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

Throughout this whole entire production process we have not only produced one main product we have also produced ancillary texts (website, TV guide cover and two posters) all serving different purposes for an overall successful product.

The trailer was our main and our final product to be finished. This was done deliberately as the TV guide cover and posters helped us to intertwine the three all together. This allowed us to produce a trailer which portrayed the ancillary products as a whole development. Similar to our ancillary texts all the characters were dressed in the clothes reflecting their character profiles. They needed to look the same in all ancillary texts to represent themselves. The outcome of our trailer was a success and there are many strengths. When we showed a preview screening of our trailer to our target audience they understood the two different storylines straight away and the youthful characters helped the target audience of 16-25 to compare themselves to those in the soap . The music was used effectively as with the sound of the beat, drama occurred which built up suspense. The last shot was our most successful of Maria holding the pregnancy test there was left to the last few seconds to leave the audience on edge and wanting more. However with strengths there were too some weaknesses if we were able to improve and change a few things I think the length of the trailer would be one of these. The trailer includes sharp quick cuts though in length it is 2minutes which I feel is too long usually trailers last around 50seconds - 1 minute. I also noticed a few errors which I would improve given the time. At the start of the trailer where a fade was placed it seems that due to technical error when played on a DVD the scene cuts although this should no happen. Furthermore there is a shot of Shiffa and her mother "excuse my daughter she is a little shy" I would re-film this shot as the light is slightly over powering. As with our website which is simple though modern for our title pages included in the trailer we used the same house font in order for all the ancillary texts to be recognisable as our soap to the viewers.

Our website was one of our ancillary products. This was new to us though once we had been told the basic on how to create it we began straight away. With the research we had previously taken part in looking at current soap websites we already knew how we wanted our website to look like. We wanted it to reflect the youth of our characters as well as targeting our viewers. Therefore we kept the website quite plain looking using primary colours such as black, white and colour. Though the website style was also modern looking to appeal to the older viewers. We created many pages that would entertain the viewers such as games, e-cards and a sneak peek of the next episode. Overall the website worked in conjunction with the posters and TV magazine to address our target audience.

The final ancillary products I produced were two posters and a TV guide cover magazine in order to advertise our new soap. My TV guide cover used the conventional aspects of current magazines likewise to "Whats on". The colours I used are very bold and bright though they do the job of attracting our target audience. At first i considered producing one similar to that of "Radio Times" however this would not have appealed to our target audience of 16-25 year olds. The photograph used on the front cover matches photographs that are included on our website. I prefer the two posters as they reflect our soap in a modern way representing that although there is youth concerned it is about growing up and what these adolescents have to face. One poster is simpler than the other using the LIBERTY logo in the background and one primary colour. The other I feel will attract more of our target audience including a cast photograph of the characters with a sophisticated look to it. As in all of our products we want to draw the line between a child and an adult with these adolescents being positioned in the center.

Consequently I think that all three products the main and the ancillary texts link together well as a whole product. All three use the same genre given to the soap and portray these successfully. The products all represent the main important factors to our target audience; youth, secrets and independence which these characters will need to face. Our website, TV guide covers and posters work well alongside each other using the same house font modern style and most significantly focus on the two main storylines. They are straight to the point in a way our target audience can understand them all, recognise and be attracted to them too.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

THE CAST:

THE TARGET AUDIENCE:

Above shows two photographs, one is of the cast of our new soap LIBERTY the other is the target audience. Immediately you can spot the similiarites between the two groups. Both are of similar age and will be going through alike teenage dramas. Therefore the cast being easily comparable to the target audience will enable an instant bond between them. These relations attract the viewers into watching our soap as they will be able to reflect and possibly escape from their own current dilemmas. On the other hand the soap may help them to deal with their troubles.

Our target audience (above) are of ages from 17 to 20 years of age, friends are most important at this age boosting their confidence ready for their adult lives. They live in the surburbs and are used to a busy life style with many social events occuring. Like any and all teenagers their main interests are surrounded by music, films and television. When tired from a hard working studying day they enjoy nothing better than collapsing in front of the TV screen to entail a whole evening of soap dramas/comdeys/action. These include; Hollyoaks, One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Heros, Lost and Desparate housewives. Most of these revolve around gossip and the teens are keen to watch more to find out what will happen next.

