Final Evaluation

A2 Media CourseworkOCR G324 - Advanced production soap operaEleanor Boocock

Q1

Q3

Q4

Q2

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of existing media products?Q1

How effective is the combination of your MAIN PRODUCT and ANCILLARY text?

Q2

Q3 What have you have learned from AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Q4 How did you use MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES in the CONSTRUCTION and RESEARCH, PLANNING and evaluation stages?

Q1) In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of existing media products?

Q1

SOAP CONVENTIONS AND FORMS

The soap runs on tv, week in week out.

It features continuous storylines (narratives) that normally deal with family issues.

Has the same theme tune or opening sequence to when it first started.

Q1) In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP and CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products?

They are often set in a small setting eg Eastenders square.

British soaps aim to be realistic to make the audience feel like they can relate to the characters.

There is more than one narrative in each episode. As one is resolved another one is underway.

Non diagetic music is rarely used except for the opening sequence. This is to create realism.

Lighting is basic and in some cases they use filters to create a more duller feel. This is so the audience believe its real.

Camera shots are very basic and point of view and high shots are rarely used.

Scenes are very short as they don't want to bore the audience because camera shots are very similar.

Q1

To find out how I USED, DEVELOPED and CHALLENGED soap conventions and forms I will evaluate existing soap operas.

Most episodes are set on the same street. This is so it can create a real atmosphere and familiarity with the audience. It helps the audience believe that the life’s of the character are real, making the episodes more interesting.

Over the shoulder shots helps create a third person (the audience) they feel apart of the scene and experiencing it.

Q1

Children's paintings, pictures help create a family atmosphere and a sense of realism.

Outfits are simple and minimalistic to create an everyday to day character.

Little makeup is used.

Filters are used over cameras to make every scene look duller. This is meant to make the audience feel good about themselves or they could relate to the characters lives.

Filters also help create regional identity of where the soap is set, London

Evaluating an existing soap

Q1

The forth wall in soap operas can never be broken, where there is a communication with the audience. The audience need to feel like they are watching the lives of the characters and not being apart of it.

Emotional storylines are used so they audience feel like they can relate to the character.

How have I USED conventions and forms?We used a road that is well known to lots of people. Also even though we didn't have a filter to make it look duller, it does anyway. This helps the audience relate to the surroundings.

Costumes are simple so create realism.

Minimalistic makeup makes the character look more natural and unthreatening to the audience.

We used close up shots which are a convention of a soap as it can help the audience understand how the character is feeling.

The forth wall

Q1

How have I USED conventions and forms?

The use of an emotional storyline. This is a chance for the audience to relate, and understand how the characters are feeling. Making the viewing experience alot more interesting.

Using a recognisable logo and colour to help attract the right audience Q1

We decided that we would use E4 as our channel to show our soap on. We studied a Hollyoaks later trailer.

We used title cards between scene sin our trailer to engage the audience and to create an enigma.

Q1

How have I CHALLENGED conventions and forms?

It is unusual to see a point of view shot in a soap because it could be seen as breaking the forth wall. Also this shot was filmed handheld and not with a tripod which is uncommon in soap because it is more expensive to do these types of shots rather than simple still ones.

Another way we challenged the conventions were that we showed blood, blood is rarely shown on soaps as they are broadcasted at a family viewing time so to make sure they don't upset the audience they tend not to show upsetting scenes that involve blood. However because of our target audience age of 16-24 it wouldn't be as shocking for them.

How have I CHALLENGED conventions and forms?

At the start of a soap there is a theme tune, or opening sequence. For our soap we created a title sequence introducing the characters and setting the scene. We challenged the normal conventions as soaps such as Coronation street and Eastenders don't introduce the actors at the start. We had 3 narratives that all combine to make one story.

Q1

How have I CHALLENGED conventions and forms?

In soaps they don’t use flash backs as it may become to confusing for the viewing public if they watch them 3 to 4 times a week. Also if they sue them often they can lose the effect they originally have. I chose to use a flash back in my edit of the trailer to make it more interesting and to make the audience ask questions about my soap.

