I have used many different media technologies in the various stages of this media coursework. One of the main ones is this blog which I used to to document my progress. With this blog I was able to easily upload various different formats of media, pictures, video and text, to display my coursework. Also, being an internet technology, it is available 24/7 from anywhere with internet access.
To acquire audience feedback I used the social networking site Facebook to ask a lot of people I know all at once to evaluate my work and provide feedback. With Facebook I could upload images of my poster and feature, and even upload the finished radio drama for anyone to see and comment.
I also used sophisticated software to create and edit the radio drama, the poster and the double page feature. Soundtrack Pro is a very good piece of audio editing software which was used to directly record the dialogue for our radio drama and to edit it like adding sound effects and organising the different segments of audio.
I used Adobe Photoshop, a high quality image editor, to create the poster of our radio drama. First I took some photographs which I would later edit to create the poster. I used my skills to create a spray painted, graffiti-style poster that looks authentic.
I used both Photoshop and InDesign to create the double page feature. InDesign is some software specifically designed to create things like double page spreads. I used it to compile text and images and structure them properly to make an authentic feature page.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Friday, 4 March 2011
Evaluation - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback told us that overall the radio drama was quite good, scoring an average of about 7/10. The main issue with the actual drama was that the Nick's Scottish accent wasn't believable and that it was an unintended comical element, despite our aims for a serious radio drama.
The feedback for my poster was quite good as well. People said that instead of it coming across as a science-fiction thriller, it came across more in the horror genre. I think this is because I didn't include as many science-fiction imagery, like a mushroom cloud to get the point across that it is set in a nuclear apocalypse. The only other issue was that some of the text was perhaps too small.
My double page spread was also received quite well. This came across more to the audience as being a more science-fiction, post-apocalyptic genre. People agreed that the large pictures and text would serve as a good attention grabbing device, and that the large character Polaroids with short biographies gave the audience a better feel for the radio drama. One small issue was that there wasn't enough text to take up space, but from the research that I did I found out that a lot of features don't use a lot of text.
The feedback for my poster was quite good as well. People said that instead of it coming across as a science-fiction thriller, it came across more in the horror genre. I think this is because I didn't include as many science-fiction imagery, like a mushroom cloud to get the point across that it is set in a nuclear apocalypse. The only other issue was that some of the text was perhaps too small.
My double page spread was also received quite well. This came across more to the audience as being a more science-fiction, post-apocalyptic genre. People agreed that the large pictures and text would serve as a good attention grabbing device, and that the large character Polaroids with short biographies gave the audience a better feel for the radio drama. One small issue was that there wasn't enough text to take up space, but from the research that I did I found out that a lot of features don't use a lot of text.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Evaluation - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The aim with the ancillary texts is to create awareness and attract and audience for the main product. To do this it is necessary to make the texts appealing but also work well together and conform to the main product also.
The poster advertisement of our radio drama is used as something to inform people about the radio drama as well as persuade them to listen to it. It is mainly used as "eye-candy", in that it is just meant to look good as a persuader for people to investigate further, and in this I feel it succeeds. The poster conforms to the genre and feel of the radio drama and compliments it well.
The double page feature is similar to the poster in that it provides information as well as aiming to persuade the reader to listen to the radio drama, but it goes into more detail about what the radio drama is about and it draws in more of the target audience. The poster itself would act as a persuader for the audience to gain more information, which is where the double page feature comes in. The feature will then act as an enforcer to entice people to listen to the radio drama. Again, I attempted to have the feature conform to the genre and mood of the radio drama, just like with my poster.
So overall I think that my main product and ancillary pieces are effective together. I think that the advertisement, the double page spread and the radio drama itself work very well together and are very effective in that it would draw a large target audience.
The poster advertisement of our radio drama is used as something to inform people about the radio drama as well as persuade them to listen to it. It is mainly used as "eye-candy", in that it is just meant to look good as a persuader for people to investigate further, and in this I feel it succeeds. The poster conforms to the genre and feel of the radio drama and compliments it well.
The double page feature is similar to the poster in that it provides information as well as aiming to persuade the reader to listen to the radio drama, but it goes into more detail about what the radio drama is about and it draws in more of the target audience. The poster itself would act as a persuader for the audience to gain more information, which is where the double page feature comes in. The feature will then act as an enforcer to entice people to listen to the radio drama. Again, I attempted to have the feature conform to the genre and mood of the radio drama, just like with my poster.
So overall I think that my main product and ancillary pieces are effective together. I think that the advertisement, the double page spread and the radio drama itself work very well together and are very effective in that it would draw a large target audience.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In the radio drama we used several conventions, such as sound effects, the use of music and silence. Giving the character Nick a Scottish accent was a convention we used to have him come across as a bit more loud and aggressive to the audience to reflect his personality. We took on popular conventions of other radio dramas, like War of the World's realistic radio news broadcasts. Our radio drama takes on the narrative convention of Todorov's equilibrium theory, but deviates from it slightly by not instating at the end a new kind of equilibrium.
My poster uses several conventions to attempt to get across to the audience the idea of the genre of our radio drama. I took inspiration from posters of a similar genre like War of the Worlds and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I used a desaturated, grey image of a wall to reflect the serious tone of the drama, along with the red text as a connotation of danger which is the thriller, survival aspect of the drama. I also used several structuring conventions observed on War of the Worlds and Hitchhiker's Guide posters, making the title the largest, central focus of the poster, along with smaller wording for other text.
I utilized several conventions for my double page feature. I looked at feature pages for Doctor Who for influence in the creation of my double page feature. I made sure to include attention capturing devices like large text, pictures and quotes all to entice the reader, seen in real science fiction features, like Doctor Who. Also, again to reflect the genre and tone of the drama I used the colour red and pictures of slightly grungy walls. I kept the text fairly minimal like with other double page features to make sure that readers were not put off by the amount of text there was.
Overall, my poster, double page feature and radio drama mainly use and develop conventions rather than challenging them, but utilize them well enough for a good outcome.
My poster uses several conventions to attempt to get across to the audience the idea of the genre of our radio drama. I took inspiration from posters of a similar genre like War of the Worlds and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I used a desaturated, grey image of a wall to reflect the serious tone of the drama, along with the red text as a connotation of danger which is the thriller, survival aspect of the drama. I also used several structuring conventions observed on War of the Worlds and Hitchhiker's Guide posters, making the title the largest, central focus of the poster, along with smaller wording for other text.
I utilized several conventions for my double page feature. I looked at feature pages for Doctor Who for influence in the creation of my double page feature. I made sure to include attention capturing devices like large text, pictures and quotes all to entice the reader, seen in real science fiction features, like Doctor Who. Also, again to reflect the genre and tone of the drama I used the colour red and pictures of slightly grungy walls. I kept the text fairly minimal like with other double page features to make sure that readers were not put off by the amount of text there was.
Overall, my poster, double page feature and radio drama mainly use and develop conventions rather than challenging them, but utilize them well enough for a good outcome.
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