Our soap would appeal to this specific target audience due to the many similarites between the two.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This was our first time we were using Mac computers, it provided a lot more programmes than an ordinary computer and we were able to edit and create our website on them.

The video camera was fairly easy to use along with the help of the tripod to keep it steady as we incorporated the skills that we had learnt from last year.

1. itunes was the programme that we used to import our music.


2. imovie was the programme we used on the Mac computer in order to import and edit our footage. It was the first time we had used this though we were able to use the many different transitions; fades and also edit our sounds and music.

The technologies we used throughout the process;

1. itunes We used this to import a number of potential soundtrack music we planned to use for the final end product.

2. iMovie This is what we used to edit our footage on.

3.Photoshop This was used for both my TV magazine front cover and my soap poster.

4. Google A lot of research was done using this search engine.

5. Audio network/London grid for learning This website was where we bought our copyright free music from. It included many different genres/themes/moods of music so there was a wide variety for our group to choose from.

6. Blogger Where all our work is planned and produced. As well as this is how our group connects together and where the discussions are made.

7. iWeb Again a programme on the Mac which we used to create our website.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Throughout each different stage of our production process we ensured we were participating in thorough feedback from our audiences in order to produce a product that would attract our target viewers. The first stages of production were the most crucial when ideas were being initiated and where we began putting them to practice. Once our target audience of ages 16-25 years old was decided - this being chosen from the results of our questionnaire we were able to start the whole process.

Our trailer being considered as the most important process in the production. Already we had created two questionnaires in which informed us of the type of genre/theme our target audience desired to watch on a new soap, what time would be most suitable for them to watch our soap, type of characters and themed storylines that would appeal to them. From this information we were able to produce two main storylines reflecting the type of soap ours was - a new unique modern soap though still the remains of traditional convention aspects. Once we had created these storylines along with our storyboard, the pitch, character profiles and cast photographs we panelled these to three focus groups. These were completed in order to ensure we were on the right track of targeting our audiences. The first focus group involved students in our media class 17 and 18 years of age. We wanted to find out from other media students whether with their knowledge if they thought our soap would be a success. The feedback received were mostly positive though some students supposed the issue with the broadcasting time. originally we had planned for the soap to be screened everyday of the week at 8.30pm though the students felt that this may be a little too late for some as well as on a Friday night viewing rates would drop drastically as the age group of our target audience would be out at this time. therefore we took this into consideration and as a group discussed that it would be far more appropriate to change this being broad casted on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings at 8pm.

Our further focus groups involved people from the public in two specific age groups. One 16 to 19 years old the other 19+. We explained our two main storylines to the group and showed them future possible ideas. We informed them of the kind of soap we aimed to be and asked them a series of questions. Both groups we received all positive feedback. They agreed that the storylines were of equal balance of drama and interest therefore they would definitely be prepared to watch the soap and if they did enjoy it watch it on a regular basis. This time round there were no issues raised about the scheduling times, the groups felt that these were all suitable times where after a long hardworking day they would be able to put their feet up and relax in front of the TV.

This is a short clip of two potential viewers giving us feedback

We took part in one additional focus groups 25+ our secondary viewers to analysis whether we could target outside our primary audience. From this group we again received positive feedback saying that they would consider watching the soap.

Once we had edited part of our trailer we decided to gather a group of our target audience to watch the first draft. We told them that this was not the finished product and it would be worked on furthermore though we wanted to know their opinions in order to know exactly what to change or improve to attract them. Our feedback was generally positive though topics of concern that raised where with the speed of the cuts. The audience felt that as a trailer the different clips should be slightly faster in line with the dramatic storylines as they didn't particularly feel a lot of this was happening. Therefore we noted all improvements to be made and ensured that this would be changed. As a discussion we sat down and had a meeting all of us agreed with this constructive critics and choose that it would be best to change these minor errors. When we went back to editing we ran through the first draft trailer again and cut the longer clips down to faster paced clips. We felt that this greater improved the feeling of the trailer reflecting the true genre of our soap.

