How are your two media products related?
Through our print work and our film, we have a lot of similar things. Our campaign name, logo and slogan is what really relates all of the products the most as they are consistent throughout all of the products. Having these things in our products is good, because they all show the same thing and it would become recognisable every time it is seen. the colour schemes aren't exactly the same, but they all stick to a blue-green house colour, but the shades change depending on which audience we have decided on for that particular poster. Also, our name, Youth4Baldock is always in the same font, so this also becomes recognisable. We use the font 'Edo' from Font Squirrel. We also use the same links to our social networking sites. The information on each of our media products is usually generally the same, about the age range and needing volunteers. Also on our products, we keep the contact information the same so it is accurate across all of the products.
How has your research has been used to fulfil the brief and meet the needs of the client?
Our research has shown a lot for the client, such as our surveys, and more have seen exactly what the public have wanted for this regeneration. We responded immediately to the brief with our first ideas, which were those of a park regeneration, and then our idea was a Youth Club, at Baldock Museum, which is an area that is unused and really could do with a regeneration. This was our first response to the brief. Our research into the area and the public consisted of pictures, and surveys with the local public, of which we separated into the local teenagers, and then just the general public, to get the best out of our research, and getting a target audience.
How do the products apply appropriate codes and conventions?
We kept in the codes of a campaign and conventions by using mostly the same colours, only changing the shades for the target audience, to make it more appropriate. We always included the contact information, and it was always the same so it was accurate to see, this meant the people interested in the campaign could easily find our website etc. We always used the same slogan 'make every regeneration count' so this could stick in peoples minds. Also, the same logo (the headphones and popcorn) was used across all of our media products, as wells as the same style images of the Baldock Museum, and the town centre. This helped people see where we wanted the regeneration to take place.
How do the products reach the target audience?
The name of our campaign was 'Youth4Baldock', so this immediately shows our target audience, 'Youth' and also the '4' is text speak for the word 'for' which is in relation to our target audience. Our logo is headphones and popcorn, the headphones show music, the popcorn shows movies and entertainment, which is what we wanted to put across as the activities that they would be doing in the youth club, as well as it being something 13-16 year olds enjoy doing. The language we use for each different leaflet and poster relates to which audience we were directing the media to, for example, we would use more complex language for the parent directed posters, then more images and a smaller amount of words for the teenage posters. The film was directed more across the whole audience, so the use of voice-overs and information was used, as well as pictures.
How have representational issues been addressed?
We have made sure that there has been no kind of 'sexism' or other features that make would be a representation issue, apart from stereotypically linking the specific colours to genders, the other issues have not come up. We represent teenagers as best as we can, as we have asked them what they would like and what they would want in Baldock, so we have tried to represent their needs in this campaign.
How was the production process organised and scheduled?
We allocated a lot of tasks equally to each other to make the work load less, but still able to complete.We made a script for our TV/Small Documentary, which helped us know how much we could it into the video. We also made a plan for this, the timing and locations used was set out on paper as well as a story board to know what was going on, who we should have on screen at which point, which pictures we need and when the voiceovers were appearing (this was also on the script). We had an open social media chat (facebook), which allowed us to talk to each other when we weren't at school doing the project and really helped us organised out-of-school filming arrangements, decisions and more.
How did you consider the rules and regulations?
We knew that we couldn't put anything inappropriate within the campaign, even if it was something like swearing which does seem to apply to teenagers quite a bit these days. We couldn't do this because if we were doing the campaign and people such as parents or young children saw these rules being broken, they would not want to help out or send their kids to this youth club. We didn't print any 'lies' onto any of our platforms, such as 'Baldock museum is currently evil', we just made it look a bit dull, which is mostly the truth - obviously the reason why we wanted to regenerate it.
How did you work as a team?
We split all of the work up into sections we could complete them all within a deadline, but also talked to each other so we could stick to specific themes and conventions within the campaign. My contribution firstly was the design of the logo, which had to be used to represent Youth4Baldock across all of he media platforms. I also did the Links, the webpage was split up so each of us could do a page for it each. I designed one of the posters which was attempted to be aimed across more of the whole audience instead of mainly parents or mainly teens, so it had a good amount of information as well as pictures and a few loud edits to make it stand out to teenagers. In the filming, we all looked for particular pictures and helped film, also we all pitched in to help with the script.
What has been especially successful in your project?
We found that the surveys we conducted were very successful in helping us with finding information out about the local community and what they would benefit from. Our teamwork is also a very successful part of the project, we have been very ordered and organised through the whole products and have put all of our ideas into one.
What could you have improved?
I think we could've done more on the colour schemes and over all layouts of our posters, as they could look more 'the same'. I also think out film could be improved by adding more interviews, more filming of the museum itself and even some activities. We also could have done more research into what people around the area enjoy doing and want to see, as the surveys we did may not have given us a good enough amount of information, so more people would help us quantify the data.
