Planning

Firstly for our planning we decided to analyse existing mastheads to get a better idea of what the potential competition for our magazine will be. We also thought it was important to look into prices to see what magazine different types of people would be interested in and also what they could afford.

We identified in our analysis that the audiences that purchase the more expensive ones are 'achievers' and they aspire to a higher life for themselves, also in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs they would position themselves at the top of the hierarchy pyramid in which they feel they accomplished, self actualisation is somewhere people aspire to be and the sort of people that purchase these higher priced magazines most likely lead more luxurious lifestyles.

 The uses and gratifications theory approach examines the process of communication from the audience members' individual perceptions. Basically this theory investigates why people chose to use the media, this was useful for our planning stage as we wanted to create something that our target audience would preferably like through not only our trailer but also our poster and TV listing front cover as well. It was important for us to be able to create something that a wide range of people would like and the teenage market that watches soaps/dramas based on characters of their ages lives is specifically a large one. This theory also identifies how people use media to satisfy their needs, for example watching a trailer for a new soap opera may then encourage people to watch the programme, this particularly linked in with when we carried out an audience questionnaire and the majority said that trailers did entice them to watch a soap opera, the feedback we also got showed that watching a trailer also gave them more encouragement to go on and actually watch the programme, therefore a trailer satisfies the audiences needs and shows them what they want and expect to be shown.

Relevant Theories

Levi Strauss was an anthropologist who studied how 'primitive' societies functioned. He argued that primitive societies and so-called 'advance' societies shared similar elements. His theory concluded that Binary opposition occurred within TV. We have therefor used his theory when planning our soap opera having the 'hooded youth' and the innocent girl both acting in our trailer. We have tried to define this binary opposition through the mise en scene in the clothing, for example, we have dressed the 'hooded youth' in tracksuit bottoms, trainers, a hoodie and a body warmer. This is a stereotypical view of a troublesome youth. We have then dressed the girl in pretty and ordinary clothes, giving her the innocent and harmless look.

We have also tried to use the Theory Of Equilibrium in our trailer as we start with a fairly slow opening, with slow music and slow movements, the music then becomes more upbeat and the movements are quicker, for instance when the hooded youth is running up the stairs, the climax of the trailer is then when the girl shouts 'HELP!' and the last bit of footage is again slow with no sudden movement and the music is again slow and seedy.

Propp argued that no matter the surface difference between the stories and fairy tales, they all share the same internal structure. This was that the characters and actions could all be grouped into eight character roles and 31 functions. Propps theory of character types also fits into our product as we have included 'the villain' in a modern day version, through the 'hooded youth' we have also included the 'False Hero' which is the man dressed in the suit at the beginning of the trailer, as it is meant to look like the girl goes to him for help but you get the impression he is very seedy and she must do something in return.

We also think we have used cultural verisimilitude in our soap opera as the audience are allowed to safely explore crime and close down their fears relating to crime without actually being involved themselves. We felt this will intrigue people and persuade them to watch our soap, which is one of the reasons we decided to chose this theme.

We decided it was vital to capture the theme of our soap opera within our images which we will be using for both our TV Poster and TV Magazine. As we are trying to generate the theme of a drama soap which focuses on the crime and events that happen in a less developed area we thought that the mise en scene had to portray this through the negativity of the characters expressions and the scenery. We didn't want to involve any modern buildings or objects as this shows money, wealth and development of the area. Instead we wanted to include the stereotypical signs of underdeveloped communities and crime. We therefore used a local skate park where we used an area which featured mass amounts of graffiti. Not only did this connote crime, but it also connoted underdevelopment and teenage life, which was perfect due to our target market being teenagers. We used a metal gate, barbed wire, overgrown grass, graffiti and a trolley as a part of our mise en scene. we thought this mise en scene was very simplistic which allowed us to create the ideology of an urban and undeveloped area. Another way we created this ideology was through the clothing of the characters. We used very casual clothing, for example hoodies. This gave the impression they were lower-class citizens which is the category you would usually find in a less developed area. However we have used binary opposition within our characters as we decided to dress one character in a suit, and in one image he is using a mobile phone. This binary opposition shows the contrast between the upper class and the lower class citizens. It portrays wealth as making you more successful, sophisticated and powerful as in all our images you see the character in the suit looking very domineering.

