In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
One way in which my media
product uses forms and conventions of existing types of similar products is
through set location. Our target audience was an age group off 7 up to 11 years
old. Bearing this in mind, choosing the set had to be relatable to the audience
intended. Our product was to be a children’s TV drama opening sequence we
needed to choose a location that the audience will recognise. We chose to set
it in a high school as the audience will recognise the type of scenery.
With them
recognising the location they can then relate to the aspects of school life and
recognise stereotypes in school life. Many similar products that influenced us
have used school settings, such as ‘Kerching!’. By using the school setting for
the majority of the show it allows the audience to get familiar with the place
and also relate to the age group. It also allows for their own experiences come
in play to work situations out during the show.
The characters were based on
influences from other media types using stereotypes of students. We chose four stereotypes
to create characters on, who were introduced in our opening sequence. The four
stereotypes were; a popular girl, a sporty girl, a geeky girl and a school
bully who was male. Each character was introduced in a way that would portray their
traits. For example the popular girl is seen in the girls toilets doing her
make-up and hair, she also wears fashionable clothing to reinforce the popular
look. Using this stereotype shows the audience this characters specific role in
the programme. It also gives an idea of what to expect this character to be
doing.
A direct influence from an existing media product is ‘Hannah Montana’
from Hannah Montana. Although this programme is not set or visits a school, she
is a very popular girl not only with the characters on screen but with the
audience that we have targeted. With our target audience severely recognising
this character, she was perfect to base our own popular girl, Izzi, on. As well as the clothing and make-up used
for our character, the stage directions made her blow a kiss towards the
camera. This makes the audience recognise that she acknowledges her audience
and that she likes them, as if to say ‘come and be my friend’. This will make
the target audience take a key interest in the character and look forward to
what the character will bring to the programme.
Our final media product used similar
conventions seen in existing products through fonts, colours and editing, for
each character there are different fonts, colours and transitions used to give
them more of an identity than what they already have. For example, the sporty
boy, Max is introduced with a bold, blue simple font. The bold and simpleness of the font gives the character
a ‘no messing around’ sense. This means that he knows what he wants and he can
do it, straight forward and to the point. Having fancy writing could have taken
away the more masculine side to him. Using the blue colour also gives him the masculinity
as blue is widely seen as a dominantly male colour. Izzi’s font is more of a
fancy font as we have used a calligraphy styled font. This makes it come across
more girly. The colour is white which gives it a modern look. The font also
comes in with a sparkly effect again to show the femininity of the character. When
it came to transitions we decided to use fast paced transitions to match the
face paced attitude that would be expected to be seen in our product and in
other typical children’s TV shows.
A good example of this type of editing is
seen in most of the ‘S Club 7’ programmes, such as; ‘L.A.7’ and ‘Hollywood 7’. Each
character is shown individual when their names appear on screen, as they do in our product. Following these editing
techniques allowed us to follow closely the existing products to make ours
appealing to the target audience.
How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary tasks?
Firstly my logo is the biggest link
between my print based media is the logo. Using this logo makes my product
recognisable to my target audience, which is important because without a
recognisable logo the products don’t come across as professional.
Although my
magazine cover and DVD’s don’t match up identically or have a particular
consistent colour scheme, you recognise them through the use of the logo. The use
of promotion photographs were also used on my magazine and DVD. I used the same
group photos as the products are the first set to come out, i.e., magazine
issue 1 and season 1 on DVD. Having some of the same photos has a similar
effect to the logo. The photos were of the characters of the programme, and
therefore I chose to have the characters dress the same as in the opening
sequence. This makes the characters easily recognised from a far distant. I differentiated
my photos for my magazine by mainly focusing on one character, Izzi.
This was
to draw in the wider range of audience that watch children’s TV drama. I mainly
found that females tend to watch it more than boys and therefore are more
likely to buy the magazine more so than boys, so by concentrating on Izzi for
the first issue brings in this audience and it will make the boys more
quizitive about the magazine. The next
issue was to then focus on Max, the sporty character to then bring in the male target
audience.
What Have You learned from your
audience feedback?
in order for me
to gain audience feedback, I link my product up to social networks, as this
would give me the appropriate feedback that I would need. The social network
sites that I used were Youtube and Facebook. Youtube allowed me to post my
video online and so that vast amount of
people were able to see it and comment on the video. Using Facebook also
allowed people to view my video and comment. This made receiving me feedback manageable.
o awesome
o I
like how it doesnt look overly grown up and it has a simple font within the
slides, it also has simple transitions which dont take your eyes away from the
scene too much, it was quite fun and child friendly
o the
music is quite happy so it doesnt depress the child and makes you want to watch
it
Above is feedback that I collected from Facebook
about my opening sequence. I got positive feedback which showed that my product
hit my criteria and will ultimately attract my target audience. Other comments I
got back about my video included “…the characters also meet to the expected
stereotypes…” “…the choice of location
is key to how children react to programs they watch, and you have shown a good
understanding of this and executed it really well.”
How did you use media
technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used many media
technologies to achieve my research, planning and evaluation. Through my
research I used a lot of images and examples of the media types that I was
going to be producing. By using these means, it meant that when I analysed the
examples I got a clearer understanding of how to make my products more
appealing to my target audience. Surveys also helped me to get a clear idea of
what my target audience actually look for in the types of media I was
producing.
I went through survey monkey to do this as it makes the persons who
answer anonymous and will give a more honest and reliable answer.The use of the
internet allowed me to use Youtube and other similar websites to research existing
products on. For my planning I was able
to use Microsoft publisher to plan my ancillary drafts to get the rough idea of
what I want, and I then moved over to Photoshop to get a better quality of
product.
To construct my media products I used Blogger to order my planning and
to keep check of what was the next step. I used HD cameras to capture the
perfect images from my main and ancillary tasks. I used Photoshop to manipulate
my still images for my DVD and magazine; this gave me a greater quality of
image and allowed me to make the photos look more professional.
I used an Apple
Macbook to organise my video and other files to various programmes that have
been vital in creating my product. IMovie allowed me to edit my opening
sequence.
I was able to put the chosen fonts and colour schemes on, chose a
selection of transitions to suit my product, it allowed me to add music to the
product to give it a more professional feel and it also allowed me to choose the
way in which the scenes were ordered and how smoothly they ran together. By using
such a good application, it gave me the opportunity to upload myy final piece
onto blogger and Youtube to gain feedback.
