Radio Advert

Evaluation - 4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the planning and research stages of my production the Internet was one of the main media technologies I used to retrieve the information I needed. I used the Internet in many ways, one of the main reasons why I used it was to research existing newspapers, I was able to use Google search engine to help me find some local newspapers. I annotated the newspapers I found to spot conventions in the different features such as, layout, photos used, adverts, font, colour scheme, etc.

Another way in which I used the internet was that I signed up to a site called Blogger; this was so I could document the planning and production of my newspaper and ancillary tasks. The site was very good, simple and easy to use; I was able to add pictures also, to demonstrate what I was documenting. It was also good that it automatically put all of my blog posts into date order; you could view them by each month or all at once. This made finding posts easier and it looked professional.

I also used the internet to visit font websites; this was to research different fonts I could use for my newspaper masthead. I gathered a few different fonts I thought may work and put them next to each to rule out the ones I didn’t like, this was shown on the first page of this evaluation.

The one other way in which I used the internet was to visit our school Intranet and go to a section called Share Point, this is where our teachers could leave documents with information on that we could print off and use to improve our work.
During the construction of my production one of the main bits of software I sued was Microsoft Publisher. I used this software to create my newspaper pages to pull everything together, such as, pictures, articles, adverts etc.

My skills were already quite good with this software as I used it to create my AS music magazine production. Although during the construction of my newspaper I still managed to learn a few new things to give my newspaper a more professional image. For example on my articles I learnt that I could ‘Justify’ the block of text. This aligns text to both the left and right margins, adding extra space between words as necessary; this creates a clean look along the left and right side of the page. This is very conventional in all articles, especially newspaper articles.

Another bit of software which my skills were also quite advanced in was Paint Shop Pro. I use a piece of photo manipulating software called Photo Shop a lot on my home PC and Paint Shop Pro is the equivalent version we have in school. I also used Paint Shop Pro in my AS production of my music magazine. This is where I mostly became familiar with all the different features you could use and apply to your photos. In my AS production I manipulated my pictures quite a lot to make them stand out more; this made them look very professional and conventional for a music magazine. The photos I used for my newspaper didn’t need as much attention and as much ‘in your face’ editing. All I needed to do was a bit of cropping and colour adjustment, anything more and it wouldn’t be very conventional at all.

Although during the creation of my poster I decided to show my photo manipulating skills a bit more, I felt this wasn’t unconventional and it made my poster stand out more than if it was just a normal picture. I created the front cover for my supplement and tilted it so it looked like the actual supplement booklet. This editing wasn’t over the top and didn’t look out of place.

The only other media technology I used was a digital camera to gather the photos to put into my newspaper and poster. The camera I used was of fairly high quality, I made sure that it was quite high megapixel so when I cropped the photos and edited them, they stayed of high quality and didn’t distort.

Evaluation - 3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Above is the feedback form I had created to gain comments from my audience. A fellow media studies student filled this out for me. For my main task (local newspaper) I've learned that there are a few things I could have changed to make improvements on the final product.

The things I could have improved are mainly in the minor detail. On my feedback form one of the things that I could have done differently was to use a wider range of vocabulary. I feel that this is a valid comment and I agree that I could have used more advanced vocabulary in my articles. This would have made them come across as more professional and would meet the conventions of real newspaper articles.

I also read that I could have also edited a few of the pictures a bit more. I agree that some of them could have been altered. This would have made them stand out a bit more and given them a more professional touch.

One other thing that I was told I could have done differently was the way the main photo and mast head could have been laid out differently. I feel that the way they are laid out at the moment is conventional but I do think if I spent more time on it I could lay them out in a more eye catching way.

Evaluation - 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

The main product I produced was a local newspaper; alongside my main product I also created a poster and a radio advert for the same newspaper brand.

The combination of my main product and my two ancillary products was decided on what I would learn from creating them. I could have chosen to design and make a website for the newspaper instead of doing one of the ancillary tasks I had already chosen (poster and radio advert). The reason for not choosing to create a website was that I have already been doing that in one of my other courses, ICT. It may have been easier for me to create a website rather than a radio advert but it wasn’t anything new or interesting to me. I had already gained the skills to create a website, but, recording and editing a radio advert was completely new to me.