As a group we had made a rough sketch of what we wanted our soap website to look like. We wanted it to ENTERTAIN and MARKET our soap. We imported our ideas onto the macs to see what it would look like. Once we had done this we asked a handful of our target audience what they thought about the layout and future page ideas. The audience approved and also came up with extra page suggestions, such as a games page. Once our feedback was received we began creating. We combined our ideas with ideas given to us by our target audience to produce our website. Following the majority of our soap being produced we again picked a handful of our target audience to view our almost finished website. They admitted that once the soap was on TV they would come and visit the website for further information on the soap as well as for entertainment purposes. They specially liked the character profile pages which included a insight to the lives of the main characters and felt that this was a great way as an introduction for them to get to know the characters. Though they did feel as if some images should be re-arranged and moved slightly. We took this into account and moved the images to their preferred place.

For marketing purposes I produced a TV guide cover and two posters. before i began producing these I researched into current products observing ones which i think would suit our modern soap most. I firstly produced a of number of different poster template ideas and asked target audiences which one they would be attracted to most. I also asked them questions about TV guide covers - in conjunction of our type of soap would they go for a brighter bolder magazine such as "Whats on"or a more simple looking type such as the "Radio times". The audience said they would prefer one similar to that of Whats on as this would attract their age group more than a plainer type. Therefore with this information i began creating a product to fit these requirements. I produced two different posters to attract a variety of target audience and one TV magazine front cover. After these were finished I distributed them to our target audience. feedback was all positive with audiences declaring that these would attract them.

The final stages of production were the end results of our products taking all audience feedback into consideration to produce products that would appeal to them.

With the trailer fully completed we again gathered a larger group of our target audience and permitted them to watch the clip. Where after we asked for their opinions. This was the most successful and we were overwhelmed by all the positive feedback. The audiences fully understood both plots of the two storylines and felt they acquired enough drama for them to want to watch the soap. We also promoted our soap onto social network websites asking for feedback. these are some of them;

Feedback from contacts on Facebook, as you can see most is very positive;

As well as promoting and advertising our soap on facebook we also uploaded it onto the website YOUTUBE, these are the further positive criticism we received; (click on bottom image for a clearer view of the comments we received)

This feedback we received must not be ignored. They will be taken into consideration and slight adjustments will be made if needed. Though the screening we of our trailer to our target audience no negative criticisms were made.

We then showed our target audience our finished website with the completed pages. This too was a success. The audience said that they thought we had done a really good job in creating it and it looked very professional. They felt the style of the layout and the pages went well with the genre of our soap appealing to them as an individual. Some even asked whether they could post comments on our fan forum page. The sneak peek clip that was included on the homepage of our website was a winner with the audiences too, after they watched it they were speechless and told us they defiantly wanted to watch the episode to find out what will happen next to the characters.

The final draft of my TV magazine front cover and two posters also received positive feedback. Some viewers preferred one poster and others preferred the other this is the reason i choose to produce two suiting the viewers needs though both reflected the genre of our soap. the target audience told me that the TV magazine front cover i produced if placed in shops would stand out to them and they would defiantly purchase it. Though perhaps in future front covers include a photograph of the characters with the biggest most dramatic storyline. i also promoted these on my facebook where again positive feedback was received with a few suggestions of possibly changing some colours of the front cover.

Overall with all the feedback we received from our target audience we were extremely pleased. With all the hard work we participated in was well worth the responses we obtained. Without the research we took part in our products; the trailer, website, TV magazine front cover and posters they wouldn't have been as successful. We needed this feedback from our audience in order to identify their requests and this is what we done. Our audience gave us the information we needed to achieve all that we have done so. In addition we reached our goal in producing these successful media products.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback/How did you attract your target audience?

- 08 secs: the close up of the glass was originally about ten shots from different angles that we then put together to create a blurry, dizzy effect. The pill used is a dissolvable tablet that took 15 minutes to dissolve though the outcome was exactly what we wanted.

- 29 secs: we really liked the shot of the rapists shadow coming into view on the bed across "the victim" before we see him appear as this builds up suspense.

- 32 secs: another creative shot we really liked of Shiffa looking in the mirror, it is an unusual shot which allows the viewers to see all her facial expressions and reactions.

- 59 secs: the close up of Dervish leaning in to kiss Maria was originally how the whole scene was filmed, however we then decided after the close up it should cut to an establishing shot in order to see both Maria and Dervish's reactions to each other.

- 1:22: the scene of Maria and an extra at the party was filmed with them right against the wall, pretending to talk and laugh, no music in the background, using a disco ball nearby in order to create the party effect and atmosphere.

