M3

 Radio trailer

My radio trailer sticks tot he codes and conventions of a typical radio trailer through my use of sound effects, dialogue, and voiceover to create a successful product. My radio trailer used sound effects to create give the audience a sense of the environment of the TV show. The use of footsteps specifically on leaves as well as bird song gives the listener insight into the setting of the show being in the woods. This applies to the conventions of a radio trailer in demonstrating the setting through sound effects. The dialogue I chose to use in the radio trailer was designed to demonstrate the plot of the show in some way to the audience. The dialogue in my radio trailer presents the concept of a camping trip between friends to the audience in a light hearted manner, this works in tandem with the sound effects of mallet hits and can opening to enforce the light hearted nature. The final line of my radio trailer is emphasised by taking place after a moment of silence as a way to shift this theme by suggesting the notion that one of the characters is missing. The narrating voice over in my radio script is very conventional to pre existing advertising campaigns in explaining the title, time of air and TV channel the drama exists on to the audience. This feature is present in all radio trailers, for example the Doctor Who radio trailer uses dialogue to explain the plot to the audience as well as a final narrating voice over to tell the audience where to find the TV drama. Conversely, my radio trailer lacks the use of music to build tension. I decided against this because i thought the use of music would subtract from the mood created by the sound effects I used which created a light hearted feeling. Instead, I thought a lack of music would allow the audience to pay attention to the dialogue and the demonstration of the environment the characters are in. However, this could have been a missed opportunity to add music on the final line to further emphasise the ending of the radio thus weakening the effectiveness of my radio trailer.

Billboard

My billboard conforms to the codes and conventions of the genre by using a striking image with the focus being the centre of the shot with lots of negative space around it. This is representative of the themes of my TV show by demonstrating the aspect of loneliness present in the show. This demonstrates the fact that the characters will be killed off as the show progressive to an ultimate conclusion with only one left. The font style used in my show is deliberately striking to provide an interesting and unique brand for the advertising campaign to reinforce the themes of the show. The striking nature of the font used highlights the element of my show of being in the horror genre. The BBC3 logo is present in my billboard to abide to codes and conventions since this is common in many BBC billboards and posters. This makes my advertising campaign successful by demonstrating to the viewer where to find the TV show. 

Comparing my billboard to real industry examples, I successfully used the striking central image feature to direct the attention of the audience as well as using central text to focus on the slogan of the show since this is the unique selling point of the campaign. My layout and content showed similarities to this since my billboard uses a central image with lots of negative space surrounding it to direct the attention on a character. Similarly, the location shown in the billboards show the main setting of the respective show, my billboard shows a forest whereas this billboard shows a warehouse. Because of the success of this industry example, I based my decisions on this to replicate a successful product.

TV trailer

I abided to the codes and conventions of a TV trailer by using music, voice overs and dialogue. The dialogue I used in my TV trailer gave insight into the plot and themes of the show such as hinting to a camping trip. The music I used in my trailer abided to the codes and conventions of a trailer since there was a link between video and audio, the opening of the song links to the trailer since the long periods of silence were used when I faded to black and the upbeat nature of the song after it starts worked well with the fun nature of the rest of the trailer. The voice over narration was in line with codes and conventions since it accurately informed the viewer of the necessary information such as where to find the TV show as well as providing insight into the plot and themes of the show similarly to the dialogue. This technique is seen in many BBC 3 TV trailers such as the killing eve trailer which uses dialogue from scenes in the series to display the themes of the show. 

Similarly to trailers such as the killing eve trailer, my trailer uses fast cuts and fades to black to create tension and back up the horror theme in my show. This made my TV trailer successful in informing the audience of the themes and plot of the show as well as being entertaining to make the audience excited to watch the show. My trailer was also successful in providing information about how to find the show. 

Social media

My social media campaign abided to the codes and conventions by using an engaging profile picture. The profile picture I chose was a re use of the billboard to give the audience a link between the advertising campaigns to reinforce the idea of the show to the audience. My social media campaign was designed to stand out from other pre existing campaigns since it was designed to be done from the characters of the TV show. This has been seen before in advertising campaigns such as the Blair witch project however is unconventional to the genre. Despite this, it provides an interesting and unique selling point to my advertising campaign which will make it more likely to be effective due to its memorable nature. 

