Evaluation Question 2-

How effective is thecombination of yourmain product andancillary texts?Emily Sampson

IntroductionMy A2 year of media consisted of my group and I toproduce a 5 minute documentary on the topic of our

choice. We decided to do our documentary on pressurethat the media causes on our teenagers of today. This 5minute documentary went together with two ancillary

tasks of a double page spread of a TV listing and a radioadvert to advertise the documentary. I decided to follow

some codes and conventions that these productsgenerally follow to create a unique selling point to my

product. I made sure to do this to make the overallproducts both interesting and engaging for the audiences

to watch, read and listen to.

Introduction to my 5 minute documentary

"Pressure on teenagers from the media: Appearance"

The 5 minute documentary consisted of a presenter, voxpops andexperts creating a solid argument of if media is exploiting teenagers

because of pressure on them. We gained the idea of the topic offour own experiences, and other views that have been given to usthat were very similar and seemingly a general consensus. The

purpose of the documentary was to give the audience more of a truepicture of different aspects of the media, good and bad ones. Beforewe under gone our research into the topic, we all thought the media

was bad overall, however after looking into different aspects,experiences and stories, we found that this wasn't the case. We

wanted to share this with teenagers to raise awareness of the badsides to the media but also the good sides that some people may

not be aware of.

Introduction to my TV Listing - Double PageSpread

"Pressure on teenagers from the media: Appearance"

The aim of our double page spread TV listing was to access the wider worldand further advertise our documentary to get more viewers, aiming at our

target audience of 13-19 year olds in particular. It consists of the article,pictures that we had screenshotted from the documentary itself and the logoof what magazine it is in. (What's on TV) We had to used images to not only

link the double page spread with the documentary but also to keep theaudience visually entertained and therefore we would maintain their interest

which would encourage them to read the whole article. We found that it wouldalso create a better connection with the audience, as they could feel related tothe topic due to the people being within the target audience range. We namedthe double page spread the same that we named the documentary to link the

two together and produce them as one.

Introduction to my Radio AdvertThe purpose of the radio advert is to summarise what thedocumentary is about and further advertise it to people,

particularly those within our target audience. It gives the audiencea clear picture of what they should expect from the documentary,

making them want to go on to watch the documentary.We used a speaker who had not been involved in the documentarynor the double page spread to create the sense that a radio station

was advertising a documentary that they did not know about.Voxpops were involved at the beginning that were taken from the

documentary, and also statistics that were present in thedocumentary. The advertiser spoke about some of the elementsthat we explored in the documentary, following with exactly whenthe documentary was going to be aired on television. (date, time,

channel)

How they all worked insynergy

All three products that I have created: the documentary, the double pagespread and the radio advert work together to reach one big target: promoting

and advertising. The documentary gives a short trailer-like introduction ofwhat the full documentary would be like, encouraging the audience to want towatch the full version. The double page spread provides a written explanationof the argument we explore in the documentary, with images to support it tomake sure the audience maintain their interest. The radio advert provides ashort introduction into the documentary, which similarly to the 5 minute

video explains what would be involved in the full documentary, concluding theargument. Each product would be advertising the final product in differentways such as in magazines, on the radio etc so it reaches a wide range of

people which would hopefully make our target audience interested and go noto watch the full documentary.

Props - Effective or ineffective?In the documentary and the double page spread, we used the propof a phone(s) which of course links to the media such as through

social media that many teenagers use every day. It symbolised theargument overall because many teenagers in this day and age usephones to communicate with others, and also most importantly

gain access from the media. I found that the use of the phone being a common prop that waspresent was very effective as it allows the audience watching to

instantly know aspects that could be exploiting teenagers throughpressure that they face, because it is something to gain extremely

easy access to the media in any form. it is also a very relatablething as most teenagers own a phone, so they can relate to thesepeople on their phone and how they may see the media in a bad

light as it is always accessible to them.

Colour - Effective or Ineffective?Colour was a big part of the products that we created as we commonly usedsimilar colours in them, and was a very effective thing to keep the same. Pinkand purple are the colours we mainly stuck to, with the occasional blue colour

when boys are present. We did this because we wanted the colour to be iconic and symbolic, so when people saw thesecolours, they could associate them with ourproducts. This works very well with films such asSpiderman is always represented of the colourred, and this could possibly be effective for uswhich would benefit it hugely, making theproducts gain more appeal.The colour we mainly used in the double pagespread being purple (as seen in picture) iseffective in terms of relating to our targetaudience as it is stereotypically a 'girly' colour, so itwould most likely be eye catching to teenage girlsbecause of the colours present.

Binary Opposition - Effective orineffective?

On the one hand, we had VERY clear binary opposites of boys vsgirls in our documentary, which was something we explored interms of our argument. This was effective as it supports our

argument because we not only just look into the media pressuringteenagers, but we look into our target audience more and look at ifgirls are facing pressure from the media more than boys. It makesit more relatable to teenage girls of whom are our target audience

and therefore brings in a larger audience which would want towatch the full documentary.

However on the other hand we did not show the binary oppositionthat is present in our documentary in our double page spread. Wemissed this opportunity of effectiveness here as this would have

created synergy between the two products by helping them to linktogether and create a band.

Mise En Scene - Hair and make-up -

Effective or Ineffective? In the area of hair & makeup we wanted to make sure that this waskept the same in the documentary and the double page spread for

continuity reasons, therefore being effective for us. For example, in thedocumentary, the presenters hair is kept pretty much the same,

without it changing much to give it an obvious difference. This helpsthe continuity of the documentary and gives the ancillary texts abetter look just because it helps make them look similar which

creates branding as the presenter would therefore be recognised fromhow she looks. If there was to be a huge change in her hair or themakeup she is wearing would make the ancillary products look likeit's not connected to the documentary at first glance, and we want

people to immediately link the two when they see them, even throughthe similarities in the actors and characters appearance, which

creates a similar meaning of how girls look because of the media.

Main characters - Effective orineffective?

Lastly, the main characters themselves were a massive elementthat we decided to make present in all three products. We foundthis to be very effective as the characters give the ancillary textsand the documentary a link which is what myself and the groupwanted. The characters effectively help link the three products

together as they are portrayed in each in the same way, and it linksthe products together due to the fact that the actual people that are

being shown are still the same as the characters, so this will stillgive the ancillary texts and documentary a visual look.. It again

creates the ability for audiences to identify the people used in oneproduct, and automatically relate them to the other products.

Two characters that are present in all products, Ella (an expert) and Gabbie (the presenter).