In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

A2 Group 7 James Taylor 9839

Print – Newspaper AdvertDespite the radio times being a front cover and mine simply an advert there are similarities. The main image for example is a close up of me (the presenter) next to the steam engine (subject of the documentary). The same is for the radio times cover. There is a close up of Michael Palin (presenter) with the elephant (subject) behind him. Both images immediately identify the genre of documentary and grab the readers attention as they have a clear focus.

This is an advert taken from “Steam Railway” magazine, a publication aimed at my target audience. Like my advert the title is positioned top middle of the page and is in the form of an railway enamel totem sign, this is not only a striking image, but it is an image my target audience will instinctively recognise.

Print – Newspaper Advert

This advert for a TV programme also has similarities to my product. In particular the headline Both are bold and on a white background, this focuses more attention on the title, furthermore both headlines make use of colour, however mine is LMS red in keeping with the railway theme and my other products. Another difference is the positioning of the headlines , mine is above the main image while the advert from the TV magazine is below the main image. However I placed mine above as it acts as a tagline and a headline.

This newspaper is in contrast to my advert, the bingo advert has a colour background with coloured boxes and multiple photographs, while it is eye catching, I feel it is too busy, with information overload and we’re not sure were the focus of the advert is. A similarity though is the footer at the bottom of the advert, with a logo of a major company (BBC 2 mine) and (jackpot joy) the other advert, however it still uses too much colour and I feel my advert is clearer.

Print – Newspaper Advert

My advert has things in common with the front page of “The Sun”, the block white coloured background and but most of all the humorous taglines with “The Sun” “Paddy Pantsdown” and mine “First class documentary” and “Departing Wednesday 6:30” . These devices make the adverts light hearted and entertain the reader which both do.

“March Of The Penguins” was a feature length documentary and like all films ran an advertising campaign. While the formats of the documentaries are different, common ground is shared in the central image, the “March Of The Penguins” image has now become iconic which proves adverts don’t always need to have multiple photos or lots of bright contrasting colour.

Film – Five Minute Documentary

A typical convention of documentaries, especially “Day In The Life” films is the progression of time being displayed at regular intervals throughout the documentary, this is to give a sense of real time, as even with full 1 hour, TV documentaries the audience only gets snippets of everything that happened

“Talking heads” interviews in documentaries is popular in a lot of documentaries and mine is no exception. For the interview I chose a location which would be quite but have all the ambiance of the railway and all the stereotypical features of specialist hobby documentaries, in this case it is the gaslights and the chalk departure board

Film – Five Minute Documentary

One of the mot successful railway documentaries recently on the TV was “Great British Railway Journeys” hosted by Miachel Portillo. For my documentary I did adopt some of the style of the BBC show. For instance using a guide book as a prop and reference point, furthermore the style of dress I wore was quite stereotypical of hobby documentaries, shirt and a blazer/tweed jacket. For my closing credits, like a lot of documentaries

I did a montage sequence at the end which highlighted the best parts of “The Day In The Life”. A convention which I went against though was to have my closing credits at the end of the montage on a black background instead of on the montage itself, I felt that placing words over the clips would distract the audience from the action.

Film – Five Minute Documentary The contrasts are that someone at the age of 18 doesn't normally host a documentary of this style especially on BBC 2, furthermore their is more naturalism in my film compared to “Great British Railway Journeys” such as blueberry muffins and opening the film with a shot of me in my pyjamas

One of the main comparisons between traditional railway documentaries than and my own is the informal chatty style of the narration. The speech use traditionally is often formal and RP, however my speech is quite colloquial and sometimes comic “a few unsavoury places”. While my documentary is still presented professionally it is realistic and the humour heightens it in my opinion

Radio – AdvertMy Radio advert mostly followed conventions of traditional adverts. It was just over 25 seconds, so short and concise, it included digetic sounds of the railway so it related to the other products, all the key information such as channel and time were included and like the Newspaper Advert it included humorous devices such as “Portillo, Palin Clear the line” and “First Class” which came from the newspaper advert. One convention of the advert I didn’t include though was having an extract of dialogue from the film put into the radio advert. However I feel the music, sounds and taglines were enough