Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning

Before beginning our Research we had to create a treatment and pitch of our ideas, we used Microsoft PowerPoint to make a PowerPoint presentation which we presented to the class.

In the Research and Planning stage, we did a lot of Internet research. We used the website www.blogger.com to record our coursework. As I had used this during my AS level Media I was familiar with how everything works and found it quicker and easier to use this time round.

Google was the main search engine we used to do our research, we used this to find images and information about children's TV drama, we also used YouTube to acquire clips and embed them into our blog.

When doing research we found a website - http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/ which gave us ideas for comic book themes, and taught us how to make a comic book effect pictures using photo shop.

Construction
We used many media technologies during the construction stage of our coursework. Firstly we started to film parts of our title sequence using the Panasonic video cameras, once we had filmed all we needed, we captured the clips onto Premiere Pro 2, this enabled us to start forming our title sequence.

We also used the DSLR cameras to take still images to put into our title sequence, we uploaded them and saved them as a .JPG file to alter later. To adapt the images to look like comic book strips, we opened up the files in Photoshop CS2, we applied different filters and pixelated it to construct a comic book effect.

When using Premiere Pro 2, we cut all the clips and adjusted them on the timeline, we added different keyframeabble effects so other clips/images could fly into one slide etc. As we also wanted a narrative, we decided to make a Voice over using the technology in the music department we recorded Dans voice and added it to the clips, along with background music.

Evaluation

In the evaluation stage of my coursework, I used facebook to get myself some feedback on my Children's TV Title sequence. It allowed me to interact with an audience and get their responses, this qualitative data has allowed me to assess whether the video appeals to the correct target market.

I also used Microsoft PowerPoint to create a presentation for one of the questions, demonstrating my computer skills.

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Getting feedback from our audience may prove difficult for as it is aimed at 9-14 year olds. Feedback we have retrieved so far has been from 17-18 year olds, the majority of comments were all good feedback, here are a few:

"comic effects were really well executed and it looked very professional"

"clear target audience, definitely suits the audience with the comic book style and genre"

"good use of colour throughout, primary colours are attractive to the younger audience"

"oppositional binary between main characters & bad guy is really understandable through mise-en-scene e.g. colourful for good guy and dark mise-en-scene for bad"

The feedback we received shows that we have successfully targeted an audience of 9-14year olds as this was guessed by people watching it.

The only criticisms of our work were:

"I think the bits where he was dancing, the music needs to be louder so that it looks and sounds like hes dancing to music"

"some clips come on and then change too fast"

These are all things that could be changed if we had more time to perfect it properly. I think we did misjudge the sound levels on different parts of the video

To get relevant consumer feedback I emailed my cousin over facebook and asked my 13 year old cousin 9 questions relating to my title sequence...here is his feedback...

Transcript:

1.Does this title sequence look like a programme you would watch?:ANSWER: Yes because the sequence makes the programme look fun and exciting

2.Are the characters believable and appealing to you? ANSWER: of course it does because the main character seems like he is just an ordinary kid sucked into the world of heroes which is a kids favourite dream!

3.Does the music suit the sequence? ANSWER: Yes, its bouncy and catchy and pulls me in; I cant take my eyes off it!

4.Does the font seem comic book like and is this something that captures your attention? ANSWER: Yes I think its almost like you're looking at a comic but someones reading it to you. Its very believable.

5.Do the colours suit the genre of the programme? ANSWER: I agree that it does suit the genre as it is hero adventure so the colours are bright and has a variety. Plus when it gets the villain, the colours are dark and evil which fits in

6. Are there programmes of a similar nature on TV at the moment? ANSWER: Probably, however the storyline is understandable and simple

7.Does the villain Maxx Millain appear evil/scary enough? ANSWER: Yes the colours are dark and evil whilst the costume itself is scary, almost like a thug or robber

8.Does this action/fantasy genre appeal to you? ANSWER: Yes it makes me want to watch it and it looks fun

9.Does the trailer contain enough background information about the programme to interest you? Yes its very to the point and gives enough information without complicating it

I'm extremely pleased with this feedback, it proves we have successfully targeted our target market. We have been able to pull the audience in and make it interesting. They understand the conflicting ideas of the hero and villain and have also gathered this through the colour schemes we have used.