To make the flash back work effectively I used a different effect on the flash back scenes. This way they wouldn't al merge into one and it would be easier for the audience to understand.

Q1 Q4

Q2) How effective is the combination of your MAIN PRODUCT and ANCILLARY text?

Q2

Existing Front cover

Mast head in top third of page

Date and price

Barcode

Website

Slang for the name of the soap to help connect the reader.

Capitals to incise the reader

No particular colour theme. Brighter colours attract the readers.

Colour of the masthead is the same each week

Enigma, so the reader will read the story inside

Plugs

Q2

Masthead in top third of the page

Plugs

Cover stars eyes in top third to connect with the reader.

Enigma to incise the reader Barcod

e

Website

Price

No colour scheme or house style

Tabs so the reader can flick to a page easily

My front cover

Q2

Different narratives

Same genre runs throughout the poster and series

E4 Logo to create brand identity

Time and date of when it will be shown

Eye contact to connect with audience

Main characters

Existing Billboard My Billboard

Q2

How is brand created?

To be able to create a brand we had to do research on existing E4 shows. We stuck to the same colour theme of purple and white so it would be a recognisable logo. We chose E4 because we thought our target audience would watch E4 over other channels such as ITV or BBC. Even though E4 don’t show soaps we still thought it was suitable because our target audience are ages between 16-24 and this is the age group that attract E4 the most.

We found out from E4 style guide what fonts to use. This is so the audience will recognised the brand of E4 and watch the new soap because they trust the brand.

Q2

How I used Channel 4 style guide to create a house brand.

Because we chose E4 as our channel, any products we made had to fit the E4 style guide. This is our screen shots of the information we found and what we used to make our product apart of E4 the brand.

Q2

How I used Channel 4 style guide to create a house brand.

The institution is clearly visible through all our products.

Q2

Audience and Representation

•Age 16-24•Part time employment•Still in some sort of education•Use the internet regularly•Watch TV regularly•Disposable income•Living at home•Interested in music•Go out at weekend

Q2 Q3

Representing age and genre through my products

Q2

By using young woman characters it appeals to our demographic. We used big wigs all which were different colours to represent youth.

We used fur coats and leggings to represent the current trends and to show the age of our demographic.

All the stars on the front cover of my magazine are young, again targeting our audience.

The characters facial expressions highlight the genre is that of a drama/soap opera.Also the big fake hair and body language are representative of parody.

Q3)What have you have learned from AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Q3

How did we find our target audience?

When it came to deciding on a target audience we looked at some programmes that had different genres to the ones we are used to normally. We also looked at similar genre groups, and because our soap is full of young people we decided to study programmes such as Hollyoaks who's target age group is the same as ours. We also looked at other such as Misfits and Skins.

How did the audience research and response influence the construction of your products?

As a group we decided to make a questionnaire which I asked my friends. Family and other groups on the class. We all gathered our results at the end to decide on a certain group of people who to aim our soap at.I put all of out results in graphs.

Q3

These are the questions and results from our group questionnaire

What is your gender?

What is your age?

What is your current employment

What is your marriage status?

Q3

These are the questions and results from our group questionnaire

Do you watch soaps?

If so which ones?

How often do you watch the soaps?

How do you watch soaps?

Q3

Audience feedback I got from my trailer

• Music and Lyrics convey narratives•Parallel narratives converging•Shot types are good and they are varied•Branding clear•Audience clear (young females) this is clear through cast, channel, locations, soundtrack•Transactions work well

•“In for the kill” lyrics need to be heard•Some of the reaction shots need to be a little longer to be more effective

After reading my audience feedback I made one change which was the lyrics change. My original version is in my blog along with my new version.

Q3) How did you use MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES in the CONSTRUCTION and RESEARCH, PLANNING and evaluating stages?

Q4

Q4

Media technologies were important in the research, planning and making of our product. Each played a role which made the trailer look more professional.

Construction. We used a number of different technologies to create our trailer such as the use

of hd cameras, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe premiere elements.

