Evaluation question 1

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

We generally followed the conventions of a real media production, we tried to make our media production realistic in the news story we were telling and in continuity, we aimed to deliver a news programme that would allow a audience of all ages to sit down and enjoy without having to pay full attention to each word said. Our aim was to appeal to a local area and give them a variety of news, both light hearted and national affairs. To give our news programme a local feel we used shots in our title sequence of local monuments and buildings, we felt this was using the conventions of a news programme because BBC and ITV do similar things on their regional news programmes, another thing we also did was include our news 6 logo throughout our media product to give it a professional touch.


(BBC regional news title sequence)
We see that the BBC have also used shots of a local area in their opening sequence.

(First 20-25 seconds is our title sequence)

Whilst filming our news programme we knew we didn't want to make it look amateur so we discussed the variety of shots we could use. In our product we have a variation of different shot, we used tilts and panning shots when establishing bulidings or locations, we always established a location before going into an interview, we didnt want their to be sharp transitions that seemed too fast or obrubt. We also watched other news programmes reporters so we had something to aim for when we were reporting our news storeys, we wanted it to be as realistic as possible and to make the viewer feel combfortable watching it.


(Example of a news report)

There are elements of our news programme that would not be in the usual conventions of a news programme, we have storeys that are light hearted and relaxed, our music story is a interview in a relaxed enviroment, this is want we aimed for because we wanted to do a regional news programme. However we do include national storeys but we put a local twist on them by showing the effects it has on the regional area. We thought by using local people as our target we would entice the majority of people in the area because most of the news is happening around them and will concern them or their children. Our interview with the lead singer of a local band would be good because everyone loves a local success story and this is what we aimed for.


Our main aims when we decided to do a news programme was to make it appeal to our target audience and to make it look professional. we belive we have achieved this through our variation of shots and editting. We also got possitive feedback from people about our title sequence, we included many establishing shots and music that would be under the genre of news programme, it gave the opening of our news programme a good professional feel.
(the first 25 seconds of the above video shows our music ^)

Evaluation question 2

2. How effective is the combination of your main media product and the ancillary texts?
Whilst making our news programme our aim was to create a news programme that had light hearted local news stories but at the same time showed global and national affairs too. We believed their was a gap in the market for young people and news. After our audience feedback we aimed to make news that would appeal to all ages in the local area and we wanted this to be as appealing and exciting as possible. We found out that people would prefer a more relaxed feel so we took this into account we also had a variety of shots including local monuments and buildings which would be familiar to the viewer, we put all these shots together in our title sequence because we knew it would be the first thing the viewer saw and we wanted to capture their attention straight away, BBC's look north also do this. We decided that with a combination of local light hearted news storeys and national news storeys, but with the national news storeys we would show the effects it has on the local area for example the recession is one story we have covered. We believe that this style of news is more personal and would encourage someone in the local area to watch the news.


As a group we decided to do a radio trailer for our news programme. Again we tried to give this a local spin by using the regional accent. Using an accent gave our trailer comic value and it also got across that we were doing light hearted news with a relaxed atmosphere. However we did say we were including national news to try and appeal to everyone. Using Local accents in our radio trailer was something people in the region could relate to.


(Our radio trailer)

Evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When we decided to produce a news programme we also decided to ask our target audience their preferences on news programmes. We set up a handheld camera and asked random samples about what they would like in a news programme, what they would like to see more of or less of, and just general opinions on improving news. We took this into account when making our news programme.

(The research on our audience)

After researching our audience we got fairly similar feedback, people generally watch the news when they have spare time, they say it is something they put on when they get back from work or college. The younger generation preferred a more informal news programme with people sat on sofas rather than at a desk reading the news. We took this into account when producing our news programme. Our research influenced our decision to decide that it would be on around 6ish when most people would be watching, we even named our news programme news6 to indicate the time of the news, we also decided to do a more informal news with trivial sports and music storeys, we also decided to wear smart shirts and ties without a suit jacket to give the programme a more relaxed feel.

