In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media products that I have created predominantly use the conventions of real newspapers and radio broadcasts. I analysed real media to come up with my ideas and media’s. Firstly I analysed real local newspapers to find out what is already out there already and what I will be competing with. When looking at the newspapers, I analysed the type of stories used, the type of images they used and also if they pursued a fixed house style throughout the two pages. The two newspapers I used were
In my second product which was my poster I again used the conventions from the real media text to create my own poster. What I found when analysing newspaper posters was that when they advertised the newspapers it was very clear and straight to the point on what was being advertised and why. So using these conventions I created my own poster which involved “short and snappy” sentences and also had clear notifications of what was being advertised and why. Also I applied the same house style to the poster as I did to the newspaper so it is seen as consistent and the audiences have more recognition of the newspaper. Another thing that was outlined on my poster as a marketing technique was the price of the newspaper. Most local buy-able newspapers are available for 30p upwards, so I specifically outlined the price on the poster which was 25p. I also took into consideration for the audiences that they may be thinking they can get the metro for free but the content of the newspaper is biased and some articles are not always 100%.
My final product that I created to go with the previous two production pieces was my radio advertisement. When I looked at existing radio stations and how businesses advertise their products on it I immediately acknowledged that they have one thing in common, that they are very short, precise and straight to the point. When I researched on the local radio stations and found out how they advertise businesses products I saw that they had a slot within the show to advertise their product. The slot that the businesses were given were quite small but even though they had short air time they included every important aspect that was needed to advertise their product and most important sell their product to the audience. If I was to advertise my newspaper on air on a radio show I would put it on well known reputable radio stations e.g. Kic FM, Galaxy and BBC Radio.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
My main task and ancillary tasks are a good combination and are effective because firstly I have tied my newspaper and poster together with a consistent house style so it is easy for the audience to identify what it is and who is the creator of the product. Also secondly why it is a good combination is that we have a newspaper that needs to have good marketing techniques to sell which we have with a poster and a radio broadcast which helps to advertise the newspaper. I think the combination of my final products is a successful combination because from doing my research a newspaper is dependent on its advertisement to boost the sales up so having a poster and a radio advertisement along side a newspaper helps it sell.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
The audience I received was from my subject teachers, my peers and my media class. When I received the audience feedback it mainly consisted of what was good in all three of my products and also how I could improve my products.
I collected audience feedback throughout my work to help me see what I needed to improve but I did also gain feedback after finishing my work to see what changes I could have made if I was to have more time or do the project again. The audience feedback I gathered from my media group was as follows; “The planning and research linked in with you main products well as you stuck to the plan. Also the three production tasks link well with each other because it clearly outlines the purpose in all products and you have used a consistent house style to maintain the appearance and recognition between the poster and newspaper. The weak points of the production are that the newspaper could have been a little more filled with a few more articles as you see in the existing local newspapers also the radio advertisement was good and to the point, but could be a little more lengthy for more of a persuasive advertisement.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used a variety of media technologies throughout all of the stages of my work. Firstly for my research I used the iMac to help me research on existing newspaper companies, sizes and scales of newspapers and background research on my ancillary tasks which were a poster and radio advertisement. Also for my planning and research I scanned some images using my Epson DX8400 scanner that I needed to use to explain what I was researching and giving examples of what was being discussed in my blog. Throughout my coursework for A2 I also kept an up-to-date blog which discussed the progress what progress was being made throughout all stages of my work from planning and researching to construction and evaluating.
For two of the three production tasks I used software which is called Macromedia Fireworks. Macromedia Fireworks is used to create, edit and manipulate images of a high quality. I used this software because I have used it previously within my I-media course and highly reputable in this area of work. The two products I created within Macromedia Fireworks was my main task which was my newspaper and my poster. The process I went through to firstly set up the software to cater for my needs for each task was to firstly set up the canvas sizes for each piece of production and secondly to import images and text which needs to be included within the products.
After setting up the software I then used the tools within the editing suite to create my products. Some of the tools that I used were the shape tool, text editing tools, path tool, colour tools and also effect tools. After finishing parts of my product I saved them regularly as a PNG file so I could then re-open it in the editing suite again and do further work to it because If I was to save it as a JPEG I would not have been able to edit it after doing sections of it. Another reason why I made copies and versions is because technical errors and difficulties might occur while I was working so to make sure I did not lose any parts of my work I saved the files a multiple of times. I also duplicated my files on my memory stick to keep a copy of my work just incase anything was lost on the internal hard drive I always had a copy externally.
For the final piece of production which was my radio broadcast I used a the iMac again but used a different software. The name of the software I used was Garage Band. Garage Band is software used to create sound files such as music, jingles, sound effects and pod casts. I wanted to use this software because it is one of the best sound editing software which creates high quality sound files. We used this software to create out radio advertisement. First we created our different layers to separate our sounds so they are clearly visible and so they are not mixed up. Also I had to set the input and output volume of the microphone so it was not too loud or too quiet.
After setting up the software, I then recorded our script using microphone and after recording I played it back through headphones to check the quality of the sound and if it was what we need. After gathering the recordings we added some sound effects e.g. pitch of voice which changed the tone of the recorded voice and we also added jingles that we extracted from I-tunes. After we had finished the advertisement I exported the file as a high quality MP3 file and saved it into my folder. The reason I saved it as a high quality MP3 files was so that the sound file is not distorted because majority of the sound was narration and also because MP3 files are compatible to play in windows media player, real player and can play when burnt to a disk.
After receiving constructive feedback I decided to add a column of horoscopes and also adding local news. The problem I have encountered after making these changes is that the pages would not be able to fold without the information being distorted at the same time and the text would be unreadable.
