1. In what way does your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge forms and conventions of real Media Products?

We deconstructed a number of British Drama media products that allowed us to identify the codes and conventions that are commonly found in the genre's teaser trailers. We then included these codes and conventions within our own final product.


The Teaser TrailerThe Costume One way in which we stuck to the codes and conventions of British drama real media products is through our final costume design. After researching typical, female characters from existing films such as FishTank, and British soap operas like Eastenders, we used this research to develop our ideas for the final costume design. As a result of the research we found that the characters within these programmes wore clothing typical of the British drama genre for example; tracksuit bottoms, hooded jumpers, fake designer t-shirts and gold 'tacky' jewellery.

Our final costume design was very similar to those from existing programmes and films; we chose blue tracksuit bottoms, a black hooded coat with a white vest top and white plimsolls which gave the impression of being trainers on screen. We also stuck to the codes and conventions of British drama when looking at the detail of the costume for example, through jewellery. We purposely chose to use cheap looking, gold jewellery therefore our protagonist wore gold hooped earrings, a gold chain and a gold ring. The Location Our teaser trailer also uses forms and conventions of existing teaser trailers of the social realism sub genre when looking at the location. After completing location research such as scouting, we chose to use several locations from around south east London. For one of the scenes we chose to use a long tunnel situated near Waterloo station. It appeared dark, gritty and was covered in graffiti. By using this location with the combination of just natural lighting, this subliminally tells the audience that they are watching a social realistic film. We felt that as this location stuck to a lot of codes and conventions of the British drama genre, we filmed a lot of the teaser trailer there. As another method of representing the urban city location, we used iconic and popular landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye and black taxis. We felt shots like these were effective because by including them, the audience is immediately informed that the film is set in London.

Narrative Theory

We used two main narrative theories and applied them to our own teaser trailer. Freytag's dramatic structure can be applied to social realism films and trailers. Challenging this convention enabled us to sustain the audience's attention throughout the whole trailer. Freytag's structure suggests that narrative is broken down into a 5 part structure; exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Our trailer mainly focused on the rising and falling action parts and never fully reaches a state of resolution. We also looked at Todrov's theory and it is suggested that narrative begins with and ends with equilibrium which is disrupted in the middle by agents of disruption to form disequilibrium. We chose to focus our trailer on this narrative theory as our film idea focuses on a young, female's life and a series of events which happen to her. This is likely to create a constant sense of disequilibrium to equilibrium throughout and so we portrayed in our teaser trailer through the use of other characters, position of shots and the pace of the sound.

Use of Sound
Our media product has used the codes and conventions of real media products within our final, non diegetic soundtrack. Having looked at a number of British drama films when researching existing music, it was clear that throughout that 'RnB' was the style of music which was most frequently used. Therefore we created a fast paced, yet still heavy rhythm and bass sound track for our teaser trailer which conformed for the conventions of real media texts.

Thick Skin A2 Media Teaser Trailer by jodehbaker Many of the existing British drama teaser trailers we looked at for research had synchronised their editing to the non diegetic soundtrack. This is seen in the teaser trailer for Trainspotting. This was a technique we used within our own teaser trailer because we thought it was effective. Also our use of fast paced music conformed to the audience's expectations as in other British dramas such as London to Brighton, fast paced music is used to create tension and build suspense.

However we also challenged the conventions of real media texts when focusing on sound. We did this by explaining the narrative through the actions on screen rather than using a voice over, like that of a typical British drama teaser trailer. Many existing media products use a voice over or extended dialogue to make it clear to the audience a sense of the storyline. However, we wished to keep a further sense of mystery for our teaser trailer and therefore decided not to include one in our final piece. This subverted the expectations of the audience because voice overs are a convention of real British drama media products.

Promotional Website & PosterOne way in which we developed the conventions of the British drama genre when designing a poster is that we used a clear, bold typography for the film title. Another way is that our poster design consists of credits which mention names of those such as the actors and the production company. These are placed in the bottom third of the poster layout which sticks to the conventions of a typical British drama film poster. As for the website, one way in which we developed the codes and conventions of real media products is by using a music track in the background. The track is from the urban, RnB music genre which is typically associated with British drama films. Another way we used conventions is that the background image of the website is mainly of the protagonist. This makes the image of the protagonist a main feature and therefore the initial part of the website in which the audience first looks at, like that of a typical British drama promotional website. However, when developing our promotional package, we also challenged the codes and conventions of real media products in order to subvert the audience's expectations. We did this by using a colour scheme of blue and white rather than the typical English patriotic colours which are used in films such as This is England. Also when designing our poster we positioned the protagonist away from the camera to resemble her vulnerability which is unlike a typical, strong, British drama protagonist. This was done to show that there is a slight edge to our film idea in comparison to those already in existence in the British drama cinema.

