FINAL CUT - TIB STREET SOAP TRAILER

Billboards

Here is my main Billboard poster:

 

 

 

These two posters are supplementary and part of the same campaign:

 

Magazine Cover

QUESTION ONE

How did you use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of real media products?

Basic codes and conventions of soap operas within my genre REALISM are features such as

 Locations  - usually gritty streets, pubs, and small middle/lower class houses

CLICK HERE    TO SEE BLOG POST ON LOCATIONS AND CONVENTIONS OF REALIST SOAP

 Costumes  - which are important for character development and building stereotypes

CLICK HERE   TO SEE POST ABOUT HOW COSTUME IS USED WITHIN REALIST SOAPS


 Engaging  - and connecting with the viewers and the public - building relationships with characters and using controversial topics bringing the soap into real life and helping people to relate to the narratives that are covered

CLICK HERE    TO SEE A DETAILED POST SHOWING MY RESEARCH INTO HOW REALIST SOAPS ENGAGE WITH THE PUBLIC


In addition, soap trailers use conventions such as big close ups of facial expressions showing emotion, action shots and tense scenes which are also realistic to our lives, appropriate and recognisable music in the background and also beat matching.
Beat matching is used in many trailers to make it look professional and interesting, tense or exciting to watch. I have done a detailed post about techniques such as beat matching which can be seen at this link:






Below is a link to a post where I have deconstructed a Dallas trailer showing my understanding of editing techniques used in the media and why they are used:


http://rachaelsilvestermedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/this-is-trailer-for-return-or-american.html




A short powerpoint I made about Realism soaps (click) (click)

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 SOAPS USING SUBVERSIONS / CHALLENGING TYPICAL CONVENTIONS 



This is an example of a trailer for BBC1's Eastenders that challenges soap conventions. It is more of a fantasy or dream style soap used often as a metaphor or exaggeration of the current storyline in the soap.
I feel these types of trailer are really effective as they:

• shock people by not showing their expectations of a trailer
• are usually very interesting, exciting or scary
• use unusual or extravagant props, costume and location
• often use special effects to enhance the trailer and make it more exciting
• bring something new and different to challenge the typical expected trailers to draw people in

When planning and creating my soap, I considered producing a more challenging trailer rather than the typical ones, however several factors such as budget, locations and time were barriers for me and I decided I would produce a better typical trailer with the resources available to me. I also feel that subversions can be very restricting in terms of the amount of characters used and can sometimes not demonstrate full potential of camerawork and use of showing narratives successfully. I am pleased that I chose to create the typical trailer as it allowed me to build tension using lots of action shots (supposedly taken from the actual soap episodes) which I could cut and put together. The low budget I had was not a barrier for my soap trailer, however if I had attempted a subversion style soap this could have made it look cheap as I could not have used the special effects of the extravagant costumes that are used, for example in the clip above and in others, for example the Made In Chelsea trailer which uses a merry-go-round.

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 ANCILLORIES 

Here is my magazine front cover and an existing TV & Satellite cover which is of the same genre and similar style and layout to my soap magazine. I ensured that I closely followed the conventions of this media product by using and developing the features that existing covers possess. I named my brand teleVISION because like TV & Satellite the title is related to the content of the magazine. I made the masthead white because it stands out and many magazines have white brand titles. I also used photoshop to create a faint shadow behind the letters which gives the masthead a more professional look.

 BANNER 

My banner, like the TV & Satellite  one uses black text on a coloured background which is easy to read and graSps attention quickly

 MASTHEAD 

I feel that my masthead matches codes and conventions of soap magazines very well. I have used white text which stands out, it is bold and has a back shadow which are both features shown in the TV & Satellite  magazine cover. I have also incorporsated the date in a small gap just like the existing magazine to the left.

I have challenged the conventions, however, by using an outer glow on part of my masthead, as I felt it would be a good brand identity technique and catches the audience's eye, as told by my peers in their feedback.

 BUTTON 

My button demonstrates the common conventions of buttons on covers of most magazines including this TV & Satellite one. Both mine and the existing media product show a single character withing the circle, a coloured outline matching the theme of the cover, a highlighted word to catch audience attention "NEW" and a description below.

 FEATURES 

My features and the TV & Satellite ones show similarities such as the highlighted title and white text description. In addition images are anchored onto the text to show the audience what the text is describing

 PHOTOGRAPHY 

I feel my photography fullfills the conventions of soap magazines. It is similar to the cover of this TV & Satellite magazine, as the main character is anchored onto the main feature text, with other characters behind and of a smaller size.

