Question 2

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

In addition to creating our documentary we also constructed a 30-second radio trailer and a double page spread from a television listings magazine, the aim of these products were to endorse and advertise our products, these creations had to be eye-catching and persuasive, convincing people – not just our target audience – but the general television viewing population to tune into our documentary. The overall aim was to create two ancillary products that complimented the main product effortlessly, above all else across the three products needed to work together well and consistency was key.

Target Audience: “…Focused on teen, by teens & consumed by teens, too.”

Target Audience: Males and Females aged 16-19 years, ranging further to those in their early twenties and beyond.

Our primary target audience was teenagers and young adults making their way through the education system, primarily the focus was on teenagers aged sixteen and older due to the fact they would of left school and would currently be experiencing college/university for the first time, naturally we wanted to focus mainly on older teens as our documentaries main focus was after all bullying in higher education and bullying in academia, naturally we wanted to bring attention to an area of bullying that was clearly neglected by education institutions, government and the news media. One of the main reasons why this was such an obvious target audience for us was due to something I have already talked about in question one; ‘New Media’. One of conventions of ‘New Media’ is that the users are also participants, this usually relates to Facebook for example where the users of the site are able to participate in its running, dictating what appears on their page, managing it and making suggestions about future features, in the case of our documentary many of the same principles apply as the people who participate in it (interviewees, students at the college, members of the general public) are also destined to become users of the product (mainly teenagers due to the fact there is a direct correlation between ‘New Media’ and youth as well emerging technologies allowing as much as 24 hour media access) not only watching the documentary but also criticising and praising it, evaluating its message and linking the documentary to the online global conversation about bullying. This is why aiming our bullying documentary at teens makes perfect sense, because they are the ones most likely to spread the word about it so to speak, re-uploading it to various sites video sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion and discussing it on forums and above all else because bullying in higher education is relevant to them most they are the ones who can stop it through the use of social media and demanding something be done about it, above all else it matters to them most, to their age group more so than any other older or younger. The aim of the documentary being to raise awareness and ultimately put a stop to bullying then essentially it must connect with the generation of teens who are currently being bullied and doing the bullying higher education.

Although this is certainly an issue that lay in the students consciousness and mattered to them most, even if some did not realise it that did not mean that it could not appeal to various other demographics, in fact due to the message being a very important social issue we wanted to make sure as many people saw the documentary as possible. Our secondary target audience would be for example parents of those teenagers at secondary or school level, parents/caregivers/teachers and older members of society were certainly people whom we targeted our documentary at, as they also

hold the power to impact social issues as the likelihood is being older they wield more power and influence and have the authority to influence social issues and society positively if issues are brought to the forefront of their agenda, that is the reasons behind our primary and secondary target audience although we did go further to involve the broadest amount of people we could by asking members of the public about focus on bullying when children were younger, this informs and involves first time parents who may educate their child on the issue from what they learnt from watching the documentary, this had an extremely positive effect as not only does it teach the next generation to grow up without having to bully or be the victim of bullying but it also passes the knowledge on younger children perhaps who are only a short while away from secondary school, still in primary school but on the cusp of being a teenager meaning it is relevant to them or will be soon but they might not be able to watch it as it airs at 9:00pm (due to the distressing nature of the subject matter) being too young they are still able to benefit from it as the information and knowledge the documentary offers is passed along down the chain. This is ultimately what we wanted to achieve, we had a clearly defined primary and secondary audience but overall we wanted to involve as many people as we possibly could.

Further information on Target Audience:

Traditionally under the various demographics society is split according to various different characteristics, with certain programmes aiming themselves at particular groups in society, this is not something we wanted to do, we wanted our documentary to be as broad as possible as I have already outlined, for two main reasons; one, the broader the appeal the more commercial success the programme will enjoy as the higher the viewing figures the more companies will want to take out advertising space and as a result more revenue is produced. Secondly, bullying is a problem based around excluding people or preying on certain minorities, naturally we wanted to discuss the problem as something that involved the entire society, not by focusing on a specific race, religion or people with a particular disability. We do however talk about race relations, ethnic diversity and sexual orientation in our documentary but in a sense relating to why such minorities e.g. homosexuals often fall victim to bullying. Finally, location was also an important factor, we travelled to the Sixth Form College, Solihull an area rich in diversity so it was clearly an appropriate location, in addition to that deprived areas in which there is diversity and problems caused by it such as animosity between different religious or ethnic groups is somewhere this documentary should be exhibited in order to defuse the situation.