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For the ancillary tasks I wanted to stay as redundant as possible. As the audience are 9-14 I needed them to understand the texts, and relate with them.

To recognise the texts I decided to use the same colour scheme and fonts, giving it a "house style" Using red, blue and yellow the audience may recognise this on a shelf and relate it to the show. I also used the main character 'Tom Nero' on the front of both of the ancillary tasks so if the audience didn't already recognise it from the colour scheme and fonts they would recognise the main character.

I didn't want the DVD cover to be the exact same as the magazine style wise...I wanted to incorporate the Tom Nero font though so that it was recognised. I decided to use the background off one of the clips in the title sequence where he says "by night I'm Tom Nero, the superhero" and the background changes to stars. We thought this was quite a 'comicy' look, so I thought it would be appropriate to base the DVD design around that.

Even for children who may have never seen the show, I wanted to make it look interesting and stand out, I made the outside of the characters glow so it looks like they stand out from the cover. You can clearly see its about a normal boy who's a superhero that's why I put them back to back.

I think it relates to the show and is an effective DVD cover which looks professional and attracts the right target audience

For the magazine I kept with the 'house style'. After doing research into children's magazines I decided to keep it childlike and makes sure I gave freebies and 'insider knowledge' to attract toe audience.

The combination of all these texts definitely shows a 'house style' It uses the same fonts, colours, pictures and comic styles. I think this was definitely necessary for our young target audience. Looking at the Title sequence, magazine and DVD I think that they all relate nicely to eachother and you can clearly see the link. I think our target audience will appreciate the DVD being slightly different as its exciting and a change, but as it is still the same font and 'Tom Nero' logo its still recognisable.

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

Question 1

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Print Tasks

Print Tasks

Main Task

Magazine Cover Research and Planning

Magazines that come with children's TV series allow for 'insider knowledge' - something that isn't already known from watching the shows. This is what interests the reader. Therefore that should be included in the front cover either in cover lines or screamers.
Here are other typical parts of a childrens magazine:

Effects Research and Uses and Gratifications

Effects Research



Effects research focuses on 'what the media does to the audience'. They presume that audiences are passive, and audiences are the same. Most famous research done on this was the bobo doll experiment carried out by Bandura, Ross and Ross, the research they claimed to find was that every child reacted the same to what they saw, so the audience is directly affected by the media. This has been heavily criticised.





Uses and Gratification



Uses and gratification focuses on 'what audiences do with the media', audiences are not considered passive, audiences are now considered individuals with needs to be gratified. Individual needs will lead to individual interpretations of media messages, and the texts contain many possible meanings with equal chance of being selected or rejected (polysemic). Research done by Blumler and Katz (1974) said that audiences have 4 broad needs that are fulfilled by TV - Diversion, Personal Relationships, Personal Identity and Surveillance.

Storyboard

This a very basic storyboard of whats going to happend in our title sequence. However it does involve the transitions were going to use from shot to shot, including pushes and wipes.

Voiceover

Over the top of our title sequence we'd like to use a voiceover, this is very common in other title sequences of childrens tv drama. Our voiceover would be something like this:

1) This is my town

3) and this is me [name here]

4) I have a whole bunch of friends like [names here]

4) and you guessed it the crazy parents

4) oh, and the annoying sister

5) you would think im any normal kid

6) but im actually... a superhero saving the world from the evil [name here]

8) bent on chaos and destruction

10) but to do that, im gonna have to work on my powers, yea...

11) I am [name here] and this is -

12) [Title here]

The numbers relate to storyboard and which shots he says it in.

