Media A2 evaluation

The AcademyMia Wheeler

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The TV listings front coverFor the TV listings front cover I looked at other examples of TV listings to gain ideas on what sort of layout I would need to use, what images I would need to take and the different sub headings and captions I would need to include. Below are the conventions I found:

•In all the TV guides that I looked at had bright, bold and colourful backgrounds which engaged the readers eye .•The fonts used were mainly basic ones which were easy to read.•The characters in the images were all making eye contact, or at least 3 out of 4 of them were, which engaged the reader.•The front cover included many soaps and tv programs on the bottom in small pictures or captions.•brightly coloured font, exaggerated language, exclamation/question mark for emphasis, making the whole front cover more exciting to read.

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The TrailerWhen we were planning the storylines for our media text we looked closely at similar television programmes that was of the same genre as ours. We found that Waterloo Road in particular shared a common theme to ours and so we analysed the way in which their programme and trailers were constructed. We noted that they had multiple dramatic storylines and so we included this within our media text, therefore following convention.

We also followed convention through the characters we chose to put into our drama. We created stereotypical characters such as “chavs” “popular kids” etc, to give a sense of reality, as this is what you would find in a secondary school.

Using youtube we were able to find suitable trailer from Waterloo Road in which we could take ideas from to use in our trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U81kocNemQs

The link above is one of the trailers we analysed from Waterloo Road.It included a variety of narratives and short snappy edits. The target audience for waterloo road is similar to ours and so we used this trailer to help us in the creation of ours.

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The posterI found inspirational from the posters of Waterloo Road and The Inbetweeners as they both have a young teen audience. From the poster I gained many conventions in which I could use for my poster:

All of the characters have some kind of eye contact in the first poster (waterloo road) which engages the audience, however in the one below (inbetweeners) only the main characters are giving direct eye contact.In my poster I decided that the majority of my cast would make direct eye contact as I felt that gave a much more engaging photograph.

In these two examples of posters the structure of the poster is quite basic and simple. I wanted to incorporate this into my poster however I wanted to add a little bit more of an edge.

In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the bottom of the poster I included the structural approach that the previous posters on the other slide chose to use however I also included images within the title itself. I found that this would be a way in which I chose to break the convention of soap opera posters and it gave it a much younger and edgier feel to it overall.

I included the slogan of our production which was “school is a place for making mistakes!” which makes it easy to recognise.

At the bottom I included the channel and time in which the soap would be on TV so that my audience was aware of when they were able to view my production.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?I believe that the combination of trailer, TV listings and poster work significantly well together. I carried a distinct house style through each of them and it is easy to see that they are all interlinked and related with one another. An easy way to see this continuity is through the school uniform which all of them wear in each of the pieces of media. We mainly stuck to the conventions of other media text to ensure that we would create a suitable media text. Through the audience feedback we received I think it is fair to say that sticking to the conventions was a good idea.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Here is the questionnaire in which we sent out to twenty people who were a similar age to that of our target audience.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Our questionnaire received lots of positive feedback with people expressing their views on how much they liked our trailer, TV listings and poster. Comments included that our trailer represented that of a real media text and that if it was on the television people would be willing to watch it. The narratives received comments such as “informative” “fluent throughout” and “dramatic” but also that the narratives were “relative to their lives”. This meant that we had achieved what we wanted to start with and that was to engage the audience and allow them to relate to the storylines on screen.The questionnaire was very useful as it enabled us to feel a sense of achievement because we had achieved what we wanted to do, however due to the lack of criticisms we were unable to pinpoint the points of our production which would need to be changed in order for it to stand as a perfect piece of media.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used a variety of different media technologies in the construction of my production. These enabled me to create the exact product that I had envisaged in my head.

www.youtube.co.ukEnabled me to research different trailers that were on TV at the time e.g. Waterloo Road, Inbetweeners etc. Which helped during the research and planning stages as I was able to further my ideas with the help of other media texts.

www.blogger.co.ukWas used during my whole production as it allowed me to make note of what I had done and what needed to be done. As a group I think it helped quite a lot as we were all able to log into it and see what the other group members had done and allowed us to give each other feedback etc.

The internet was also very useful in researching institutions where our product would be distributed, we used the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board website (www.barb.co.uk) to research the types of programmes and types of people who watched them and therefore we could choose what channel we would distribute our soap to and who would be watching it.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

www.facebook.co.ukWas used to further our audience research and gain greater feedback on our media product. It also enabled us as a group to keep in contact with each other. And also we were able to recruit our cast members this way as well.

We used camcorders, specifically a Panasonic HD camcorder and the tripod to film our trailer.

Soundtrack Pro was used to create the music we needed for our trailer but also we used it for some sound effects such as the bouncing ball in one of our scenes.

Final Cut was used to edit and manipulate the footage we had filmed.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a Canon digital camera to take the photographs for our TV listings and Poster. The camera took clear and fine photographs which made both pieces of media look professional and appealing to the eye.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?I used Adobe Photoshop to edit the photographs in which I used for the poster. Photoshop was very useful as it gave a much cleaner cut photograph and overall made the photographs which I took look a lot more professional.In Photoshop I used the “Magic wand” Tool and also “the magnetic lasso” as well as more obvious editing tools such as Contrast and Brightness etc.

Thank you for listening