Evaluation final!

Q1: How did you USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE codes and conventions of real media products?

The trailer is for a soap opera, with the sub-genre of melodrama. The trailer was based on mixing our ideas of what we believed a teen soap would be like with the conventions of a trailer. I really wanted to make my piece feel like a skins trailer, as this is something that attracts teenage audiences (with our market audience being teenagers). To research for this trailer I watched several trailers but found a brilliant one showing lots of footage from Skins series one; this really helped me study the conventions and feel to what I wanted to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uGcgp9Jd0M

• If I was to compare my soap to the skins trailer I would say shot type and positioning looks extremely real soap like. I tried to follow conventions with the positioning of my camera. If you look at the screenshot below of a café scene in skins, and on our Nangreave trailer you will see that the shots look extremely similar in the way they are framed with the shot reverse shot over the shoulder. I did this because I thought it would make the trailer look a lot more real. The other thing you will notice from those shots is the fact the faces of the characters are extremely well lit, I really wanted to have accent light, which would make the concentrate on the character. I noticed that in most soap trailers and clips that people’s faces are lit very well so this was a convention I really wanted to portray.

As you can see both of these images the framing and shot type is very similar.

As you can see I have used the convention of a high angle POV looking down at something shot. This was used on the Skins trailer (Left) and my Nangreave trailer (Right). The shot is used a lot in soaps, especially melodramas as it highlights a certain (Usually important) object to the audience to make it more dramatic to the storyline. As you can see both of these images are very dramatic as you would associate a lot of money like that as something to do with crime and obviously a pregnancy test symbolises a baby which is very important.

The one thing I challenged the skins trailer on is that I shot my trailer in 16:9 whereas the skins trailer was shot in 4:3, this was important for me to do because the Skins trailer isn’t very modern and I wanted to follow the forms of more Recent soaps By shooting in widescreen, this in my eyes may have been challenging the forms and conventions of the skins trailer but it is also following the conventions of today’s soap trailers. As you can see form the two screenshots of my trailer and a very recent Skins trailer is that they are both in widescreen.

From the left is a very old Skins trailer shot in 4:3, whereas next to it you can see my trailer on the far right a very modern skins trailer shot in 16:9.

The next convention I used was the use of a soundtrack, the one thing I did differently (challenging conventions) compared to that of a real media trailer for teenagers was to not use and upbeat party track, but instead use a song what everybody knew, I truthfully using “Keane – somewhere only we know” was a clever choice as it really expressed the mood of what I wanted to portray from the trailer. After making my trailer I did find a trailer for Skins in 2013 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=NQPHjGseENw) which did use a piece of music that sounded very similar to the song I used, this shows that although I wasn’t originally following conventions of the trailer I was originally looking at, the trailer I made has fitted into conventions of another trailer. The one thing I did what you don’t find on many soap trailers is I used a copy-righted piece of music – this is something that I shouldn’t have done as if the soap was the feature on TV this would be illegal without permission, but as the soap was for my own person use I thought it would be okay to use the song, next time I will consider using a non-copyrighted piece though.

Just like most trailers that use Music the song I used had to be cut together very well for it to match the shots, if you listen very carefully to the trailer I made you can hear the song change to different parts, this was to make the song fit in with the shots but to also cut it down by a lot, as the trailer couldn’t be too long, unlike a real media trailer, if you listen well enough you can hear the song changing, this is something I could have changed if given more time, but in the end I couldn’t which I was extremely gutted about, but meeting deadlines is a convention when working in media. Just like most trailers we had to dip the soundtrack when a person is talking, this was key to letting the audience here them talk; this was something in the end that I was complimented on when getting feedback about my trailer. This is a big convention in real media and it was important that I followed this.

The next thing I use which is used in real media is an ident. This was not produced by me, but was borrowed from the college media technician; I did add it in and change the time and positioning of it. I placed the ident in the bottom corner; you usually find this with most E4 trailers (As I decided that my trailer should be shown on E4 is that is where most teen soaps are shown). The ident features the date and time, we decided to go against the typical use of putting the name in as we thought it would be more suitable to put the name in the background as you can see with the Nangreave sign. One thing I don’t like about the ident is that ours isn’t big enough and that really annoys me when comparing it to a real media piece like the screenshot of the skins piece next to the screenshot of my trailer.

This shows a CU of two people side on. Both characters are in a state of muse looking into the distance. The close up is used to express and dramatize the emotion of the characters face. CU are used a lot in Melodramas as they are a great way of making someone's emotions seen to the audience, and this then creates a lot more drama. The lighting is very different in these shots as the shot on the right is lit so that it is clear they are outside, whereas the one on the right is very dim (Not as bright as usual). This is probably to represent the emotion of the character.

