Recap On Ancillary Text

Towards the end of the As level course, I started with the first part of the A2 course which required me to produce a radio advertisement and the opening sequence for a local news programme.

Radio Advertisement

I began by using a sound recorder to record a voiceover for the radio advertisement, which lasted for no longer than 30 seconds. After recording the voiceover, I transferred the sound clip over to a program named Soundtrack Pro, which is where I was able to enhance and adjust the sound, along with being able to add effects to the voiceover. This program helped me add effects suitable for the advertisement and also helped with editing the clips to the correct size. However I found this program quite hard to use and began to add too many effects which made the sound very poor.

Local News Opening

For the news opening, I began by brainstorming ideas of what other news programme openings had such as there different colours and the type of music that they used. For instance BBC news used opening music which sounded futuristic and which had a pulsing sound to it. On the other hand ITV news used a more conventional style of music, with chimes and orchestral music which many associate with a news programme.

Along with listening to the sound, I also had to observe the way in which images and video clips were used in the openings of these news programmes. For example the BBC news used mainly white and red colours with the names of countries from around the world. ITV news used mainly blue and black as this made it look more sophisticated along with the pictures they used from around London.

I started by using Flash which I had received help with from a course my media class went on, which helped me with the basics of making images move around screen and adding effects the these images. I then found a picture of the Hackney borough sign which I transported to Flash and added text to. I then tried to make the image move with the help of a student in my class, however this took rather long to do, so i moved on to adding images such as a 73 bus and Clissold Park which was much easier to do.