EvaluationNatalie Boylan

DocumentaryFor our A2 media coursework we was told that we had to create the first opening 5 minutes of a documentary of our choice and two ancillary tasks along side it which were a radio trailer which would introduce the documentary and a double page spread of a magazine which would be about our documentary.In order to create these things it was important that we had done a lot of research into different things so we had an idea of what we were doing.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In order to create the first 5 opening minutes of a documentary, we first needed to do research into similar documentaries to find out the common codes and conventions that were used and displayed. To do this we looked at documentaries such as Super Size Me and Airline.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

DocumentaryCamera ShotsThere were many different camera shots and angles that were used in both of these documentaries that we found useful to use in ours. One main convention is the rule of thirds. This is used a lot in documentaries when interviews are taking place, this will show the interviewee sitting with an empty space next too them and being a third of the way in a their eyes to be a third of the way down. We successfully used this in ours as shown below. It enables the audience to get a better picture of the mise en scene and things around them.

Super Size Me Our Documentary

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

DocumentaryCamera ShotsMany other shot types that we found were used quite frequently were shots such as close ups, Medium Close Ups, Long Shots of things, Extreme Close ups and some Establishing Shots too. We used many medium close ups in our documentary so the audience were able to get a better picture of who the people are and even their facial expressions and emotions.

Hand Held CameraWe also found that in the documentary Super Size Me, they used a hand held camera for quiet a few things. Using a hand held camera heightens the sense of realism and can make the audience feel more involved watching it. We liked the idea of a hand held camera, so we decided to interpret this into our documentary during our reconstruction. This made it look like the viewers were seeing what the actor was seeing as well.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

DocumentaryTripodThe use of a tripod during a documentary is vital for when someone may be speaking like during a professional interview. This is because there will be no movement through when they are speaking and you may be able to get it at the right height, distance and position you want it. We used a tripod in our documentary when interviewing professionals, but also when doing establishing shots. We found the tripod to be useful when we wanted to do things like zooming or panning as it was able to stay steady throughout, for example when panning across the college.

Establishing ShotsAn establishing shot was used in our documentary when we showed the college, and the people in the canteen. We found this too be effective as the viewers were able to get a better picture to what was going on.

Our establishing shots.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

DocumentaryVoice OverA voice over is commentary done by the filmmaker which will run throughout the documentary. In our documentary we included a voice over, but it was hidden as the person did not appear on the screen speaking to the audience. We found the voice over to be useful, because they were able to talk about what was going on and give additional information for the viewers to listen to that may not have appeared on screen. Our voice over explained and read out our information clearly. We found the information in our documentary from research we had done, so the viewers knew the research was truthful.

ReconstructionA reconstruction is artificial footage that has been created to explain a scene that may have happened in the past. It is usually replayed by actors. A reconstruction helps to create a sense of realism of what’s going on. We used a reconstruction in our documentary which was based on a case study we was given by the police officer. Our reconstruction was a young girl who had been underage binge drinking, walking through a park alone at night when she was raped. We found it useful to do this reconstruction as it would heighten the sense of realism of what can happen to some people, it may also help the audience emphasise with the girl.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

DocumentaryVox PopsVox pops are commonly used in documentaries. Its where other ordinary people are interview about the topic of the documentary about their views and opinions on it. Super Size Me cleverly used this convention quite a lot in their documentary when they went onto the streets of America and into schools to ask them on their opinions of McDonalds. We used Vox Pops in ours to ask the people of Solihull Sixth Form their views and opinions of underage binge drinking. This worked well as the people asked were in the same age range as well and it would also help give the audience a better insight to what other people have to say as well.

Archival FootageArchival footage are clips that are inserted into the documentary without the need of additional filming. We used archival footage well during the first bit of our documentary to show teenagers going out binge drinking. This helped as it was real life footage so it adds a sense of realism.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

DocumentaryExpert/Professional InterviewsExpert interviews are sometimes used in documentaries to authenticate peoples views. Having experts talk about their views and opinions helps the viewers to get a more factual insight to things as the experts will know what they are talking about, they may also sometimes disagree and give a negative view. The expert interviews were used in both super size me when he is talking to health care professions and in airline when they are talking to people who work there. We liked this idea and interpreted it into our documentary and used a police officer, the college Chaplin and a health and social care teacher as well. Like super size me, we also used headings to introduce them.

