I feel that both of our production and website are very successful. Our intention was to create fun, light hearted, simple products that were conventional to E4 and attracted our audience of 15-30. We intended that our website would look attractive and appealing to our target audience and would be simple to navigate around, however would still contain enough information and images to keep the audience entertained. When creating our production, we made sure we had create both storyboards and shot lists completed before filming to save time when filming shots, this then allowed us to change shots if they did not look effective. We intended to stick to the sitcom conventions throughout our production, by making sure our narrative was funny, contained some humorous stereotypes and centres around one character.
What kind of institutional context did the productions fit into?
The E4 website explains that they are a company that "is the destination for a cutting edge young audience" with an "eccentric and witty" personality. It also states they have many Facebook appreciation groups for their shows, suggesting that alot of their audience is targeted through social networking sites. Due to this we then decided to create a Facebook and Twitter page for our show as it should attract more viewers within our target audience. E4 then researched into what their target audience contains as found that their audience are young, upmarket, fashion conscious, sociable connected, heavy internet users, they love going out and tend to use advertising as one of their main information sources. As we are targeting the same demographic as E4, we released our programme to both YouTube and Facebook as they are great places to connect with our audience and are easy to get written yet simple feedback.
http://channel4sales.com/platforms/E4
How well did you target your audience?
When researching into the sitcoms in which are target audience enjoy, we looked on IMBD at the most advertised sitcoms and their viewing figures with demographic statistics. From this we found that both the IT Crowd and The Inbetweenrs had a target of audience of both male and females between 15-30. We then constructed a survey asking questions about their favourite sitcoms what they like and dislike and what narratives and characters they like. This the helped us when creating our own sitcom as it allowed us to see what our demographic want in a sitcom. We also conducted a focus group, which stated what attracts our audience to a sitcom and we found that the most popular results were the humour and characters I felt that it was quite significant that both the focus group and survey stated that the most popular character was a geek. WE then therefore had our main character as a geek. Also, when creating our website, we instantly took the younger and more fun audience in to mind, as we would have to make it look attractive, appealing and relatable to their lives. WE felt that this idea was presented well in our cast video as by asking embarrassing questions, we create humour for the audience other than just listing the questions and answers on the page. The video makes the viewing experience alot more fun, and allows you to learn more about the cast in a fun way. Also, by including young language, pop art style photos and school images, we can help create a younger atmosphere, creating a fun and vibrant mood. This could then help attract a younger audience.
What genre were you working in and how was this apparent to your audience?
When looking at our design brief we had to choose between three different genres of television "structured reality", "fly on the wall documentaries" and "fictional productions". My group decided to chose "fictional productions" under the Situation Comedy genre. We firstly began to research into E4 sitcoms such as The Inbetweeners and The IT Crowd by researching into their viewing figures, their demographic and psychographic audience and by also analysing them ourselves. As we were creating a sitcom in the style of E4 we decided to take the audience demographic of the most popular sitcoms when we conducted our survey in Primary Audience Research. This then allowed us to look at the codes and conventions of the sitcoms which would then benefit us when creating our own. We looked at the representation, narrative, Mise en Scene, camera shots and movement within the E4 sitcoms to look at the links between them all. This would then allow us to understand the different codes and conventions within E4 sitcoms. Once we had understood the different codes and conventions we completed a survey asking what our audience would like in a sitcom with possible narratives, characters and locations. This then allowed our audience to take part is choosing what our sitcom involves, which will then meet the codes and conventions in the other sitcoms.
When creating our website we then used the websites of the E4 sitcoms we researched when creating our production, to gather the codes and conventions from the same demographic and psychographic audience. We looked at colours, anchorage, pages and images to achieve a conventional website which would still fit in with the 15-30 target audience. As our genre for the production was a sitcom we then used comedic images and anchorage to achieve a younger audience, which E4 sitcoms have.
How successful were each of your products in communicating their key ideas and concepts?
When creating our production as we were creating our sitcom we began to look into the codes and conventions of E4 sitcoms which had the same demographic and psychographic audience of 15-30. Firstly, we created audience research into our demographic by asking our audience questions on their favourite sitcoms and what they would like in a new sitcom with characters, narratives and locations, as well as what they like and dislike about some sitcoms. By then looking at the results of the survey we found that the Inbteweenrs was one of the most popular E4 sitcoms. When researching the sitcoms we looked into their narrative, characters, locations, mise en scene, camera shots and movement, representation and semiotics and found the links between the shows to work out the typical codes and conventions presented. When researching into the sitcoms I looked at the institutional context of E4 it self and created a semiotic analysis of the logo. I found that E4 is the fun and light hearted subsidiary of Channel 4, which is then also emphasised through the logo as the bubble style writing suggests a fun and young vibe. This young vibe is then conventional to E4 sitcoms and then therefore I had to include these conventions in my production.