Narrative

With our coursework being a title sequence to childrens tv drama its hard to discuss narrative as we cant really portray a story. However the title sequence will have omniscient narration, the audience will know more than some of the characters know as this needs to be clear for our target audience to understand the concept of the drama and the characters themselves. We could also apply Propps theory. As our tv drama is for a mainstream audience, the narrative needs to be simple for our target audience to understand.

Minutes

Me and Dan earlier discussed problems we may occur when trying to shoot clips out of college time, as its winter now, if we finish at 4.10 it will start getting dark, which could cause problems when we try and shoot our setting and the characters. We have decided to start shooting wednesday 18th, as we finish earlier in the day and our shots will be clearer.

Audience Profile

From our feedback there was some confusion on what the age range should be, some said higher and some said lower on what we originally had.


We have now chose the age range 8-13, we think this appropriate for our the channel we want it to be showed on.

If I was to describe a member of my audience I would say:

• They want independence but still the care of their parents


• Their peers have a big influence on them


• They are creative and like to show this


• They have a short attention span until something really interests them


• Having nothing to do is not an option

Dominant, Absent and Alterntative Representations

As we are doing childrens tv drama we decided the representations of particular social groups should be dominant as this is appropriate for the target audience. We have a young target audience so representations of characters shouldnt be alternative, as they may find this confusing. However the idea for our tv drama is about a boy who is a superhero, but he is not a typical superhero with great powers. He finds it difficult to use them, so this wouldnt be seen as a stereotypical superhero, however he is a sterotypical young boy, the same with our other characters they would all be sterotypical young kids.

Technology week - Transition Tests

Further Research

Neds Declassified School Survival Guide

This video is inspiration for our own title sequence. We like how it uses a montage of images and the way they introduce the characters using different wipes and cuts.
For our own title sequence we would like to incorporate the way they use still images but with a video clip as well as seen from 15 seconds onwards.
We also like the way they have a speaker telling the narrative over the top of the clips, the idea of giving a back story is something were interested in doing for our own title sequence.

Doing this research into TV drama introductions has influenced our title sequence greatly. We are going to include in ours, a voice over, possibly the main character in our drama speaking about his life. This will give the audience an idea of what the show is about and who characters are. "Ned's declassified" was the inspiration and we thought this effect helped us understand what the show would be about. therefore we hope ours does the same for the audience.

Seeing how Ned's declassified gave a montage of clips to introduce characters gave us an idea to do a similar thing. So far we are thinking, separate clips for each character, and having something that represents them in the background. Ideas so far are colours, pictures, sounds relating to the character for example, dark ominous colours for the villain, and bright, fun colours for the friends/sister which will tell the audience something about them.

Sky High

When researching further into the comic book effect we so want to use in our title sequence we found this video. It incorporates everything we would love to do in our title sequence.

The introduction to it, where its moving through the comic book is something we want to try and do in our title sequence. Obviously we would be limited as we don't have the high tech technology, but the effect it gives has further inspired us to do it as we think it looks amazing.

Genre and Auteur Theory

Auteurism – the method of analysing films based on this theory or, alternately, the characteristics of a directors work that makes him an Auteur.

My work so far over the course has been quite generic; I’ve not yet developed my own individual style that can be seen throughout my work. I’ve mainly focused on my work relating to generic material than putting my own original spark into it. My magazine was very generic, it conformed to all the typical conventions of a magazine.