Super Size Me

Our documentary

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Double Page SpreadMasthead Masthead

Main ImageMain Image

Smaller Image Smaller Image

Caption

CaptionStand First

Stand First

Columns ColumnsGrab Quotes

Drop Cap

This was our final design of our magazine article (above left) next to it is a magazine article from Radio Times (above right). As you can see we done a lot of research into magazines and what are the main codes and conventions of a magazine and what we would need to include to make it successful. We also chose Radio Times to be the magazine to publish our article.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Double Page SpreadDrop caps are almost always used in magazine articles to introduce the sentence. This was used in the double page spread to make it look more like a professional magazine.

We used smaller images taken from our documentary to give the readers an insight to some of the clips showed in it.

A caption of text on the picture gives the readers a better understanding of what the picture is and what is going on in it.

A masthead is always used in magazines to give the title to your article. It may sometimes be a quote from the article of what someone has said or more than likely the title of the documentary, if it is documentary based. Ours is the title of our documentary.

Date, time and channel is always used on a magazine to make sure the readers know all the information. We sectioned ours with two pink lines to make it more visible. A grab quote is sometimes

used in magazines to grab the readers attention to something. They often include an interesting quote that is already used in the article and make it bigger, this is because they think will interest the readers.

A stand first is used in magazines to normally introduce the article. This gives the readers a better insight to what they are going to be reading about. Its normally something short that will grab the readers attention.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Radio TrailerAfter listening and analysing several radio trailers such as the Italian Grand Prix on radio 5 live, we gained knowledge on many common codes and conventions that are used in radio trailers and took note of this on our analysis sheet. The common codes and conventions that we found we used for ours to make it effective and interesting as it was appealing to an audience on Capital FM.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Radio TrailerScheduling InformationHaving scheduling information on a radio trailer is very common as it allow the listeners to get all the information needed on when its on, what channel and what time. We used this at the end of our radio trailer by saying “Tune in to channel 4 at 9pm this Thursday to really see how much is too much.” This gives our listeners all the information they will need on when to watch our documentary.

Extracts from the DocumentaryThroughout the radio trailer we used different extracts from our documentary, these included a clip of the interview with the police officer and some vox pops form the students. By adding direct extracts from the documentary it makes it more effective for the listeners and it also helps give them an insight to what may be in the documentary. It was important for us to choose more up beat interesting quotes that the listeners will want to hear.

Music and VoiceoverWe made sure that in our radio trailer linked to our documentary, we done this by using the same music from the documentary in our radio trailer. We wanted music that had a good beat as we was broadcasting to a young generation so it was important that they didn't get bored. We also made sure we had an enthusiastic voice over to keep the listeners attention throughout.

Length of Radio TrailerAfter listening to several radio trailers we noticed that they seem to last between 30-45 seconds. It isn't that long but it is long enough for you to get your point across, and short enough so the listeners don't loose interest. Our radio trailer lasted around 33 seconds, which was long enough for us to get all of our information across that we needed to without making it seem boring.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our main product to create was our documentary. We was also told to create a magazine article and a radio trailer that would link in with our documentary as well. It was important that when doing the double page spread and the radio trailer that we focused on how they would help sell and advertise our documentary to our target audience. Our target audience was teenagers and young adults, we chose this target audience because we feel they can be known for being the worst binge drinkers so it was important for us to get the message across to them.

Narrowing our target audience down, it will mainly be aimed at those who have turned 18 or over that may go on holiday with friends for a non stop binge drinking week or even those who are younger who may be influenced by peer pressure and society today, that feel they have to start drinking and they may become addicted to it.We haven't defined our target audience to any specific race, religion or disability. With gender we have aimed it at both, as nowadays each gender binge drinks. With age it is a younger target audience, but it can also be reached out to an older target audience who may be parents of teenagers as we can show them the damaging effects binge drinking causes.

