The Codes and Conventions of the Two Ancillary Artefacts

Radio trailer
 

Radio Trailers are a perfect platform to promote upcoming projects to the more traditional audiences who seek the radio for entertainment, information etc. The duration of the radio trailer should be kept to a bare minimum. Typically, a radio trailer should usually take 30 seconds to address all the appropriate information because radio companies will only take short advertising to fit in with the radio show’s agenda.

The basic structure of a radio trailer consists of material from the show/movie, which the distributors are trying to sell. It consists of clips, or better yet, the audio. The audio also goes alongside a voice-over following through a script. The narrator should be the same one from the documentary so that the film isn't misinterpreted with a different voice and  the audience are aware of who’s involved.

I order to capture the attention of the radio listener; it should have a certain aspect to it to entice their interest towards the concept of the film. That attention provider is the slogan of the film, which is mostly considered to be good at enabling both the documentary and the newspaper advertisement to succeed in gathering three demographics by connecting all three media products.

As mentioned in the conventional features of a documentary, a combination of the voice over and script for the radio trailer should serve the same purpose to most importantly make it informative and entertaining. In addition, this should directly attach the audience to come across as more intriguing. The script will provide a clutch to keep the trailer together and give suitable information about the documentary.

There is often music to go along with radio trailer with the exception that it should relate to the overall detail for the documentary. Ideally, the music should be instrumental. If there were vocals in the music, it would deter the audiences’ attention away from the people speaking in the film; hence, it ruins a film. To finalise the media product, the trailer will resolve with the narrator reading the scheduling information such as the title of the documentary, the day, date, time, channel name etc. Again, this is an essential feature, enough importance to being used for the main task and newspaper advert.

Newspaper Advert
 

Newspaper adverts are rather basic in a way that they primarily inform the reader and don’t focus on plentifully adding on to the appearance, because they have to consider the amount of scheduling information to include.

The layout consists two main features; the advert will have a one striking image usually of a character(s) in a situational location, this is because it’s all about the mise-en-scene going on in the image, which transpires to the audience on the possible plot. For instance, our advert will feature bikes, so it may come across as a certain prop of significance to a niche audience of bike enthusiasts.

The second feature is the programme arrangement information; the text is deliberated as bold and in the style of sans serif. This is effective in meaning; sans serif is a modern class of font that is used as a good choice for documentaries since they’re fixated on modern topics and issues. The boldness of the text is a convention used quite clearly as a marketing device. It renders the image more and highlights the key bits that’ll be memorised the most from the advert

The slogan is a supplementary to the text enabling it anchor the general text and image; it’s a regular witty play on words, to say the least. It’s successful at reinforcing the image’s connotations and provides a more defined idea of the plot, in order to sell the programme. 

The Channel 4 logo is iconic image for the entirety of television viewers.
Everyone knows where to go.

Channel 4 - The Mind Detectives

The channel logo for the media product is prominent in the corner position of the advert. Channel 4 is a famous example for producing interesting documentaries involving in depth research into extremely peculiar areas like 'The Girl Who Cannot Sleep'. This advert is a clear representation of a typical Newspaper advert displaying an image that is associated with the topic and can be easily decoded by the audience. It depicts a a bed and a sheep, the sheep in particular is used to imply counting sheep to help you fall asleep. This suggests the meaning behind the image makes people think and feel more drawn to the documentary being advertised and not mislead by the synopsis depicted from the image.

Star Wars Radio Spot

The cult classic movie franchise, Star Wars, was re-imagined through radio to garner the attention from radio listeners to the eccentric sounds and music from the film's soundtrack. The idea behind these spots were to try and replicate significant features from the movies to a radio trailer, so that the similarities of both compositions were both accurate. 

The sound elements for this film are always kept consistent to help keep the interest of the audience remaining. The trailer consists of a combination of non-diegetic sound effects from the films alongside an narrater discussing what's happening, this aims to introduce the audience to an exciting adventure into a fictional universe that they're missing out. The narrater describes the sounds in a sarcastic tone to make them feel more genuinely thrilling He uses lines such as, "Don't be alarmed" and "relax" after each sound effect. The general approach of the film speaks to a niche audience interested in the action genre as it primarily focuses on this category of film based off the narrator's script and the title 'Star Wars' before its even released.

The Radio trailer will also have to fit in a synopsis to the 30 second mark, if the company behind the film want the niche audience of radio listeners to be invested to the story. It carefully delivered the characters descriptions and the roles they perform in the synopsis. The key selling point in one of the radio spots is the narrator effectively uses a good interpretation of the film in a line, "never before in the history of movies has so much time and technology been spent just for fun." For this instance, this line is a  conventional attention-grabbing technique to suggest this film is exclusive or a film 'like no other'.


Click 'Older Posts' to read my Codes and Conventions of a Documentary. -----I
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