How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 2Ben TrantBen & J: On Gangs

What were my Ancillary texts?I knew from the start that I wanted to create two completely different ancillary products for different medians. I decided to do a Magazine Two Page Spread as the print option and a short radio advert as my second ancillary product. By choosing these two ancillary products, it would allow me to explore different medians and appeal to a wider range of audience to consume my main product, the mockumentary.

Jordan recording his lines

The Magazine Two Page SpreadI did a lot of research before planning and creating my two page spread, in order to make it as professional as possible. I found that many magazine articles followed the same conventions and so were ultimately very similar in look and content.

The most common aspects of a magazine spread included a stand out title of the programme, a sub heading (often comedic), large amounts of text and pictures with captions and reviews / ratings. I emulated all these features in my magazine to the point I pretty much made a look alike of any ordinary spread. Because my media product is a mockumentary, I wanted to add plenty of comedic value through the text and sub heading.

I produced several drafts of my magazine, changing the fonts, reviews and pictures. The text however remained the same except some minor tweaks.

MagazineBecause our mockumentary was going to be shown on TV, it made perfect sense to target the TV audience in their type of magazine. Usually, the magazine editors would create the article and we would only have to record an interview with their journalist and they would write up about our mockumentary themselves, often providing some insight and context to the series. In order to be a bit more open about the series and drop a few more hints about the plot etc, we released the magazine article after the trailers and posters. We wanted to build up the series and get readers to plan their TV schedule to watch Ben and Js. There are many types of TV viewers so we had to project the series as having strong characters, an interesting plot and being well paced. In the article, we have a brief episode guide which gives a short insight on the six episodes where they are filmed and what the issues Ben and J faced were. There are also reviews from different newspapers and some exclusive pictures from the series.

The Radio AdvertI felt that radio would be a fantastic medium to produce an advert for Ben and Js on because with radio, there is no visual aspect except for what you can paint in the audiences head. This was a really great way for me to ensure that the mystery about the mockumentary was maintained, yet give the audience another small insight into the show.One thing I found during my radio research was that there was a distinct lack of radio adverts for TV programmes, as many radio adverts were for products or services. The only media related adverts I found tended to be for film as opposed to TV programmes.To make the radio advert feel more realistic and have a greater impact on my audience, I scripted a short radio interview in which myself, Jordan and Tom would be interviewed by a radio presenter before premiering the radio advert itself. This turned out to be a fantastic piece of marketing and promotion for my mockumentary.

Final Radio Advert1st Radio Advert Draft

The Radio AdvertI originally wanted to create a radio advert and have it broadcast exclusively on a radio station followed by an interview with the Ben and Js team. For this, we set on Ruff McTuffen narrating the Ben and J on gangs story in several dramatic sentences in-between rather dramatic music, emphasising each sentence. Radio is still a very popular source of entertainment which can be accessed at home, on the move and on most entertainment devices. With radio, we can use a completely different type of advert compared to our trailers which didnt feature any dialogue or narration. With our radio advert, we can create emotion and drama through audio which meant we had to find the perfect music to accompany Ruffs narration.The radio advert and interview was released about a week before the series started, this meant it was aired around the time our magazine interview was published. In the interview, the radio presenter asks Ben, Jordan and Ruff several questions about how the series came about, their individual roles and what viewers should expect to see. Although by now many fans and listeners were already well aware of the series, we wanted to leave a lot of questions unanswered for the series, we wanted people to have a reason to watch the series other than just excitement, more intrigue and anticipation.

How did they conform to the conventions?

MagazineI wanted to keep to the conventions I had found as much as possible, simply because if I was too inventive and changed the layout too much, it would look a mess and ultimately fail in appealing to my audience.

I kept the conventions of having a title and sub title; as without these, the rest of the text would have no real purpose or direction. I also used the right side of my spread for pictures of my mockumentary and ratings from external reviewers. These make the magazine look professional as-well as adding some colour to the otherwise plain colour scheme.

Radio advertOne of the few conventions I needed to stick to was the duration of my radio advert. I found that most radio adverts lasted between 15-30 seconds and that the last 5 seconds tended to be the release date and the channel or cinemas it would be shown on.

I chose to make my radio advert 29 seconds long, as I felt that I need to have several seconds between each line of dialogue so the accompanying music could ensure there was a lot of drama and suspense. If I had made my advert around 15-20 seconds in length, the dialogue would have been too close together and lost the effect I wanted it to have.

How did they break conventionsMagazineWith my magazine two page spread, I broke very few conventions as I felt that it was important to keep the look and feel of my magazine similar to that of successful real life magazine spreads. I did however look to make the text funny and entertaining as opposed to making it both informative yet intriguing a technique used to make readers want to become viewers. To break this convention and make it funny, I initially made the quotes and reviews jokey, for example an original quote was A ground-breaking documentary by Fracking UK. In the final magazine spread though, I used the subheading as humour with When a city needed hope, they got Ben and J. This implies that the desperate situation didnt perhaps receive the response it required and further strengthens the idea that Ben and J are a rather humorous on screen pairing.Radio advertThe few TV radio adverts I found during my research were all extremely similar, they werent even an advert, often just a montage of different quotes from characters in the programme itself. This is something which I wasnt to fond of, I felt that it was effectively just TV advert but without the visual aspect. I wanted to play on the idea of making the audience have to visualise my programme for themselves rather than feed it to them on a plate. Unlike most radio adverts for TV programmes, I didnt use direct quotes from my mockumentary in my advert. Instead I used the persona of our crime expert; Ruff McTuffen, as the narrator. I wanted him to give some context to the series and build tension and anticipation for the upcoming release. It also provided an unorthodox way to introduce one of our characters before the release and their on screen debut.The music was also chosen to play our audiences emotions unlike with other radio adverts which are often fast paced and lively, exciting the audience into wanting to watch rather than intrigue them.

REVIEW OF EFFECTIVNESSMAGAZINEConveyed the huge potential for a full series by being very broad and insinuating we travelled the countryProvided a high level of mystery towards both the characters and plot through small quotes and hintsGave a glimpse of the different characters and locations from the mockumentary through the picturesRADIOImplied a national crisis on the levels of gang crime, although the concept of the series, unusual for the genre of the mockumentaryProvided a high level of mystery towards both the characters and plot through small quotes and hintsGave a glimpse of the different characters and locations from the mockumentary through the pictures