We have chosen to broadcast our documentary on channel 4. Channel 4 is a channel that will broadcast many different educational documentaries. We feel our documentary is of an educational topic that a lot of people who watch it will benefit from. Documentaries such as ‘My big fat gypsy wedding’ have had viewers of nearly 8,048,000, so it is clear that our documentary would be reaching out to a wide target audience.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Radio TrailerIn our radio trailer we used clips from the documentary such as clips of students talking, some of the same facts that are stated in the documentary and the same beat. By using all these same things in our radio trailer the audience are able to recognise that these are from the documentary and will be able to make the link. The music we chose had a beat to it meaning it may be more interesting to listen to and may attract the listeners more. We also had the same voice over we used in our documentary as well, the audience will be able to make this link and combine them well. The voice over is very enthusiastic which means it will keep the listeners more interested if we are appealing to a young audience as they could get bored.

Our radio trailer is being broadcast on Capital FM. Capital FM’s new Network isled by London’s 95.8 Capital FM - broadcasts from key areas around the UK such as Scotland, Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, South Wales and the South Coast. From this is it clear that Capital FM is able to broadcast to a wider population, so using this radio station will mean our advertisement will be listened by many. The majority of the Capital audience are females with 58% of them and 42% being males. 58% of those who make up the audience are aged between 15-34, which is the target audience we are aiming for.

This radio station links well with our documentary that is being broadcast on channel 4 as they both have a similar target audience. I believe that our radio trailer and documentary have combined well as they both share same components like the music, voice over and clips.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Double Page Spread

My Double Page Spread

A Radio Times Double Page SpreadFor our double page spread we used one main image that is seen in our documentary and three smaller images that are also clips from our documentary. We used the main image we chose because we feel it is eye catching and it shows the kind of target audience we are aiming at. Using these images shows how we have directly linked it to the documentary so the audience will recognise it. For our layout we used a simple basic layout that is commonly used in the radio times magazine. The colours were basic, but by doing this is made it look like we was portraying a more serious topic. By using a basic layout it may have seemed boring to our audience and it may not have interested them to look at it, which meant they might not have been interested in watching the documentary.Even though radio times isn't really aimed at the target audience we were looking for, it still contains articles for all different channels such as BBC 1,2&3, ITV and Channel 4 which was the channel we chose. So it still ranges to a wide audience. Overall, I think that our double page spread was our weakest text and may have let us down a bit, because the layout was too basic and may not have been something that attracts our target audience.

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Before we started our documentary we sent out a questionnaire asking our target audience about what they like to see in a documentary. By doing this it would help us in order to create a documentary that everybody would like and would watch. From this research we found out the channels they normally see documentaries which was Channel 4 and BBC Three , we also found out that they like to see vox pops of peoples views and opinions and reconstructions as they find them interesting. After completing our three tasks we then sent out another questionnaire asking what people thought of our documentary, radio trailer and our double page spread.

Documentary

We asked our audience ‘Do you think the reconstruction worked well?’ 90% of our audience said it worked well with feedback such as ‘it was realistic’, ‘the point of view shot worked well’ and ‘it was effective’. On the other hand the other 10% felt it didn't work as well with the documentary

We asked our audience ‘Do you think the vox pops and professional interviews were used well throughout the opening?’ 100% of our feedback all said they thought it worked well with comments like ‘they were interesting’ and ‘it provided answers for questions’.

We also asked our audience ‘What do you think worked well in the opening of our documentary?’ 40% said that the alcohol shots worked well, 20% said the archive footage was successful. 20% said that the montage of images went well. Lastly,10% of students said the vox pops worked well and were interesting and the remaining 10% said the statistics were good as it gave them some information.

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Radio TrailerWe asked our audience ‘After listening to our radio trailer would you watch our documentary?’ 90% of our audience said that they enjoyed it and would watch our documentary. 10% of the audience said they would not watch our documentary after listening to our radio trailer.