The skills I have learnt using the different software to create my ancillary tasks are far greater than before. Especially whilst creating my radio advert, I was using a piece of software on the Apple Macs called Garage Band to record and edit my advert. I had never used this software before but I learnt a lot from it over the time I used it. The different things I learned included, finding, adding and editing different sound tracks and effects. The sound effects I used had to seem conventional to radio adverts in general, not just specific local newspaper radio adverts, which were kind of tacky in a way, to make the advert stand out more. Also the tone of voice and language I used had to be conventional. From my research the voices and language used also seemed quite tacky/comic. This is why I decided to use a cheesy West Country accent to represent the area in which my newspaper was being advertised in.

My radio advert was advertising the ‘Holidays’ section in my newspaper, saying that you can find cheap holidays. This would want people to purchase my newspaper to read about these cheap holidays. The holiday’s section is only published every Thursday so the section is dedicated to its own issue. This is so the paper wouldn’t run out of bargain holidays to display; they can show great deals each week, it’ll give a buyer a reason to purchase this newspaper on that day.

My poster was about a free supplement that comes with the newspaper every Monday. The supplement is called ‘Climbing the Property Ladder’. It is a booklet on different houses in the local area for sale. This would apply to a large audience, especially the young first time house buyers who need to gather research.
I also learned many skills whilst producing my poster. One of the skills I was already excelling at was using Photo Shop. To manipulate the picture on the poster in the way I did took quite a bit of research, and I had to use some tutorials but now I would know how to do it again. Also the research I carried out on existing newspaper posters gave me the idea of the layout as it was quite conventional on many posters. I included the website address to the poster as well, to try and gain more publicity to my brand and give it a wider range of media types.

Evaluation - 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

During the creation of my local newspaper I have referred to many existing local newspapers, and national newspapers to gain information on how they produce a professional image.

Firstly I researched existing front covers. I made notes on the different features and how they have made a professional impact on the front cover. The papers I researched include the Evening Post and the North Somerset Times. These two papers are from my local area, I used these because the articles and adverts were relevant and more understandable.

In particular I really liked the layout of most Evening Post front covers; I thought they were very conventional and easy to view. The large main photos used and large main headlines are very distinctive and the main stories on all Evening Post front covers. I chose to use the same large photo and large headline for my main story as it is very conventional in all newspapers, not just the evening post. It makes the article stand out from anything else on the front cover, this will make a consumer want to pick up a copy and buy it to hear more on the story.

Also the conventional colours (scheme) of newspapers I found out were dark blues and reds. I toyed around with a few different colours and brighter blues and reds but they just didn’t give the same effect as the usual dark blues and reds. Existing newspapers have built their own identity by using these types of colour, trying to change a small factor like this made my newspaper appear unprofessional and tacky.

So, I made the decision to use the dark red in my newspaper logo. I decided to have the text in black instead of using a dark blue; this gave my newspaper its own identity. For my clipart picture I used a dark red, I also toyed with the colours on my logo by switching the text and picture colours but it still gave an unprofessional look. The font type I used was chosen out of many others (list shows the choices below, the first text style is the one I used), I came to this decision as it was a traditional looking text, and this gave my newspaper a traditional feel. I felt giving my newspaper a traditional feel was appropriate as Portishead is a small town with many traditional features.

This brings me on to the picture I used in the logo; the picture is of a windmill. The windmill in Portishead is one of many existing traditional aspects in the town and using this in my logo identifies Portishead well.

Poster research

Before creating my poster I researched others. I tried to find specific posters for newspapers, I mostly found Evening Post posters, this was good because it is a local newspaper. I indentified where they positioned their logo, if they had a picture, whether things were relevant and what sort of colours were used and whether they stood out or not.

Edited Photos

All of the pictures of cars I had taken were for the supplement banner which was situated along the top of my newspaper. I cropped each picture to make them in a portrait layout. Doing this only reveals part of each car so it makes people more intrigued as to what cars they are showing and what they look like, so they are more likely to visit the page.