Redundancy and Entropy

To me the concept of redundancy is something that is predictable or conventional, something normal that you would expect to see. For example, a policeman stood in full uniform in the street, this is something you would expect to see, therefore highly redundant. A police officer stood in a bikini on the street would not be redundant at all. This would be the opposite which is called entropy.
Entropy is something that is unpredictable. It’s something that you wouldn’t expect to see and that isn’t average. All images arguably have an element of both in them. Entropy and Redundancy can be used to communicate different things to the audience.
Our own ideas have elements of both in it. The mise en scene would be seen as highly redundant; it’s about a school kid doing average things out of school time. This would be seen as highly redundant. Yet we have entropic elements in it, as he is a superhero and would be doing things that are not predictable. I think we have the balance right between entropy and redundancy in our show; it’s redundant enough for our target audience to understand, but the elements of entropy are also understandable as superheroes are becoming more common, so if he could teleport, or run really fast, this would be seen as very entropic, but the audience could understand that this is a redundant thing for a superhero genre.
Our title sequence would be seen as quite redundant as it has typical elements of an introduction.

Research

Childrens TV Dramas
Looking at examples of TV dramas, we've came to understand that they are all quite similar. They use bright colours, fast cuts and interesting layouts to keep the audiences' attention.



Tracey Beaker is a good example of this.

The title sequence allows the audience to identify the genre of the text and creates appropriate audience expectations, you can clearly see this through the mise-en-scene, and the way the introduce characters and settings, you know its going to be about young kids, and it shows cartoon versions of them being in a house. This sets the scene of what the drama is about. It represents the social group of children as fun and enjoying life, we can see this through the way they act in the titles. By using stop motion on the characters it creates an impression of them moving, this also involves "props" like mobiles and stereos which have been made digitally. Children can relate to this as it may be things that they like doing, for instance listening to music and talking to friends on their mobile. They are represented as typical kids, this is how they engage their audience by making it seem like every day life.


Title sequences are also there to engage the audience and persuade them to keep watching, maybe provide some sort of narrative exposition, 'brand' the show, using music, fonts and images and credit the main actors and other production personnel. Tracey Beaker has made a clear brand for itself using the same fonts and music, their audience are now aware that if they see the fonts and little cartoon images, which are illustrated by Nick Sharrat, its going to be Tracey Beaker as they've also carried this through onto their magazines and DVD covers.






Tracy Beaker has been made for the BBC, this is their mission statement : 'To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.'

Tracey Beaker therefore has to inform, educate and entertain...they do this by setting it in a children's home, this challenges a dominant ideology of children being with their own family. This then gives across the messages and values that everybody is different, and that children should understand this and learn that although backgrounds may be different, children are still children. This cant really be shown through a title sequence, however it still gives of the representations of typical young children, playing games and having fun.

ICarly




Icarly is and American childrens TV drama, therefore it's likely to be different to English TV dramas.
The title sequence for ICarly attracts its target audience by using characters that are of similar age, this will help audience relate to the show and become more interested. Also the use of transitions like the wipe and cuts make it very fast paced and interesting to watch.
Right from the start of the title you are aware its going to be about a website, as you see it being typed in on a web page, this creates appropriate audience expectations and persuades audience to keep watching.
This also repres

Tests

We wanted to test out moving an object across the screen, in this case we used a piece of paper. We did this as an idea for our own title sequence was to put the actors names on small bits of paper and have them moving across the screen.
We got this inspiration from Mortified and Neds Declassified.





This was a test we did to see how well we could convert images into looking like comic books. We think this was really succesful, and learnt how to do it over the internet so it has increased our photoshop knowledge. We feel confident that this is something we'd like to incorporate into our title sequence and use with quite a few images.

Pitch

Basic Pitch

Treatment

Working Title --- Super Dooper

Concept
Troublesome teen who gains super powers but finds it difficult to use them, are his powers more trouble than they are worth?

Purpose
What you can do if you put your mind to it

Desired Outcome
Recognisable to the audience, easy to turn on and watch even for those who have never seen it before. Each episode different and fun but with familiar faces and themes which are easy for the audience to relate with.
We want to introuduce only a couple of characters in the title sequence - just the main characters - The "superhero", "villain" and "best friend or sister"

Audience
‘9 – 14’ as main target audience. This relates to Superhero themed films that are around right now, which are 12a certificate.