Ancillary Products:

Judging how both of the ancillary products appeals to the target audiences shows whether all three products are combined together effectively, as well the question, are the two ancillary tasks selling the main product (the documentary) effectively enough? One example of how both products clearly do back up the main product and themselves are consistent as pieces of advertisements can be seen through the use of clips, excerpts and photos from the documentary in the ancillary tasks.

Radio Trail –

In the radio trail much like how we created the opening montage in the documentary (the reconstruction of a student in higher education being bullied) we overlapped a series of clips, these excerpts both from the opening reconstruction in the documentary and extracts from the voiceover

from various points in the documentary were combined and overlapped in order to get the desired effect. Many of the extracts from the voiceover are key pieces of narration, memorable and likely to have been stuck in viewer’s minds from the radio trail when you come to watch the documentary which is one of the reasons we chose to include them as they combine together so well. The effect this montage has on a radio listener is that it becomes uneasy to listen, difficult to concentrate on an individual piece of speech as a single voice is constantly tuning in and out and overlapping the last statement, making the listener uncomfortable was something that was required as bullying was a touching and delicate issue to focus on it was important not to let this documentary go to waste so if shock tactics were required we were willing to use them, making the audience feel uncomfortable was just one tactic/convention in which we employed to keep their attention and getting them tuning in once the documentary aired on television. Furthermore the repetition of the words such as ‘Why’ and ‘Bullying’ work to distress the listener further, tugging on their emotions and making them ask fundamental questions; ‘bullying is clearly happening, but why do we let it go on?’

Aside from the clips we extracted from the documentary to construct the radio trail, the rest of the speech the radio trail contained was written specifically for it. We wrote a short script for the radio trail (which can be found on the blog) and I read it, my voiceover starts and ends the documentary providing context for the clips heard. When I read the script for the radio trail I decided to go for quite an enthusiastic tone in order to entice and interest listeners, mentioning the time and channel twice was another effort to grab listener’s attention and latch onto it earlier in the advertisement. In addition to that when reading the voiceover for the radio trail in character as a radio disc jockey I tried to make the character sound concerned when I read the script, lines such as; “It sounds the touching subject…” creates poignancy and concern for the listener and affirms to them that this is a serious topic that is going to be discussed in this documentary. A final important factor to note is apart from my voiceover the only other point in the documentary were one voice isn’t speaking over the top of another is when the montage falls silent and the question is repeated which was first asked in the documentary; “So, why is it that an issue as widespread as bullying is so neglected?” this the perfect extract from the documentary in which to end the montage on as it poses the an obvious question but one that is increasingly difficult to answer.

Overall I think the radio trail is an effective piece of advertising and works well to sell the documentary, I feel the radio trails clearly explains albeit briefly what they can expect from our documentary. The radio trail will be on Capital FM the reasoning behind selecting this radio station and making sure the primary target audience heard it was something I will now discuss.

Capital FM –

Capital Radio will be the perfect station in which to broadcast our radio trail as it will easily reach the right target audience for a documentary on Channel 4. Capital is a network of nine stations. The stations serve an audience of 7.1 million listeners and target a core audience in the 12-20 age group, this is the perfect demographic as I have already mentioned our primary target audience for our documentary is teens aged sixteen years and onward, the fact that the station actually targets younger children sometimes as young as 12 means it will reach other people outside of our primary target audience, this was good news and presented another good reason for choosing Capital Radio to exhibit our documentary. Besides the fact that the radio station was popular with the young demographic there was another important factor which sway us toward selecting Capital Radio, the

fact they have such a large listenership, with millions as I have already mentioned tuning in everyday, furthermore the location was also an important factor as Capital reaches out to people all over the country, airing radio shows in major cities such as Birmingham and Manchester and London, this is important as the documentary will be able to reach people across the country, nationwide, something we wouldn’t of been able to achieve if we had selected a smaller station that didn’t broadcast to as many major cities as Capital does. It was especially important to reach out to big cities not just because of their large potential viewership but because of their diversity and large proportions of young people, all of whom are targeted by the documentary and it is essential such people see it if the issue is ever going to be combatted.

