The Edge In the Making

The Edge in the Making

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Billboard Match Up

We took the inspiration of the 'puppets' from this Music advertisment of The Saturdays.

The storyline we created of having the Gosip girl figure in a dark mysterious twist in the trailer fitted perfectly with this picture. I also felt like I had never seen this image being taken to TV and decided that if the new soap was to be a success it must catch the eye of the audience demographic. As i researced the E4 branding across shows such as Skins, a common theme was valid. Many of the storylines had been revealed and the characters were cleaely portrayed, this is the contrast of the approach I wanted to take. I felt like removing the storylines of love, sex, money etc from the poster gave it that abstract feel and left it open to the demographic to interpret based on the performance of the characters through costume for example. The gossip girl storyline os one of high focus and many questions as to who the controller is would attract that audience. It also shows how I developed from the conventional e4 branding of the posters attached to many of the channels series, i took a music inspired idea and twisted ans changed it to suit our soap.

Ancillary Poster Match Up

The Gender Performance of these three stars address their target audience in a variety of ways.

Millie Maktintosh (Made In Chelsea) - Becky (The Edge)  -Lauren Goodger (The Only Way is Essex)

All stars show a sense of wealth through thier make up and clothing, their confident ooze coming from how they present themselves shows a sense of females coming together to be strong and independant showing the audience demoraphic that being comfortable in your own skin is what sells.

I wanted Becky to be in the middle of these two stars, Millie being a star from Made In Chelsea automatically tells the audience that she is of wealth, well spoken and lives in an upper class part of society. Lauren from 'TOWIE' however is a complete contrast, though both are deemed popular in the soaps and to the public meaning they are seen as someone to admire because of their appearance and wealth, Lauren plays on the 'scripted reality'. she is an exaggeration version of the audiences lives. She constantly looks perfect with groomed hair and make up and is publised that much it starts to appear natural to the audience, telling them this is how they should at all times.

I wanted the star of the cover to be a middle ground between the two, I wanted the feel of that 'scripted reality' but not too the extent where she looks natural in a huge amount of make up. I wanted the audience to be able to relate to Becky and see her as someone to admre due to her wealth but I wanted her representation to be achieveable. She is an idealised version of the audience but doesnt come across as arrogant or abocve the average person.

Ancillary Front Cover Shots

I felt this photo was too dull, the way the lighting hit Becky took away that glamorous glow we wanted to achieve. Her hair looked flat and the make up didnt have the same attention grabbing effect we were aiming for. Therefore the Glamorous wealthy look wasnt being portrayed.

I added a brighter effect through Picasa and Publisher, I feel I achieved the glow and glamour look but felt the editing was too obvious. I felt this would attract a negative vibe to the reader as I wanted the representations that we created to be achieveable and believeable. Using so much editing took away from the performance and created that non-achieveable look to the reader that could reflect badly on the trailer and soap.

By toning the brightness down it kept the glamorous and fresh look to the star. It kept the green background toned down and didnt distract away from the star. Her make up was visible but I felt it was just enough to capture that wealthy, groomed appearance.

This is the photo I chose to shoot and use for my front cover catching the glamorous TV magazine feel like Fabulous. I decided to shoot a close up as I felt it captured the emotion more effectively and it is also the most similar feature of the Fabulous front cover. I decided to shoot Becky as her character Crystal as I thought with it being a new soap the connection to the character rather than the actor was more important. We used a high level of make up to capture the glamorous effect using the red threme of danger that was used during the trailer. Picasa was used to create the effect with highlights and shadow effect. However after the feedback we received the brightness took away the glamorous feel so we took the hint down playing with the saturation to create just a slight glow to the photo.

Her Gender Performance represented an exact match to the moodboard demographic, she was confident her style was clearly in with the current trends seen in the highstreet. She wore the make up well and styled her hair to create that 'fresh' look wanted by the target audience.

