Evaluationq1

Question 1

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

By Shannen Weller

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
-The brief we were given in the beginning of our A2 course, was to create an
opening 5 minutes for a television documentary. Alongside this, was two
ancillary tasks; a radio trailer and a double page spread for a listings
magazine, to back up our documentary. With an hour’s documentary in
mind, we had to research into and find out more about what would go into
the first five minutes of a documentary.
-Documentaries tend to fall under certain categories , such as lighthearted, optimistic, pessimistic, serious, resigned, uncritical, ironic, condemnat
ory etc.
-The documentary that we created had aspects of serious , condemnatory and
pessimistic throughout the opening five minutes. This is important for a
documentary, as it sets the tone for the viewer with the type of documentary
they are about to watch
- We didn't use any reconstructions within the documentary as we felt it
wouldn't benefit our documentary and wasn't appropriate given the topic.
- We also thought it would be more beneficial if we concentrated on the other
conventions and make sure they were as good as possible.


-Looking into conventions of the genre like actuality, exposition, voiceover,
interviews, interviews with experts, voxpops, archival footage and
reconstructions, showed us exactly what we had to do overall in order to make
our documentary effective and achieve its main purpose.
- The use of our 'Voice of God' voice-over was used to address the viewer
directly and to present facts mainly for neutral purposes so the documentary
wasn't biased and was balanced between for and against legalisation of
cannabis for e.g. 'Schizophrenia has been said to be caused by cannabis' and
'Cannabis has also been used for medical purposes to help stop people
suffering from pain'
-To clarify the options available to us we at the start of the process we
researched into Bill Nicholl's theory of Documentary modes (2001): poetic,
expository, observational, participatory, reflexive and performative.
- The poetic mode is used to put more emphasis on the mood and tone of the
documentary as opposed to knowledge and persuasion and is a very
subjective style of documentary.

- The participatory and performative modes are similar in styles as they
include the film maker in the documentary.
-'Supersize Me' is an excellent example of this as Morgan Spurlock appears in
his own work shown the viewers, it is very personal and more about the film
maker and their intentions and this mode is very effective but wasn't suitable
for our chosen topic of legalising cannabis.
-The performative mode is very much autobiographical, and almost follows the
film maker’s life around.
-The observational mode follows the subject around, and has a very ‘fly-onthe-wall’ style to it. However, ours was very different to this, as observational
documentaries tend not to use any voice-over or music throughout their
piece.
-The expositional mode was definitely most similar to our documentary style
in many aspects.
- Having completed the documentary it is clear that ours contains a lot of
modes, but mainly the expository mode seems the most suitable for our
documentary legalising cannabis as this has a narrative and a voiceover
throughout, which is what our opening five minutes had to guide the viewers
through. It is very factual which we certainly followed in ours, due to the
amount of statistics that we used. This style is also very rhetorical , in the way
that it narrates to the viewer, and this we found very effective in our piece.

-Our documentary doesn’t use a Narrative Structure as we thought this
wouldn’t be suited given our topic of legalising cannabis. However, we still
created a reasonable argument appealing to emotions and addressing the
audience directly by voiceover.
-Argumentation schemes include problem-solving, history, illustration and
comparison.
-Another argumentation scheme that we used in ours though, was authority.
For example we spoke to experts, and by saying that we came to speak to an
expert, this shows authority and they gave across a persuasive argument.
-Another scheme that we used was numbers, as we made our documentary
very factual and filled with statistics to prove and back up our argument about
legalising cannabis, the affect it has on people and the rise in cannabis
smokers in young people.
-This we were able to prove with numbers, giving us a strong argument as well
as the back up of experts.
-The overall structure of our documentary used the enigmatic code which is a
problem that is only discussed and not solved. This leaves the viewer with
questions that cannot yet be solved. It catches the reader’s attention as they
are able to realise how serious something could be, and that they want to hear
more about these unresolved problems.


-Within the first 5 minutes of the documentary we chose to use
some rhetorical devices like ‘should cannabis be legalised?’
-Also we used factual numbers such as ‘3 million users daily in
the UK alone.
-These opinions coincide with the majority of the opinions in the
documentary.
-Expert interviews that also take this stance strengthen the
rhetorical elements in the documentary.