In conclusion, the radio station and television network we selected go together perfectly, attracting the same target audience and having a large viewership/listenership and the ability to reach people all over the country meaning as people as possible will see and hear about the documentary and be able to catch it when it airs on Channel 4. The elements that we put in our radio trailer, such as the documentary clips, voiceover, background beat and ambient sound (such as the laughter) all help back up the documentary and combine them both very well together, the selection of Channel 4 and Capital Radio work to combine the two products even more successfully.

Double Page Spread – Photos

We used screen shots from the documentary as images in our television listings double page spread, this helped create ‘brand identity’ between the documentary and double page spread. The idea of creating ‘brand identity’ across the three products is seen here for a second time as we included excerpts from the documentary in the ancillary tasks in this case it was images and in the case of the radio trail it

was sound bites from the voiceover and the opening reconstruction not only does this link the products together very well but it also showed elements (be it sound or stills) from the documentary views can expect to see later when the documentary airs. This helps them get a ‘feel’ for the documentary early on, making them think that they have an inside track as they already have knowledge about the topic and the documentary’s general message due to reading the double page spread or either listening to the radio trail.

Only two of the images on the double page spread are screen shots (the images are clearly labelled with orange arrows above to designate them from the rest, while the rest were original images) the reason why we selected to use images is obvious as I have already discussed it aimed to create ‘brand identity’ but the reason behind selecting those two screen shots above all of the images we could of captured from the documentary is a rather more complex issue. The reason behind selecting the black and white image in the top right hand corner was mainly because throughout the

Screen Shots

products we were trying to connote the loneliness and isolation experienced by those who get bullied this can be seen throughout the documentary during the reconstruction and the title sequence for example when I (playing the character of a bullied student) appear to be crying on a bench alone, expressing how those who are considered ‘loners’ are often the ones bullied in the first place, the harassment and intimidation eventually leads to the victim shutting themselves off from society even further, this is something we wanted to continue to put across to the audience as we felt we did it successfully in the documentary, so we chose to include this image in the documentary to continue to promote the idea of isolation and the ill effects it causes, this can be clearly observed through the nature of the image my character is walking far ahead alone, nearest the camera so the emotions of the victim can be clearly seen, three girls can be seen in the background walking a short distance behind, laughing, the caption reads; “Deflated…John was harassed walking to college,” the caption clearly highlights what is happening in this image and what the documentary itself is going to be about, not only is the ‘John’ character experiencing at the very least verbal and emotional abuse (as the three background characters are laughing at him) he is also totally isolated from friends, teachers and peers. This is what this image aimed to demonstrate our reason for including this screen shot in black and white we felt made it more effective as it contributed to the idea of sadness, depression and misery emotions often experienced by those who are bullied, the black and white imagery highlights the bleak and gloomy world of bullying victims were there is no laughter, joy or amusement.