Overall style and ‘look’?
The look would fit the theme of comics and cartoons, maybe add an element of child like sketches into it.
Were interested in the look of a flip book aswell, so may attempt to incorporate this into our

What sort of texts are you influenced by?
Mortified because the dynamics of the title sequence – fast cuts and fun animation
Neds declassified – again due to the fast cuts and childlike captions and narrative exposition

What sort of texts might you want to be different to?
We wish to be different from every opening and drama we have looked at, this is because we feel establishing our own identity for the show is imporatant and for this to be done, a different approach in terms of theme, style and characters to other shows will be done to achieve this.

What sort of technology do you think will be involved?
Mini DV Camera
Editing Software – Photoshop & Adobe Premier Pro

What sort of personnel will be involved?
Georgina – Camerawork, Acting and editing.
Dan - Camerawork, Acting and editing.
Actor 1 – Acting

Dates and provisional schedule
9-26th October- Research and planning
26th-23rd November – filming
27th-11th January – post production

Likely problems
Casting
Editing problems
Special effects

Possible Costs
Petrol money - To get to different destinations for filming

Transport issues
Ginas car – Petrol money + Driving ability

Health and Safety Issues
Ginas driving…
May also need permission from parents if we use a young actor

Skills Targets

For this project we had to refine our skills and gain experience in making a short video clip...
I believe I achieved some of the skill targets I outlined but not all.

My digital technology target was: I want to learn how to use the the digital video camera effectively for the best shots possible.
I believe we achieved this as we researched into big brother shows and looked at the angles used, we used this in our clip and effectively got different shots with continuity edits. However as we didn't have a tripod at the time the camera is slightly shakey.

My creativity target was: I want to be able to express my ideas more clearly within my group and put them into our production
I think I achieved this as I suggested the camera angles and what the story lines were about as we were sat down in a group. These ideas are cleraly represented in our video clip.

My Research and Planning target was: I need to be able to manage my time properly when doing reasearch and planning as last year it wasn't as good as I would of hoped.
I think this could have been better achieved. Our group wasnt always together at the same time so was difficult to get everything done on time and was slightly rushed. However if the time limit was longer our clip would have been more refined.

My post production target was: I would like to learn how to put a voiceover onto my clip using premiere pro
This wasnt achieved as we didnt have the time to put a voiceover clip on, if again the time limit was longer this would of refined our clip and made it more proffesional.

My Using Conventions from Real Media Texts target was: I'd like to make our clip seem like a real reality tv show, taking inspiration from Big Brother
I believe this was fully achieved as we watched many video clips and studied the angles used which we then incorporated into our own clip, we also took conventional ideas from big brother like the diary room and big brother voices which were used effectively in our clip

Overall I think I refined my skills on premiere pro and learnt how to manage our time appropriatley.

Skills Targets

I'm going to be improving my Film production skills by creating a big brother like show. These are the skills I'm aiming to improve and how I think making the short show will help me:

Digital Technology
Skill Target: I want to learn how to use the the digital video camera effectively for the best shots possible.
How this will be achieved: Because its a reality show, the camera shots will have to be very still and slow moving, we will have to use the tripod effectively.


Creativity
Skill Target: I want to be able to express my ideas more clearly within my group and put them into our production
How will this be achieved: By sitting down with my group andtelling them my ideas and how we can incorporate them into our clip


Research and Planning
Skill Target: I need to be able to manage my time properly when doing reasearch and planning as last year it wasn't as good as I would of hoped.
How this will be achieved: Make a plan of what research needs to be done and record it down appropriatley, making sure its all organised and clear.

Post-Production
Skill Target: I would like to learn how to put a voiceover onto my clip using premiere pro
How this will be achieved: We need a voicover as our clip will be a big brother themed one.

Using Conventions from Real Media Texts
Skill Target: I'd like to make our clip seem like a real reality tv show, taking inspiration from Big Brother
How this will be achieved: Using lots of cuts and shots from different angles to give a real "big brother is watching you" feel