Symbolic codes

The mise en scene of my advertising campaign remains constant throughout the different visual mediums I used. Mainly , the use of colours and setting are the same in the billboard and TV trailer where I used colour correction to create a darkened image that shows the genre of horror. The natural tones that were emphasised in the editing were further seen in the character costumes that remained constant throughout the campaigns in colour and style. Similarly, the setting of the campaign remained constant throughout visual and audio mediums such as the social media, billboard and TV trailer as well as the radio trailer, the setting of the forest was seen in the visual elements on screen while being shown in the radio trailer through sound effects such as footsteps on leaves to maintain consistency of setting throughout the campaign. I used symbolic codes in my billboard by not showing the facial expression of the subject, this conforms to the genre of horror by adding mystery which abides to enigma codes. I then stuck to this theme in the campaign by adding many shots in the TV trailer with the characters walking away to create a POV like shot from the perspective of the killer. This was also used in the social media campaign to some extent however from a different POV being from the protagonist instead of the villain. This created a consistency across the campaign that abided to codes. The costumes I used in the campaign were chosen to relate to the target audience as well as abide to the genre. The protagonists in the campaign are often dressed in stereotypical youth clothes so the target audience of 16-21 year olds relate to the protagonists, therefore encouraging them to watch the show due to the connection formed. As well as this, the villain is dressed in very different attire to the protagonists, while the protagonists wear brighter coloured costumes to connote positivity, the villain is dressed in darker colours to emphasise evil. Furthermore, the characters face is covered up almost entirely, with only the characters eyes shown. This adds an element of mystery to the character, while also dehumanising him to make the character more scary and abide to horror genre conventions.

Technical codes

My advertising campaign abided to technical codes through the traditional camera work that is often seen in trailers and billboards which I recreated. The use of shot types abides to codes and conventions when i created my billboard. The use of a wide shot is often seen in the industry since it allows for a wider picture therefore many elements can be shown such as setting, characters and costumes which otherwise would not be shown in a close up, which I avoided using in the billboard. The camerawork I used was also consistent across the campaign in using shot types and movement that are typical to conventional shots used in industry examples. I abided to technical codes by using music in my TV trailer which is typical to industry standards as well as using audio technical codes in my radio trailer by using sound effects to abide to conventions which are often seen in real world examples. I used lighting in my visual elements by lowering exposure in my billboard and TV trailer to abide to codes of the horror genre. I used editing techniques in the campaign such as colour correction to add consistency to the shots in the TV trailer and billboard. This involved adding filters to each shot to ensure that all shots stuck to the house style of natural colours seen in woodland. As well as this the exposure correction to make the shots seem darker abides to conventions of the horror genre. While the social media campaign was consistent in its mise en scene, the colour correction editing was not used in order to maintain the realistic theme of the particular campaign. The sound effects I used in the radio trailer created a consistency between that and the other campaigns by conveying the location of the woods through audio means. This was seen in the footsteps on leaves sound effects which tells the audience the main location of the show without showing it. This was important to my campaign since the consistency ensured that there was connection between campaigns so that the focus was the same to avoid audience confusion therefore making my advertising campaign more effective.

Written codes

My advertising campaign used written codes across multiple mediums, seen in the use of on screen text throughout my billboard and TV trailer. This code saw the use of written codes in the on screen text demonstrating to the audience key information about the show such as the title, slogan and key themes of the show such as the TV trailer which used on screen text and voice overs to tell the audience that the genre of the show was horror. The TV trailer uses enigma codes when displaying text by not explicitly telling the viewer what is going to happen. For example, the slogan "and then there were none" tells the audience that the show involves characters being killed off without explicitly saying how or why, instead inferring it therefore creating excitement and appeal to watch the show. The written codes in the social media campaign are used in attempts to create a campaign that is realistic and comes directly from the protagonists. Therefore, the text such as "So ready for this camping trip!" shows the excitement of the characters, therefore allowing the audience to connect with the heroes easily. When displaying the title of my show "THE HUNT", I often capitalised it to convey urgency to the audience, thus providing a call to action to watch the show.