moodboard...

1. In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


in other words, what we expect to see, and what the key features are of a children's programme. A children's programme is an open ended form, as it is on going, usually in a series, unlike a one off such as a film. Children's programmes are famous for a bubbly and enthusiastic presenter, one who encourages the audience and ties the whole thing together.

pitch..

a childrens program that focuses on the world of make believe and how there are worlds and creatures that we are not aware of. Using creatures and puppets that are friendly and funny, and that the children who watch will like. It will be shown in a main popular childrens tv slot. The titles will be bright and colourful and will have a catchy theme tune. My product will be different from the norm as it will be funny, educational and will interest and entertain the children all at the same time.

evaluation...

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?

An article taken from Media Mania Magazine, article by Hannah Ashworth

New television show tigerlily has taken the television world by storm for its new way of teaching young children a moral message. Despite this, it fits in nicely within the childrens market because of its traditional approaches. Today we are interviewing Grace Robertson, director and writer of the show who is talking about the different types of technologies she used to tie in with our our technology feature week. So Grace, tell us, how did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Grace: well creating tigerlily would have been quite literally impossible without different forms of technology. To create the initial idea, for the planning element, I used the internet alot to have a look at the current market. Youtube was the ideal place as they had literally thousands of videos of the actual shows, as well as the theme tunes and titles of the shows, so i had so much variety in which i could base tigerlily on. It is great how easily accessible all of the past shows are. This was the same for the research, once again, it was the internet that allowed me to find so many different examples of successful shows. The use of cameras as well allowed me to do my research, by interviewing young children who I would have liked to focus my show on. However, their answers in my research were basic and they were shy, so I used teenagers for my audience research. being a student myself, it was easy for me to create a professional finish, and use a range of shots. The actual construction was via the camera and also on iMovie, a video programme on apple computers This high tech programme allowed me to do things such as extracting sound, putting in my logo, and merging the clips together properly and putting my song over the top to make it look like an actual programme. Also, for the ancillary tasks, from examples online, i could see the different things that a magazine has to include such as a strapline and a masthead. Also, the use of photoshop helped me tremendously with the masthead, which also appeared at the start of the programme and the DVD, it was all the same logo.With the evaluation, the fact that the show was on a quicktime file, it meant that i could put it onto my iTunes and put it onto my iPhone and then I could show my friends and other media students the product and find out what they thought of it. Also, i showed it to my classmates on my blog, which has helped me tremendously throughout the project, as it has allowed me to document my work all of the time. All in all, I am very lucky that I had so many good media products around me that I could use!

Grace's show, Tigerlily is on the Cbeebies channel, at 3pm daily.

evaluation...

How effective is the combination of the main product and the ancillary tasks?

RADIO INTERVIEW

My radio broadcast in essence explains that the combination of all products is very effective, especially when creating tigerlily the brand, by using the same logos and the characters throughout to make it all fluent and match in with each other, especially when using the same colour schemes.

evaluation..

In What ways does your media project use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Director Interview Script

(Medium shot - interviewer looking straight at the camera)

Mark: Hello and welcome to todays edition of 'what is good for your children?' today we are focusing on television, and what we should and shouldn't be letting our children watch. New show Tigerlily hit the Cbeebies lineup last week and has been getting nothing but excellent reviews, so today I have with me

(Medium shot - Director)

Grace Robertson- the director and writer of Tigerlily, who is going to tell us all about the show and how it will help our children, as well as conforming to the usual childrens genre.

(Medium shot - Interviewer)

Mark: so Grace, I have a four year old son, and he has been watching your show and he adores it already, he even begged me to get the magazine. Of course, your show is extremely educational, as it shows a different moral message each episode, but what gave you the idea?

(Medium shot - Director)

Director: in order to fully understand what we expect from childrens programmes, i had to do a lot of research, and this involved me watching programmes and drawing comparisons between them. One of my main focus programmes was Bodger and Badger, a show i used to watch when I was young, and i used to really enjoy because of it's silly nature and good characters. It was that infact that gave me the idea of using puppets, it allowed me to use anthropomorphism, animals which had human traits. I also watched button moon, a show that was based at children around the same age that i was targeting.

(Medium shot - Interviewer)

Mark: so how does tigerlily use forms and conventions of a childrens television show?

(Medium shot - Director)

Director: It is obvious that a childrens show has to keep a childs attention, otherwise they are going to get bored and not want to watch it, so it was clear that I had to use things such as bright colours and bubbly and fun presenter that the children watching will like and will be interested in. The theme tune was also an important part of the show, as from my research i discovered that if a show has a successful theme tune, children will remember it and want to watch it again. Games and animals and friendships are also important things in a five year old's life, so tigerlily contains all 3 things, animals in the form of tiger and lily, games in the form of hide and seek, a popular game and the importance of friendships through tiger and lily.

(Medium shot - interviewer)

Tom: does tigerlily develop the convention of the childrens genre at all?

(Medium shot - director)

Director: I believe that it does, a lot of shows focus on educational aspects that children will learn in school, such as numeracy and colours and words, but i wanted to go to a deeper educational message, which is morals. I wanted to teach children that things such as lying, being nasty to others and cheating are wrong things, things that often are not taught until much later in school.

(Medium shot - interviewer)

Tom: In any ways does tigerlily challenge the forms and conventions of childrens shows?

(Medium shot - Director)

Grace: In many ways, it doesn't because of the fact that my target audience is so young, and i wanted to keep things simple so that the message i was trying to portray would come through clearly. The only way I have challenged the convention is through extending the educational aspect, which to me was really important.

(Medium shot - interviewer)

Tom: Wow, well thanks very much for joining us Grace, I'm so glad there is a show that I know i can put on for my son and that he will have fun with it as well as be learning an important life lesson.

Now, for the debate: 'is watching the news good for our children?'

evaluation..

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

VIDEO FROM BBC INTERVIEW

I wanted to express how the audience participation helped me at two separate stages, at the beginning and at the end. At the beginning, as explained in the video helped me to see what children would want from a show, and what they have grown to expect. I could also incorporate the different things that children wanted; games, animals and a creativity, combined with what parents would want, the educational side that taught the children a moral message, as well as being educational. What i was really aiming at was what the children wanted, and how i could really apply that and connect with my target audience.

After making tigerlily, the audience feedback really helped me to gain a different perspective of tigerlily, and see things that i hadnt noticed before. The main thing that was pointed out to me was how successful my theme tune was, which was especially important as i did really thorough research on it. My negative feedback also allowed me to see the things that i would have done differently if i had the chance to do it again.