posters were placed around cities, they would be hard to miss and also magazine are found in mostly every shop around England. Therefore I think these auxiliary tasks were the most important in the success of my TV trailer.

To experiment and produce the auxiliary texts we had Adobe Photoshop 7, which we used when producing our AS coursework. However I feel that using Photoshop 7 in A2 really developed my skills higher using that particular software in which I created a much more developed piece of work. Other skills such as using editing suite have developed since the foundation portfolio, as for that brief using the editing suit was not necessary.

For the advanced portfolio I decided to work individually as it meant that I could use my own ideas, create it myself, which meant it was much more flexible than it would be if I had worked in a group. Also because other student chose to do a music video, were as I thought it would be more creative and different to do a TV soap opera trailer, as no one else was doing this brief.

After planning and research the conventions of trailers and soap operas. I was able to start filming the footage I needed to complete the TV trailer, after completing it enabled me to develop and produce the auxiliary texts which I found easy because the TV trailer was an example of what I needed to include on my poster and magazine front cover, for example the characters, and the title of the soap opera I had produced.

What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For the auxiliary products I already had knowledge of the conventions of the magazine cover as that was the content of the foundation portfolio, were I had to produce my own music magazine front cover, double page spread, and contents page. The knowledge I already had allowed me to develop my front cover straight away, as I needn’t research the conventions. However I did further research into TV listing magazine covers and analysed them. What I found helped me develop a recognisable TV listings front cover; I did this by following all the conventions.

TV listing magazine cover: Masthead, headlines, main image, plugs, date, price, website, issues no, and barcode.

I used all these conventional aspects of a magazine front cover for my own product, which made the magazine realistic. The main image I used on the front cover are the characters from the TV trailer, they are the same people used so that the product has continuity and also uses the conventions of a real media product. By producing the TV trailer in colour, it meets the contemporary technology of today’s society, which links in when my soap opera is set, in which is modern days. The masthead of the magazine, I came up with myself as because the magazine genre is soap operas, and because soap operas are watched on the television, commonly called ‘the box’, putting these ideas together of the ‘SOAP BOX’ I think worked really well, as TV listing magazine mastheads refer to television such as ‘we love telly’ and ‘TV guide’, following other media products conventions. I also used the conventions of this media product when choosing the colour scheme for my magazine front cover. As I did my research on TV listing front covers, it was noticeable that they use bright, happy colours such as yellows, pinks, reds, and blues. I decided to follow this convention by using a bright blue as the background on the magazine front cover, and also using the colour within the headlines and the masthead. I included a date, price, issue no, website and barcode on the magazine front cover following the conventions of this particular media product.

For the poster I had to produce I had to research the conventions of a poster as I had no media convention knowledge of a poster, as we hadn’t made one before. The only knowledge I had was posters that I have seen before. I researched and analysed posters from other soap operas, for example ‘gossip girl’ and ‘skins’. Both had similar conventions such as the images on the poster and the horizontal layout. I used this knowledge that I had gain to create my own poster.

Soap Opera Posters: Images, the name of the show, the date that the soap opera is starting, the channel which the soap opera will be shown, and the time it will be shown.

By following these media conventions I was able to develop the ideas I had for the posters. I created more than one poster which tests the conventions. On some of the posters I did not use some of the conventions such as putting on the time and channel which its shown, and not featuring all the characters shown in the TV trailer, by doing this I learnt that it was important to include all of the conventions because it gave the audience the information that was needed to enable that they can watch the soap opera, for example if the channel that it was being shown, in this case ‘SKY DRAMA 182’ the audience would not be able to watch it because they wouldn’t know where they would find it. This would cause problems for the company as ratings for the soap opera would be very low. The importance of the conventions encouraged me to make another poster that featured all these conventions. By doing this I think my chosen poster is successful in giving the information it needs to, as well as introducing the characters so the audience is already familiar, encouraging them to watch the soap opera.

