Radio trailer Zero Hours

The main purpose of a radio trailer is to gain the attention of the audience, this then makes them more interested in watching the documentary. It should sound interesting so the audience find a reason to watch the actual documentary.

A light sound bed is used in most radio trailers to connote the topic of the documentary. The sound bed is at a low volume so the voice over and sound bites can clearly be heard.

We used a song that is relevant to the topic of our documentary, this follows the codes and conventions of documentary radio trailers. We used the song ‘Work’ by Rihanna. This is as it connotes the theme of working and is also a popular song in the charts which will attract the teenage audience.

At the beginning of our documentary we have taken a fact from our documentary voice over which gives information to the audience about our chosen topic and also shows continuity.

V/O – ‘In the UK today young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than the rest of the population. This is the largest gap in almost 20 years’

Many people listening may not know this fact, therefore they may be interested to finding out more. It also addresses ‘young people’ , because of this they may feel as if they can relate more to the documentary and be likely to watch it.

We used the same voice over in our radio trailer and documentary, this follows the main codes and conventions of professional documentaries as it shows continuity.

Within our radio trailer we have taken sound bites from our documentary interviews, we followed this code and convention of this as it gives the audience information about the content in which will be shown within the documentary.

Furthermore, our documentary includes scheduling information at the end which is an important code and convention. It includes the date, time and channel in which it will be broadcasted on. This is done to inform the people listening where to find the documentary after they have heard the content that will be in it.

Our radio trailer is 38 seconds long which is similar to a professional documentary as they are usually 30 to 40 seconds. 38 seconds is enough time to advertise the documentary and give the audience a taste of what will be included within the documentary without giving too much away. The timing of our radio trailer follows the codes and conventions of a proffesional radio advert.