1. Noah Gee
Y12 Unit 3 Media Production: Evaluation (1000 words)
1. What different types of research did you undertake into your production task? How
successfully did you use your research to inform your planning ideas?
I used a combination of research techniques to gather informationon my target
audience and competition/inspiration e.g. Vice UK.With information about these two
things I knew I could successfully make that appealed to the target audience (boys
aged 12 -18).
I used an online survey and a focus group to gather information on my target
audience. I made sure my target audience predominately answered my survey,
although a few girls also gave their responses which was fine. I managed to get a
broad range of age groups, but I failed to get much of a demographic spread as I
sent my survey out to friends on my Facebook and therefore most of the responders
were from London. If I had more time and resources I would have made sure my
survey was spread across the UK as London is culturally very different to that of
people up north for example. However, the results I did gather were made best use
of as I listened to what people wanted and incorporated that into my website. For
example, when I asked people what their interests were film and TV, social media,
then came sport and finally music.Then in the next question I asked out of these
which ones would you most be interested in reading? This time answers were
slightly different with sport, music and then media/entertainment being the most
popular in that order. Therefore, I made sure the articles on my home page covered
these three topics to attract my target audience (sport – Conor McGregor & Manu
Tuilagi, Music – Mac Miller and Entertainment – Justin Bieber). In addition, when I
discovered just how many people used social media sites like Facebook, YouTube,
twitter etc. I made sure to incorporate a social media bar in my header as well as
share buttons on two content pages.
When it came to the design aspect of the website as opposed to the content I first
looked at my competitor’s websites e.g. Live Mag UK and SQ magazine. I soon
came to the conclusion that my website had the potential to be a lot better as these
two websites weren’t very appealing or well structured. Therefore, I turned to the
Vice UK site as my inspiration, as it’s the most successful e-magazine site amongst
my age group although it’s not specifically youth culture magazine. I particularly
didn’t like SQ’s use of social media integration on the website as I felt a lot of it was
unnecessary and not particularly useful. For example, there would be options to
sharp articles on Facebook and Twitter without even having read the article. Social
media as you’ll see is at the heart of my website with the social media bar in the
header and the share buttons on my two content pages because social media is now
an essential part of online if you want content to go completely viral and reach a
much larger audience. If I hadn’t done my market research I would have never learnt
from my competitors mistakes.
2. Are you pleased with the creative process you undertook in your planning
work? How effectively did you sharpen up your ideas as you developed
work from your initial plans and mock-ups to finished product?

2. Noah Gee
Prior to this project I had never made or even designed a website, so it was huge
step going from planning to production because although I had a clear idea of the
website in my head, it was a huge challenge and learning experience actually
executing my plan. Therefore, I quickly started realise what was actually feasible with
my skill set and time I had. I feel the things like my board and market research
helped visualise the type of website I wanted. However, I didn’t make a template so
when it came to production I was working from my head.
3. What key aspects of your production successfully target your audience?
(E.g. photos, text, fonts, colour, design lay-out, headlines, editing, etc.)
Firstly, I knew my context was critical if I’m to get teenage boys reading, therefore, I
tried to lour them in with images in videos so they don’t get bored. I felt like my
headlines were suitable and attractive for my target audience ‘from benefits to riches
– the notorious Conor McGregor’. Asides from content I wanted my website to have
both a fun and suffocated look to it so it would attract my whole target audience (12 –
18). I used blue, white and black as my three main colours as those are the colours I
can’t go wrong with when targeting a male audience. I was most happy with my main
font called ‘college’as it matches up well with my target audience who are for the
most part students of some kind.
4. What problems did you encounter during the making of your production
work and how did you overcome them?
Originally I had planned to use Red, black and white as my three main colours but I
soon realised these weren’t very appealing and made the website look tacky, so as I
mentioned before I swapped red for blue and used a white background.
5. Did you use interesting and positive representation of young people in your
production?
The big difference between my website and the website I looked at for inspiration is
that Teen Life Uk is specifically promoting a ‘youth culture’ magazine as opposed to
a website like Vice promotes a magazine which has aspects of youth culture to it yet
it’s not explicitly a youth culture magazine. My article on my encounter with Mac
Miller, I feel isinteresting for the readers because it discusses how I came across him
as a teenager of just 13 and the influence he had one me and the industry in
general. The interview also covers the issue of fame and the effect that has on you
as a young person. However, I choose not to have Mac speak about drugs as I feel
it’s not particularly appropriate or relevant to the message I’m trying to get across,
which is age is just a number and therefore dreams can become a reality regardless
of it if you work hard enough on your particular craft whether that be music or
something else. I think that something everyone one can relate to. Overall, I would
say Mac Miller’s reputation is very much a positive one when you take away the
impact fame has had on him in regard to his previous drug addiction which I don’t
talk about. In addition, the story of Conor McGregor is a fascinating story and like
Mac Miller his career has only really just began as they’re both young found it quite
inspirational how Conor went from collecting his social welfare benefits to becoming
a UFC sensation making 60k in paper view sales for his first fight alone. The article I
show on the homepage of the site about Justin Bieber is another story about fame,
but his story is more of tragedy because fame definitely hit him harder than Mac

3. Noah Gee
Miller and Conor McGregor as his fan base is completely global. If I were to actually
right the website I would have so that I’m righting from a completely non-judgemental
perspective to allow readers to come to their own conclusion about their feelings for
this young celeb because I want the website to feel interactive which is why I
included a comment section at the bottom of both my written articles.
6. How successfully will your finished product appeal to your target
audience?
I feel like my website would appeal to my target audience because in regards to
context, I felt like I listened to what people had to say through the survey results I
gathered and I then applied this by writing about topics like sport and music (two
very popular topics as I found from the survey). In addition, I predominately talk
about celebrities as I feel these are the people that generally attract the most
attention obviously. Therefore, people like Mac Miller, Conor McGregor and Justin
Bieber are three celebs that I think people would be interested in learning about
especially if they’re not fans as they’re learning something new and if they are fans
then it’s even better as it’s nice to see them get publicity.
7. How effective were your editing and technology skills?
After to fishing around for the best free web design software I came to the conclusion
that serif WebPlus X2 was the best available option as they have it in school.
However, I would have been much better off working on the latest version of Serif
WebPlus (X8) or even adobe Dreamweaver. At first I found it difficult to get my head
round coding but it soon became clear that the software makes most of it for you. It
was really frustrating having a good idea in your head but not being able to execute it
so there was a lot of trial and error as I had no one to teach me how to use the
software. In hindsight, it would have really helped to have attend a website building
course of some kind in order to master the basics.
8. What did you learn about your time management skills and how you
organise your media work?
My biggest weakness throughout this process would have to be my time
management skills and organisation. I gave way to many hours to this project
because I didn’t affectively plan when I was going to work on the website and what I
would do in the time I did work on the website. If I were to do this project again I
would give myself stricter deadlines to have finished certain elements of my website
by e.g. the home page and then planned exactly when I was going to do it.