Evaluation

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

With the main media texts in my coursework, my two adverts from past and present day I think I have used and stuck to codes and conventions displayed within existing adverts today.

For my first advert set in the 50s decade I used stereotypes and traditional roles in the home as a key feature of the advert, associating the women as being a typical housewife and the male out at the football. I reinforced her role by placing her doing the washing up as the advert opened; this allowed the advert to have a clear beginning middle, when answering the phone and end returning back to the dishes. Using this kind of storyline has linked with my research that I carried out in the first stages of creating my main product. It relates to the feminist views that women are assumed to do the housework and look pretty for the male in a patriarchal society. I also think that the backing music i have used is very relevant and effective alongside the advert as it fits in with the 50's genre by a 50's musician and connotes the happy and jolly mood the housewife is in and the general upbeat feel of the advert. Finally with this product drawing to a close i think i have stuck to the codes and conventions with my logo. It is simple, yet affective and once again links with the time the advert is set in. Making the logo i looked back at my research at the analysis of the BT advert, it's logo was also limited in colour, animation and professional fonts. Overall i am happy with the outcome of this particular product of my coursework and i think i have used a variety of creative shoots including low and high angles, long, mid and close up shots as well as the use of rule of thirds. These all have helped me to achieve a product that does follow conventions and codes of other existing items, although if i was to do it again i would have had a cut in edit where we saw the husband of the women at the football, i think this would have added to the narrative of the advert and placed more emphasis of the roles.

The second advert is set in the modern day and i have attempted to show the woman in the opposite light to a typical housewife. Being independent, strong and having a job. Within in this advert unlike the previous 50's i think i have challenged the conventions as comparing my advert to current adverts in the market i haven't used a variety of characters rather than just the female herself. Using potentially a male doing the housework and having a child or baby in the advert would have also emphasised her role as being a independent women with a career as well as being a wife or family figure purely.This is an improvement that i would make if i was to do the project again as well as using either low or high shots which i haven't used. Although not all aspects of this advert has stuck to codes and conventions of others in the industry i think i have with the logo and voice over. The logo has been made with the use of a professional graphic programme that has enabled me to use material effects, in this case glass on the text and the use of colour, gradient and transparency effects. Also a voice over saying the company name and slogan is generally what every advert does weather this is explicitly shown in the advert or not, it's a clarifying method that is widely used.

The ancillary text i created was a web pop-up. I think that i effectively created a realistic web pop-up that does fit with the codes and conventions displayed within others in the media. For example with the use of serif page plus its affects such as gradients, transparency, autoshape, filtering, range of fonts and overlays i was able to create professional looking features. Features including a positive smiling image, a three colour theme, logo, navigation bar, small graphics and images that have been cut out using the cut out studio i have achieved.  2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?


My main product links directly to my ancillary texts I believe as throughout my research when looking at current examples of phone or broadband or other services, they advertise in a number of ways that all converge together. For example Talk Talk is a phone and broadband company that have a series of adverts, a sponsorship sequence with X Factor and also do advertise with web pop ups. The combination is effective they are viewable through media institutions such as the internet or tv, ironically services that are being advertised by the company. My web pop-up also links well with the 50's advert as during filming the advert i also took images of the character in her role. I then choose one of the images to use within the web pop-up and used the aspect of the image being set in the 50's as a way to advertise brand loyalty and a promotional value in the pop-up, by the celebration of 50 years as a company.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Overall my audience feedback was positive with some compliments for the products and some constructive criticism which i think was very fair and i agreed with. For example one participant said the modern advert 'lacked in storyline and got a bit boring'. I believe this is a very fair statement and that indeed looking back i have learnt it doesn't have as much narrative with a clear beginning middle and end in comparison  to the 50's advert. Although the majority of those who did fill out my questionnaire did rated atleast 7/10 for my graphics in both adverts and web pop-up.The most positive responses i received was the feedback for my 50's advert it was described as 'interesting', 'fun', 'catchy','memorable' and 'realistic'.

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

During my research i used a range of media technologies such as the Internet, existing examples, books and theories. Using these forms of the media through research allowed me to find out background information about advertising, about the industry and gain inspiration for my own productions. As well as making me think about concepts for example, the male gaze, audience theories, feminism and postmodernism. The main concept that i attempted to make relevant to my own products was feminism by displaying the women in the 50's advert as a sterotypical housewife where as in the other the women being a working wife thats independent not just staying at home to do the chores.

In my planning stages it was the main area where i used a variety of more complex media technologies to make, edit and bring the products together. I uploaded my own shots, used serif page plus as well as a digital camera, video camera, windows media player and fetch mp3 converter.
Serif page plus was a programme that during construction was a key element that was used to make logos in both adverts and the whole of my web pop-up. The tools and features the programme offered allowed me to create professional looking graphics. Equipment on the programme such as the duplication tool, effects for example filtering, gradiets and transparency, image cut out studio, autoshape and logo studio also helped me to achieve this.
Using windows live movie maker was also a media technology that i used alot in the construction of making both adverts. This programme i found easy to use and not to complicated as i wasn't as confident with editing as creating print products. For each video clip i needed to edit and cut each one individually so that the advert flowed and made sense without having jumpy and random cutaways. To do this i used the trimming tool, this tool was useful so that i could create quick edits and quick transitions from one clip to the other, getting rid of any unwanted seconds needed. Animated transitions i also implimented within my adverts construction such as a cross fade, blur and dissolve and a contempoary slide down.
For the non-diagetic backing music i used in one of m adverts i needed to use a YouTube converter called fetchmp3.com using this website i was allowed to download the audio version in high quality that i then placed back into windows live movie maker as a audio sound file.