M3 - Explain how the created components comply with the codes & conventions of their media sectors

 M3 - Explain how the created components comply with the codes & conventions of their media sectors

Codes are the specific elements in a media product that give the product its meaning when identified by the audience. Codes are divided into 3 categories: symbolic, technical and written. 

Symbolic codes point the audience towards meaning implicitly, such as the use of colour to convey an emotion. 

Technical codes are the way in which the product was created, such as using low camera angles to make the audience feel small.

Written codes are the language used in the product, including any text shown or dialogue heard.

Conventions refer to the commonly accepted ways in which codes are organized in a media product. Conventions can be associated with the media product's sector, genre, theme or target audience and are largely determined by whatever the 'status-quo' is. Using conventions helps the audience to identify the product's codes, thereby helping to convey the product's meaning.

TV Trailer:

I will be comparing my trailer to the Mr. Robot launch trailer by Amazon Prime Video UK. Mr. Robot is a crime drama / thriller about a young cyber security engineer / vigilante hacker working to take down a corrupt corporation. This is very similar to Boundless in genre, themes and target audience so it's a good choice to compare to in terms of conventions.

Mr. Robot - Launch Trailer | Prime Video

BOUNDLESS | Trailer

TV TRAILER CONVENTIONS

Short duration
My trailer is 1 minute and 10 seconds long. Trailers are generally between 1 and 3 minutes long so that they're long enough to convey all the information they need, but short enough to keep the audience's attention. The Mr. Robot trailer is 1 minute 59 seconds, a decent amount longer than my trailer but both are conventional nonetheless.

Spoken language

Trailers almost always use spoken language to help convey the show's narrative; this is done using dialogue spliced from the show itself or with narration / a character voiceover. The Mr. Robot trailer uses a mixture of dialogue from the show and character voiceover from the protagonist, Elliot, in order to paint a picture of what the series is about to the audience. In my trailer, I have used just a voiceover of the protagonist, Alex, to tease information about the narrative.

Music

Trailers also supplement their visuals and dialogue with a dramatic piece of background music to help engage the audience and make the trailer more exciting. In both my trailer and the Mr. Robot trailer, a synth-heavy cyberpunk track plays throughout, building in intensity until it reaches a crescendo at the end. The techno music also helps to tie in with the theme of the series, which in both cases is cyber security.

Features main cast

The trailer for Mr. Robot showcases just about every major character in the series, albeit some just briefly, to present them to the audience and help them to build personal identity in any characters that they relate to. Perhaps this convention was not met particularly well in my trailer, as the only character included in the trailer is the protagonist, Alex, and even then only in the form of a voiceover. However, I believe this lack of other characters is justified as it helps to meet one of the conventions of the crime genre, which is withholding information from the audience and being mysterious (more on that below). Additionally, minimizing the number of actors needed for the trailer's production has helped to keep costs low and save time for other things.

Show ident and release information

A staple component of any TV trailer is the show ident and release / viewing information at the end, helping to direct the audience to view the show. Having these elements at the very end also makes it more likely to be remembered, which is important for ensuring that the audience knows how to view it. The Mr. Robot trailer certainly does this, showing the 'Mr. Robot' ident followed by 'Only on Amazon Prime'. My trailer also does this, as I made sure to include a final section of the trailer that displays the show's ident and information about its release; it's even accompanied by a narrator saying that information to really drive it into the audience's minds both visually and audibly, as well as for accessibility means for the visually impaired.

Platform / production company logo featured

For shows produced for certain streaming platforms, the platform logo is often included in one of the corners of the frame throughout the trailer, and then more prominently at the end as part of the release information. This is showcased clearly in the Mr. Robot trailer, where the Amazon Prime logo can be seen in the bottom-right corner of the frame and again as part of the 'Only on Amazon Prime' text at the end. In my trailer, I have overlaid the BBC3 logo in the top-left corner of the frame. Additionally, the logo is in full view above the show's ident in the final section alongside the iPlayer logo, which is included as part of the 'Only on iPlayer' text. Including the platform logos helps to reinforce the affiliation with the platform to the audience and direct them to that platform to view the show.

CONVENTIONS OF THE CRIME GENRE:

Concepts of morality & justice

This is an essential component of crime shows, and it usually reflected in their trailers. Mr. Robot does this very well, in its focus on bringing justice to the world and taking down 'Evil Corp'. In my trailer, I haven't explored these concepts quite as explicitly, but they are implied through the combination of Alex's voiceover and the web articles on the monitor screen; they hint that Alex has caused harm and destruction to others while he talks about how much money it's made him, touching on his warped sense of morality and how he may be the one who needs to be brought to justice.

