A2 media Evaluation question 1

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

Evaluation question 1

My product manages to follow some conventions and go against others. This is so that audiences have an idea of what's going on and are not completely lost, but also in order to excite audiences and keep them interested and wanting to watch more.

CONVENTIONS I HAVE ADHERED TO:Most TV trailers are often between 2 to 3 and a half minutes long, over usually is an extended trailer, with under a minutes mostly being teasers. I followed this with my trailer being 3 minutes and 24 seconds, including my ident. I have got more than enough footage and if I used all of it, then it would be over the limit of what counts as an extended trailer. Therefore I had to be selective and edit down the footage to follow the convention.

GIFS OF EXAMPLES OF TV SHOW TRAILER (GIFS)

Examples of TV drama trailers fitting into the 2 to 3 and a half minutes would be Californication season one trailer. As well as showing an ident, another convention Ive followed is featuring my series name, right at the end of the trailer. It is end at which point audiences are most excited, and so that is where almost all will reveal the name. I decided to follow this as I agree the most exciting part of the trailer is the ending making it the perfect place to reveal the title.

As I mentioned before I included my custom made ident at the start of my trailer.

Most trailers will include their companies ident either at the beginning or end so I have followed this convention, using it at the start in an attempt to draw audiences in more, as I felt if I had it at the end of mine it isn't as effective. I follow the conventions of showing relatable, realistic situations many teenagers will be familiar with, so it appeals more to my target audience.

Series featured on E4 show the title and ident at the end, as opposed to shows on Netflix and BBC ONE whos ident is featured most often at the start of the trailer.

Given the sub genre of my drama is teen-drama, the main focus is the characters who are all teenagers. Along with this there are how my characters are actually represented, each one of them out of six has a clear representation of a specific character type, with them being unstable, kind, bitch, fool, nerd and lesbian. I felt this also appealed to most teenagers, who would know someone who at least one of my characters reminds them of. I try to make the characters a more extreme representation of their character types, given it isn't reality, and wouldnt be as entertaining if it was 100% realistic. The props used are also very familiar to teenagers such as smart phones, laptops and alcohol.

The location choices are also unusual for a teen-drama as it is very common to have the school/university heavily involved e.g. Waterloo Road.

There are uses of houses mostly for characters hanging out and parties, which I have stuck to, however the complete lack of using any shots in their place of education is breaking the convention. My series would focus more on the sociable lives of the characters which I personally believe audiences, would find much more entertaining. Since the location usually sets the tone of the series, I purposefully did not include shots within their educational facilities within the trailer. I do manage to incorporate work into the trailer however, I make the story of my fool character, desperately requiring help and guidance from my nerd character, in revision for the upcoming exams.

It is also the character representations when I decide to break some conventions, there are some attributes of specific characters would more commonly be seen in another, but I chose purposefully to mix them up a bit to add some more uniqueness to my trailer. For example it would be more likely for the unstable/bitch characters to be the one with a single parent but this was given to kind character.

This use of family relationships however is following a convention of storylines within dramas, dealing with domestic themes. This can be seen in Waterloo Road.

Most teen-dramas also base their main stories a lot with romance like in Gossip Girl I decided that I would use romance but it wouldnt be a major feature. I included one story with romance between my nerd character and the lesbian character, the nerd being unaware that she is in fact gay. I wanted to challenge more subversive issues. There is also no single main protagonist, all the six characters show get an equal amount of screen time, as they are the main protagonists, it sets up for a multi strand TV drama, with multiple storylines that are all interlinked, such as in Skins. Their use of dialogue within the trailer is short, and simply used to further represent their character type.

I have included voice overs, foley sound, soundtrack and custom made font for the title of my series and to use when introducing each character. I made two versions of each title, so when edited right it would give it a wiggle effect, giving the trailer a bit more light-hearted feel. I also gave each characters font a selected colour, trying to further represent their character. Almost all TV drama trailers will feature a select small amount of dialogue, which is effective, can describe the character, as well as give away some plot points so the audience has some idea of what's going on like in Sherlocks season 4 trailer. Like in Skins season 4, season 4 finale and season 5 trailers, I went through each shot within my trailer and drained the colour from it with Photoshop. When actually watched as a series, the colour wouldnt be as drained but I did this for more effect following the convention.

The soundtrack is also very important, instead of using licensed music like most trailers. I edited my own on Filmstro, but following the convention by keeping it in the same pace as the shots, overall ending up being a fast pace track.

Overall I feel I managed to please my target audience, I received good audience feedback complementing me on my use of character development, soundtrack and ident. I was in my early drafts informed that the soundtrack might not be right, as well as being a bit too loud during certain scenes. So I went back to Filmstro and picked a new soundtrack, and edited it so it was quitter during the character introduction shots. I later would revisit this and change it up a bit more to increase the exciting feel.