2. How Effective is the combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

The main aim we tried achieve from our teaser trailer, poster and website was to represent our chosen genre successfully and to induce interest and excitement for our target audience of 'teen to young adult, both genders'. However, it was equally important for us to remain aware of the social issues we were representing and focusing on in our trailer and concentrate on the topic of homelessness, running away, isolation and vulnerability of our protagonist.


Typography
We used the same typography and colour scheme across our promotional package . We chose a selection of fonts from online font provider DaFont.com. All the fonts we chose related to our theme; simple, clear and bold. This was effective as it gives our trailer and promotional package a signifier of the social realism genre. We felt that the homogenous typography used throughout the full promotional package combined successfully created a clear visual branding for the audience. This was effective because we created a sense of branding and unity for the individual promotional pieces. Therefore, the same typography throughout allowed the audience link these together creating a sense of identification for the full promotional package.

Imagery
Throughout our promotional package we ensured we used the same style of location for our mise en scene in our main product and ancillary tasks. As a result, in our website and poster we were able to portray typical characteristics of the British drama genre with the use of still images of graffiti walls in the background. This was effective as it suggests to the audience a suburban, gang culture orientated film, like that of the British drama genre, of which we were trying to portray through our final piece.



As we used this type of imagery throughout our promotional package it was effective because created a sense of homogeny for the three products which allowed the audience to associate the individual products with each other. Therefore, once again, making a form of branding for our British Drama film.

Character
Having previously looked at successful British drama films, one of the codes of conventions was having the protagonist as the main focus of the audience's attention. Throughout the full promotional package, especially the poster and website we were able to convert to this convention by ensuring the protagonist was the main feature of all three products. Yet again, creating unity for the three products due to the common feature between them and homogeny for the promotions of the film as a whole.

Overall, we felt that the combination of our main product and ancillary tasks was very effective at creating a sense of branding and homogeny because we ensured that there were a number of recurring similar features throughout all three pieces. We felt this was key to creating a sense of homogeny for the film and the audience of which we achieved.

3. What have you learnt through Audience Feedback?

Audience feedback is vital to our evaluation process. We had a number of methods of which we received audience feedback which were all important for the critical analysis of our final products

Audience Screening
Looking at audience feedback, which we have displayed in the two graphs below, it is clear that people felt that props/mise en scene were the most effective parts of our teaser trailer. This could be beneficial in the future when creating new media products as we will be aware of our strengths and areas we could improve on. Due to the genre being British Drama, mise en scene was our most important feature as it was necessary emphasise our location for homogeny and branding and fitted to the codes and conventions of the genre. Overall, the audience also felt that lighting was the least effective element of the trailer. This is most likely because we filmed all our clips outside and we only used natural lighting due to the restrictions of our genre.

Looking at audience feedback from the screening, it is clear we were rather successful in portraying our chosen genre through the teaser trailer. However, there was a small number of people who felt the trailer did not fit the British Drama genre. This could be due to our choice of actors who some of the audience were familiar with and so they found it comical. Hence, that is why the small number believed it was of the comedy genre.

Therefore we have learnt from this that we should consider using actors who the audience is not familiar with in order to avoid any former identification which may effect what we want our teaser trailer to portray.

YouTube Another method of gaining audience feedback was through the medium of YouTube comments on our upload of the teaser trailer on to the video sharing website. Overall the feedback was positive and it enabled us to see which aspects of the trailer were especially successful. Facebook

Our final method of receiving audience feedback was through the social networking site, facebook. On this site, we created a fan page which enabled the audience to keep up to date with our progress and we were able to promote through this too. Below is an example of feedback we received via the group.

This was valuable when critically analysing our work and the advice and praise was useful when making creative decisions throughout our production and evaluation process.

4. How did you use New Media Technologies in the Construction, Research & Planning and Evaluation stages

Research and Planning
When deciding the narrative idea and genre of our film, we used a variety of different technological mediums to create the storyline. We used YouTube to find existing teaser trailers from a number of films. We looked at these trailers as a way of identifying the codes and conventions of a typical teaser trailer. We also used YouTube and Viddler, both video hosting sites, to find teaser trailers for various British drama films such as Trainspotting, FishTank and London to Brighton. This enabled us to get a clear idea of the conventions of a British drama teaser trailer.

We obtained primary research through the use of SurveyPirate. This gave us the opportunity to identify our target audience and their expectations of a British drama teaser trailer.We were then able to analyse our results and decide what changes we needed to make to our narrative structure in order to meet our audience's needs.