-We made sure that we used the right mise en scène in the background like
props for example in the expert interview with Mike Hatton we put pictures of
cannabis on the computer due to the fact our documentary is about legalising
cannabis.
-Another feature incorporated within the interviews in the documentary was
the use of graphics, particularly throughout the professional interviews.
-By using graphical labels or tags, it helps to inform the viewer as to who the
interviewees were and their occupation.
-We chose to use this convention throughout our interviews/vox pops and also
use the conventional white serif font so that it was easy to read.

- We also used animated graphics called Key Framing in final cut for
our title sequence which contributed very well to our documentary.The lighting throughout the majority of the documentary is natural
lighting, similar to all the other documentaries that I have watched.
- We also used diegetic and non-diegetic sound throughout our voice
over, which are conventions that play a big part in a documentary.
- It was appropriate to include some non-diegetic sound to reinforce
that insight and well-rounded element and it is quite hard to avoid
during vox pops and interviews. Diegetic sound such as people
walking past and talking during vox pops and students talking in the
canteen.
- Although this contributed positively in our documentary, we had to
manage these levels and make sure they were audible but not
overpowering.

-Since the beginning of the A2 course I have watched many documentaries in
preparation for creating our own.
-They can all be very different, however will use many of the same
conventions as each other.
-I spent a lot of time analysing documentaries such as‘ Supersize Me
’, ‘ Britain's Secret Farms’, ‘ Welcome to India’ and ‘Death row’.
-Many of the conventions that I picked up from these were the uses of Camera
. This included the shot types such as Close ups, Medium Close
ups, Establishing Shots/Long shots and Extreme Close ups .
-In ‘Britain’s Secret Farms’ the most commonly used shot was the medium
close up, which we then used a lot in our documentary to get a good look at
people’s expressions and how they feel towards the situation.
-We used a handheld camera a lot in our documentary the viewer feel as
though they are there, and get a feel for what is going on. This was used a lot
in ‘Supersize Me’ and we found that it was very effective for our documentary.

-The other type of use of the camera, is by using a Tripod. We used this on
various occasions such as establishing shots of the college, for showing college
equipment such as computers, classrooms, and of students walking in and out
of college.
-The tripod meant that we could have various steady shots, and use skills that
we know such as Pan, Tracking and Zooming, in a professional way. The main
use of the tripod was for expert interviews, which enabled us to set up the
camera in a professional manner.


Supersize me

Our documentary

-A main convention used when interviewing experts, is using the rule of thirds
to set up the screen. The interviewee should be looking out into an empty
space which we have done here, and positioned a third of the way in, with
their eye level at a third of the way down.


-Sound is another important part within the documentary and this included
background music, voice-over, presenter, diegetic and non-diegetic sound.
‘Death Row’ uses an on screen presenter in their documentary, as well as a
voice-over, which is very effective and makes the documentary fell a lot more
personal for the audience. However, as our documentary was more
informative we chose to just use a voice-over, like in ‘Airline’ where the
narrator guides the audience through the documentary.

This is part of our script that we recorded using the microphone and
headphones and it was then put into final express.

-Background music was something we also used in our documentary, the same
as all the others we had looked at.
-We wanted the background music to be minimalist and be at the same level
throughout and not crescendo and over power the voiceover as the voiceover
was very important in our documentary.
-When looking into other documentaries such as ‘Supersize Me’ they tended
to use copyrighted songs, which we wasn’t allowed to use.
-In ‘Airline’ they didn’t use so much music, just the theme song that is used at
the beginning and end of the documentary. Again this was copyrighted music,
and for our documentary we needed something that wasn’t.
-So we looked on the internet and used a site called Freemusicsfx.com which
gave us an instrumental of a well-known cannabis song called ‘Because I Got
High’ which wasn’t copyrighted so we was able to use this.
-The music worked effectively for using real media conventions and we
thought overall that the voiceover and background music worked very well
together.

-The research into the topic is very important to a documentary, especially if it
is to inform the audience.
-In ‘Airline’ their research is first hand and primary, no facts/statistics, but
upfront with the customers and their views/opinions.
-In ‘Super Size Me’ it is filled with first and second hand research. The
beginning of the documentary is very informative, and filled with so many
facts said by the voiceover. We used this in our documentary and filled our
opening with statistics
‘Super Size Me’ in the
first 5 minutes of the
documentary.

Our documentary in
the first 5 minutes
showing facts and
figures and found
that the large
numbers worked well
coming up on the
screen with large
text.

