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Question 1 Lexi Feedback
Question 1 Lexi Feedback
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products
The first way in which I have followed conventions of real media products was
through the use of location. When producing my soap opera we planned to use
conventional locations in order for our production to appeal to our target
audience. For example we used locations such as a street and the interior of a
house. We chose to incorporate these locations into our production as our target
audience would be likely to associate these locations with a soap opera. We
featured internal areas of the house such as: the living room, kitchen, bedroom
and bathroom. This is mainly due to my target audience being familiar with and
enjoying already existing soaps. We thought by including conventional locations
into our production that our target audience would likely enjoy our production as
they are used to seeing these locations and will additionally be able to relate the
locations included as soap operas are mainly based on ordinary peoples lives.
Include audience feedback here did your audience feedback confirm their
familiarity/enjoying setting?
The second convention we tried to followed was costume. From previous
research tasks I found that soap operas often feature their characters wearing
casual loose fitting costumes. We thought it was a good idea to follow the
convention of casual loose fitting costumes as it has previously made soap
operas very successful. In our production we dressed our characters similarly and
additionally tried to follow character archetypes when doing this; for example the
costume of a bad boy. In order to follow the archetype of a bad boy, we dressed
the character Jamie in dark baggy clothing. He wore loose fitting jeans and a
dark coat. The use of the dark coloured clothing portrays him to be evil and
suspicious. This helped us develop Jamie as a character as we planned Jamies
character to come across as guilty and criminal. The dark clothing additionally
portrayed him as the antagonist as it hid his true identity. There were 4 main
characters in my production and each of them were dressed differently according
to their character profile. Another example was Sophie who was supposed to look
ordinary but nave, so therefore we decided to dress her in light blue jeans, a
fluffy cardigan and she wore flowers in her hair. I feel that costumes are an
important way to portray each character to the audience so the audience are
therefore able to develop personal relationships with each character after a short
period of the soap being aired. One of the questions I asked my target audience
was based upon character types and my feedback allowed me to see that the
audience could make out some of the character types I had planned to
incorporate. For example my first interviewee stated that she could clearly see
the villain, helpless friend and the popular person. This was positive feedback
as it meant the inclusion of my characters through costume was successful and
allowed the audience to see the characters we were trying to portray.
A third way in which we tried to maintained conventional elements of soaps was
through the use of props. We decided we didnt need a vast amount of props, but
we did make sure that the props we did use were conventional and reflected the
genre of the production well and the (multi-strand?) narratives, conventional of
soap opera (and appeal to the target audiences age through dramatic themes?).
For example the props we included were: a gun, drugs, alcohol, a mobile phone,
a computer and books/stationary. In order to make our production professional,
and for us to be able to create a sense of verisimilitude for the audience we
needed to make sure that the props we selected were conventional. Once we had
made sure they were conventional we had to make sure the props chosen were
relevant and appropriate for each of the characters. The audience would be able
to affiliate these props with a soap opera, and therefore our production would be
more likely to appeal to the target audience as we are supplying what they
expect to see. They may additionally be able to relate to some of the props being
included especially as they are young- for example the phone. My audience
feedback suggested that they could tell we had included a villain through the use
of the gun. This allows me to believe that I have been successful when including
the correct props as they are representing my characters in the correct way. My
audience are decoding the messages we have incorporated into the production
and therefore are able to understand our narrative and the genre of our
production without us having to make it too obvious.
Another way in which we made our production conventional was through the use
of camera work. I had completed a lot of research into already existing soaps and
had particularly focused on the camerawork they use throughout their episodes.
After watching carrying out primary research in the form of observations,
watching clips from already existing soaps we decided to incorporate the use of:
close up shots, mid shots, long shots and point of view shots as well as a long
take into our production because these tended to be used to.?. An example of
when we used these shots was: a point of view shot at the party as the two
characters walk in and a close up shot at the beginning of the production when
Jamie is walking away from the camera. The close up shot allowed the audience
to become familiar with the costume of the characters in my soap, and
additionally the point of view shot was included to catch the audiences attention
and to make them feel as though they themselves were being featured in the
trailer. I felt that the inclusion of these different shots was successful as it
followed the conventions I had found in other soaps and additionally allowed the
audience to see the facial expressions of the characters as well as their body
language and relationships towards other. This is typical within soap operas as
the narratives are based around each characters life. It was important to me
that this was portrayed correctly throughout our product so the audience
understand our characters and storyline as best as possible. Include audience
feedback here
We additionally developed forms within our media product. For example
character types, as our audience are aged between 16 and 25 we had to adapt
our character types to fit the characteristics of both our characters and the
target audience. For example we had to develop our characters so we could
include aspects such as drinking. Usually in soap operas drinking is seen within a
pub, however as our characters were young people, some of them would not be
old enough to drink in a pub and therefore we had to develop our storyline so
that the characters were drinking illegally at a house party. The progressed
storyline emphasises to the audience how dangerous a health risk drinking
alcohol can be if it gets out of hand. For example when Sophie comes downstairs
at the end and witnesses Tilly lying dead on her kitchen floor. The use of young
characters in this way is not usually typical and therefore it engages the
audience as they are interested in finding out more. As our target audience were
so young we did include just young character types and this paid off as the
majority of our target audience identified the audience of the trailer correctly.
Most of them suggested that our target audience were young people, either
teenagers or individuals in their early 20s. Include audience feedback here. Also
mention that developing genre conventions adhered to the relevant genre
theory.
Inlcude an overall feeling of how successful you have been in reference to the
question