1. Evaluation Media Candidate No : 4035

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

3. There are many features that indicate that my documentary forms to the conventional aspects of a typical poetic documentary. This can be proven through comparing my documentary, to other documentaries of the same category, analysing the similarities of the techniques used in both documentaries. I will be analysing six various shots from my documentary and discuss the techniques used.

4. OK, so how is my documentary conventional?

5. Title / Intro It is apparent that most poetic documentaries are known for having an opening sequence building up to a title. It often has music from the start that slowly builds up. There is usually also a voice over the clip. This does not necessarily have to be a voice over but may also be extracts of different people talking. Below is an example of this type of documentary opening: Click to play video...

6. Title/ Intro With regards to my own documentary, I found the opening of a BBC Levi Roots documentary. It discussed how far Levi’s career has progressed since leaving the Den in 2006. I liked some of the footage used in this opening scene and decided to use two small clips as part of my archive footage for my own documentary. I also admired the opening scene as it had numerous pictures and video clips all playing to the soundtrack of the documentary. I knew I wouldn't be allowed to take the footage and instead decided to create my own version, using the other clip as an inspiration. Below is my version (left) and the BBC version (right). Click to play video... Click to play video...

7. Voiceovers We decided to use a “Voice of God” technique for various sections of the documentary. This was used for numerous reasons, such as to make the audience understand the scene with a descriptive narrative. This also helps to keep the audience engaged as it will isolate and set the scent throughout the documentary. We decided to use a female voice for the narrative as the as it would be a stark contrast to the subjects who are predominantly male, throughout the rest of the documentary. One of the clips that I thought to compare it to was a documentary on Tutankhamen and Ancient Egypt. Although the subject does not specifically relate to my documentary, the voiceovers are still similar. This is because as the clips are shown, there are facts and the scene is generally being described. The voiceover continues as one clip fades into another which is the same style that I have used for my own documentary. Below is my voiceover section of the documentary (left), compared to the other voiceover documentary (right). Click to play videos

8. Archive Material Many documentaries take extracts from archive material. This content is available for use by the public. It is the content that had been previously published or had been published by another source. Although we are allowed to use this content in the documentary, there is a strict limit on the amount of archive footage that we are allowed to use. This is because the content is not our own and therefore we cannot have too much of someone else's work. The BBC released another documentary on the success of Levi Roots, separate from the one I showed earlier. In this clip there are extracts where Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh are talking in the present day whilst shots from in the past are shown. These shots in the past are archive footage. Here was an inspirational video from the BBC documentary with regards to using archive footage from clips of the dragons den. Again my work is on the left hand side and the content that inspired me is on the left. Inspirational Content My Content Click to play video... Click to play video...

9. Location Shoot Many documentaries of this genre have what’s known as a location shoot. A location shoot is a shot taken from either outside of the building it’s set in, or just generally in a local area. This is to engage the audience by establishing and setting the scene. Many documentaries use this shot in their documentaries for this reason. Therefore I too had decided that I wanted a location shoot in my documentary as well. Below is my location shoot (left) and another location shoot that gave me inspiration. Although the establishing shot is silent, it is common for someone to explain the location of the scene as I did in mine. Click to play video... Click to play video...

10. Interviews Interviews are very commonly featured in poetic documentaries, in fact it’s one of the key aspects. As many poetic documentaries are about a specific person, there are often interviews with the main subject. In my case I researched into interviews with Levi Roots. This was not only because I needed to find out what to ask Levi but also to find out how I should set up the interview with regards to the camera angles. Here is a video that I had created on interview techniques to practise with before I met Levi. Here is my interview that I used in my documentary: Click to play video... Click to play video...

11. Summary / Conclusion Most documentaries of this type have a summary and / or a conclusion at the end of the documentary. At this stage of the documentary the narrator will give a conclusion to the documentary and may sometimes add humour. On the left is my ending of my documentary and on the right is the ending of another documentary that gave me ideas for my own. The idea it gave me was from the line “the colour just stuck”. This line with it’s play-on words is what gave me and Lauren the inspiration to come up with our line, “...and to this day, the dragon slayer continues.” Click to play video... Click to play video...

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

13. I believe that my supporting pieces were very well done and would be very effective for attracting our target audience. We had decided that our target audience would be 16-25 year olds as they are the demographic that watch Dragons’ Den the most. 16-25 year olds also would be attracted to the documentary as it is about a relatively current topic as well as the fact that Levi Roots is very popular amongst the younger generation today. We knew we would therefore have to produce our supporting pieces with professionalism, giving it a sophisticated look, avoiding making it look childish and substandard.

14. Magazine Article

15. Magazine Article Video – Click to Play Click to play video...

21. Comparing my own poster to another

22. Plain background makes object stand out Clear text Main object enlarged Logo

23. Plain background with shadow Bright colours used to attract the audience Short sweet and simple caption used for both posters Not a lot going on, very “to the point” – gets the message across easily A lot more going on in this poster as the money splashes out of the bottle Logo on object

25. ? What have you learned from your audience feedback?

26. Click to play video...

27. Youtube Comments on the Documentary...

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

32. This is from our AS evaluation...

34. A2 Construction - Technology Required Click to play video...

36. End of Show – Created by Amir Choudhury Candidate Number:4035