We also thought it was important we used the characters which are actually going to be in our trailer, in our images for our poster and magazine, as this will help to create realism and will also allow people to connect each of the products together.

After editing all our images we had a rough idea of the images we thought would work well in our TV poster and TV magazine front cover. However, we thought we would develop our planning so that are final product would be even better.

We therefore decided to ask the public which images they thought would be more effective as a poster and which image would be more effective as the front cover main image of a magazine. We gave them a choice of 5 of our favourite images. These results would allow us to see what the public thought of the images and which were best suited to the products we are required to make.

We asked 30 people around our school as well as our friends and family. Below are our results we received.

After getting all of this audience feedback we were satisfied with our images however when we later filmed more footage for our trailer we took a few images indoors just in case we were to change our mind. we found that the images we took indoors with a plain background were easier to manipulate. We also realised that none of our original images showed things such as drugs, drinking or smoking which is something we wanted to be shown in our soap as these are stereotypical things teenagers are associated with. We therefore took some shots of a boy smoking. This image represented everything we were trying to portray so well that we found it difficult to ignore, so we decided to gain further feedback from the audience. We handed out a simple questionnaire asking people which image they preferred as a TV Poster and they were shown the two images. Below are the results:

Our results confirmed our final decision. We decided to chose image 1 for our poster. Below is the editing process for this image...

 Soundtracks for our trailer

We identified through analysing various trailers that the soundtrack usually helps create or exhilarate emotions, therefor trailers tend to have a soundtrack which is relevant to the theme or genre of the programme or film. For example, if it is a trailer for romance movie the soundtrack is likely to be a slow, romantic song or a upbeat and cheerful song, opposed to a fast pace rap or a lullaby. We noticed that the soundtrack usually has a range of volumes to intensify certain scenes in the trailer and build tension within the audience. We looked at various soundtracks to see which would fit with our trailer well and add effect to the theme we are trying to pursue.

Skrein- Reach

We really liked this soundtrack as we liked the fact it had no lyrics for the opening to the song. This made it more suitable for the scenes in our trailer which had dialect. We thought that having no lyrics in our soundtrack would be easier when it came to editing our trailer as we thought it may be difficult to ensure the dialect from the trailer and the soundtrack didn’t clash. This soundtrack is also a soundtrack used in a movie called adulthood which is a sequel to the 2006 film Kidulthood. It explores the life of a boy that’s grown up around crime and has just been released from prison. Our soap opera also focuses around crime, which suggests this soundtrack would fit well to our trailer. This is a fast paced soundtrack which sounds urban and modern. As we have quick snappy shots showing lots of different things going on in our trailer this fast pace will coincide well with our short edits and the urban and modern day effect of the soundtrack will add to the effect we are trying to create of our unique modern day soap opera. The contrast of lyrics on certain part and no lyrics within other parts creates ample opportunity for us to make our trailer more interesting by having some dialect on the parts which have no lyrics and no dialect on the parts of the track with lyrics. The sound of this track also creates a very negative vibe which will help give the impression to the audience that this soap opera involves crime and drama, which will hopefully intrigue people so that they watch it.