We also asked our audience ‘ What do you think worked well on the radio trailer?’. 30% said they liked the vox pops, another 30% said it sounded realistic, 20% said they liked the music that was used. 10% said they liked the scripting of the trailer and the remaining 10% said they liked the facts that were used.

Lastly, we also asked them ‘What do you think that could be improved on the radio trailer?’ 60% of our audience said it was good and nothing needs to be improved, 20% said that we could include a few more vox pops. 10% said it could be a bit longer and the remaining 10% said the sound levels needed to be consistent throughout.

3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Double Page SpreadWe asked our audience ‘ After reading the article in the double page spread would you watch our documentary?’ 100% of our audience said that they would all watch our documentary after reading the double page spread magazine article.

We also asked our audience ‘What do you think that we could improve on the double page spread?’. 50% said that they would give no improvements to our double page spread. 30% said they would change the font and size of our text and the remaining 20% said they would add more text to the article.

We asked the audience ‘Do you think the space was used well in the layout of the double page spread?’. 80% said that they thought it was used well with feedback such as ‘conventional’ and ‘the images were used well’. On the other hand 20% said that the double page spread was a bit too spacious.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and PlanningFor the making of our production of the documentary and our two ancillary tasks, it was important that we done initial research into the topic of binge drinking so we understood it a lot more. The first main research we done wasn’t really using any technologies, instead it was making story boards of what our documentary could look like and doing things like mind mapping our first ideas

When researching into the topic of binge drinking we had to make sure we was finding correct and truthful information to use. To do this we used several different websites on the internet that we knew would of gave us useful information to use. These were websites such as ‘The Guardian’, ‘BBC News’ and ‘Sky News’. These were trusted websites as they always had up to date news, so using it in our documentary would be relevant to today’s society.

We also had to do research into what kind of channel we wanted our documentary to air on, we did this by looking through several different channels and what kind of audience they appeal too, after researching this we decided to use channel 4..

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and PlanningDuring the research we decided that we needed to look into similar documentaries to find out the common codes and conventions of a documentary and how the first 5 minutes of one may be structured. To do this we used many different online websites such as youtube, BBC iPlayer and 4oD on demand.

When we had felt we had done most of our research and planning we decided to upload it to our blog on ‘blogger.com’. We used things such as ‘prezi’ and ‘slideshare’ as different ways of uploading our work. It was easy to do as all there was to it was making sure we had the HTML code. We found these sites useful as we could use different ways of presenting them and making our work look more interesting to read.

We had to click on embed and copy the code from prezi.

After clicking ‘create a new post’ we clicked HTML and copied the code into the space.

We then finally clicked publish, to where it would then appear on our blog.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

FilmingAfter conducting our research it was time to carry out our filming. To do our filming we used several pieces of equipment. Our main one was our camera which was a Canon HG20 Camera. This camera was very useful when filming our footage as it came equipped with all the technology we could of wanted like being able to take still shots as well as video footage and being able to change the lighting and the focus to how we wanted to.

We found this very useful when filming our reconstruction. As we was filming it in the day our reconstruction may not have had that much of an effect on the viewers with it being daylight. So we changed the focus on the camera and the lighting to very dark so it made it look like we was being filmed at night time.

Throughout our filming we tried to use a variety of different shots to make the documentary more interesting to watch. This was easy to do as our camera was light so we were able to use shots such as a handheld camera, but also many different still shots where we was able to do zooming in and out. We was able to do still shots because of the use of a tripod. We found the tripod very useful when we was filming our professional interviews and vox pops, because we were able to get the right angle and distance on the camera without it moving.

When filming the professional interviews and the vox pops we needed equipment such as headphones and a microphone. These were very easy to use as all we need to do was plug the microphone and headphones into the camera. The microphone enabled us to get rid of any background noises that may have occurred.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

EditingAfter filming all of our final footage, we had to put it on to our apple Macs. We did this by connecting the camera to the Mac and transferring all of our footage into a folder we had created. After getting all of our footage onto the Mac we needed to transfer it to finally cut express, which is the programme we was going to use to create our documentary on. To do all this we used log and transfer.