Our poster has had its original colour altered like the one on the left. As you can see they are both a lot darker than what the image would look like. This is a common convention for melodrama posters as this then represents the dramatic darkness of them. The other thing constant in both of these is the use of the E4 ident, this is slightly different on each as it appears the Skins poster have actually altered theirs to look like scrunched up paper whereas ours is the same. The use of the information on the idents is also different as we were advertising a start date whereas the one on the left was just a promotional image to say the already successful skins was starting again. The use of a girl surrounded by boys is obvious on both which could mean a love triangle which is highly common in melodramas. We challenged this poster a bit and used the picture of Manchester in the background, this was because we wanted to create a strong regional identity in ours, you don’t get this much in Skins as they focus more on the story (This was slightly out of convention for a melodrama for us and we should of changed this).

• Both theses images look very different but both have very similar conventions. Firstly they both have the title of the show over placed in big letters so the audience knows the name of the show. The fact the name is in big letters expresses the drama of it, which is what a melodrama is going for. Both use names of a place as the names of their soap, and both use background images of the place their soap is based. There is also a company ident on both, on the Dallas one there is a warner ident and on the Nangreave poster there is a E4 ident. Just like the Dallas poster the characters in the Nangreave poster are all placed specially so that the image can show the interaction between the characters, for example Max is placed behind as he is looked as a stalker and you would expect him behind people. The Dallas image shows something similar in the fact JR and his brother are facing different ways.

• Both theses images look very different but both have very similar conventions. Firstly they both have the title of the show over placed in big letters so the audience knows the name of the show. The fact the name is in big letters expresses the drama of it, which is what a melodrama is going for. Both use names of a place as the names of their soap, and both use background images of the place their soap is based. There is also a company ident on both, on the Dallas one there is a warner ident and on the Nangreave poster there is a E4 ident. Just like the Dallas poster the characters in the Nangreave poster are all placed specially so that the image can show the interaction between the characters, for example Max is placed behind as he is looked as a stalker and you would expect him behind people. The Dallas image shows something similar in the fact JR and his brother are facing different ways.

Here is a comparison between my website and the Skins website. As you can see they both have a dramatic single person header photo. On this photo there are links to twitter and to 4od. Another comparison between the websites is the use of the colour purple, this is quite signature with the E4 shows. The three columns under the header are laid out very similar on both pieces. The use of the E4 sign in the background is also the same. The use of the channel 4 synergy banner is also key at the top. These are all conventions from the real media website.

(Also can be applied to Q2)

• These are two title cards used in two different melodramas, one of them being my Nangreave trailer and the other being a trailer for the return of Dallas. The trailers feature these title cards to add to the “drama”, as you can see with the word “drama” on the bottom Dallas card.

• Title cards a re a huge convention in a lot of soap trailers. Mine was added last minute and really adds tot the effect of the piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKzdP0qres• This is a link to a short voice over of my soap

discussing technology (Question 4) and conventions of soaps, which is part of this question.

Q2. How effective is the COMBINATION of your main and ancillary texts?

As you can see my ancillary task and my main task feature the same characters, same story and also the same place. This really builds the strong identity we are going for and also looks professional as you would expect to see the stars of the soap in the poster.

My main piece (The trailer) features on the ancillary product of the website several times. The use of synergising products together on a soap website are very common, this is a convention you would expect. As you can see the trailers are the same meaning I’m bringing the two media technologies together. The trailer features the same characters that are use on the website in photos and biographies. The combination is very effective as it really makes my website look like a piece of real media.

This is the poster for Nangreave. It features all the characters features in the trailer. As you can see there is my character, Robyn’s, Alice’s, Max’s and Chester’s. The characters are also trying to re-act the way the characters are feeling. In the soap Robyn is the main character and this is present in the trailer. As you can see we are all looking at Robyn to represent her being the centre of attention. The use of Max being over Alice is to show him as a stalker to her, which he is in the soap. The fact the acting and emotion is there really makes it look like a professional effective set of well linked tasks towards the soap.

Each on of these tasks have on e major thing in common which is the use of the E4 ident. The ident is used to show that all these products come from the same channel. The ident is one the main conventions of a soap product and makes sure that all the tasks are all linked together. The colour purple is also present through these products as it links back to them all being on the same channel.

All together the tasks link together really well, they use the same characters, colours, story and name. As you can see below they all look very similar to each other and this is what you would expect from a professional soap.

Q3: What have you LEARNED from audience feedback?

• The age question was asked so I could learn about what ages watches what soaps, so I could find out a target audience and aim my soap for them. We then wanted to find out what channel was watched most by teens so that we could aim our soap for the people who watch that channel, we found out that the majority of people watched E4 which is for teenagers. This helped us in figuring out what kind of trailer/soap we would try and make.

This is to show me what the most popular soaps are so I could get a better idea into the demographic I would be aiming for. The audience I noticed that watched the most were teens watching Skins, this is something that I really took on board when picking a soap.

• This gave me an idea into how much the soap should be shown each week, it is clear that the soap shouldn’t be shown for too long as people didn’t watch their favoured soap for too long, as you can see it is mostly less than 2 hours. I then found out that all my participants were from college, this was brilliant as this was my target audience.

This is where we all started to get confused as the audience suggested they didn’t like melodrama when they all liked Skins, we then realised that they probably didn’t understand what melodrama meant. Everyone suggested that getting drunk and partying was part of there weekend so we wanted to include this.