-1.33: we had many issues with the lighting in this room, therefore out of the 10 shots we were only able to use around 3.

- 1.46: the rapist, also played by Dervish, is supposedly an anonymous man though we had to use Dervish because our other extra was unavailable.

- 1.52: the close-up of the hand locking the door is used to both build up tension with the audience and also used as a que to allow them an understanding of what is happening.

- 2.02: Joanna and Shiffa do not really kiss! Its a clever head movement from Shiffa. This shot was taken from many different angles but we decided against over the shoulder and opted for an establishing shot.

- 2.08: this pregnancy test close up took ages to film as Anna had to get the right expression, not too shocked and not overjoyed, eventually we decided on a confused, anxious expression. This is one of the major storylines so we placed this shot at the very end of the trailer with no music to shock the viewers and the emphasis of silence build up the tension even more.

Evaluation Task One;

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



The title of the soap

The title of the soap is displayed in the first frame of the collage above. We choose this name as our initial aim was to choose a one worded quick and snappy name as these tend to work most effectively especially in terms of soaps. It is highly unlikely that a name of a soap will be longer than two words. Liberty is a strong word that emphasizes freedom reflecting on our teenage characters included in the soap. Likewise to “Gossip Girl” the name has a relation to the characters and what the soap is about rather than having a name of the place that it is set. As you can see the title of the soap is displayed on top of a picture of the cast - this includes all the main characters. The photograph of them is a quite serious one, portraying hidden clues of what their forthcoming storylines may be about. Though at the same time this photograph was planned to look this way in order to appeal to the target audience.

The characters are positioned in conjunction with their relations of each other. For example, "Shiffa" is positioned in the centre very closely almost touching the following characters "Moji" and "Joanna" this is due to the reasoning that she is literally stuck in the middle of the two, not knowing who to choose. Whereas "Dervish" and "Moji" are fairly far apart as they do not have any connected with each other in the storylines just yet. While the couple "Maria" and Dervish" are standing close together reflecting their relationship between one another. The title of the soap is in large bold white fond in order to appear recognisable whilst at the same time stay quite subtle.

Setting/Location

In this frame I choose to include one of the main characters (Maria's) home. One of the photographs is of the character standing outside her house familiarizing the audience to her location the second is the home of Shiffa. The audience will be able to recognize this setting as it is included in one of the main dramatic storylines, one that cannot be forgotten. Similar to an establishing shot. Both the setting and location will say a lot about the characters and the soap itself. Shiffa's home is a traditional looking home reflecting the life she has to live and her attempts to rebel against these. Whereas Maria has a fairly modern home showing how different her life is compared to Shiffa's. These two teenage girls at first glance seem comparatively similar, they may be the same age, live in the same area but both live two very different lives and this is what we aim to show within their surroundings.

Costume/Props

Costumes and props are the main element included in Mise en scene, without these representation of realism would be unachievable. In the frame for this I have included three pictures which I feel are the most relevant related to this area. The photograph on the top right hand shows one of our actresses who we used as an extra. The woman appears as Shiffa's strict religious mother - without the costumes we used she would have looked like any other normal mother. For this particular character we used dark coloured clothing, all flesh was covered and a headscarf was worn to represent the religion. To the left hand corner the photograph shows the process of the make-up in action, this was to ensure that all the characters looked the part and again added to the sense of realism. The last picture shows one of the group members holding up lighting in the party scene. This scene was the hardest to achieve. We were working in a small confined area of space though we still managed to accomplish the outcome we had wished for. This was done by altering the lighting of the room to make it atmospheric, we used fairy lights and a disco ball. Also we used lots of props for this scene such as shot glasses. All the scenes needed the help of the costumes and the use of props in order for symbolisation to occur.

Camera Work/Editing

In this frame I choose the shot which I felt worked the best. It shows the shot of one of the main characters - she is looking at herself through the mirror. Here we had to ensure the camera was out of shot, it took a number of takes but eventually we managed to obtain the shot we wanted. Throughout the filming process each scene we shot we made sure that we took a number of times and a variety of these. We done this due to when we came around to editing we would have many different shots to choose from which would prevent having to re-shot any scenes. Additionally we felt that this year when it came to filming scenes it felt like an easier task - though still very challenging we were able to use skills that we had picked up from last year. When editing we used many quick and sharp cuts to tell the viewers what our soap will be about. As we had previously researched into former trailers almost all of them used snappy cuts to jump from more storyline to the other which works to build up suspense and the continuity of the action occurring.

