City High - Group Soap Trailer

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

Trailer

Although we went through quite a few changes when developing our trailer, I feel that we have successful produced a good final product for our advanced production. The transitions between the shots such as the fade in and fade out effect allows the trailer to run more smoothly, to avoid quick cuts and preventing the audience from being confused and unable to follow the narrative of the soap. The use of the credits separating the scenes with subtitles is presented with a black background and white font. This is effectively in proposing the seriousness of the context of the soap to the audience which is the intended effect we plan on displaying. The technique of using these credits also builds up tension as it is foreshadowing in terms of presenting the audience with enigmas, where at the end of the trailer, after the build-up of tension, and after the title of the soap appears, we can see someone has hung themselves. This scene appears unexpectedly, which is effective in grabbing the audiences’ attention and attracting our intended audience. The music used has an upbeat sound with constant changing in tempo to match the mise-en-scene of the scenes shown. As the music is used throughout the trailer, it allows the audience to identify with the trailer and sets the pace and feel of the soap.

Overall, I feel our soap trailer is very effective as it gives the audience an understanding of what the soap is about and what to expect, without giving away the full storyline of the soap. I find this is essential in presenting an effective soap, as it attracts the intended audience rather than misleading an opposed audience.

TV Listings Magazine

In order to produce my TV listings magazine, I used Microsoft Word to produce the cover as well as a software called Adobe Photoshop to cut out a picture of the main characters, which I then added to my magazine cover on Microsoft Word. I began by researching other TV listings magazine covers to gain an insight as to what is expected to be displayed. As our target audience is teenagers, I decided to have the price of my magazine reasonably low as it would be harder for my intended audience to purchase the magazine if its cost is high. I feel that a teenager would commonly buy these types of magazines.

A good strength of my magazine is the use of large text for the title of our soap. The colours used works well with the title as the title doesn’t seem to reveal much about the context of the soap, only that it is based in a school, whereas the colours used are common, casual colours used in TV listing magazines. I decided to use the colours pink and yellow for the title as together they look very feminine, clearly showing the audience that the soap is based on four teenaged female characters, also with the focus of the magazine being on the four characters displayed in the centre of the magazine cover. This is effective in attracting our target audience as we intend to focus primarily on the female market, particularly teenagers and those who will relate well to the storylines of our soap. I feel that the large logo of the magazine also help in making the magazine name clear with the use of the colours red and white, which contrast well with the background, making it stand out more and look more vibrant.

I feel that one aspect of the TV listings magazine which could be improved was the lack of information about the soap we are promoting. The image of the four girls in the centre show different personalities, and having one character looking down and stand away from the other three characters, allows the audience to get ideas on the storylines of the soap; however, not all purchasers will understand the storyline based of the image and title. More information may need to be displayed on the magazine cover in order to make the viewers feel that they are getting value for money when purchasing our magazine.

Website

Looking at our website, I can see the strengths in our websites. For example, the use of feminine colours is effective in attracting our intended audience; which are young females. The pastel colours used worked well in terms of allowing smooth transitions between the different webpages. The menu at the top of the site allows clear navigation around the whole site for viewers. We also added doodles to design our webpage, creating a younger feel to it, promoting our soap to a younger audience. Images and information of the characters are also shown on the webpage, to provide the viewers with details on what to possibly expect in the soap, where some of the things about the characters may relate to the audience. For example, Amber’s character has a drinking problem, which may be something the audience can relate to; further promoting the soap and attracting the target audience.

However, there are also things which could be improved in our website. One thing which could be improved is adding more pages to allow the audience to be more involved in the soap and also so that they have a better understanding of the storylines of the soap. Also, another thing which could be improved is making the website more interactive in order to keep the audience involved and on track of what is going on in the soap.

The three texts successfully link together as a whole product. The TV listings magazine cover provides the audience with a general overview of the soap. The website, on the other hand, provides all the background information of the soap, and finally, the trailer has the purpose of attracting an audience to the soap by showing short clips of what the soap consists of, without producing spoilers. This works well, as together, the three texts deliver to potential viewers the upcoming soap we are producing. The TV listings magazine and website both include the same image of the four main characters. This will help the audience identify with the characters shown in the trailer; and therefore they will be able to make a clear link between the TV listings magazine cover, the website, and the trailer. I feel that we were successful with this as all three texts are different and are aimed at a range of our intended audience; for example the website will attract those that have an interest in surfing the internet, whereas the TV listings magazine will attract those that are consumers of magazines and gossip. However, they all serve one purpose which is to promote the soap.

Evaluation Task - Plan

The evaluation task consists of four questions:

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

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

3.    What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

As we have four group members, we decided to split the four questions among ourselves. The evaluation question I will be answering is the second one. I will be splitting the question into three parts with separate headings: Trailer, TV Listings Magazine and Website.