Media A2 evaluation

The Academy
Mia Wheeler
In what ways does our media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The TV listings front cover

For the TV listings front cover I looked at other examples of TV listings
to gain ideas on what sort of layout I would need to use, what images I
would need to take and the different sub headings and captions I would
need to include.
Below are the conventions I found:

•In all the TV guides that I looked at had bright, bold and colourful
backgrounds which engaged the readers eye .
•The fonts used were mainly basic ones which were easy to read.
•The characters in the images were all making eye contact, or at least 3
out of 4 of them were, which engaged the reader.
•The front cover included many soaps and tv programs on the bottom
in small pictures or captions.
•brightly coloured font, exaggerated language, exclamation/question
mark for emphasis, making the whole front cover more exciting to
read.
In what ways does our media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Trailer
When we were planning the storylines for
our media text we looked closely at similar
television programmes that was of the same
genre as ours. We found that Waterloo Road
in particular shared a common theme to
ours and so we analysed the way in which
their programme and trailers were
constructed. We noted that they had
multiple dramatic storylines and so we
included this within our media text,
therefore following convention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8
We also followed convention through the 1kocNemQs
characters we chose to put into our drama.
We created stereotypical characters such as
“chavs” “popular kids” etc, to give a sense of The link above is one of the trailers we
reality, as this is what you would find in a
secondary school. analysed from Waterloo Road.
It included a variety of narratives and short snappy edits. The
target audience for waterloo road is similar to ours and so we
Using youtube we were able to find suitable
used this trailer to help us in the creation of ours.
trailer from Waterloo Road in which we
could take ideas from to use in our trailer.
In what ways does our media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The poster
I found inspirational from the posters of
Waterloo Road and The Inbetweeners as
they both have a young teen audience.
From the poster I gained many conventions
in which I could use for my poster:

All of the characters have some kind of eye

contact in the first poster (waterloo road)
which engages the audience, however in the
one below (inbetweeners) only the main
characters are giving direct eye contact.
In my poster I decided that the majority of
my cast would make direct eye contact as I
felt that gave a much more engaging
photograph.

In these two examples of posters the

structure of the poster is quite basic and
simple. I wanted to incorporate this into my
poster however I wanted to add a little bit
more of an edge.
In what ways does our media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the bottom of the poster I included the

structural approach that the previous
posters on the other slide chose to use
however I also included images within the
title itself. I found that this would be a way
in which I chose to break the convention of
soap opera posters and it gave it a much
younger and edgier feel to it overall.

I included the slogan of our production

which was “school is a place for making
mistakes!” which makes it easy to recognise.

At the bottom I included the channel and

time in which the soap would be on TV so
that my audience was aware of when they
were able to view my production.
How effective is the combination of your
main product and ancillary text?
I believe that the combination of trailer, TV listings
and poster work significantly well together. I carried
a distinct house style through each of them and it is
easy to see that they are all interlinked and related
with one another. An easy way to see this continuity
is through the school uniform which all of them wear
in each of the pieces of media. We mainly stuck to the
conventions of other media text to ensure that we
would create a suitable media text. Through the
audience feedback we received I think it is fair to say
that sticking to the conventions was a good idea.
What have you learnt from audience
feedback?
Here is the
questionnaire in
which we sent out
to twenty people
who were a similar
age to that of our
target audience.
What have you learnt from audience
feedback?
Our questionnaire received lots of positive feedback with people expressing their views on
how much they liked our trailer, TV listings and poster. Comments included that our trailer
represented that of a real media text and that if it was on the television people would be
willing to watch it.
The narratives received comments such as “informative” “fluent throughout” and “dramatic”
but also that the narratives were “relative to their lives”. This meant that we had achieved
what we wanted to start with and that was to engage the audience and allow them to relate to
the storylines on screen.
The questionnaire was very useful as it enabled us to feel a sense of achievement because we
had achieved what we wanted to do, however due to the lack of criticisms we were unable to
pinpoint the points of our production which would need to be changed in order for it to stand
as a perfect piece of media.
How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used a variety of different media technologies in the construction of my production. These

enabled me to create the exact product that I had envisaged in my head.

www.youtube.co.uk
Enabled me to research different trailers that were on TV at the time e.g. Waterloo Road,
Inbetweeners etc. Which helped during the research and planning stages as I was able to
further my ideas with the help of other media texts.

www.blogger.co.uk
Was used during my whole production as it allowed me to make note of what I had done and
what needed to be done. As a group I think it helped quite a lot as we were all able to log into
it and see what the other group members had done and allowed us to give each other feedback
etc.

The internet was also very useful in researching institutions where our product would be
distributed, we used the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board website (www.barb.co.uk) to
research the types of programmes and types of people who watched them and therefore we
could choose what channel we would distribute our soap to and who would be watching it.
How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?

www.facebook.co.uk
Was used to further our audience research and gain greater feedback on our media product. It
also enabled us as a group to keep in contact with each other. And also we were able to recruit
our cast members this way as well.

We used camcorders, specifically a Panasonic HD camcorder and the tripod to film our
trailer.

Soundtrack Pro was used to create the music we needed for our trailer but also we used it for
some sound effects such as the bouncing ball in one of our scenes.

Final Cut was used to edit and manipulate the footage we had filmed.
How did you use media technologies in the construction
and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used a Canon digital camera to take the photographs for our TV listings
and Poster. The camera took clear and fine photographs which made both
pieces of media look professional and appealing to the eye.
How did you use media technologies in
the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
I used Adobe Photoshop
to edit the photographs in
which I used for the
poster. Photoshop was
very useful as it gave a
much cleaner cut
photograph and overall
made the photographs
which I took look a lot
more professional.
In Photoshop I used the
“Magic wand” Tool and
also “the magnetic lasso”
as well as more obvious
editing tools such as
Contrast and Brightness
etc.
Thank you for listening 