Bashy- Kidulthood to Adulthood

After listening to the previous adulthood soundtrack we decided to look further into the soundtracks of the sequel. We found this track which is also very urban due to the vast amounts of slang used in the lyrics and the tone the lyrics are sang in. However this soundtrack has lyrics all the way through which limits the amount of dialect that we can use, if we decide we wanted to use more than originally planned. Too much dialect with this soundtrack is likely to clash with the sound of the soundtrack. However the lyrics of this soundtrack are talking about the negative things which we are portraying In our trailer for example: “it’s a lot until you get shot or you’re getting murdered in the dark cuz they caught you with rocks in your sock and when you come out you can't get a job”. Just in the opening of this verse it speaks about being shot, murder and not being able to get a job. These are some of the negative things which also are shown within our trailer which will mean that this soundtrack has a good connection with the events that take place in the trailer. Due to our soap focusing on all the negativities in modern day life the sad and oppressive tone of this soundtrack which is created by the harsh and sinful lyrics and the repetitive back beat, adds to the effect and will allow emotions to be created more effectively.

Akon- locked up

We thought this song was a good option for us as we felt it created a negative vibe through the slow backbeat and the sound of prison gates slamming shut. The lyrics also portray this negative atmosphere due to its consistency in the use of words about crime. It also kept repeating: “cause we’re locked up” which again pursues the negativity of this song. We felt the talk of crime throughout this track related well to the theme of our trailer however, we decided against this track due to this track being quite dated. We decided if we were trying to create a ‘Modern day’ version of a soap opera that targeted primarily teenagers, we should use a more recent track that teenagers recognised. The tune throughout the song is also quite slow paced. Within our trailer we wanted there to be a build up to show the trailer itself building towards the action. Locked up pretty much stayed on one level the whole way through the song.

 50 cent - In da club

It was important for us to look at a wide variety of rap songs from different artists to get an understanding of what music would be appropriate for our trailer. Without the lyrics this song had a good beat and then would have been appropriate for our trailer yet with lyrics there was a strong use of swear words and references to sex and drugs throughout, this then made it not suitable for the image we were trying to portray and the message we were sending out to teenagers. The aim of our soap is to give awareness of the negatives in society and not to encourage violence. We felt that although we wanted use a song that was well known to teenagers this one was perhaps too popular already. We felt the trailer would not be so memorable because the song would over shadow the film contents.

 There are also some songs that we considered but then went on to not using. Although we were trying the portray the 'gangster' image we did not want to use songs that were going to be offensive to people and then put them off watching the soap altogether. Music is also important for our trailer because for it to look professional there needs to be a link between the film itself and then also the music that brings it all together. 

Production of our trailer...
Initially we downloaded the new version of Windows Movie Maker to create our trailer. This software was easy and straight forward to use and had a variety of transitions. We created the basis of our trailer on this software however, every time we went back onto the file to watch the video, certain clips were 'not recognised' and the timeline would just show an exclamation mark where the clip was meant to be. We discovered that the software wouldn't recognise any clips that had been edited or cut too much so after several attempts, using this software, trying to adapt how we were editing the clips, we decided to resort to another software.

We downloaded the free trial of 'Final Cut Pro' from the internet in hope that this software was compatible with our clips. However, we were unsure on how to use this software as it was a lot more advance than Windows Movie Maker. We therefore used 'YouTube' to watch tutorials on how to use this software so that we were able to learn the different tools. Using this software we were able to access many more effects and lots of transitions. We used the split toolon this software to shorten all the footage so it was much snappier editing and also so that it went to the beat of the music.

Using this software I had to set out the clips I wanted to use, in the order I wanted them to play. This was set out in a time line format. I then had to edit each clip individually adding effects and transitions and adapting the colour of the clips by increasing/ decreasing the saturation and the hue. I also had to adapt the brightness of various clips, especially those I filmed in during the evening when it was dark outside, to do this I adapted the contrast and the midtone.  

When adding our soundtrack to our trailer we had to first mute the sound from our clips as we wanted the soundtrack to give the impact while the silent footage builds up tension. However we wanted the end clip to have dialect where the girl shouts 'HELP' as we felt this will leave a huge cliff hanger. We therefor had to unmute this clip and fade out the soundtrack so that you got full impactof her cry for help. We also fadded the beggining of the sountrack into the beggining of the trailer so their was a gradual build up to go with the sad and negative opening scene.