The second image inserted into the double page spread from the documentary highlights an entirely different concept of bullying, as with many other documentaries produced previous to ours they focus on physical and verbal confrontation, this is obviously something we too tackled, but our documentary aimed to paint a broad picture of the bullying issue and when doing this we decided to include a brief section on cyber-bullying toward the end of the documentary. In the world of bullying using new technologies to harass and intimidate is an ever increasing problem, one of our aims was to highlight how through the use of social networking sites bullies are able to pull in large groups and anonymously meaning the bullying now follows students home, infiltrating the home environment, the bullies are able to tap into the various number of sites available to them to harass and torment victims, this is something we tried to present toward the end of our documentary highlighting the fact that if something isn’t done about the bullying issue it is going to become increasingly worse as new technologies mean it’s becoming harder and harder to identify who is doing the bullying, this reason is one of the main motivations behind selecting the image we did, the bully in the photo can be seen using twitter (one of the many social networking sites available) to post an abuse tweet to fictional victim John; “I’m going to knock you out when I see you!” when you see the clip in the documentary in which we show the abusive message being set there is clearly grammatical errors and excessive use of exclamation marks, we did this to make subtle references toward the fact the bullying is often ‘forgotten’ or ‘left behind’ by the education system, jealous of others success and intelligence, feeling cheated they prey on those they are envious of, this is often a defence mechanism as they themselves are feeling weak and cheated by society as a whole. Furthermore the fact that the bullies face is obscured in the photograph aimed to highlight the anonymity of it all, as people are able to get away with bullying those they see in class every day without the victims, parents or staff ever finding out, the fact they’re face isn’t shown contributes to the idea of them being cowardly and hiding behind the screen, a sentiment often express by anti-bullying advocates toward those who cyber-bully peers.

Furthermore the other two main images on the double page spread were original images, with the smaller image on the right below the black and white image which shows the bullied John character played by myself sitting in the Foetal Position, this was done to highlight the extreme trauma the bullied character is going through the Foetal Position is often associated with those who suffer anxiety attacks, often assuming the position during particularly traumatic episodes, this is an indication that our victim through the relentless bullying and having nobody to turn to has caused him to have a breakdown of sorts, we tried to reinforce this not only by the caption; “Isolated…John was shunned by his peers,” but also the camera shot and angle we employed. We deliberately included the lockers down the left hand side, as well as taking the shot from a fair distance away, we did this to create depth to the image, the lockers look as if they run off into the distance giving the impression that the victim, John is a ‘long way off’ so to speak, this represents his damaged emotion state, he is lonely, broken down but he may as well be a million miles away as nobody can really see what is taking place. Overall we felt this image was highly effective, as well as the fact it contributed to the idea of ‘brand identity’, although this was an original image taken specifically for the double page spread we used similar camera angles to achieve shots at various points in the documentary you can see an example of this below:

Another example of the bullied character being found in the Foetal Position, to represent anxiety as well as the use of camera angles and positioning to make the character seem a much further distant away than they are in reality.

The final image, the main image in fact is an example of an area in which we had problems and had to make compromises, if you watch the opening title sequence in the documentary you will see a very similar, almost identical image of the main character John sitting on a bench alone, crying. The only element that is significant is the lack of snow in the shots on the documentary whilst snow is present in the main image found on the double page spread, the reason behind this was severe time constraints and a series of problematic weather conditions forced us to shoot some of our shots in the snow, this did not affect the documentary but rather the main image of the double page spread, we did consider the option of using a still from the documentary but when it was blown up to the appropriate size the quality was often grainy and as we didn’t want to compromise the quality of our main image being as it is the focal point of the double page spread we decided instead to go with our image in the snow and adjust the caption accordingly in order to make it work in our favour; “Left out in the cold…John was bullied for years.” Adjusting the caption in this meant we could use an otherwise defective image to our advantage as once again we were able to highlight the raw emotions, with the snow signalling the harsh, bitter winter it had undeniable links with the victim John’s emotions including feeling alone in the harsh climes both metaphorically and literally as well as the phrase ‘Left out in the cold..” having an obvious double meaning. Apart from the issue with the snow there is little else that needs to be said about the image as it is very self-explanatory, in conclusion we felt it worked well toward the idea of

creating a ‘brand identity’, despite the snow the viewer will clearly be able to associate the main image from our double page spread to the very similar image used in our opening sequence.

