Aims and intentions

For my cross-media production, I chose the genre of crime drama as I found, through my research, that this genre is popular with my target demographic of 18-35 year old 'millennials'. I will use media language to conform to my product's industry context and to create liberal representations which would appeal to my target demographic. The colour palette for my audio-visual sequence will include lots of natural, muted colours like greys and blues, similar to recent successful ITV crime dramas such as Broadchurch. Towards the beginning of my sequence, for a chase scene, I will use tense music with a fast tempo to build a sense of energy and threat. Later, the music will become more melancholy and emotional, reflecting the feelings of Dave, the protagonist, aligning the audience with him. For this scene, I will use handheld camera for shots of Michael, the killer, to show his instability, whereas stable shots will be used for Dave to show how he is managing to stay calm and collected. This camera-work also suggests that Dave has the moral high ground and that murder, even for political and ethical reasons, is morally wrong, which reflects the dominant ideology in the UK. To further emphasise this, I will use soft, flattering lighting on Dave's face in contrast with harsh light with lots of shadows on Michael's face. The main location for my drama will be a run-down urban street which will create a gritty, realistic tone that is common in crime dramas. I will direct my actors to give very opposing performances in order to create a sense of conflict. The character of Michael will be very physical, loud and intense whilst Dave will remain quiet and understated.

I aim to create a positive, non-stereotypical representation of gay men, as this is a social group which I found has not been sufficiently portrayed in crime dramas, and I think that it would be an important step forward in inclusiveness. From my research on millennials, I found that most millennials are liberal and forward-thinking, so would appreciate this kind of representation. In order to create this representation, the protagonist will be gay, and I will avoid stereotypes like brightly-coloured clothing and performance elements such as feminine mannerisms.

Steve Neale's theory of repetition and difference states that, in order to please audiences, media texts must both repeat tried and tested formulae and also have enough surprises and twists on the genre to make it interesting. In my crime drama sequence, I will include conventions of the crime drama genre such as urban locations, narrative twists, natural lighting and themes of good, evil, and the relationship between police officers' work and personal life. However, I will also subvert expectations in some areas, following Neale's theory in order to please the audience - the two main detectives in my TV show will be gay, and one of them will also be the killer which they have been chasing for the whole series.

In order to demonstrate digital convergence, I will include an image of the two main characters across my magazine and advertising along with a logo featuring the title of my show, 'Partners', creating a brand identity. The costumes which these two characters wear will also be recognisable and will signify the procedural crime genre. In the magazine article itself, there will be an article with either the director or cast of my drama.

Lifestyle magazine mood board

Lifestyle magazines are magazines which tend to be aimed at either men or women and include articles covering a variety of topics such as health, fashion and entertainment.


To begin my research on lifestyle magazines, I looked through covers for some popular lifestyle magazines. I primarily focussed on men's magazines as the audience for my show is primarily male, and looked for magazines which focussed on entertainment (particularly film and TV).

One similarity which I noticed was that all the magazines focussed on actors, rather than writers or directors. The shots of the actors tend to be fairly bland and not very stylised; they often have white (or other plain) backgrounds, studio lighting, and often have actors looking directly at the camera in a medium close up or medium shot. The actors are also normally wearing fairly formal clothing (i.e. suits for men).


The cover lines which I found tend to focus on the stars which are featured and normally include their name (or at least part of it). They sometimes talk about the clothing and style of the celebrity and sometimes touch on their true personality or their rise to fame. Similarly, the articles themselves tend to focus on a person - either an actor or a director - rather than a particular film. They tend to give an overview of their whole career before focussing upon a recent/upcoming project of theirs.