Name of Reviewer: MikeName of soap trailer I've reviewed: NangreaveName of person who's film I'm reviewing: Nangreave

Positive Feedback: The clip of the bullet falling in slow motion is very dramatic and in-keeping with the mood.Good transitions into different clips which fit well with the music.

Areas for Improvement:

Abrupt stop of music where it changes to a different track is cheesy. Sound effect is not needed. Background music at beginning needs removing.

Here is a piece of Feedback given to me for my Draft version.

Name of Reviewer: Michael DelaneyName of soap trailer I've reviewed: NangreaveName of person who's film I'm reviewing: Harrison

Positive Feedback:

Good use of different camera angles, especially the bullet cartridge scene Great music choice, it really links and adds to the emotions of the trailer.

Areas for improvement:

The speech sound needs to be clearer, the music could be quieter at parts or add the speech afterward Hard to understand what the storyline is, add some title cards which help the audience understand certain themes.

Here is another piece of Feedback given to me for my Draft version.

I took the feedback on board and changed quite a few things. I realised that the trailer had very bad sound quality before my feedback, but my feedback confirmed this, I then decided to use my technical skills on iMovie and change the audio settings so that the trailer was clearer to understand. This meant “Dipping” the audio at points and strengthening the diegetic dialogue by making it louder and boosting the sound. The next thing I took on board was the use of title cards to give a theme and message to the trailer. This worked out very well afterwards and looked very good and conventional compared to normal soap conventions. The title cards were very dramatic as well to fit in with the convention of a melodrama being dramatic. (I also used the E4 font as a little extra so that they looked like they were from E$ and not just some crummy college student piece). The biggest change of all was the removal of the opening backing track. This was hard to do as the original track was specifically picked and the clips were moved around specifically to fit that music, but we changed it to more Keane and it worked brilliantly.

Overall Feedback of Final Piece• Up to now everybody has said that the final version of the trailer is

brilliant and looks very realistic like a real soap trailer. A lot of people are complimenting the choice in music as well, although risky at first this really paid of. One person said that “The use of Keane added to the drama lots”. This was perfect feedback as we were trying to go for the dramatic feel in which you would expect from a melodrama. It seems to be the teenagers which prefer the trailer, this could be down to the fact that the soap was made with a teenage audience in mind. This means that we have achieved our goal of impressing our target audience.

• The use of the slow motion bullet drop has been complimented an awful lot with people saying “The bullet dropping was so cool and added loads of drama and mystery”.

• My own personal feedback is that the way the story progresses through such short dialogue and not many shots is really impressive.

Q4: How did you use TECHNOLOGIES in the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages?

Comparison of real media technology to the technology I used.

• The first comparison I notice between the piece I made and the skins piece I researched was the quality of the shot. I was really interested in getting the shots as clear and as High Definition as possible as that is one of the main conventions of a soap on TV (And most things on TV). I really thought this would help make my piece look professional and follow forms and conventions so I managed to get hold of DSLR and condenser microphone so I could make it look and sound brilliant. If you were to watch my trailer and a skins trailer you would notice a big comparison in the clarity of shot and sound One of main areas of good feedback was that the clip looked extremely clear and realistic and that it looked a lot like a real media trailer which I was really proud of. Expressing the clarity of sound was something that also had to be played about with in editing like most soap operas would do, as edited sound is a convention of real media soaps.

• One of the first pieces of technology I used was “Youtube.com”. This one of the biggest websites with one of the biggest collection of videos in the world. The website gave me the opportunity to explore and research different clips regarding different types of soaps

• The story boards was made form a template on Microsoft word, which is a document application for computers. Microsoft word is used by pretty much every media production company as a form of writing scripts/screen directions etc. We also used Microsoft office to produce a manuscript as well. Microsoft office is a technology!

• DSLR –This one of the main pieces of technology I used. This a HD camera that gave a very clear image. It made my soap look very professional.

• Another technology I used was a YouTube converting site. I used this to get the Keane song, as I was only using the song for personal use and not for the use of profits it is theoretically legal for me to use. To download the video you have to firstly insert the video link into the YouTube converting site then chose a format you would like to use, I used an MP4 for my video when converting that. This works well with iMovie. I then chose an area where to save it on the mac, this is a very important process so my file wont go missing once I have downloaded it. I then inserted this into iMovie when I was done.

• iMovie was the next piece of media technology I used. This was key to making the piece look as professional and sharp as possible. The first thing I did was import my clips into the software, I did this by clipping file and import. The next thing I did was to import the clips onto my movie timeline in order of how I want them to play. The one thing I like to do lots when using editing software is to make the clips very short and sharp, this is to get rid of the awkward silence at the beginning of them. To do this I zoom right into the clip and crop it where I think the sound changes. This is a very good thing that iMovie allows you to do. iMovie also allows me to import the videos and sound I downloaded earlier. I added these to the video and then made a few adjustments to them by adding music fades out etc. this made the clip look a lot more professional.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pKzdP0qres

• This is a link to the documentary voice over I made to talk about technologies (As well as conventions).