We firstly clicked file and then log and transfer.

We then dragged all of our clips on to the log and transfer window.

We then clicked add selection to queue, where all of our selected clips would be added to final cut.

All of our clips were then on final cut express ready to be used.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

EditingThroughout our documentary we experimented with different things we could find. One effect that we did like to use a lot was a dissolve. The dissolve we liked was a cross dissolve. We liked this effect because it broke up the transition between clips a little bit and made them seen more effective. It gave a little break before going into the next one. If we hadn't of used any dissolves then our clips would of just merged into each other one after another which would of been boring.

We firstly clicked the effects tab which was on the side.

When the effects tab opened, we clicked the dissolve transitions box, and then went down to cross dissolve.

All we had to do then was drag our dissolve down to our editing bit and place it where we wanted it, which was usually before text, or before another clip.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

EditingAnother main edit that we used in our documentary, was creating a montage of images on top of each other. This idea came from the documentary we watched called ‘Super Size Me’. We found this too be effective and something different from just having talking and our video footage as well.

Firstly, we had to find all the images we wanted to use and then log and transfer them like before onto our final cut.

We selected the image we wanted to use by clicking on it and we then went on to click motion where we was able to edit the picture.

Clicking scale allowed us to change the size of the image.

Rotation allowed us to rotate our image to whatever angle.

Anchor point allowed us to choose how long we wanted the transition to take.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Double Page SpreadFor our double page spread we used many different editing techniques in order to make it look more professional. The programme we used to make our double page spread was In Design. I was already familiar with this programme as I had used it in my AS Preliminary task.

Creating a drop cap After we had wrote our first sentence we highlighted the letter we wanted to make a drop cap and went up to the top tool bar and clicked the button that shows a drop cap. We increased the size too 2.

This is what our drop cap looked like after we had edited it.

Creating a grab quote Creating a grab quote was quite easy. We first had to create a text box and write what we wanted in it. We then placed it over the text of where we wanted it and then went on to the toolbar and clicked the wrap text button.

After we clicked the tool our grab quote went into the text and the text wrapped around it. We used a grab quote as we found them too make the magazine look more interesting and they are commonly used.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Creating ColumnsAnother thing we found that is always used in magazines is columns. Columns are used to break up the amount of text so it doesn't make the reader feel they are reading endless amounts of information. We decided to use three columns on one page and two on the other.

To make columns we firstly had to select the tool that allows us to choose how many columns we wanted.

After selecting the column tool and choosing how many we wanted. This is what our magazine text looked like.Adding an Image

To add an image I had to click on this box on the side which enabled me to draw a box the size I wanted.

I then went on to file and place which let me open the image I wanted to use.

I could then place my final image anywhere on my double page spread.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Radio TrailerWhen we had to create our radio trailer we used the programme called garage band. Garage band enabled us to edit our clip for example cutting bits out and it also came with loads of soundtracks that we could use to put on it as well. Once the radio trailer was complete we was able to export it where it would be able to play as an mp3.

Choosing the sound track

To allow us to see the tracks that we could choose from we had to click the button that had an eye on it.

A selection of different genres then appeared which included tracks inside. We clicked on dark.

After clicking on the genre all these different tracks came up and we just had to choose as group which one we wanted to use.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Cutting the voice overAfter putting our voice over onto the sequence, we realised there were some bits that we didn't want and some bits that were in the right place so we had to cut them.

This was our voice over on the sequence. To cut it all we had to do was click in the place we wanted to cut and hold down certain buttons to do it.

This red line would then appear to show us that is where we was splitting the clip.

Altering the sounds

Some of our sound levels were not consistent with the others, so too make sure all the sound levels were right we clicked on track volume.

After clicking on track volume, these blue dots appeared. The blue dots enabled us to move them higher if we wanted the sound to be louder, and move them lower if we wanted the sound quieter.