-Special Effects are used several times throughout the documentary ‘Super
Size Me’, they work very effectively, a lot done with special graphical
effects, and some done with the camera.
-We used a few effects in ours on the camera such as changing the focus and
zooming.
-When we came to edit the documentary, we looked at real documentaries on
ideas of how to edit our footage to make them effective.
-We also looked at speeding up some of our footage as most the
documentaries had this element in, however, we thought it wouldn’t be suited
for our documentary.
-Therefore we just stuck to using our out of focus and zoomed in footage, also
show in supersize me.

‘Super Size Me’

Our own documentary
using the focus in order to
make the footage look
aesthetically pleasing

Using this button to
zoom in and out and
changing the focus

TV listing magazine:
-Here is our final magazine
double page spread, which we
has to produce for the magazine
‘Radio Times’. We looked at
various different magazines first
in order to achieve our finished
product and we got a lot of
inspiration from the ‘Eric and
Ernie’ article which we then
chose to use a similar layout.
-We also looked as a lot of
magazines in order to get an idea
of conventions and how effective they are.
-Magazines range from ‘TV Mag’ and ‘Radio Times’, but each with similar
conventions. As our documentary was based on serious and controversial topic, we
chose to keep the layout simple and straight to the point.

-Magazine articles for television documentaries tend to have a more than one picture.
-These tend to be shots from the documentary, showing still clips, of the main people that are involved in the
documentary.
-We put in a still clip of a past-smoker of the drug that we interviewed in our documentary to show the readers what do
be expecting to hear from.

Our
magazine

The caption is essential
to an image on a
magazine and are
always used to explain
what is going on in the
image or who the
person is in the picture.

Radio
Times

-The masthead is the headline/ title
of the page and is always used in
magazines/newspapers.
-Magazine article or television
articles are sometimes headlines
based on
characters/puns/plotlines, but
sometimes the title of the
programme, especially when it is one
of them documentary/series.
Drop caps are essential in magazine articles at the beginning
of the text, this is why I used it in my article to make it look
more professional.
A pull quote is a clip of the article showing
something that may interest or pull in the reader to
the article. We used an interesting line that was said
by one of the interviewees. Most magazines use
pull quotes in order to grab the attention of the
reader.

The date, time and channel are
essential to a magazine as they tell
the reader when the programme is
going to be on. We liked the way this
was laid out, therefore we chose to
do something quite similar as it makes
it clear to when the documentary is
on.
Articles are always written in 2 or 3
columns, which is why we used it in
ours when talking about our
documentary.

Stand firsts are also conventional of a
magazine article and we chose to use
a rhetorical question is order to
engage our reader and to involve
them more, which will persuade them
to want to read our article.


Radio Trail:
For our radio trailer, we listened to various real ones to get an insight of the
conventions that they use and what makes them effective. We have listened
to radio trailers off radio five, BBC one, capital radio, Radio 1 and different
radio stations that play advertisements. As our radio trailer is for radio 1, it
needed to be something to appeal to the audience, and reach out to young
people/students.
We filled in these sheets to analyse radio
trailers including the music, target
audience, tone of voice, effects, sound
levels and length.
Even though the documentary is on a serious topic, it is
for a younger generation who could get bored easily.
Therefore, we added a good beat to the background, and
had a serious voice over reading the script to show how
serious the matter is. This pulls the listener in and
catches their initial attention.

The time, date and channel of the documentary is
something that all radio trailers will have in them, to
make sure the reader knows when it is going to be
on. We added this to the end of our documentary, by
saying ‘Thursday at 9pm, on Channel 4.
Most of the radio trailers that we listened to were
around 20 to 40 seconds long, as they don’t go on
too long, yet are long enough to get their point
across. We made ours about 41 seconds long, as
this was long enough to say what we needed to
say to sell our documentary.
We also used clips from our
documentary, including something a
interviewee says, and some shocking facts
from the voice over. We used ambient
sound such as people talking between clips
in order to keep it fast pace and realistic.

We created our radio trailer on logic pro, as we thought this was the best and
easiest software to use.

Overall we stuck to the main conventions of a television documentary. The
most common cut in a documentary is the straight cut, and is used far more
than any other, so this is why we chose to stick to this transition. We also used
some dissolves, as we found that it put our clips together effectively and
looked effective and aesthetically pleasing.

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