Radio Trailer Research in to other radio products

Radio Trailers Watched

The purpose of the radio trailers is to advertise our documentary and provide the listener with details on when it will be aired and a summery of information that will be included. We listened to four different radio trailers that were made in previous years.

The first one we listened too was about gaming and the affect gaming can have on people, in particular the game GTA 1.Gaming- GTA -33 second long. Included- Extracts from documentary e.g- voxpops Background music- upbeat, made the trailer more dramatic and intriguing Sound effect- robotic sound effects Narration- explaining what they investigated(the messages that GTA give out and the effects it has on people e.g- ‘teaches you how to steal cars and kill people) Narrator spoke clearly and energetically at a fast pace which again helped keep the trailer quick and to the point. The trailer ended with information on the place(channel)/time and date the documentary would be airing One thing in particular I liked about this trailer is its use of sound effects to ensure it flowed smoothly as it went from the different voxpops to the narration. Overall it made the trailer more professional because there was no big cuts or jumps.

Trailer 2 was about healthy eating and overweight people- 2.Issues of being overweight- 52 seconds long I found this trailer was too long, they could have cut back on the amount of voxpops they included as I felt like the trailer was dragging out and by the time they got around to telling me about when the documentary would be airing I was no longer interested. They had a narrator speaking over the voxpops however the sound levels were not balanced correctly as the voxpops overpowered the narration meaning It was not clear what the actual narrator was actually saying but the narrator was providing important information which the listener would need to know as such as what the documentary would actually be exploring/discussing . Also the narrator spoke slowly and his tone was fairly dull this did not make the trailer very exciting. The voxpops were not cut down as well compared to the trailer about GTA because some of the voxpops were too long especially the one which first started the trailer. By having long voxpops it affected the snappy flow of the trailer. However the trailer did include upbeat music which helped make it more interesting

The third trailer we listened to was advertising their documentary about young girls wearing more makeup3. Young girls wearing makeup- 41 seconds This groups documentary was about the pressures young girls face to wear more makeup, they included voxpops of different opinions on whether young girls should wear makeup and the reasons why they feel pressured to wear it. I liked the way they edited their voxpops as they gave them an echo effect which made what they were saying more memorable and dramatic. Music was also used to make the trailer more catchy and interesting. The varying sound levels in the radio trailer was the only error I could spot, in particular between the different voxpops at times some of the voxpops were really loud but then when it cut to others it was suddenly a lot quieter

The final radio trailer we have analyzed is about knife crime. 1.Knife crime- 47 seconds Again this radio trailer was very similar to the others in the way it played the voxpop s at the beginning. I felt the sound effects used in this trailer were very effective as it took extracts /sounds from new broadcasts about knife crime I found this was very effective as it was played at the start of the trailer it caught my attention straight away as I am so used to hearing that noise when there is a emergency ie ‘breaking news’. The voiceover in the radio trailer was slightly monotone and lacked enthusiasm however it could be argued this was just because of the seriousness of the topic knife crime they didn’t want their voice to be up beat or positive because this would not reflect the style of their documentary.

Key features in all the radio trailers

Similarities- All the radio trailers included upbeat music in the background

All included extracts of voxpops taken from their documentary's

Voxpops were edited to overlap each other quickly(this gave the documentary a very fast pace, helping ensure the trailer was not boring

All included details on the place/date and time where the documentary would be aired at the end of the documentary

All lasted no more than 60 seconds

From doing in-depth research into radio trailers as a group we have now decided on key conventions of radio trailers that we want to include in our radio trailer, for example-

- We want our trailer to be around 30 seconds short and snappy- Echo repeat sound effect - Include mainly voxpops - End trailer with airing information of documentary

What we learnt…