Pursuit / interrogation of the protagonist

Crime show trailers usually feature the protagonist being chased, pursued or interrogated by the antagonist, who is often police but could also be other criminals and the like. The Mr. Robot trailer mentions how the protagonist thinks he's being followed, accompanied by shots of ominous men dressed in black suits. My trailer does touch on this concept, but again not as explicitly as it's in the form of a web article detailing a police investigation into Alex. Still, I would consider the convention met.

Elements of mystery & withholding information from the audience

Trailers in general tend to withhold information from the audience to leave them wanting more and intrigue them to see the show; crime dramas, particularly those more oriented towards the 'detective' side of the genre, do this more than others as mystery and problem solving is a bigger component of the genre's narrative. The Mr. Robot trailer certainly keeps a lot of information about the series mysterious and vague, completely avoiding massive twists in the narrative to keep the audience in the dark. I have tried to hammer this convention into the trailer's very core, being the reason why many of the other conventions are portrayed implicitly. Leaving more of the series' narrative up to the audience to speculate on is a technique I've incorporated into the whole campaign in order to promote engagement and intrigue.

CODES

Technical codes

Industry standards

There are a number of technical specifications of TV Trailers that are recommended / required by broadcasters in order to ensure that it is broadcast properly and suitably. As shown in P4, my TV Trailer meets all the industry standards for its video and audio settings, using 1080p HD resolution, 25fps, mp4 file format and 48kHz stereo audio with 16-bit depth. Additionally, I ensured that the audio is limited to -6 decibels, which is a requirement for broadcasting.

Camerawork

Camerawork can have a massive effect on the meaning derived from a shot so, since my trailer is only composed of a single shot, my choice of what kind of shot to use was very important. I chose to use a slow dolly zoom out movement throughout the whole shot, consistently drawing back and making the subject of the shot, the computer monitor, smaller and smaller compared to the rest of the frame. This conveys to the audience that the monitor, which represents Alex and his work, is just a small part of a much larger whole, alluding even to the series' name, Boundless, which comes from the idea that the internet is so massive that only a small amount of it can even be seen from major search engines - like a 'tip of the iceberg' scenario.

Lighting

I also chose to film the shot in a very low-light environment, in almost complete darkness besides the light emitted from the monitor. This not only fits the dark colour scheme (as mentioned below), but also helps to assist the meaning of the zoom out by having more and more of the frame filled with darkness while the source of light gets smaller and smaller. This further conveys to the audience the sheer scale of the internet, but also presents it as ominous and even dangerous through its association with darkness.

Editing

Although my trailer is only composed of a single shot + graphic at the end, my editing choices were important to creating meaning in the trailer. Firstly, I used a fade-in from black at the start of the trailer to help ease-in the audience to the shot and create a slow starting pace. At the end of the shot, it cuts straight to black instead which fits with the faster pace that is built up throughout the trailer from the increasing intensity of the background music. For the final graphic with the show ident and release information, I also added a number of animations to make the text appear as though it was emerging from the black background and then sinking back into it, further reinforcing the 'dark void' connotations established through the camerawork and lighting.

Symbolic codes

Mise-en-scène

The trailer is set in the protagonist's, Alex's, apartment, a dark and messy interior that represents his mind and state of self. This conveys to the audience that Alex is reckless and disorganized, giving information about him as a character and thereby helping the audience to find personal identity in him via relatability.

Shot composition

In the shot, the computer monitor is positioned in the centre of the frame. This implies that the computer is central to the series and highlights its importance in both Alex's life and the series as a whole, reinforcing the concept of technology and the internet being a core part of the series.

Colours

The trailer uses quite a black & white colour palette, along with some bright neon colours sprinkled in from the keyboard and web articles. The black & white largely overpowers what colour there is, conveying to the audience that the series is mostly bleak with only small amounts of respite. The colours also link to the technology theme, both black & white and bright colours alike for different connotations; black & white connotes to command-line interfaces and basic computer programs while the bright colours connote to the wonders of technology and how bright and colourful it can be.

Written codes

Written language

The written language in the trailer is featured in two places: on the web articles during the trailer and on the ident and release information at the end. The web articles have large headlines to catch the viewer's eye, teasing elements of the series' plot such as the damage Alex has caused through cyber crime and the police investigation into him. This rewards attentive audience members with more information to help keep them engaged and intrigued about what might happen in the series. The ident and release information is more straight-forward, outright telling the audience what the name of the show is and when/where to watch it. This information is crucial to the aim of the campaign as a whole, which is to get people to watch the show; if they don't know how to access it, then they can't watch it.