Title font/style

This frame shows the logo of our soap including the name in the house font. The logo represents the city urban lifestyle the soap is based around and the font emphases the maturity. This style was chosen in order to appeal to our specific target audience of 16-25 year olds. The font is plain yet modern with a funky look to it. It is used on our trailer, our posters and also on our website therefore this makes it recognisable to our new viewers who will be able to familiarize the font style with the soap. The title of the soap LIBERTY along with this font aims to attract also our secondary target audience. Personally I feel that both of them work well together enabling to appeal to younger and older audiences.

Narrative/storylines - how they are set up

This brainstorm shows how the storylines were first set up. We all had to sit down as a group and discuss what we felt would work and what wouldn't work so well. We took into account our target audience and how we would go about attracting them. These were done not only by discussions but also by asking them face to face during focus groups and questionnaires. Finally from the many ideas we had come up with we were able to narrow these down to the two favourites we all preferred. These two storylines used and developed the forms of current soaps. They include drama, action and most importantly makes you want to find out the end result. We first had to set up the characters and produce profiles on them. We needed to create their different personalities, ideas and views in order to go on and produce storylines about them. Once these were produced the continuity of their storylines flowed.

Genre and how the sequence suggests it

The genre of the soap aims to be a mixture of traditional and of a modern soap. For example a mixture of Eastenders and Hollyoaks combined together to create something unique. Though the stories are all based behind the lives of young teenagers still traditional conventions are used. The three photographs represent the different variety of emotions the soap includes in order for our target audience to reflect this in their own lives. The larger photograph symbolizes appearance and taking pride in yourself - this is important in all of these teenagers lives. Secondly (top right) shows the group laughing signifying although in their lives trauma occurs things do get better and their relationship between each other are important. The last photograph shows the couple Maria and Dervish talking to one another reflecting there will also be serious moments in this soap. The sequence aims to represent all of these allowing the viewers to reflect back onto their own lives and maybe helping them to deal with these as the characters do too.

Characters and how they are introduced

The frame shows the five main characters separately, all leading different lives though all connected in some way. All of them are teenagers in order to attract the targeted viewers. They are introduced by their storylines which gives a little about them away. Shiffa is presented in two different forms - one the way her mother wishes her to be; respectable, polite and well dressed though in contrast we see her acting in a rebellious way stuck in the middle of two secret lovers Moji and Joanna. Maria is portrayed as the naive victim who finds herself stuck in a tricky situation with her innocent loving partner Dervish.

Sountrack

The soundtrack we used for our trailer reflects both our targeted audience and our soap. The picture in the frame portrays the type of music we used; quite rocky/indie to flow with the quick paced cuts.

Editing trailer/Soap Website complete

Today was a positive day all round in terms of completing unfinished work. Myself and Anna Philona re-visited the learning centre where we had first begun creating our soap website. (Picture on the left shows Anna in action editing the site). Due to the software only available at this centre this was our third time and hopefully our last to come back.

We spent the morning fixing and altering our soap website. We improved fonts into house style and rearranged the page layouts to look more presentable. We also choose to add an extra feature. As we had extra time when filming we chose to shot additional footage that would contain a sneak peek short thirty second clip of what would happen in the soap next week and decided to upload this onto our website too. Therefore we edited this, cut the scenes and added a few quick transitions to include onto our website homepage. Throughout this process we again used the Mac computers and we used a software called iWeb. Overall we were very pleased with the end result of our website and feel that it has true potential.

(Below shows a few print screen of just some of the pages of our website)

Our next task of the day was to finish editing our trailer. We completed this on an easier Windows software programme. We fixed the wrong jump cuts with fades in/outs in order to allow continuity and rearranged a few of the scenes to give it more of a trailer feel rather than a long soap episode. Also we added the soundtrack music of our choice and were able to mute, lower and heightened this in the places we wanted though some of the speech given by the actors were too low to hear what they were saying and this was covered by the music. We also changed the contents of the title pages and where they were placed as the previous ones didn't seem to fit in quite well with the full edited trailer. After all these minor tasks were done and our hard work paid off the trailer was finally 100% completed.

The trailer will be uploaded soon and able to view via the group blog.