ANCILLARY STAGES

There a few different types of soap magazine. I had to analyse the all to help me decide which would best suit my genre of soap.

Analysing existing soap magazines..

Trashy styled, easy reading and normally cheap.

Sophisticated, restrained and professional.

Masthead is large and extends over the edges of the page and grabs attention

Dominating image of star, gives eye contact to the reader creating a connection between star and reader.

Other features included in the magazine. Opposite colours draw attention

Main article title; name of the star to personalise the article.

Writing in italics to show they are the words of the star personalise and give slight insight to the main article.

Black and white image used to represent sophistication of the magazine. Restrained colour scheme creates product quality.

Large amount of space emphasises the background image

Large title, with buttons to interest the reader i.e. “two weeks revealed” showing the magazine is value for money.

Multiple pictures of characters, large short titles to give a brief outline of multiple the storyline’s.

The use of bright colour of sub headings emphasise certain words such as “on deathbed!” to grab reader.

All text cantered at the same angle to create continuity, writing in italics creates tension.

The use of exclamation and question marks used to engage the reader and involve them in the characters lives through use of rhetorical questions.

The lower case title makes magazine seem less formal and friendly to wider audience.

Borders between characters show the storylines of characters are not linked and there is lots going on at once, interesting the audience

After analysing existing examples of soap magazines in preparation for my ancillary, I began looking at examples of soap posters.

The large image of the woman attracts an audience due to its suggestive nature

The text “every parents worst nightmare” entices a teenage audience who may want to find out why.It also promotes a rebellious outlook as teenagers my watch it for the sole reason their parents do not approve.

There not a lot of text. This is so even when passing the poster in the street, the audience can understand the nature and genre of the soap in a small space of time

There is also less text because the image speaks loudly and it is the main focus of the poster.

The name of the soap is quite small again showing the image as the main attraction for the audience. Also it creates brand recognition between the soap and the audience.

After decided I was going to use the more sophisticated and professional styled soap magazine I then began Planning my magazine ancillary and poster.

I drew a mock magazine ancillary to help me decide where I would put my features, and title etc. This was useful in helping me understand the conventions and codes of soap magazines even further.

I modelled my planning on TV and Satellite, I chose this because of its simple but class style.

I decided against creating a cheap trashy soap mag because I thought they looked chaotic and unprofessional.

After finishing the first plan of my magazine, I began planning my poster ancillary.

I chose to use multiple characters in the poster image to show the different storylines and the genre of the soap.

After Planning my ancillaries my group and took photo’s of each other, and together which could be used in my ancillaries. These are some of them. Many of the photo’s were rejected as they didn’t fit with the soap’s genre or the conventions of magazine and poster images.

These are the rejected shots of the ancillary photo shoot.I chose to remove them because they do not conform to the conventions of social realism soaps and the genre of our soap.

Characters are too close to edges of photo.

The characters expressions do not reflect the attitude of the storyline.

There is too much blank space in the photo

The characters do not line up correctly

The characters expressions cannot be seen

Too much space between the characters

The characters are too close together.

After rejecting the shots I could not use in my ancillaries I chose this photo to use as my soap magazine cover because I believe it reflects the gritty genre of social realism

I used this photo to use as my poster because all characters of the soap are present and allows the audience too see the multiple storylines. It also follows the conventions of social realism.

After deciding which photo I would use for both my ancillaries I used Photoshop to edit them.