Further Images –

The final image on the double page spread in which I would like to briefly discuss is the image of the I-Phone, this image is neither directly original or from our documentary (although the same I-Phone is used in the documentary the one on the double page spread isn’t a still) firstly, we took a photograph of an I-phone carefully manipulated the image cutting out the background so the image stood alone, we then using InDesign created our own message which we doctored onto the original I-Phone image, the message alert read: “TIPMYSCHOOL Joe Public is beating up John Smith behind the school.” The idea behind writing this message was to highlight the issue of cyber bullying, toward the end of our documentary we devote a small segment (although a reasonable portion of our time considering the documentary is only 5 minutes) to the problem of emerging technologies and how once possessed by bullies the whole problem becomes a lot harder to stop, as a student could be getting bullied by someone who sits next to them in class everyday but never know it. In the case of our image however it is somewhat of a special case as it isn’t anonymous cyber bullying we present on the message of our I-Phone image rather it is an announcement that our victim ‘John’ is being beaten up, the message aimed to display just how cold hearted bullying really is, that people will both actively and passively engage in bullying, even if they aren’t themselves performing physical or verbal abuse on a victim their presence be it observational for entertainment purposes or their lack of speaking up for vulnerable victims makes them complicit, which is what the message on the I-Phone aims to promote, that even those who are witness to bullying but chose to do nothing are partly responsible for the vicious and hurtful activity continuing.

Furthermore, the use of ‘John’ being beaten up helped create consistency as we followed this victim’s story, as we see this character so often portrayed in the same fashion – alone, distressed, nervous etc. – we begin to empathise with him more and more as well as understand the characters story, we’ve seen him being bullied (images of it are included on the double page spread, a reconstruction in the documentary) and even when the focus switches away from him it turns out those who are perpetrators of cyber bullying are attacking this victim also, the continual focus on ‘John’ worked not only to help the audience become emotionally invested in the character but also his mention becomes repetitive in a sense working to strengthen the idea of the all-encompassing nature of bullying and how today if your bullied at school, in college or the workplace the bullying can follow you home through abuse texts, social networking sites and posting videos of the bullying taking place online.

Again, ‘brand identity’ was important here; the use of the character John as well as the cyber bullying theme is something that helped forge a closer relationship between the documentary and the double page spread, as well as strengthening the back-story to our documentary, something I will discuss in more detail when I move onto the article.

The Article –

It is possible some minor criticisms could be levelled against the article written for the double page spread as it perhaps doesn’t appeal to the target audience as much as the radio trail does for example, the reason for this is because its written to a high standard, with complex language and

above all else is generally long and complex. We decided to go ahead with a complex article for the article had a professional finish for a serious topic. However this did cause some problems, traditionally speaking we chose a radio station (Capital) which would play our radio trail because for lack of a better word it is considered a ‘young’ radio station, this obviously gelled perfectly with our product, however in regard to the double page spread we felt T.V. listings magazines that had a predominantly younger readership were too ‘tacky and unprofessional’ such as ‘TV Easy’ and ‘TV Choice’ with many of them lacking the in depth articles (many substituting them for large coloured blocks with only snippets of text) we felt we needed to express the reality of the topic in detail, this put us in somewhat of a predicament as the types of listings magazines that suited our target audience did not necessarily suit our double page spread, specifically the article.

Despite the possibility of not maximizing on our target audience we proceeded with a more traditional double page spread layout, we felt on the whole it was worth the sacrifice as the article was a fundamental piece of writing and it was essential we didn’t ‘dumb it down’ for any other listings magazine which is why in the end we selected the more conventional and traditional radio times.

Readership – The Radio Times

“The latest circulation figure (July–December 2009) for the Radio Times is 1,000,648 making it third in the TV listings magazine market behind TV Choice (1,302,382) and What's on TV (1,243,933)”

Although early on there were some minor issues with the target audience not being met, it should be noted however the problem ceased to exist once we had finished extensive research into the radio times as our concerns began to fade away once we realised that although the magazine didn’t necessarily fit our target audience to the same level that say Capital Radio did. It did however provide us with much faith once we found out the latest circulation figures, with it being the third largest listings magazines (behind TV Choice & What’s on TV, both of which we ruled out) as well as the fact that the radio times was predominantly read by those considered our secondary target audience, not so much teens and young adults but rather professionals such as; teachers, social workers, lecturers, community organisers as well as parents of those currently in schools, colleges and universities.

