Production Evaluation

My task for the production was to create a DVD cover and a promotional poster for my television drama. The DVD cover is for the first season of the television drama, and the poster will be advertising to sell the television drama.

My first part of conducted research was to look at existing DVD covers for television dramas. I chose three to analyse the layout, images, and uses of colour, camera angles, characters and other generic conventions. I used the analysed features to put towards the progress of my own DVD cover and poster. This will be helpful as I will be able to see what makes them good and what is similar about them so I can mimic it.

Once this research was done I could create some ideas for my DVD cover and poster. I drew out eight sketches, showing where I could put things on them, then four bigger pictures of the four best ones, and then two large pictures of my best two with text on them, which would help when I had to actually do them later on.

Next, as I did with the pre-production pieces, I carried out a focus group test. I chose a group of people to answer some questions about the DVD cover and poster I made. I asked them a set of open questions to get a better glimpse of their opinion. It was good to use open questions because then I could get specific responses, to make them look better and I could give the audience what they want. The suggestions they gave me helped them to look a lot better.

The target audience of the television drama is for young people aged 16-24. Knowing the target audience meant that I could cater the poster and cover for what attracted people of that age. Both of them are simplistic, with bold lettering. This makes for a quick and easy read which is what most young people will tend to prefer. My font is quite simple on the poster, and the two lines of text are different. This is similar to the DVD cover I researched for ‘Supernatural’ where the same type of text was used. The use of the ‘15’ rated logo also determines the target audience because it means that there will be content in the show that means that It needs to be that rating, and that will appeal to young people. There is also the used of the male and female gaze. Laura Mulvey’s theory states that people will watch the media for pleasure, relying on scopephillia, also linking to the uses and gratifications surveillance.

The DVD cover and promotional poster both use visual and technical codes. For my cover I used three images and for my poster I used one. On the individual shots used we see the main protagonists alone, each doing their individual thing, so we assume that they maybe do not know each other or that they do not like/talk to each other. Then, we see a juxtaposition because on the poster they are laughing and talking as a group. This challenges the stereotypes of young adults because although they seem to not like each other when they are not together, when in a group, can talk very easily together. In the editing on the photographs, there is a lot of natural light which makes them look more youthful because they are outside, and is iconic to being young as they are outside with friends.

The attention of the audience is captured through the use of direct mode of address used on both the cover and poster. The direct mode of address- the way the characters look, gives the audience personal identity, meaning they can relate to the characters in one way or another, either by their age or appearance, or even the troubles they face in the text. This is similar to the DVD cover I researched for ‘Merlin’ because in that all of the main protagonists on the cover are giving the audience direct mode of address too.

Because of this, we are lead to the audience effect theory of uses and gratifications. These are the main reasons people engage and interact with the media. The ones implemented in my television drama are;

-          Personal identity: The audience would watch the show and put themselves in the shoes of the characters, relating to them and comparing themselves with the characters, either by appearance, attitude, or the problems they face.

-          Escapism: The audience would watch the drama as means of their entertainment, and to escape from routines and escape problems/stresses.

-          Personal relationships: The audience would look at the relationships between the characters and compare them to what they have.

In conclusion, my DVD cover and my promotional poster were designed for my television drama through my own ideas and the responses that I got from my open questions questionnaires, also with the help of the media theories.

Pre-Production Evaluation

The task we were given was to create a television drama. The pre-production of the task was to write a script, and involved writing a 10-15 minutes section of the script, for any part in the series for the drama.

To start off with, I jotted down my ideas for what I could potentially write about. I wrote a list of them to show how many different ideas I could use. I thought a lot about the types of television programmes I enjoyed and this helped to influence my decision. This helped because it meant that if I was having second thoughts about doing one of them, I could just as easily choose another to do. I didn’t really change genre as such, I knew what I wanted to do in that aspect.

When I had my idea, I wrote it down in a brief. The idea I had chosen to write about was a teen drama, revolving around both teenagers and young adults, and it was going to be called ‘A splitting of the mind.’ I gave a small description of what the show was going to be about, then as I only had to script 10-15 minutes of the show, I decided to write the first section of the first episode.

I next created a questionnaire. This was going to be an important part of the task as it would largely influence the way my script turned out. I asked closed questions so I would get clear answers that would definitely be helpful. Some of my questions included what television shows they liked the most, how many characters they liked to be included and what channel they tend to watch the most of. This helped me choose the type of channel I thought it would be best broadcast on, and what time it would be aired, as both are vital in attracting an audience. When I got my responses I created graphs and charts so I could see clearly the responses and see if they were any patterns or trends in the results. I then wrote a short analysis under all of my results.

I then wrote the first draft of my script. It was very roughly written as I had written the main plot for the episode, but I hadn’t yet researched about the concept of script writing successfully. I would later go on to change it after conducting research about this. All of the research I did was vital to pre-production; I did things like brought up scripts of popular shows, and show that I enjoyed watching, looked at what was common in them, annotated them and then tried to incorporate that in my own draft. I then watched some television dramas, to analyse the key elements of cinematography and Mise-en-scene that have been used in them, so I could then use it.

I then had to choose a focus group, who could answer the set of questions that I wrote about how I could Improve the way I had been writing my drama. My focus group was who the target audience for the drama was (16-25 years) For these i gave open questions, that way they could be more opinionated and that would be a lot more useful to me. This helped massively because, as they wrote what they thought, i could then change my script a lot more drastically than if i had just asked them closed questions, like i did with the questionnaire. I asked three people their opinion on five questions, and wrote an analysis of my findings.
My script was not yet good enough, so i conducted research on the generic conventions of screenplays, and this explained the finer details such as the font, text size and layout. I then had to make a third draft; it had now started to look a lot more like an actual script for a drama now. My focus group mentioned that I should develop my characters more, because they didn't quite add up to how I wanted them to come across when they read it. Scripts are for the actors and the directors, so I had a few people act out bits of my script to see whether it went smoothly or if I needed to change it- due to stumbling on large chunks of dialogue or talking mechanically. This created the fourth draft of the script.
Asking people’s opinions and writing them down was vital in improving my work because if I didn't get a second opinion and use it then my script wouldn't have improved as much as it did. Making sure I used all of my feedback accordingly gave me a successful pre-production. 

DVD Poster

DVD Cover

Focus Group Test For Poster

The majority of the people i asked about my poster said the same thing, that i should put all of the main protagonists on it. I plan to do this by maybe getting a picture of them stood outside all together as this looks good and is not too difficult to put together in a short amount of time. They also said that i should put the title and the tagline diagonally across from each other so i will do just that.

DVD Poster Designs

DVD Cover Designs