Spoken language

Spoken language is used in two instances in the trailer: the character voiceover from Alex and the narration at the end. The character voiceover is used to give the audience information about the protagonist and his situation, albeit remaining very vague to keep it intriguing and mysterious. This gives the audience more to speculate about as well as helping to showcase Alex as a character, which is important for the audience to find personal identity in the character and thereby engage them. The narration at the end is more straight-forward, simply stating the information shown in text in order to reinforce it into the audience's mind and make them more likely to remember it.

Bus Poster:

Although John Wick 3 is not a particularly similar product to Boundless, I could not find many good images of T-shaped bus posters in general so this will have to do. Fortunately, bus posters are very conventional regardless of genre and all use many of the same elements.

John Wick 3 bus poster

Boundless bus poster

BUS POSTER CONVENTIONS

Show ident

One of the key elements of any poster is the ident of the product. This ident is usually positioned on the left / middle-left area of the poster and takes up as much space as it can to be read easily. The John Wick poster clearly does this, and so does mine.

Main actors' or director's names

Posters often include the starring actor's or director's name on them if they are a celebrity figure that audiences will know. This is done to help convince the audience that the show is worth watching because it has a well-renowned person effectively endorsing it by being part of it. In the John Wick poster, Keanu Reeves' name is prominently displayed to persuade the audience to watch it on the basis of it having Keanu Reeves as the protagonist, which is a large selling point of blockbuster films. In my poster, I have not included the names of anyone because there are no well-renowned actors or directors in it, such that the audience would not know or care who they are and it would not be effective to include it.

Release date & platform mentioned

As with TV trailers, it is very important that posters tell the audience when & where to view the show so that they know how to do so. The John Wick poster has done this at the bottom segment, with the text 'In cinemas Wed May 15', and my poster has done so next to the ident with the text '27/05/2022, only on iPlayer'.

Primary graphic

Posters, especially bus posters, are usually composed of a single graphic that takes up the whole space. Since bus posters only have a select segment to work with vertically, this is almost always the place where the primary graphic is positioned. The primary graphic itself is usually either the main character/s of the show, or some other imagery that is symbolic / iconic of the show. The John Wick poster goes for the former with an image of John Wick himself, while my poster goes for the latter with the show's phoenix logo that carries a lot of significance in the series.

Links to affiliated social media accounts with their respective logos

Posters sometimes also include links or references to affiliated social media accounts, featuring the account name and a logo of the social media platform next to it to clearly show the audience where to go. Although the John Wick poster does not do this, mine does at the bottom section with the account name '@boundlessbbc' accompanied by the YouTube, Instagram and TikTok logos beneath it. This instructs the audience to visit the social media accounts

CONVENTIONS OF THE CRIME GENRE:

Concepts of morality & justice

As a major theme of the crime genre, morality & justice is often represented in posters. Unfortunately, I did not meet this convention due to my choice of minimalist primary graphic, limiting the concepts that can be portrayed with it.

Pursuit / interrogation of the protagonist

As with the above, I did not meet this convention as I chose to focus on the symbolism of the phoenix logo. Again, this is unfortunate, as the poster is not clearly identifiable as fitting the crime genre, but perhaps that is made up for with the sense of mystery and connection to the show's technology theme. Since I can only really work with a single graphic, it is difficult to incorporate everything about the show into it.

Elements of mystery & withholding information from the audience

The poster itself is quite minimal in nature, especially in terms of the primary graphic which conveys no explicit information about the show; many things can be inferred from the ASCII art phoenix, but it's not as clear as other posters that include all of the main cast. This was done deliberately in order to help reinforce the air of mystery surrounding the campaign, in the effort of increasing audience engagement through theories and speculation.

CODES

Technical codes

Industry standards

As mentioned in P4, the poster meets the industry standards: correct dimensions, 300dpi, PDF file format, CMYK colours for printing and no important elements at the very edges of the poster (bleed area). This ensures that the poster can be printed and mounted onto a bus while still displaying properly and as intended.

Symbolic codes

Text

All the text shown on the poster matches the show's ident in its white colour and consolas font. The font choice, consolas, connotes to the technology theme as it's the default font for the Windows command prompt and notepad programs.