TV Trailer
I feel that the most media conventions used are found within the main product. Within out the conventions of soap operas, the TV trailer would be unrecognisable as an advertisement for a soap opera. The first convention that I researched was the use of setting. At the beginning of the film I wanted to establish the setting by the use of establishing shots, tracking shots, and long shots. By doing this it allowed me to show the audience where the soap opera is set by showing iconic building of Hull such as the deep, and the Humber bridge. By establishing the setting it followed the conventions of the introductions of soap operas, for example in Coronation Street shows shot of the setting, such as the pub, and shop ect. And in the introduction of Eastenders shows a birds eye view of London, the place in that the Eastenders is set in. Therefore I decided to do this in my own soap opera trailer. Another convention found in soap operas are the use of stereotypical characters. I researched this further and found out the stereotypical characters in the British soaps coronation street and Eastenders which is on the early posts on my blog. Because this is one of the main conventions found in soap opera’s I was defiantly going to use it in my own TV trailer. However as my soap opera was going to be about teenagers, and not a variety of ages, it meant I had to think about the stereotypes of teenagers. In my finishes product the stereotypes I used were ‘the bitch’ named Louise, ‘the gay’ named Jonny, ‘the geek’ named Emily, ‘the loved up couple’ named Emma and Mark, ‘the jock (sporty) named Jack, ‘the girly girl’ named Sophie and finally ‘the rebel girl’ named Krystina. To really establish these stereotypes I had to show the actions that the characters would stereotypical do, for example the girly girl is applying make-up, the jock is playing football with anything he can find (cup), the bitch is fighting with another girl, and the geek is eating sandwiches in a toilet and looking at work sheets, it tells the audience immediately what the characters are like and also shows a variety of characters within the soap, in which some of the audience may be able to relate to. The music on top of the TV trailer was important as it sets the mood for the soap opera which I found on other soap opera trailers. The sound track I used is Le Tigre – Deception. I particularly chose this one because it was very fast, and upbeat the tone creates a happy, mad mood on the TV trailer, which wouldn’t have the same effect if the music was slow, and because the soap opera characters are all teenagers I wanted a song that give created a tone related to life. Another convention I used which is used in trailers are introducing the characters by the use of freeze frames and text giving the characters names. I got this idea from an Eastenders trailer (further on in my blog) introducing a new family to ‘the square’. It uses freeze frames and gives the names of the new characters, I particularly liked this idea, as it already get the audience familiar with the characters before the see the real soap opera, allowing them to feel involved. Overall I used the conventions of a trailer, and also the conventions of a soap opera mixed together to create a successful TV soap opera trailer.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
In order to produce successful ancillary texts that match my TV trailer, I had to make the three texts similar to each other, I did this by using the same features that I featured in my TV trailer. I used all the same characters in my ancillary texts that I used in my TV trailer, to create continuity. The ancillary texts would have been less effective if I had used different people in the TV trailer. Another combination of what is featured in the TV trailer and the ancillary texts is the use of the same style and colour of the title FACES carried throughout. However, when producing the TV trailer I used another similar but different font title, it was only when I was creating the ancillary texts that I found a different text more suitable for the genre of the TV trailer therefore I transferred it on to the editing suit and put it on my TV trailer. I kept the continuity of the same style title so that it is recognisable to the audience were ever they see it. I also used the same date and the same channel, on the TV trailer, onto the poster for the same reasons, it also creates realism to the soap opera. The colourization of the both ancillary products and the TV trailer are the same, using exterior/interior lighting for the filming and interior lighting for the still shots of the characters used on the ancillary however I didn’t put on any colour effect to all of the products, keeping them all similar to each other. I used the colour as it shows contemporary technologies of the colour screen, presenting to the audience that the soap opera is set in contemporary times.


What have you learned from your audience feedback?
For my audience feedback I came up with 6 different questions on my blog, relating to the TV trailer I produced and both of the ancillary texts. The reasons why I used the Poll on the blog is so that it could be easily analysed and collected as my audience feedback instead of having individual sheets for each answers to the audience feedback questions. However I felt that the amount of data I got from having a poll on my blog was poor as not everyone would go on my blog and vote on the poll, this was the only disadvantage I found. The questions I came up with gave an general interest of what the audience watch and how often they watch it and in relation to the genre, these questions are Do you watch TV soap operas? And if so how often? The results I got from the questions is out of the 4 people that voted, 4 people said yes, they do watch TV soap operas, however this was not assessable until I found out how often they watched them. The answers I got from this question 3 votes for sometimes and 1 vote for all the time, they were no answers to not very often and never. The other questions I came up with give results from factors such as what do you think the target audience is, to which they all answered 15-20 years old, which is the target audience that I wished to aim at, what I learnt from the audience feedback is that my TV trailer is recognisable for the target audience, therefore it is successful in meeting its aims.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
They are many new media technologies that were used in the research and planning stages. The first, most obvious one is the use of Blogger, to present the research, planning and evaluation in a series of posts, which will give me the media grade. If the new technology of the blog wasn’t in use, then all planning and research for this production would have had to be on paper, which has many disadvantages as it is easy to loose pieces of paper, and also wouldn’t look as presentable. Blogger also allowed us to post up hyperlinks from the internet, such as videos. This is one of the first pieces of planning I did, I used the new media technology of the internet to research and find other TV trailers allowing me to get ideas from them. Video institutions such as YouTube was the main one I used when getting video clips of soap operas, the use of hyperlinks and URLS allowed me to post them on to my blog, therefore being apart of my research and planning. On blogger I used gadgets such as Polls which allowed me to get my audience feedback I also used search engines on the internet such as Google for research in stereotypes, it allowed me to find out conventions of soap operas and the stereotypes within them that I planned to use in my own TV trailer. I found out stereotypes from Coronation Street and Eastenders giving me ideas for my own characters.
To create the TV trailer I used an editing suite, which I hadn’t used before. It allowed me to experiment with the effects it had to offer such as dissolves, creating freeze frames, and effects such as the spiral, when the girls are fighting, and the love hearts when the young couple are kissing.
Creating my ancillary texts meant that I was able to use the software provided which in this case was the Adobe Photoshop 7, I had used this programme before in the foundation portfolio when creating a music magazine so I had some knowledge of what I was able to do on the programme. But this year however my skills were furthered because of the ideas that I wanted to produce such as placing each image of the individual characters without the background that was naturally on the image, by learning the skills I successfully made the ancillary texts.

Overall the outcome of the TV trailer I have produced and both of the ancillary text, I find are successful in meeting the conventions of trailers and the conventions of a soap opera. It is also successful in targeting its aimed audience, which was young adults aged 15 – 20 years old. I think I have created a strong promotional package overall, I am pleased with all the products I have produced.