A2 Media Evaluation

Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As well as carrying out the main task of creating a five minute documentary, we also had to produce a radio trailer and double page spread for a listings magazine as ancillary texts. All three were made in order to promote and advertise the documentary to our target audience, which was predominantly males, aged 16-25. The main reason we targeted males was because they are stereotypically more interested in both Technology and Sport than females, so we felt this gender would be more inclined to watching our documentary. As a group we debated the age range for our target audience and in the end decided not to choose children because we thought our chosen topic might be a little bit too complex for them. 16-25 targets young people and we wanted to appeal to this demographic, not elderly people as they are unlikely to have a good knowledge on technology and its various forms. We wanted to appeal to all ethnicities and backgrounds.

Radio Trailer

This is what our radio trailer looks like from minute 00:00, with the Huma Huma soundtrack seen in the middle.

There was a strong combination between the radio trailer and documentary. Firstly, we used snippets of audio from our short film in the trailer with expert and Media teacher Nick Waring speaking about the uneven distribution of Technology in Sport, as well as Tom, one of our VoxPops, giving his opinion on the pros and cons.

Audio evidence of expert Nick Waring’s file and the VoxPop file on GarageBand.

We inserted the commentary from Frank Lampard’s ‘non-goal’ in 2010 very early on, just like in the documentary, to remind the audience of the importance of having goal-line technology in football. The trailer also has a voice-over with the documentary presenter Nathan speaking for most of the time, meaning the audience are likely to recognise and detect the same voice. Nathan Carr was just as enthusiastic in the trailer than he was on the documentary. What’s more, we opted for the same background music in the trailer that we used in the documentary, called Huma Huma by Crimson Fly. This becomes a recognisable beat that the audience can associate with both products. Given that our chosen radio station is Talksport, the trailer will be heard by millions of sports fans all around the world, which of course helps us in terms of boosting the advertisement and publicity levels. People who are naturally interested in sports such as football, cricket and rugby will invariably tune into Talksport, hear about our documentary, and then be eager to tune in.

Talksport are the Global Audio Partner of the English Premier League which is a prestigious connection to have. Outside of the UK and Ireland, Talksport broadcasts live commentary of every Premier League match all around the world in multiple languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin. This is beneficial for us because it stretches our viewing figures to not just from the UK but beyond. To summarise, I believe the radio trailer does a good job at describing what the documentary is about and making it sound enticing enough for prospective viewers to go and watch, supported by the use of documentary audio snippets, familiar voice-over and same background music.

Magazine Article

I feel the magazine double page spread complemented our documentary very well, perhaps even more so than the radio trailer. We inserted stills with borders around them from our documentary on the right hand side of the double page spread, including the main image of Michael Johnson celebrating at the 1996 Atlanta Games, the panning shot of the Sixth Form College Solihull, the interview with expert Matt Hind and archival shot of Lampard’s –non-goal’ incident in 2010, clearly showing the ball crossed the line.

Our main image of Michael Johnson crossing the finishing line having broken the world record at the 1996 Atlanta Games. You can see his 85g nice racing spikes.

This was to present to the audience the type of content that they’ll see in the documentary and the variety of scenes on offer, therefore forming an effective link between the two products.

‘Over the line or not…’ is our magazine masthead, inspired by the commentary from Lampard’s clip.

The title of our magazine article wasn’t the same as our documentary, but instead called “Over the line or not…”. We felt ‘The Pros and Cons of Technology in Sport’ was too long for a magazine article title, and perhaps a little too boring, so we decided to brainstorm some ideas for a substitute title. Inspired by the commentary on Lampard’s ‘non-goal’ clip, we thought ‘Over the line or not…’ was an engaging and enticing masthead which would get the audience thinking. The use of ellipsis also helps lead on to the text below. This was a decision taken by the group which we felt was needed in order to make the combination between both products a stronger one. Furthermore, to the right of the masthead we put in a picture of the football referee Lee Probert pointing to the left, in the direction of ‘Over the line or not…’. Probert is seen as geared up with a mic – something we touched on as a pro in the documentary – which is symbolic of our chosen topic before the audience has even started reading any text. Bearing in mind that our target audience was 16-25 year olds, we deliberately made sure the presentation of the magazine article was eye-catching and colourful. We didn’t want the spread to look plain or unexciting so by using grass at the top on the left hand side added vibrancy and made a link with sport pitches.

This is our pull quote from expert Nick Waring in our magazine article, highlighting the uneven distribution of goal-line technology in football.

The use of pull quotes assisted in drawing the audience in and giving them the most significant, condensed bits of the article. The article was good for us as it didn’t have a time limit on it like the radio trailer – there was more space to express to the audience what our documentary entails, the people behind making it and hype it up to a greater extent. Key information such as the date, time and channel were also included so the audience know when and where to tune in.

Ratings from several broadsheet newspapers at the end of the magazine article.

We made up ratings to accompany the article, as well, with comments from various broadsheet, well-respected newspapers. This offers credibility and trustworthiness to the documentary if these calibre of people have watched it and liked it.

We opted for the Radio Times to show our magazine article. Although their appeal is predominantly aimed at older people, they still have a large readership of over 2 million people, with many of the offspring of those older people invariably picking up an issue and glancing through. It’s been going since September 1923 so has amassed a respectable following over the years. Without a shadow of doubt, the Radio Times was the best option to go for in terms of getting the message out there

and increasing the number of prospective viewers for our documentary. All-in-all, I do feel that aesthetically our magazine article ticked all the boxes. The bright colours used make it stand out and grab the audience, while the stills taken from the documentary create a strong link between the two products and let the audience know what to expect in advance. I would say the magazine article did a better job at selling the documentary than the radio trailer, but overall I’m pleased with how the main task and ancillary texts combined.