Together, the main product and ancillary tasks convey to our target audience that 'Mill Lane' is a brand new soap opera and that the main story line is of the Essex character, Rachel Mannings, causing a disturbance in the country setting. By using the convergence of a trailer, poster and magazine cover, we have the ability to reach a wide audience and, as a result, the whole of our target market (demographic groups B to E). As the magazine and poster are paper based, this helps us to reach the consumer through a different way, as opposed to trailer which can be viewed on television or online via Youtube or Facebook.
Both the poster and trailer display the time, days and channel that the soap can be watched but this information is not included on the magazine cover. This is because, as a group, we felt that it ruined the aesthetics of the magazine cover and that this information would be displayed in full inside the magazine. It does, however, clearly state that it's a brand new soap which the trailer and poster does not. To make this more clear and effective, we should have used 'brand new' in the end voice over of the trailer, as well as including it on the poster. We did not use it on the poster as it would have needed more text, and therefore would not have conformed as well with the conventions of a poster. The use of the same images of the characters across the three products also makes them easily recognisable for our soap opera, imrpoving the effectivenss of the combination of the tasks.The narrative and and various story lines between each of the characters are clear in each of the products. For example, the two love triangles between Rachel, Ryan and Harriet and Charlie, Barry and Jennifer are demonstrated clearly in the magazine cover through the positioning positioning of images and the the cover lines. This is also furthered in the poster, where Charlie, Barry and Jennifer are positioned together on the right of the poster. In the trailer, the relationships between each of the characters are signified through the shot-reverse-shot between Ryan and Harriet and Rachel in her car (images below), as well as the long-shot of the interactions between Jennifer, Barry and Charlie. In hindsight, we could have made the relationships between Rachel, Ryan and Harriet more evident on the poster but we used Rachel as the focal point in the centre and she is the disturbance of Mill Lane. Though we could have changed the positioning of the characters, we felt that the layout was more effective this way.
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Regarding mise-en-scene, the costumes of the characters in our poster and magazines are the same so that they're easily recognisable by the audience and so that the encoded information is more likely to be deciphered by the audience. For example, Edith is seen wearing a black and white stripy top in order to connote her criminality which is also suggested through her image on the magazine, holding a knife with the tagline "Edith's death threat to Rachel". The character of Rachel also stands out against the dull colours of the other characters in the poster by wearing white, to connote innocence, and green to connote wealth and the envious side to her character. The occupation of some characters is also connoted with Charlie Collins wearing green overalls, who is a farmer. These occupational costumes also appear in the trailer itself. The encoded props are also used to help the audience to decipher the story lines, such as the knife on the magazine connoting death and violence, and Harriet's red car connoting love, relationships and anger. The shovel carried by Charlie in the trailer also connotes his occupation and social status. However, not all the props and costumes are consistent in all three products. If they had been included in all three tasks, the encoded information about the characters may have been received easier in a dominant reading.
The concept and tagline of "Out with old, in with the Essex" is demonstrated through the tagline of the poster but it's not totally clear on the magazine cover, which shows a variety of story lines, or the trailer. Though it's obvious Rachel's character is causing a disturbance during the trailer, it can be argued that this message is not clear in the other products unless the poster has been seen. Together with three products, however, the message is portrayed effectively to our audience.
The colour schemes throughout our poster and magazine are not consistent but conform to the conventions of each product. For our magazine, we used a bright colour scheme of red, yellow, black and white connoting themes of relationships, love, happiness and death or which appear in out trailer. This was also necessary to follow the generic conventions of soap opera magazine covers as discovered in our research. Our poster used a sepia tone colour scheme, contrasting that of the magazine. Though it makes it more difficult for the products to appear to interlink, it was necessary with our concept and tagline "Out with the old, in with the Essex" - the browns connoting the outdated, countryside setting and the normal coloured Rachel Mannings connoting the new, exciting character and soap opera. To improve the colour schemes of our product, we could have used a more varied colour scheme. Though the combination is still effective, an improvement in colour scheme could have improved our promotional products.
Another inconsistent feature of our main and ancillary tasks was the use of logos. In our soap opera trailer, the final credits displayed the logo of our soap opera which is not used on either the poster or magazine. This was due to the aesthetics of our poster and magazine, as we felt it would be more attractive for our audience. Including the same logo on all three products may have made it easier for the audience to relate the products and recognise "Mill Lane" as the name of our soap.Though separately our messages and story lines can be a little difficult to decipher, together the combination of the main product and ancillary tasks convey our encoded messages to our audience clearly and effectively. Also, it can be argued that if our story lines were obvious, there would not be much for the audience to find out and the ambiguity could actually attract more viewers to our soap as they wish to find out what is happening in Mill Lane.