Choice of graphic

My choice of graphic for the poster, the show's phoenix logo, has a lot of connotations attached to it at varying levels of interpretation. Firstly, the graphic itself is made up of just individual symbols & characters in a technique known as 'ASCII art', which connotes to computers and old-style graphics that worked within a command-line interface, the context to which the logo is displayed in the series itself and the TV trailer. Additionally, the choice of a phoenix particularly represents the protagonist's change and 'rebirth' in the series, forming a new identity as a hacker-for-hire. 

Colours

The dark, black & white colour scheme of the poster helps link to the technology theme and house style of the campaign. The poster is all a near-black in the background with white foreground elements (bar logos from brands), fitting with the ident and connoting to a command-line interface. Additionally, white on black is a very high-contrast combination, meaning that all the elements, particularly text, can be easily perceived by audience members even from afar, which may well be the case when the poster is mounted on a bus.

Written codes

Written language

The language used on the poster is all for informative purposes, giving them information about when + where to watch the series and the account name for the affiliated social media platforms. This is important in helping to achieve the campaign's aim, getting people to watch the series, by giving them everything they need to know in order to do so.

Social Media:

I'll be comparing my social media posts with one from the Mr. Robot instagram account, since as I said before Mr. Robot is very similar to Boundless.

Caption: fsociety. The Dark Army. Only one can exist in our new world. The Final Season. #MrRobot. SUNDAY. 10/9c. @USA_Network.

Caption: It's finally time to learn the truth. The #MrRobot 2-Hour Series Finale starts SUNDAY at a special time: 9/8c. @USA_Network.

Caption: lqhyhulqwhqghgiruwklqjvwrwxuqrxwwkhzdbwkhbkdyh #boundlessbbc

Caption: atsgdxhlmnsbnlokzhmhmfhudlzcdlnqdlnmdxsghrlnmsgsgzmlnrscnhmzxdzq #boundlessbbc

Caption: mfetestyvespjcpmprtyytyrezyzetnp #boundlessbbc

Caption: nitsypstbmtbrzhmqtsljwnhfspjjuymnxzu #boundlessbbc

Caption: xlicwecxlexmjcsykedimrxsxliefcwwxliefcwwkediwmrxscsy #boundlessbbc

Caption: pcsxktqttchipgxcvpiiwththrgttchudgpadcvixbt #boundlessbbc

SOCIAL MEDIA POST CONVENTIONS

Eye-catching

Social media posts need to catch the audience's eye in order to grab their attention, as they may be scrolling through many posts and won't stop unless it peaks their interest. The Mr. Robot post certainly gets your attention, and I think that the bright monitor screen in the centre of a black background helps to make my posts eye-catching as well, drawing the viewer's eye to the centre of the frame and inviting them to look closer.

Videos have soundbites & clips from the show

Social media posts are often grabbed straight from the show, showcasing tense or funny moments to hold the viewer's attention. The Mr. Robot video post definitely does this, and my video posts do indeed make use of soundbites, but they were made specifically for the campaign and not the show itself. That said, it would still meet the convention as the dialogue is set in the universe of the series and from characters' perspectives.

Subtitles

Any speech in social media posts is usually accompanied by subtitles, allowing the viewer to view the post without sound or simply reinforcing what is being said. This is followed by the Mr. Robot post and for my video posts, I made sure to include subtitles in the lower half of the frame, running in real-time with the dialogue so the audience can read it as it's heard, reinforcing the information into their minds and increasing engagement.

Short duration

Posts are usually between 5-20 seconds long, promoting very quick & punchy content and only needing a short attention span. The Mr. Robot video post is 20 seconds long exactly, making it on the longer side but still somewhat suitable, and my video posts are 15-17 seconds long which is a bit more suitable.

Post caption

Social media platforms usually allow posts to be accompanied by a caption, which displays below the post and can be used for a range of purposes. In advertising, these captions are mostly used to help describe the post's content and give the opportunity to link the post to anything like a hashtag or other accounts. The Mr. Robot posts showcase this well, using both the show hashtag #MrRobot and a link to the USA Network account, the company that produces the show. As part of my campaign's focus on mystery and problem solving, I've added encoded messages instead of typical descriptive captions. These messages can be solved to reveal lines from the TV trailer, promoting audience engagement and linking to the theme of hacking / cyber security with the concept of encryption. Appended to these messages is also a hashtag, #boundlessbbc. This helps to link all of the social media posts together and allow audience members to easily view every post with that hashtag, as well as publish their own posts using the hashtag to build a sense of community around the show's fans. This would highly valuable, as it would result in the audience building interest in the series all by itself, effectively providing free bonus advertising.

