How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?Social issue...Firstly, as the topic of our documentary is a hugely prominent social issue, we needed to make this poignant at an initial glance in order to attract our target audience specifically of people aged 19-30, which would include parents, students, graduates and people at an early point in their working lives (employed or unemployed) [our target audience]. To do this, we used establishing shots and images to highlight that this is a social issue relevant to all of us. These include the images of Solihull Town Centre, a job centre plus (a recognised business all around the country), the image of London on the double page spread and the sped up shot of the students and so on. The idea and intention for this is to allow our audience to recognise and relate to where it is, who they are (e.g. Students), and the general topic that is being addressed. Personally as our feedback and responses show that people instantly recognised the topics being addressed suggests that we were successful in this. Also, personally I think we did include a range of shots relevant to the topic and audience, such as the students, general public (which is shown to feature people of different ages, social groups, and occupations, the job centre plus (relevant to unemployment, the establishing shots of several different universities, across the country to again show this is an issue that applies to many people all across the country.

Music...We also used the similar music styles for both the documentary and the radio trailer to create consistency in the mood and atmosphere created by the music that matched the busy, hectic, decision prompting music through the fast tempo drum beats, major scales, and looped structures. Our feedback showed that people considered the music appropriate and successful. I think this was because the music style we had chose is fairly neutral, thus allowing the words and dialogue to specify the subject and purpose, however its energetic tones influence and encourage the listener to become alert and attentive and consider the severity and importance of the issue and questions being raised. However, I do feel that we could have heightened and dramatised the music in order grab the audiences attention more at the beginning in order to make it memorable, and in the case of the radio trailer, this would have made the advertisement for the documentary more memorable, effective and successful. Also for the documentary, personally I would liked to extend and add some subtle and more discrete background music throughout to maintain the attention and focus of the audience with an enjoyable, rhythmic tones.

Effectiveness...

We chose to make up our radio trailer of a short voice over, summarising the topic and documentary and extracts from the voice over and the formal interviews. We chose to do this in order to accurately represent the documentary as well as effectively reveal, summarised views and opinions that are expressed in the documentary, which are often common views of our target audience, or in contrast, contradict their opinions. Either way, this will hopefully, attract our target audience by highlighting and drawing out passions within the recipients, successfully encouraging them to watch the documentary.

For both the documentary and the radio trailer, we decided to open them with rhetorical questions that are regularly being asked by the people of England. This not only is another devise that creates a connection between the content of the documentary and the opinions and concerns of the listeners and potential viewers that we are targeting. By beginning with questions in a documentary with a linear structure, it creates the impression to the recipient that the documentary will provide answers to these questions, again enticing the person to watch or continue watching the documentary.

In order to create the three products, we used existing products as templates. For example we used the ‘Fairy Job Mother’ documentary, ‘David Attenborough’s Life Story’ radio trailer and the ‘What’s on TV’ doctor who article. We used these as they had elements in common with our products such as the topic, type of advertisement, structure and so on. Generally, I think was the most efficient may to create successful products through the most effective elements of each product.

Extracts...To advertise the documentary accurately, we used extracts from the video and audio to use for the magazine article images such as the images of the job centre plus and the establishing shot of Solihull town centre and the extracts of the Vox pops and formal interviews we used in the radio trailer. We tried to use a range of extracts to show the topics of education, unemployment and universities. Yet in hindsight, the final extracts we used focused mainly on universities, there is one extract on education yet this is not clearly specified in the extract “they just need to find a system and stick with it”. Thus I think we should have either added another extract or chosen a wider range. However, on the other hand this may provoke intrigue and interest in the topic being discussed and therefore encourage them to watch the documentary.

Then in the radio trailer we also tried to prevent limiting the audience through aspects such as the areas specified, thus with the vox pop extracts , the only region that is specified is England when compared to Scotland, this only strengthens the idea that the issue relates to a audience across the country and also, the nation.

Effectiveness...