M3 - Met Codes and Conventions.

When creating the advertisement for defend our island I have had to make clear what where the conventions of the show are and how to keep to them to make a realistic and noticeable advertisement campaign that would help the target audience understand what the adverts are for.  Defend Our Island is a Period-Action Drama hybrid with some instances of thriller and therefor I must make it clear that the show is part of those genres in the advertisements.  Just to make it clear, the advertisement components I used in this campaign are a TV Trailer, Radio Trailer, a poster and an Instagram account for social media.  I will discuss the conventions of each component below:

TV Trailer:  

Here is my TV trailer I have created that I will add here as well for easier analysis.

When Creating the TV trailer in shooting and editing I made sure that my team and I followed the conventions of TV Trailers.  This was really important as we really needed the audience to understand what this trailer was about also the fact that it was a trailer in the first place!  Now of course these trailers are for the Defend Our Island series that is being released on the 27th of May and this show belongs to the period drama, action hybrid genre therefor we must make sure that there are clips in the trailer that shows that the show is set in a curtain time period.  One convention of TV Trailers is that the trailer is normally summed up with a montage of different clips in the show.  We have done this also in this TV Trailer with a montage of photos and clips form the show including newspaper covers of the events before Dunkirk as well as overall clips from the show and from news from the time.  This will show the target audience what the trailer is about and what it is advertising and will ensure a high viewership.  One other convention that is used in TV Trailers is that the title is normally shown at the end so the audience, after they have an amazing time watching the trailer finally find out what to watch and then search it up and find where to watch it.  In the TV trailer I also ensured that overall the music and sound effects where up to broadcasting standards by making sure the sound is at a normal 48KHz when it is published as well as the fact that I also added lots of music and sound effects in the trailer.  For the TV Trailer I made a composition (that was also made for my A level music) that plays in the majority of the trailer.  This adds a greater affect of professionality to the trailer as there is an actual theme for the show and the trailers.  I also had sound effects like gunshots and explosions to set the scene and understanding of what situation the characters are in.  For example as the newspapers show up there are a lot more explosions and weapon sounds.

Here are two screenshots of a clips from the trailer for Defend Our Island it shows that I have used many different clips for the show like other trailers and have also shown the shows title at the end like other trailers. Here below is a screenshot of a clip for Star Wars Episode Three, Revenge of the Sith.  You can watch the trailer and see the montage of clips and use of the title at the end of the show I am talking about with this link; (1103) Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - Trailer - YouTube

This shows that we have taken to account the conventions of there being a montage of clips in a TV or film Trailer and also the title at the end of the trailer like in Revenge of the Sith.  This also overall shows that we have done a lot of research and understand how to entice the audience into watching our product.

Radio Trailer:  

Here is my radio trailer I have created that I will add here as well for easier analysis.

When creating this radio trailer, my team and I also had to conform to conventions of the genre and also overall radio trailers.  There are many conventions in radio trailers one of which being a voice over at the start and end of a radio trailer and the fact that they may say 'new to BBC 3' like it does in my trailer and at the end it says when the date the show is being released and on what program and platform.  Like in our trailer it says 'Defend Our Island, first episodes streaming 27th of May, only on BBC 3 and iPlayer.'  this a convention we met in the making of this trailer.  Another convention of radio trailers we met was the fact that a montage of different audio clips from the show was added on this a prime example of us following the conventions of radio trailers.  When creating the Radio trailer on FinalCut (which is the same software I used for the TV Trailer), I made sure that all the audio was up to broadcasting standards, which is 48KHz.  In the Radio trailer I involved more audio rushes than the TV trailer and overall more information that is shared through these rushes because you can only hear not see.  Involved in the rushes is another part of my composition I made for the show which is a much slower and moving part of the musical piece.  There was also the use of more dialogue including another voiceover that wasn't used in the TV Trailer.  s there was more dialogue there was also the voice of the other main protagonist being used where he says 'Im pretty curtain'  and another audio excerpt that is him saying that they can't trust anyone.  Overall this shows that  have met some of the codes and conventions as I have used more audio rushes and made them into a montage just like other Radio Trailers. Here below is an example of many conventions that are used in radio trailers, in this video there are examples of radio trailers like His Dark Materials and many more.  you can see that they also use voiceovers and a montage of different audio clips from the show.

This Therefor shows we while making and finishing the radio trailer for Defend Our Island followed and conformed to the conventions of radio trailers.

Poster:

Here is my Poster I have created that I will add here as well for easier analysis.