When I first used the camera in the prelimary task I found it difficult to work it effectively, I am glad I got the chance to practise before shooting our real trailer as I feel I benefited from it greatly. It also made me more confident around the camera and I experimented with different shots. We also used a still camera to take our photos for our ancillary products. A lot of thought had to go into lighting and positioning when taking the photos.

Q4

Adobe PhotoshopFor the ending of my soap, i found out of E4 style guide that the title, time and

date all appear at the bottom corner. To make it look effective I copied the skins version of this from the style guide.

I used these tools at the side to delete the writing but make sure the creases in in logo were still there so it looked effective. Then I used the colour tool at the bottom to make sure whole logo was the same colour.

After editing it turned out liked this and I was then able to enter my own text.

Q4

Continued

After getting the right text of E4 Style guide i was able to copy and paste it into my logo.

I found using Photoshop fairly easy as i had used it previously in my AS work. However a few stages that I was unsure about was how to make sure all the logo was the same colour. I feel more confident with using Photoshop now and I feel it made my work look more professional.

Q4

Adobe Premiere Elements

When we first started with elements we had to upload our video clips. To do this you click on get media, then on the yellow folder. I found this it be fairly simple to do.

To shorten the clips, i double clicked on the video clip and used the tools provided to make it the length I wanted it. .

To add effects or transitions to make the clips flow together you click on the icons in to top right hand corner. Then drag it down onto the clip.

Q4

Once I had finished editing you can upload it straight to YouTube from Adobe elements. I found this easier than doing it through YouTube's website.

This is where I put my music, you can also alter the volume at different stages by using the audio button at the side.

I found Adobe premiere elements tricky to start but I started to gain confidence by using different tools everything became easier. Problems I found was that sometimes it would freeze and shut down, and I would lose any work hat wasn't saved.

Q4

Research

For my research we used YouTube to look at existing products. YouTube is a really good way of researching as it is easy to use, it gives you suggestions on what you might like to watch. Also because we made an account we can subscribe to other accounts who might have a videos of similar soap trailers.

I also found YouTube useful when looking for existing products like the Hollyoaks later trailer, who killed Archie and the Coronation street 50th Anniversary crash. All of these trailers are the ones we liked and set our trailer around. .

We had to upload our final piece to YouTube and then put it on our blog. Through doing research on YouTube we found that we could do this easily by pressing the embed button and copying the hyperlink onto our blogs.

Q4

Research

When doing our research we found 3 video clips on YouTube that all had factors we liked. The 3 links are below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zVAmtUmkNE

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

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

We took factors from all 3 of these trailers to produce our new trailer. We found YouTube very useful when researching

Q4

Planning

When we first found out our brief we edited a short film from using comic strips. This was so we could get used to using the cameras.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_di-NDFsdR0&feature=player_embedded

We were able to get used to using zoom and fades. Doing this task made me more confident with using the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yygJaPzQTQU&feature=player_embedded

After the comic strip task we filmed a trailer in our college. This was so we could get used to writing a script, using different angles, making sure lighting was good and other aspects like sound. This task really showed us at how much we needed to prepare for our real trailer.

While we were researching and constructing our trailer we set up a blogger account on blog spot. This is so we could upload anything we found that would help us in making our trailer. All our script ideas, costume and existing products are all on our blogs. I found this useful as if I wanted to refer back to something I had recently found I could easily do that by just going on my blog. I problem I found was that I didn't keep up to track with it as I would have liked to have done.

It also makes my planning work look allot more interesting as I used websites such as slide share to present my work

Slideshare was very easy to use and it made my PowerPoint more interesting to watch. Also it expanded my knowledge of different technologies available.

Q4

EvaluationI chose to use PowerPoint for my evaluation as I think it makes looking at lots of work more interesting. Also i think you can present work nicer by colour coding different sections. I used screen shots from my other work to show how I had achieved different things and I have also included YouTube links to show work when i have spoke about it. I used tabs at the bottom of each question to make it easier to understand which question i am talking about. I think it worked effectively as I was able to refer to other questions with this method rather than repeating myself.