The result of this was not only is there a high chance the radio times primary readership will likely pass on the message about such a documentary and the anti-bullying message in general to teenager sons or daughters, students or other adults but there was also the chance of the magazine going into ‘circulation’ this means when for example an middle aged parent buys a magazine it is often read by others in the house this will include teenage sons or daughters:

“On average between 2003 and 2010, each copy of the Radio Times has 2.3 – 2.9 readers.”

This means that although the radio time’s primary readership may not be our primary target audience once the article and double page spread goes into circulation there is a strong chance it will fall into the hands of many teens and young adults who inadvertently stumbled upon a product that was designed with them in mind originally.

The radio times includes many different articles from those ranging with a target audience of BBC 2 viewers to articles, stories and other promotions aimed at a much younger audience who watch Channel 4 or BBC three, although significantly less is focused on teens there is still a clear attempt by the publishers and editors to add the younger generation to its pre-existing predominantly older readership. As there radio times often includes articles on a diverse range of topics for a variety of different age/social groups including a double page spread on a serious topic like bullying is uncommon. Therefore I can say with confidence the radio times remained appropriate for our double page spread to be printed in. However, if anything did let us down in terms of association and combinations between the ancillary tasks this was it, as perhaps the radio times differed too significantly from Capital, meaning although ‘brand identity’ wasn’t compromised maybe market penetration was.

The Article – ‘Brand Identity’

I would like to briefly discuss how the article written for the double page spread creates a strong sense of ‘brand identity’ between it and the main task, the documentary. The idea behind the double page spread was to represent two areas of the documentary; the first as I have already explained was done through the images as they continued the victimisation of John – the storyline we began in the documentary through the reconstruction is a central theme and we continued this with the images used for the double page spread either having John in them or being about John, the effect this had was help people associate between the two products, if they had read the double page before watching the documentary they have an idea of a backstory, as well as being reassured early on they are watching the right thing as the reconstruction featuring John is in the very opening of the documentary, alerting people early on to the association between the two products, furthermore the article itself aimed to create association through strengthening and solidifying the backstory of how the documentary came to be.

The idea of using the double page spread’s article as a platform to express the story behind the filmmakers who made the documentary was a revelation we felt by telling their story it made the documentary more personal and allowed the reader/viewer to empathise further with the subject matter as these filmmakers had been bullied and they were simply trying to act upon experience and do there bit to stop an age old problem. The result of this was not only was there ‘brand identity’, the association when deeper than that, the use of a detailed backstory created depth, meaning and solidarity with the viewer, as they are ‘everyday guys’, something that couldn’t of been achieved if it

had been produced by one of the ‘big six’ – 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures- the idea of this being a personal project or a project of passion would have been compromised if it was produced in any other way than independently.

Conclusion:

Combination of three products – Documentary, Double Page Spread, Radio Trail.

Overall we felt the combination between our three products was very good, we felt all three successfully combine to promote the three products. Our extensive use of common elements such as images from the documentary on the double page spread or sound bites from the documentary used in the radio trailer strengthened the ‘brand’ we ended up creating for these products. They are cleared banded together by their common elements, unity in the message they promote and cohesion in their distinct style, feel and overall look.

Promotion –

I feel the two ancillary products work exceptionally well together to advertise and promote the documentary, the clear target audience we set out to reach was clearly well advised and ideal for our product, our products nonetheless retained the ability to appeal to a wide range of different age groups as I have talked about earlier secured their place in print media and radio. The winning combination of stylized editing techniques, consistent images, a detailed backstory, empathetic and personal characters as well as controversial and thought provoking subject matter and many more elements created a winning formula, were just one small element (nevertheless, an important one)

Early notes on various aspects relating to the double page article.

‘brand identity’ helped create an effective combination between the main product and ancillary texts.