When creating this poster we ensured that most conventions where met including a detailed title and an image that makes the audience understand what this show is about.  I took a map of the channel to show what the feeling of the show would be and you can see that in the war, Britain wasn't that far away from the Nazis as well as not that far from an invasion!  This poster may be simple however it shows the audience the genre, with the flags representing the war and the period drama genre as well as the flames in the middle representing the action genre.  The flames also foreshadows the fate of the main antagonist in fire and pain.  In the title you can see there are dashes and dots underneath it.  This is Morse code and it entices the audience to look up what it means and keeps the idea of Defend Our Island in their head.  The Morse code translates to Imposter representing the fact that the Mayor is the imposter of the show and that he is the anti hero.  

This is one of the many posters made for Game Of Thrones and it is a good example of a poster as it is similar to mine, its simple however has a lot meaning.  Now of course like the poster we made for Defend Our Island this Poster has the nicely detailed ident on it, near the bottom.  It easily represents the genre of the show which is fantasy, the gold represents the royalty of the people fighting for the throne as well as the font being fancy to represent the fantasy genre.  The ident in the poster we made represents a lot as well, of course there is the Morse code that I already covered.  The font is Gill Sans MT which was a popular font used in British newspapers and advertisements back in WW2 which shows the representation of the period genre.  In This poster there is also the use of fire like we used in our poster.  The fire represents war and the sub genre of action that is present in the show just like how fire is shown in our poster.  The use of the hand holding the crown is a simple way of showing the balance of power in the Kingdoms set in Game of Thrones and is similar in the way we used the map of England and France to show the instability of war between the UK and Nazi Germany.  One convention that both the creators of this poster and we conformed to is that it shows where to watch the shows the posters are advertising for example HBO for Game Of Thrones as well as BBC3 for Defend Our Island.  This overall shows that we conformed to most conventions in the making of trailers.  Also one more thing to add is that in the Game of Thrones Poster you can see that there is a tagline 'War Is Coming'  This is a good way for the audience to find out what the show is and what it is about, with that tagline the audience knows that there is going to be fighting and bloodshed apart of the action genre.  I decided not to add a tagline to my poster because I believed that it would add to much to the poster and overall make the poster overcrowded.  Now even though taglines may be good to tell the audience a bit about what the show will be about, however because my show has themes of espionage I wanted to add more mystery as well to the advertisement and this is furthermore strengthened with the Morse code in the ident.

Social Media

Here are some screenshots of the set up of the Instagram account for the series, Defend Our Island.  You can see that we have followed some of the conventions of a social media account as we have used the Ident of our show for the profile pic.  The ident of a show is usually used in the profile pic to show the audience that this is the social media account for the show.  we have also added our first of many posts that is in fact a repurposed version of our poster we made.  This is one of the conventions we conformed to as many social media accounts for shows repurpose posters for their accounts.  Some social media accounts are just entire tributes to many posters for the show/film!

Here is an example of the use of social media for advertisement in TV.  Using His Dark Materials as an example again you can see that they have also repurposed their poster that they made as well as using their ident of there profile pic just like we did therefor this shows that we have followed and conformed to most conventions of social media accounts. 

Symbolic Codes Used

In the making of the advertisements of this show there where many symbolic codes we considered in the making of these adverts.  One of the first symbolic codes we considered and used was the choice of setting.  Overall we decided to go with a northern setting.  In a show about espionage in WW2 it would be a fitting idea for an enemy of Britain to at least try and cause resistance in the north of England as it is an area that has been underfunded and underdeveloped for generations and till recently in the early 20th century has there been a north - south divide in the country which has caused a slight indifference of cultures.  The setting of the north shows that the people of the area will not see eye to eye with the people down in Westminster and will be easy to used as a way to cause resistance in the north of England during the war.  

While shooting and editing we considered the meaning of Mise En Scene which is how a shot creates meaning with how it looks.  In the TV trailer we made a shot that we used in the trailer that is a panning up, establishing shot of the landscape of the town the show is set in.  We added filters to the shot to make it look gloomy and dark to show a corruption falling over the town which represented the Nazis brainwashing the people of the town.  The use of old footage worked a treat as well as it showed the real events happening at the time the show is set, with the destruction of that town with the Police officer carrying the boy out of the rubble really showed the horror that was going on at the same time.  These scenes were also filmed in black of white of course which added the greater effect of darkness and backwardness to the scenes.  The colour tone of the advertisements where dark colours to represent the old age style black and white as well as some bright colours like the colours of fire to show the war feeling.

Written Codes

The text in the advertisements that where written for the show was all written in one Font which is Gill Sans MT which was the most popular Font used by newspapers and advertisers in the time of World War Two.  This was to show historic meaning and give the feeling of the time period of the show and make it more nostalgic to the time. 

Dialogue Codes

Some dialogue choices we came up with were created to entice the audience as well as let them understand the main story of the show without spoiling them.  For example there was a few instances of the use of the main antagonist Agent Smith in which he speaks with an intimidating southern accent as well as saying 'don't try stop me, you'll regret it!' this shows the audience that there is a proper threat in the show that will entertain the audience as the main protagonists will have to overcome this great threat.