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 COMPARING MY SOAP TO OTHERS IN THIS GENRE  

My soap is a realist soap, similar to programs such as Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale, and Waterloo Road. Although waterloo road is a seasonal drama I feel it is similar to my soap because of the age range of the characters and the fact that they are still in education (my characters go to college, shown in some of the clips ion my trailer). My soap Tib Street is similar to Coronation Street and others becuase of it's gritty and street style locations and down to earth, middle class characters. The camera work demonstrates the realist style as they are simple yet effective and no special effects are used which would make it more fanasised. The music used in realist soaps is always diegetic however in their trailer soap trailers challenge this by using non diegetic background music to create more of a dramatic atmosphere rather than just silence and dialogue, so that the audience want to watch more of the program. My trailer also shows this audio style by using a backing track, however, I understand that if I was to produce a real soap episode I would not use a backing track and all sound would need to be visible in the mise-en-scene (e.g. music coming from a radio)

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Here is a powerpoint I have made to shows how my trailer used conventions and techniques similar to thise used in existing relsit soaps:

cOMPARING TO REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS from rsilvestermedia

QUESTION TWO

How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary products?


I have created a prezi to demonstrate how I combined my three types of media texts making sure that branding, characters, narratives and colour schemes are linked to create a recognizable soap for audiences which is shown across multiple platforms

QUESTION THREE

What have you learnt about the significance of audience feedback?

Throughout the course I have frequently looked to my friends and peers for advice and feedback on my work to help me change and develop my trailer and designs to be constantly improved.

An easy way to do this was to use blogger to post my work and ask people to comment their thoughts and advice on each of my drafts. This enabled me to display my progress chronologically and use the feedback when producing the next draft.

Here is a powerpoint showing some examples of comments which I used to improve my work

The most frequent comments were

CUTS NEED TO BE SHARPER AND SHORTER TO CREATE MORE TENSION



Here is an example of my draft of the magazine cover and how I used a comment to improve it

As you can see I have used the advice in the comment to develop my work, such as

• Barcode needs to be smaller - It is now smaller
• Date at the top - Now at the top filling the space gaps above masthead
• Use contrasting colours - I have used yellow which stands out to the audience and emphasises certain parts of the page

 HOW I USED PEER FEEDBACK

Comments from rsilvestermedia

I have learned that audience feedback can be extremely useful, especially if you have been working on the same piece of work for a long time, it is important to get an outsider's view rather than your own biased views. A fresh opinion can pick out errors or improvements that I may not notice in my own work, so asking others to review my designs gave valuable feedback which helped me to improve the quality and standard of my work.

QUESTION FOUR

How have you used technologies in the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages of your coursework?

Here are some videos I have made using text and screen recordings to show how I used different technologies during my planning and production


USING KEYNOTE to create title 


USING GARAGEBAND to create a fitting backing track for my tailer


USING iMOVIE to import and trim clips, and edit footage to create my trailer




Other technologies I used include Adobe Photoshop, Blogger, Powerpoint, YouTube, Stills/HD Cameras, DSLR Cameras, Green Screen, Slideshare and Twitter.


HERE IS A PREZI TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION AND DEMONSTRATE HOW I USED EVERY TECHNOLOGY IN MY WORK

My 3 final billboards

RESEACHING AND DESIGNING MY BILLBOARDS 

When designing my billboards I took into consideration what many existing billboards look like and the conventions used. I felt that my soap would not fit into the E4 channel as it is a realist soap rather than a melodrama, so I chose to use Channel 4.

I researched the branding and typical designs of Channel 4 advertising so that my designs were realistic and matched the conventions used in existing Channel 4 billboards. I have also done a blog post deconstructing two Channel 4 billboards, and the features I found, I have used in my own work. Examples of this incluse the simple white text with few words and full stops, and the white "4" logo.

The photography in the Channel 4 billboards also strongly focuses on a particular character which I have replicated in my own work. For example in the third billboard above, the photo was already focused on Tim's face, however I also used a blur tool in Photoshop to make the background even more out of focus to emphasise the sharpness of Tim's face and his expression.

I used photoshop to design all three of these billboards, and will produce a seperate blog posts to go into detail about my methods and techniques of design and editing.

Showing links from the start of the project to the end

These screenshots from one of my power points demonstrate my consistency throughout the course. The story line with Roy and the knife was one of the first pieces of research into soap operas that I did, when I looked into narratives. This has been carried through my entire project, as the camera shot types shown in my initial research into the Coronation Street episode were used in my trailer, and the knife prop was used with the pull focus in the same way as found in the real soap. This shows that I have constantly developed my ideas taken from the start to build and construct my own media texts.

Mag Cover second draft

Audience feedback points that I have now improved:

• Not sure it needs to say JAY in the middle of the page, instead make your first line bigger, then the Tib St line becomes a sub- heading.
• Barcode much too big,
• Date needs to be at the top near masthead so audience can see they are getting up to date information.
• Needs an accent colour to make key info and unique selling points stand out on the shelf.

Using iMovie Detailed Video

USING iMOVIE to import and trim clips, and edit footage to create my trailer

Using Garageband Detailed Video

USING GARAGEBAND to create a fitting backing track for my tailer

Using Keynote Detailed Video

USING KEYNOTE to create channel 4 logo animation