The stories we chose to do were a story on the recession, a sports storey and one about music. while doing these storeys we always kept the audience feedback in mind. Our main aim was to create a news programme that appealed to the younger generation but also kept them up to date with the latest local news and international news. I believe we achieved our initial aims, we had news that appealed to all generations appealing to people in the local area. Mid-way through we asked people what they thought so far, the people we asked were those that fit in to our target audience. We took into account their positive and negative feedback and applied as much as what they wanted or tried to improve what they didn't like. Using audience feedback and research was a great help, it allowed us to know what people outside our group wanted in a news programme.
We inserted text along the bottom when information was being read out so both visual and auditory learners were satisfied, we originally did not insert text when reading out facts about recession but after one person who viewed our work said "when the facts about the recession are on it is difficult to take them all in, I think it would be easier if their was a voice over too".

Audience feedback

I posted the youtube link onto facebook and asked a few friends if they wouldn't mind giving me their feedback on our final piece. We hope the feedback would show us what things we could improve or what things people thought were good and worked well.


I sent the link to three of my friends, unfortunately this is the only one someone gave feedback to.

The feedback goes as follows:

Jess Mills:Very good work, loved the title sequence and wide range of shots! Good local news, was factual and informitive. The studio set looked realistic and reporters were confident.

Evaluation question 4

4.How did you use new technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During my studies of media I have used a variety of software to aid me in creating film and audio.


After we were given our brief we chose to create the first 5 minutes of a news programme. We knew we first had to some research on other news programmes to see what style of camera shots they used and to get a general feel of what a news programme should look like. Our first method of research was to browse the Internet and watch online videos to get the knowledge and data we needed to start our project. We used Apple iMac computers to access the Internet and store the data and research we had found. Our second method of research was asking our target audience what they would like in to see in a news programme, what time they usually would watch news and other general questions to give us a an idea of what we would like to achieve in our production. We used a hand held camera to film their answers and uploaded them on to our blog.


In order to show and store all the research and data we used blogger.com. Blogger.com is a website we used in our AS year also, on this website we were able to create posts and keep updating our progress. Having access to the Internet and blogger.com was a huge help with our project, it allowed us to organise our project and significantly helped with time management, we found our work easy to access and organised. We also used blogger.com to upload out script, shooting script and photo story bored, by uploading these we knew what shots we had to do in which order and which location.


Another major website we used was youtube, youtube was greatly helpful for research, we were able to embed videos onto our blog for examples and ideas. A Sony HDV 1000 was our camera of choice, using a high definition camera gave us good quality images for our news programme. It also gave us a crsip finish to our title sequences, we were able to get the shots we originally wanted, it was far better than the camera we had previously used, it maximised our potential for creating a good quality news programme, we were also able to connect a microphone on a lead and attach this to the camera which gave us better audio when interviewing or reporting on a story.
We recorded our footage on to a tape, we then were able to convert the footage from the tape onto the iMac's by using a Sony GIV D1000
this made it very easy to transfer footage. Once the footage was on the iMac we were able to edit and pick the bits we wanted to use thanks to Final Cut. Final Cut is an editting software installed on the iMac's. Final cut made it wasy to organise the footage and allowed us to insert transitions to our work, wire frame and smooth out sounds. Final cut made our news programme appear to be much more professional.

Finally we created a radio trailer, we used the garageband software to develop this and mix noises and sounds together to get a construction site atmosphere. We recorded the sounds on a zoom recorder and then uploaded them to the iMac and used garageband to edit it all together.

Audience feedback, news 6

Radio news trailer, Audience feedback

As part of our task we had to create a radio trailer for our news programme to advertise to people when they can view our news channel and give an idea of the genre of the channel.

I sent a message to five people on facebook with the link and only three posted back there thoughts on the trailer. here is what they said:

Adam Walshaw: It is very good, i liked the sense of humour it portrays. my only improvement would be to make it more understandable for people from different parts of the country.

Thomas lodge: The trailer was cleverly structured as it gave good information, yet made you want to listen, i mostly liked the joke at the end with the beep overlapping the dialect. to make it better you could use more dialect and punch lines.

Jack kilner: The trailers sense of humour was very easy to pick up and suits the local area very well and certainly makes most poeople want to carry on listening as it is very different. I rekon you could cut out the news music as it is too long in areas.