The document examines how the media product uses and develops conventions of real documentaries. It follows conventions like interviews and graphics but also adds new elements. Interviews are conducted on camera with subjects looking at dead space. Graphics include unflattering images of obese individuals. Captions introduce interviewees. A variety of shots are used, such as establishing shots, mid shots, and panning/zooming. The documentary draws from examples like "Supersize Me" and "Fault Lines" to replicate conventions but includes new relevant content for its target audience.

1. Question 1- In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge codes and conventions of
real media products?
Documentaries
Hayden Atkins

2. Documentary
• Before starting the making of the documentary, we decided that we wanted to follow codes and
conventions of existing documentaries, whilst also adding in our own features, that we believed we
relevant to our genre and audience- Health and fitness and teenagers between the ages of 16-24.
• By using existing codes and conventions, it would allow us to emulate some of the features used on a real
life documentary. We decided we would add things like interviews , for example, so that our product
looked genuine and professional.
• During our planning and research, we decided that it would be very beneficial to examine existing
documentaries, and look at the features they contain, so that we could include these in our work.
• Prominent examples of existing documentaries that featured on our broadcast channel (BBC 3) was
“World’s strictest parents”. Whilst we also looked in depth at a documentary that looked at the same
genre as us, “Supersize Me”.
• I have looked at various aspects of both of these documentaries, and we have tried to emulate some of
the conventions and codes that they have portrayed, to try and make our product seem as realistic as
possible.

3. Use of graphics/images
• It is a key convention of nearly all health and fitness documentaries to use disturbing, graphical images to
portray the problem of obesity. One of the ways in which documentary producers do this is to use images
of obese people, often combined with facts, showing the risk of obesity. This graphic is used ins supersize
me, to demonstrate the size of the problem. For example, in this photograph, we have a long shot of an
obese man. The long shot allows productors to include all of the mans body, highlighting the obesity in
more detail, providing us with more graphical content.
• However, we also do this. We have used the same effect here in our documentary to obtain the same kind
of shocking effect, like supersize me have done.
Supersize me visual Our visual

4. Use of interview
• It is a key convention of nearly all T.V documentaries to show interviews. Interviews allow the documenter
to involve external views in their documentary, normally through field/industry experts.
• Using the documentary Fault Lines, Fast foods, fat profits, we looked at their use of interview, and the
conventions that are generally associated with them . We saw that whenever an interview was held, the
subject of the interview was looking across the dead space- a key code of all interviews. Because of this,
we decided that this would be a good convention to follow. Here are the results.
Fault lines documentary Our documentary

5. Use of text
• Another key component of many interviews conducted in T.V documentaries is the use of captions,
primarily to introduce the interviewee. They give an easy on screen visual to interview the person, and are
a very handy tool in the interview. As shown in the example below, the caption introduces the
interviewees name, and normally their profession. In our documentary we use captions to introduce our
two interviewees, fitness instructor Harriett Fowler, and PE teacher Gavin Sheaperd.
Fault Lines documentary Our documentary

6. Typical filming components
• In hundreds of documentaries, there are examples of different shots used whilst filming. We included
these types of shots in our documentary:
• Establishing shot:
• Mid shot
• Long shot Mid Shot
• Use of pan
• Use of Zoom
Use of pan