When creating our production I looked into the conventions that we found and began to create storyboards and costume designs with our chosen characters. In particular the costume designs allowed us to look into the stereotypes shown through the characters in sitcoms. As our main character is a "geek" we looked into The Inbetweeners character "Will", to look at the ways in which the character of the "geek" is shown. This then allowed us to create a more conventional and stereotypical character, which then allows for the audience to relate to the character more. Also, when looking at other sitcoms, I found that the narrative what from the perspective if one character We then decided to use this convention in our sitcom to made it conventional to the E4 sitcom.
After completing our draft production we then received audience feedback after posting the video to "Facebook", allowing us to see what our audience liked and what needed to be improved.
Through this feedback we found that most of our audience found the clip funny, which helped made our product for successful as the main convention of a sitcom is to create humour and escapism for the audience while allowing them to relate. Also, they particularly liked the character of the geek, which links back to our primary research as they chose to have a geek a main character. Points to improve were to add titles, including cast and title at the beginning on the programme. Also, one audience member stated that she thought it was a professional production other than amateur. She liked the simplicity of the narrative which was emphasised through the clear camera shots, such as shot reverse and establishing which introduced the characters throughout. Her favourite part of the narrative was when "Emily" fell into the bin, as she said it was very funny, this then links to the conventions of sitcoms and then creates a successful conventional production.
When completing our 3 paged website on our production we then looked at the websites of the sitcoms we researched. We found that the key codes and conventions of an E4 sitcom websites consisted of young anchorage which would relate and attract a younger audience, pages for the audience to get involved such as Facebook fan pages, quizzes and cast videos. Therefore, when creating our website, we wanted to create a fun and lively atmosphere, which would attract to our demographic of 15-30. We would include text which anchors a younger audience including phrases which are used by younger people, character profiles, with embarrassing information about the characters and videos with the cast, which would reveal their embarrassing secrets. As the narrative of our sitcom was based around the same location as The Inbetweeners, we used their website as our main inspiration. We then therefore created pop art style images on the character page, and created an extra page for more character information, while creating the idea of a school or college environment, by using a blackboard as our header background and main background as well as using chalk like fonts as used on there website. We also included a poll asking what the audience's favourite character was as well as an interview with the cast.
When asking some member's of our audience our website they particular said that would like more pages on the characters, with more information on, to get more involved with the character's life.They also suggested that we made an extra page that would present our episode on, so that the cast video is not on the same page.
How were the narratives constructed and what part did they play in the creation of meaning and experienceof your products?
As our production was only 2 minutes long and was an opening sequence, we could not complete a full narrative theory. We chose to use the Todorov narrative theory for our production, as that was common in many sitcoms. When completing our audience research the narrative of being based in a school/college being surrounded by teenagers experiences awkward situations was the most popular. Due to this we then used this narrative in our production. When looking at sitcoms such as The Inbetweeners we found that they seem to centre the narrative of one character we then did this with our character of Emily. We emphasised this through the use of voice overs, which then produce an enigma from the audience asking questions such as "Who is Tyler?". This then allows the audience to keep questioning who Tyler is and what their relationship is like.
What kind of values and ideologies did the Production promote or attack?
When creating our production we didn't look at any values and ideologies other than stereotypes used in our product. Our two main characters both present the main stereotypes of a "geek" and "the hot guy", which can be seen as quite controversial from some people's point of view. However, by using these two stereotypes form my audience research, it is seen that my target audience want these characters, with these stereotypes. When researching into other sitcoms we found that the stereotypes are very strong, especially in the "geek". However, as the Inbetweeners was see as the most popular in my survey and the age demographic of 15-30 is the highest, the stereotypes must not attack the sitcom from a younger audience. Therefore, due to this the stereotypes used in my Production should not create a negative view in most of my demographic audience.
What issues of representations do the Productions raise?
Our products show the representation of teenager's college situations, geeks and the popular guy. When creating our production we had to look at how we would represent our location, narrative and characters. We had to be care full when creating these representations, to not make them seem negative on society today, however, we looked at the ways in which other sitcoms such as The Inbetweeners show these representations. We found that they seem to present the "geek" as the awkward and strange characters and the "popular guy" as tall, muscular man who gets all of the girls. We also noticed that narratives that are based around schools and colleges present the awkward and hilarious situations than students go through on a day to day basis. We then Incorporated these representations into our production.
How might you apply your idea to a third media platform?
If I was to apply my idea to a third media platform, I would create a poster presenting a main image of the cast and situation, with small amounts of text including "coming soon" or "the premiere date". I would include the chalk like font, as on website to state information such as the shows website. Also, when presenting the main image for the cast, I would use the pop art style on the image to emphasise the young and fun audience.
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