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

The Locations used in Made In Chelsea are an exact match to what the soap is about. As it is a reality mix drama is set in the heart of Chelsea therefore enabling the use of the location to clearly inform the audience of the type of soap they can expect. The exact locations that are used all are social meeting areas a typical convention used in soaps as it attracts that socialable and interactive target audience. It shows that the characters are friends and meet up to socialise and talk about events that determine the storylines created. The locations are relaxed environments where the audience can see themselves in, an easy way to reach out to that target audience to Mirror the representations they are being given. Cafes are a prime example of the locations used in soaps such as Made In Chelsea and they are where the directors place a lot of the drama as it is a central point in the soap. Made In Chelsea is a soap that attracts the higher class young people or those achieving to live in a fashionable city, therefore the locations feature grand backdrops with scenery of London that the audience can recognise. The use of grand mansions help to internalise the idea of royalty, status and power. The characters within the soap are deemed popular and someone to aspire to be because of their wealth. This is used to attract the audience who want and strive to achieve this lifestyle.

In The Edge the locations are toned down with more Modern buildings. Although not as highly esteemed as those in Made In Chelsea the costume and gneder performance is what helps to reinstate the power and wealth appeal to the soap.  

The stars that are used in Made In Chelsea are all of wealth and glamour. Their Gender Performance (a theory introduced by Butler) plays a heavy part in the persuasion to the audience that the soap is real and the plays on the idea that these representations are achieveable. The girls wear high fashion clothing and always look clean and sophisicated, linking to the representation that image for female audiences is important and in order to be successful and attractive to men this is the way you must appear. The male characters wore slick clothing including suits to show their wealth, a lot of the shots are visible with flash cars to further enhance this gender performance. It gives the target audience a visual that can deem achieveable if they look and act a certain way.                                                       

Common storylines that are seen in Made In Chelsea are those that involve a similar with the target audience: teenagers. This therefore determines the storylines that are used for example Love, Cheating, Affairs, Money, Career Prospects to name a few.

Typical Camera shots that can be seen in this genre of soap are Establishing and Close Ups. It continues on the ideas of establishing the set that can be recognised by the target audience and it allows the shots to reveal the locations and surroundings that the target audiences should want to achieve to live in. The close ups allow the camera to capture emotion of the stars but having the stars fill most of the screen shows the importance of appearance and it allows the audience to visually see what they should look like.                           

                                                                                       

The use of title cards in this trailer enhance a lot of conventions used in this glamorous genre. It also represents the E4 Branding that can also be identified by the target audience as they can immediately recognise the codes of E4 making them think they should watch this channel as this is their genre. They also create a contemporary approach to the soap and shows that it is very modern and therefore something that should be attractive to the target audience.

Question 3 Audience Feedback, Analysis of rough cut

A2 Media Coursework - The Edge from Natalie Dunworth on Vimeo.

There were a few sound issues at the start of the trailer, a hiss was constant in the background. I removed the hiss by taking the pitch down and altering the sound levels to silence when there was no dialogue being heard.

The suggestion of Title cards was given to break up the storylines and introduce the meaning of the song, therefore I added title cards at the beginning to create the idea of a flashforward and took the lyrics of 'one more step' and 'regret' to give a heavier impression of the storylines that featured. These title cards also helped me to introduce the E4 Branding to the trailer.

The audience also felt that the beginning of the trailer introduced the storylines too quickly and they got jumbled leaving the audience confused and lacking the connection that was made to the characters and their situations. I focused the attention on the main storyline to start the trailer and used sub plots to break the main plot sequence.

The jumbled suquencing limited the audience to feel for any of the characters and get deeply involved in the storlines. I needed to ensure that my representations were correct so that the audience demographic i created my trailer for would understand and be grasped by the trailer.

Question 4 Social Media

I used a number of different platforms to communicate my work with my tutor and group members. Twitter links provided a daily update and links to the blog which could be accessed by my tutor. It was a quick and easy way to cummincate and grab feedback for all parts of my coursework.

This way of communication is referring to Gauntlett Media 2.0, I became the producer of my own work which I published and share with my demographic audience. I was able to post my own messages and videos with the influence of a concentrated media ownership. My information that was being portrayed created User Generated Content and the audience could therefore take what they saw as a simple piece of text that was seen for what it was.