4. How did you use technologies in the construction stage, and in the research, planning & evaluation stages?

To film our soap trailer we used the Sony HD cameras, which gave us a higher quality of work and made our trailer look more professional. We also got to use the Rode boom and lighting, these pieces of equipment really helped us to do our work to a higher standard and in turn making it more appealing for our target audience.
We used Final Cut Pro to edit together our trailer, this was simple and we were able to work quickly, we were also able to use many effects such as vignette, threshold and split screens, these all came together to make our soap look more modern and have a younger feel to it, attracting youths.
Using Photoshop and InDesign for our poster and Tv magazine front cover gave us many effects and designs to work with. This helped us make our ancillary tasks easily and to a high standard, with effects that made our products similar to current real medias. This all helped us create brand identity between all three products and appeal to our desired audience of teenagers.

Finally for our evaluation we used powerpoint to create slides highlighting what we did, this was very simple and gave us a chance to present our products. We used a M-Audio recorder to record our voiceovers for the evaluation, this made it more interesting than just writing it down and gave us an oppurtunity to talk about our finished products.
Throughout our coursework we have been using blogger, this has made uploading and sharing our ideas much easier and gives us a chance to look back and develop thoughts. All of these technologies helped us in completing our products and helped attract our target audience.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Once we had finished all three products we interviewed some students that are within our target audience age to get a better view on what to improve and whether our products are successful. The first set of feedback stated that our soap trailer was good and worked well in attracting our desired audience however the poster was confusing and had too much going on. So we decided to change the poster completely, creating a simpler, fresher looking poster appealing more to youths. We also decided to tweak the TV magazine front cover to make it follow the forms and conventions of current TV magazine front covers, so we used more bold, primary colours and made it stand out more.
The final set of feedback was excellent, saying that we were successful in making all three products interesting and more appealing to the target audience and that many would watch the soap if it was real. Also that many to see a strong sense of brand identity in the products and this was very pleasing to hear.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

We think all three of our products have a great sense of brand identity, using the same fonts, similar colours and backgrounds throughtout helps the audience link all three of the productions.
We chose to use a Warwick Avenue backdrop in both ancillary tasks and throughtout our soap trailer, this helps the audience connect better with the area and get a feel for the West London community. Also by using the same colours and fonts in all three products link them all together and lets the audience know they are connected. We used the same characters for the poster as we did for the TV magazine front cover, this again creates brand identity and makes all three products work well together. I think we did a good job of creating brand identity within these products and that the audience can recognise the connections between them.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We wanted our soap trailer to relate and attract our target audience, so we looked at current soaps and used, developed and challenged current forms and conventions.

We decided to create multiple storylines, similar to the Hollyoaks trailer. This is following the conventions of soap trailers, making the trailer more interesting as it gives the audience more to concentrate on. We also decided to keep our soap up to date and give storylines which affect todays teenagers, such as sexuality, friendships, relationships and family. This is done in most current soaps and teen dramas such as Skins and Hollyoaks.

We wanted our music to reflect on the area and so we chose a very 'street' soundtrack, which talks about the problems and issues we discuss in our trailer. This appeals to our target audience and attracts a younger generation.

We chose to use simple camera shots like they use in current soaps, using point of view shots, close ups and establishing shots of the area. These make our soap trailer seems more professional and the establishing shots give the audience a feel for the area, we also keep relating back to the area throughtout the trailer, keeping the audience connected with 'Warwick Avenue'.

With our poster and TV magazine front cover we chose to do something similar to current posters we had seen, especially with TV Choice magazine as it had all the forms of current TV magazines. We chose to use primary colours, make a couple the main storyline and include other storylines at the bottom of the page, these all help us attract our target audience. For the poster we wanted to include all the characters, we saw this on the 90210 poster and thought it worked well in relating to the audience and helping them connect better to the characters. However different to the 90210 poster we decided to have a shot of Warwick Avenue as the background rather than just a plain screen, this reinforces the area for the audience.

Vox Pops

We chose to create a Vox Pox interviewing students that watched our soap trailer and saw our finished Magazine Front cover and poster we created. We thought making a interview like this would give them less time to think and write what they wanted over and the better opinion would come across. The questions that were being answered were;

What did you think about our soap trailer?

Do the ancillary tasks work together and create brand identity?

Is there anything we can improve ?

Majority said that they liked the music, it was very modern, it related to teenagers today, there was also comments on the poster being too confusing so a little adjustments were made making it clearer with less going on and finally, comments were made about the colour of the magazine front cover making it more theme time to have a stronger connection with the rest of the ancillary tasks.

Soap Trailer 'Warwick Avenue'

Poster

Magazine

Brand Identity

We wanted our soap trailer and both our ancillary tasks to have a strong sense of brand identity, giving the audience a continuous atmosphere, helping to highlight the issues and lifestyles of today's London teenagers we have shown in our trailer.
For our magazine front cover and poster we decided to use similar colours, fonts and effects. We wanted to give these two tasks similar features but not make them too much alike so we used a hint of red and black in the poster, whereas the magazine front cover has a strong red background. We also wanted to keep the location the same throughout so we used shots of Warwick Avenue as the background for both. This helps link the two tasks together with the trailer as it also contains many shots of the surrounding area, all linking the area to the characters and the storylines.
We used the same 'posh' font for all three tasks, this is contrasting to the area and storylines we have chosen, subverting the usual forms and conventions of current soaps.
In our soap trailer we have tried to keep the storylines as separate as possible, with the only thing linking the characters all together being the area, Warwick Avenue. We wanted to continue this in the poster and magazine front cover so we chose to photograph the characters separately and bring them together with the same background. All these elements work well in bringing together all three tasks and demonstrating brand identity to our target audience.

Overview

Overall, our soap is meant to give the audience a feel of what life for teenagers is like today and connect with the teens that are actually living it. It isn't meant to be too graphic as it is aimed at a wide range of audience with different opinions and styles. And so we have different types of characters which can connect with different type of people. Because the soap involves teenage situations we decided to use characters with in the age group.