Question 1

Question 1

• 1.
  In What waysdoes your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• 2.
  The Brief At thestart of or course, we were told that we needed to produce the opening 5 minutes of a documentary as a film clip. Alongside this were to ancillary tasks; to produce a 30 second radio trailer to advertise the documentary and to produce a double page magazine article to advertise the documentary.
• 3.
  To start ourcoursework, we began by looking into existing documentaries; researching the codes and conventions used, and gathering data to help us create a professional and realistic documentary.
• 4.
  One of thefirst things we did was look at previous documentaries made by A level students in the media centre of our intranet. This was to help us get a better understanding of what we were going to produce, what content and layout we should be using and what kind of interviews were relevant. We made notes on the documentaries that we saw, noting down about the content, style, layout, voiceover etc. This was for us to look back on later when we were designing our own documentary.
• 5.
  We researched thecodes and conventions of documentaries. We looked into how to create good foundations for documentaries and the aspects that make the documentary work. All of these notes helped us take the right codes and conventions for our choice of documentary and make it work.
• 6.
  We also lookedinto existing TV documentaries on TV. Notes were made on the documentaries that were watched, including general notes, notes on content, notes on conventions etc. Some of the documentaries that we looked at included: ‘Sixteen and Pregnant’ and ‘Turn it loose: The real street dance’. These were selected specifically because they were aimed at our target audience and related to the type of documentary we were looking at.
• 7.
  We looked atBill Nichols Documentary modes to learn about the different types of documentaries. Expository Mode Addresses viewer directly to advance on argument or recount history. Characterised by hidden narrator whose voice is supported by images. Subjective and often polemical (one point of view) Observational Mode Events observed and recorded ‘objectively’ with no authorial intrusion. Observes how life itself is. ‘Fly on the wall’ Participatory Mode Filmmakers appear in their own work, interviewing and expressing views to camera. Polemical Micheal Moore Reflexive Mode The documentary often reflects on its own certification, drawing attention to this. Performative Mode Personal approach, individual filmmaker telling their own story Often political stories told by minority groups.
• 8.
  Our Documentary • Wechose to use the expository mode for our documentary. • This is because we were using a voiceover instead of an onscreen narrator, • We were also addressing the viewer directly.
• 9.
  Use of Camera Alot of the research done on conventions included the use of camera, so we had plenty of research to use when deciding what camera shots and techniques to use. We used many different camera shots in our documentary; most of which were done specifically to fit the type of documentary we wanted. Below are some shots from our interviews. As you can see, we have taken into account the conventions, in this case from ‘SuperSize Me’ and used them to influence our shots. As you can see, both documentaries shots are mid close-ups and contain professional establishing footage in each. Our documentary SuperSize Me
• 10.
  After a fewshots of each documentary, mid close-ups appear, shown below. As you can see, we have taken the camera use from ‘SuperSize Me’ and incorporated it into our documentary. Obviously, we have used this kind of shot for a different purpose to suite our choice of documentary, but the technique is still the same. SuperSize Me Our documentary
• 11.
  Our documentary We foundthat background footage was an important part of our footage, so it was important that we had professional footage. You can see here how we have looked at ‘SuperSize Me’ and used the knowledge we took from it to get suitable background footage for our documentary. It consists of capturing footage that is very relative to the subject, so that the viewer is constantly reminded of the documentaries purpose and subject. SuperSize Me
• 12.
  Our documentary SuperSize Me Once again, here you can see how we We decided to make ours a bit have taken our research of codes and different to the others that we conventions and used it to impact our had looked at because we didn’t footage. We have added in titles for our want to come across as too similar interviewees so that people know who to other documentaries. Hence, it they are. This is done in most of the looks a bit different to the one documentaries that we looked at, so it shown above. was a clear decision to use them in our own work.
• 13.
  Here you cansee how we have taken the ‘Rule of Thirds’ into account when filming our interviews. We have aligned Mike’s heads to cut at the crossing of thirds, much like it is done in ‘SuperSize Me’.
• 14.
  Sound Sound is animportant factor for a good documentary. We listened to how the sound was used in other documentaries and used what we found when producing the sound for our documentary. After listening to things like ‘Turn it loose; The real street dance’, where sound is very important, we gathered that we would have sound running all the way through the documentary to keep it flowing. Here you can see that the sound level on the background has been dropped to a quiet level, for when the interviewees are talking. This is done in other documentaries, like ‘Big Fat Gypsy wedding’ and ‘SuperSize Me’. The music is still heard, but it makes it easy to hear the interviewee speaking too.
• 15.
  Radio We started offby listening to existing radio trailers, making notes about length, tacks, style etc. We found from our research that most radio trailers had the main information at the end, including times, dates, channels etc. Therefore, we chose to put the information at the end of our radio trailer as well. We broke our radio trailer up into Nikita did the voiceover for the information because we found several tracks. On average, the trailers that it was a different voice that said the information on most we looked at had about 6 tracks each. of the radio trailers that we listened too. We only used two tracks; myself and Nikita. This was to keep it simple. Because we were aiming at a young target audience, we wanted it to appeal to young people. Other Radio trailers that we heard had used voices of people who fit in to the target audience; so we used voices of young people who fit into our target audience.
• 16.
  Magazine
• 17.
  Comparisons The main imagesboth take the Both images go over onto both pages. Our top left corners of the articles. image takes the full width of the two pages whereas the Doctor Who image takes only two thirds of the width. The article text covers the bottom The background for the Doctor Who article third of both pages. has been left plain white, whereas we chose to have a coloured background to make the page stand out more.
• 18.
  Both articles havepictures on the right side of the Both articles start with a drops articles. Ours have been slanted with drop shadow, cap. This is to make the article whereas the Doctor Who ones are straight and flat more visually appealing. onto the page. Both pages have main headings on the left page, above the article text. Ours is related to our topic choice so it stands out more that ‘New Who!’ Both article have an image breaking up the Both Articles have symmetrical page numbers text in the bottom left corner of the right with the magazine name next to them. The hand page. only difference is that ours are on the outer side of the page and the Doctor Who ones are on the inner side of the page.
• 19.
  Conclusion In conclusion toquestion 1, I think that we have used and developed lots of media codes and conventions. We have researched them well and used them to influence our documentary. As you have seen, our work has followed many codes and conventions. I also think we have challenged some of them, for example; our radio trailer is quite different to what we researched because we needed it to fit with the audience and topic. I think we have challenged them appropriately and effectively. We have used, developed and challenged codes and conventions, but mainly used and developed.