Also looking at a number of new media technologies for promotional websites for existing media products gave us a clear idea of what criteria is expected to make a successful promotional website for our teaser trailer.

Construction
Within the construction stage of our teaser trailer, the main use of digital technology was the use of IMovie 09 which gave us the creative opportunity to edit and manipulate a number of shots within our trailer. We were able to change the colouring, contrast and hue on a number of clips to give shots a more 'harsh and gritty' feel like that of the British drama genre. We were also able to edit the speed, sound and order of our work to create a successful and believable British drama trailer.


Using the social networking website Facebook we created a promotional page so that we could keep our audience and fans up to date with the progress our of trailer;


We were able to use this medium as a method to ask our audience for advice on from aspects such our narrative to deciding on specific shots and angles.

Through the use of the Internet we were able to take advantage of new media technologies. This was done using various websites such as Wix to create the promotional website, Youtube once again to find appropriate uncopyrighted music for our sound track and the nan online media converter to convert this music track into the right format ready to edit.


With the added use and advantage of Apple's GarageBand programme, we were able to edit the speed, tempo and volume of the track we found so that it would fit specifically to our teaser trailer and be more effective at meeting the codes and conventions of music associated with the British drama genre.


Through the technological mediums of PaintShop Pro in conjunction with PhotoShop, we were able to edit the design, contrast and layout of the photographs we used in our final media products to create successful iconic images that fitted the British drama genre.


Font website, DaFont.com, gave us the opportunity to select a font which fitted the expectations of the British drama genre and our audience. We were then able to upload and edit this font onto IMovie which meant we could include it into our teaser trailer, poster and website. This helped us create a sense of homogeny and branding throughout our promotional package as the font we picked was included in all three products.

Evaluation
For evaluating our coursework piece we used Facebook once again to receive audience feedback. This enabled our audience to directly provide us with any criticisms or appraisals which we could take into consideration when evaluating our own work.

We also did the same with YouTube as once we uploaded our final teaser trailer onto the video sharing website, the audience then could leave comments on that they thought of it.


We also used YouTube in our evaluation process as a method of comparing our own work to other existing media products from the British drama genre. This is let us compare and contrast our piece of work against others to see where we excelled and where we felt we could have improved.

Final Website Design

Here is the final design to our promotional website which we created on Wix.com

Final Teaser Trailer

Here is our A2 teaser trailer final piece which is now available to view on YouTube

Final Poster Design

Here is our final design for the promotional poster;

We created this by editing the background image on Photoshop then adding the font using PaintShop Pro. The font for the title 'Thick Skin' was downloaded from free font website dafont.com

Costume; Final Idea

After doing our research into existing "tough" female characters in British drama, we finally came up with our own idea for a costume for our protagonist. We researched young 'tough' females that we thought our character was most similar too, for example Whitney from Eastenders and Mia from Fishtank.

The majority of young teenagers in British drama films wore blue or grey tracksuit bottoms and a hooded top/jumper. We felt that this was a code and convention that we needed to follow so that our costuming fitted with our chosen genre.

We also found that a common feature of costuming from British Drama films for young 'tough' female characters was gold jewellery, consisting of gold rings, hoop earrings and chains. However, the jewellery was not classes as expensive, it can be seen as 'cheap and tacky' jewellery. After vigourous costume research we also found the most common hairstyle used for young 'tough' females was a slicked back high ponytail, for example Whitney from Eastenders.

Our main inspiration for our costuming for our young 'tough' female was Whitney Dean from Eastenders and Mia from Fishtank. Our final costume idea consisted of blue ellese tracksuit bottoms, these were similar to those worn by Mia. We paired the tracksuit bottoms with a plain white vest top and a patterned hooded jacket. The vest top and jacket was similar of those worn by Whitney, represented in the picture on the left. We felt it was necessary to use exsiting characters as inspiration as they portray the codes and conventions we need to follow so our costuming fits in with the British Drama genre. It could also be seen as a stereotypical outfit from a 'tough' street teenager.

We also accessorised the outfit with some gold jewellery, we used gold hoop earrings, a gold chain and a gold ring. It was gold jewellery that was not expensive, it had the 'cheap' and 'tacky' look people associate with young 'tough' females from the lower class. After collecting research we decided the hairstyle we was going to use was the typical scraped back high ponytail that we had seen before in existing characters.

In deciding our final costume idea we conducted research of existing young females from the British Drama genre, we did this as we felt we needed to include all the codes and conventions of costuming for our character. We included as many features that we could so the costume would fit correctly with our genre.