In what ways does your media

product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real

media products?Anisa Ilyas

To compare my documentary to an existing media product I decided to do this comparison with ‘Supersize Me’. To compare the two I used various screenshots from the opening 5 minutes of both documentaries to demonstrate the conventions that I have followed for our documentary. We used the binary opposition proposed by Levi strauss so that our target audience would be more interested, this was the advantages and the disadvantages and we thought that this would be ideal as we were doing a circular narrative so people don’t need to come to a conclusion and therefore this adds more interest.

TITLEA major convention in documentaries is the use of a title screen at the beginning of the documentary. We followed this convention and decided to have the main title at this point as it entered dramatically and left you with a question that you could reflect over throughout the documentary. I looked at SuperSize Me an existing media product and found that they also featured an opening title segment showing the title of the documentary. Something that I would have liked to change about our documentary is the title screen, this is because perhaps creating something more graphical would have stood out more as it looks aesthetically appealing. Although, after looking at SuperSize Me’s opening title it isn’t very graphic and all it has is a bit of colour, I think it would be good to have something at the very beginning to draw your attention in.

VOX POPS

Vox pop is the voice of the population and is a key convention in documentaries. Similarly to SuperSize Me our documentary also follows the conventional use of using vox pop, this helps to give a general opinion as to what the public has to say on the topic of our documentary. Also, the vox pops that we used for our documentary are of the same age as our target audience so our audience can feel that they can relate to the opinion of the vox pop. We didn’t do any planning or organisation for the vox pop except for the questions so we found people who were available without being biased. We did a medium sot so that the background was visible. In comparison to SuperSize Me, I felt that we restricted ourselves to just asking people from the college and not anyone else from the general public whereas SuperSize Me had a variety of people from different places.

VOICE OVER

The voice over within our documentary follows typical conventions of a standard piece of narration. Through the voice over we deliver information which relates to the topic, facts and statistics and also rhetorical questions. We also tried to mould the voice over around the clips that we had. One thing that we had to consider when doing the voice over was to make sure that we added enthusiasm. From ‘Supersize Me’ it was evident that Morgan Spurlock showed enthusiasm in his voice and made us the viewers more engaged with the documentary as he appeared to be very genuine, this is something that we would like to replicate through our voiceover. In our documentary we avoided the convention of having an on screen narration this is because we felt that having a presenter gives the documentary a more formal look and we didn’t want that therefore had the use of voiceover.

EXPERT INTERVIEW

A key convention in documentaries is the use of experts. Experts are used to authenticate the views expressed in the documentary. We followed the conventions of having the expert in a mid shot and on the right hand side of the frame, this is because it gives the documentary a professional look. It is clear by looking at the expert from SuperSize Me that they have also opted for a mid shot and placed the expert on the left hand side of the frame. Another convention within expert interviews is that the expert does not look into the camera, therefore we told our experts to direct their eye line away from the camera in order to give the add a professional touch. Also, we placed the experts that relates to their position for example for Julie it was her counselling office.

GRAPHICS

A typical feature that is incorporated within interviews is graphics. This is because it informs the viewer who the interviewee were and their also tells them about their occupation. We used this convention when introducing both our experts and we also used White text in Ariel font so that it could be easily read and so that the audience know what their importance was of the topic.

FACTS & STATISTICSDocumentaries are made so that they can provide facts and statistics about a topic, and is seen as a convention in documentaries. We followed this and added facts and statistics so that our documentary is factual and so that we can support what we are saying by using facts. This is an example of the uses and gratification theory and why we had chosen to have a circular narrative in order for our facts and statistics to be portrayed in an unbiased way. Looking at Supersize Me they had also used statistics but on a much wider scale to how we did it, they showed how trends changed over time, and perhaps we could have done something that was also a bit more interactive. In order to find the facts that were suitable for our topic of discussion we researched into the topic using secondary sources such as books and the internet. However, an issue with secondary sources is that you need to question the reliability of the source. Therefore, an alternative way of us providing facts was through the expert interviews.

ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE

Another convention of documentaries is the use of archival footage. We used archival footage as it aids authenticity and to add further information without having to do any additional filming. We used two different archival footages so that we could have a variety, however we placed them next to each other therefore I think if we spread them out they would have had more of a meaning to them.

BACKGROUND SOUND

Background music is a convention in many documentaries where the music plays throughout the documentary. We followed this convention as it creates an atmosphere to the documentary. The background music had to be simple and not overpowering of the sound from the documentary. We made our own music, and we used Garage band so that it had simple beats like those that are used in documentaries. The music worked effectively and once we put it in our documentary it sounded just right as it didn’t dominate. Also, we made sure that when we had the vox pop, narration or expert interviews we faded the sound levels so that what was being said was heard. However, Supersize Me were very creative with their sound as they started off with a song sang by little kids about fast foods, this is something that will grab the attention of the viewer immediately.

ACTUALITY

Actuality is the term for raw film footage of real life events, places and people. We followed the convention of having actuality in our documentary as the events unfold in front of the camera showing everyday life of people so that the documentary looks realistic.

Overall, I think that we conformed to many of the conventions that are used for documentaries, but we also dismissed some for example not having an on screen narration but this was because we didn’t feel it would be appropriate to use this. Following the conventions meant that our documentary looked professional and therefore would appeal more to our target audience as they are aware of the expectations of a typical documentary.