CRIME GENRE CONVENTIONS

Portray concepts of morality & justice

Although not really touched on by these particular Mr. Robot posts, this convention is implicitly met in most of my posts, as they reference cyber crime and the damage caused by it. The posts' content portrays cyber crime very negatively, setting up the idea of someone committing it is a terrible person. Then, the encoded captions that accompany the posts are from the perspective of the protagonist, presenting to the audience a matter of morality regarding the protagonist's implied actions.

Pursuit / interrogation of main protagonist

Again, the Mr. Robot posts do not show this very well, the concept of the protagonist being pursued is implicitly present in two of my posts; the video with police radio-esque dialogue and the image with the article detailing a police investigation into the protagonist. This greatly helps to convey the series' genre to the audience, as the police vs criminal dynamic is one of the most iconic conventions of crime dramas and helps the audience to identify the series as part of it.

Elements of mystery & withholding information from the audience

The Mr. Robot posts do showcase this pretty well, remaining very vague and unclear in the video and only basic in the image post. Mystery and withholding information is most certainly evident in my posts and underpins their very nature. Firstly, the captions on all the posts are encrypted with a caesar cipher, making them unintelligible unless solved with the correct key. This presents a mystery for the audience to solve, withholding the meaning of the messages from them unless they do so. Additionally, in the video posts, words that are significant to the narrative (such as characters' names etc.) are garbled such that they're very hard to hear. This withholds the most critical information from the audience, teasing them by letting them hear everything else and leaving questions for them to speculate on, perhaps using the hashtag to share their thoughts with others and increasing their engagement with the campaign.

CODES

Technical codes

Industry standards

To ensure that the posts are displayed properly on the platforms, they must be the correct size for their purpose: image posts should be square with resolution 1080x1080 and video posts should be portrait resolution 1080x1920. I have done this with my posts to fit the resolution of phones and make sure that they are viewed correctly on the social media platforms. Additionally, I've used the png file format for the images and mp4 file format for video, both of which are suitable for display online.

Lighting

Since the image posts are stills taken from the TV trailer, my choice of lighting applies here as well. See TV Trailer codes.

Editing

For the image posts, I manipulated the top and bottom edges of the frame to smoothly transition to black, in order to avoid a visible cut-off point where the original still does not cover the whole square frame. This makes the image look larger than it actually is, assisting in the 'dark void' connotations as explained in the TV trailer codes.

For the video posts, I edited the audio heavily to make it sound like a low-quality phone call, lowing the samplerate and adding background noise. This helps link to the technology theme and makes the audio sound more realistic in the context of the series, as if it were being intercepted. I also garbled some sections of the dialogue by reversing splices of it and making it hard to hear, withholding information from the audience and inciting them to try decode it themselves.

Symbolic codes

Text

All the text shown on the video posts matches the show's ident in its white colour and consolas font. The font choice, consolas, connotes to the technology theme as it's the default font for the Windows command prompt and notepad programs.

Composition

Since the image posts are stills taken from the TV trailer, my choice of composition applies here as well. See TV Trailer codes.

Colours

The social media posts are no exception to the house style of the campaign, which incorporates a dark colour scheme with black as background and white as the foreground. The image posts are stills from the TV trailer, so have a black background with bright monitor light in the centre. The video posts' visual elements are just a dark static effect, which also fits with the conventional colour scheme of the genre while linking back to the technology theme associated with the static itself.

Written codes

Written language

For the video posts, the written language is the subtitles that are on the screen alongside the dialogue, helping the audience to understand what it says and enable the audience to view it without sound. The garbled parts of the dialogue are written as --- to show that they're incomprehensible.

Additionally, all the captions have written language, although it is encrypted with a basic cipher and must be decoded before it can be read. This teases lines from the TV trailer, giving the audience the opportunity to piece it together early before the trailer is released, engaging them with the campaign and getting them more invested in the series.

Spoken language

In the video posts, the spoken language is dialogue from characters in the show. Outside of what they're actually saying, the way that the dialogue is said can infer details about the character: the detective speaks very deliberately and calmly, showing that they are confident and sure of themselves, while the employee speaks hesitantly and shakily, showing that they are distressed and confused. This helps the audience to contextualise the dialogue themselves and speculate on all the missing details around it, further engaging them with the campaign. The actual words being said also reflect the nature of the characters, as well as providing small details about events in the series while masking the most important parts by garbling them. This also serves to engage the audience by intriguing them and teasing just enough for them to want more, increasing the likelihood that they'll watch the show.