Nicole Fellowes A2 Media Studies

QUESTION ONE

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

Mise-en-scene

Profesional Documentary interview screengrab.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-9-11-faker/4od

My Documentary interview screengrab.

Archive material

This is important within a documentary as it makes the product seem more realistic, and valid using pre-existing material. It can be used as cutaways, to establish a similar subject. Thesefore the audience can also relate to the documentary if they have seen the archive footage before. We used footage off a DVD of the film 'Sex and The City', to gather archive footage of catwalks and heels being worn.

Here are some shots of the archive material we have used from 'Sex and The City'.

Camera angles

Many interviews have a camera angle of the shoulders up (talking head), shown in some of my examples, however we used different shots such as medium close ups, from the waist up as we took into account the mise-en-scene range, however this shot is still able in professional documentaries

Framing

Another way in which my interview follows these conventions is through each interviewee, 'looking into the space'. For example if the interviewee is on the left side of the frame, the interviewer should be positioned on the right side of the camera. Making sure the invterviewer is sitting or standing as close to the camera as possible. Therefore it looks like the interviewee is looking into, and talking into the space on screen. Also as there are more than one interviews in our documentary, we made sure that the positioning alternated so that it created variety.

The two images also represent a convention we followed, that each interview should be filmed with the interviewee on the different side of the camera to the other, therefore the viewers do not get bored of the framing.

Our framing...

Further analysis on codes and conventions...

Narrative Structure

Our documentary is a linear structure, being the most basic, meaning that it is the easiest to follow. Because our product is an expository documentary it means that the audience will constantly find things out about the subject, heels.

My media product also follows codes and conventions, as we have followed the narrative structure, such as using an opening sequence followed by articles such as voxpops, interviews, archive material etc. We have also used a female voice ovr, which is what documentary genres such as ours; about heels, would use. The music that we have played throughout, also develops the codes and conventions of Documentaries, as the music relates to the fun, feministic feel to the interviews and content.

evidence...

These are two images illustrating a voxpop of my own and one of a proffessional documentary, to show that we have followed the framing, medium close up, and general style. However we had the microphone in shot as we thought this would be more realistic, and we had watched documentaries where this was also used however there image here shows a comparative voxpop without the camera in shot.

Own voxpop

Professional documentary

Below are images reflecting our idea of a title within the opening credits, so that the audience are aware of what the question and aim of the documentary is. We have followed with the colour scheme matching the genre and subject, along with a creative idea, such that we use heels to spell out the word 'Heels', engaging the viewers.

Our Opening sequence title

Professional opening sequence title 1

Professional opening sequence title 2

Proffessional image of opening sequence next to mine. We have used similar ideas such as putting in heels to demonstrate what the documentary is about.

Professional opening sequence shot

Our opening sequence shot

Cutaways

Cutaway from a proffessional product

Cutaway from our own product

This cutaway shot is following the proffessional very much so, as they both illustrate a high street shop, that sell what the documentary is about, put in a suitable place. We have also used cutaways where they are suitable, reflecting it's interview. For example, where we have an interview of a Barratts shop assistant, we have used cutaways of the heels sold in the shop, and the assistant herself working.

Interview, cutaway, interview

This image shows the interview shot with the cutaway next to it, followed by the next interview shot, taken from the 'Dune' interview. This is to show that the interviewee had not moved or changed etc. This is important in the making of an interview as it looks professional and the audience would understand how the cutaway is suitable, as at the time of this image, the shop assistant is talking about the heeled winter boots, sold in 'Dune'.

Graphics

The graphics in each image both show one from a proffessiona documentary and our own. They show similarities as the font of the proffessional relates to the internet daters, as the style in typewriting, similarly in our own we have used a pink font to attract the target audience.

Professional graphics

Our graphics

Use of sound and music

We used music to relate to the subject of the documentary, opening the product with a song by Lola "High Heels" we felt this would attract the target audience, and suit the upbeat, tone and target audience of women, following the codes and conventions.

We used non-diagetic sound, by adding a voice over, also known as the 'Voice of God', to illustrate to the viewers what was following, and to direct them.

QUESTION TWO

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

The print advert is setup as landscape, therfore is for a newspaper advertisment. The newspapers that our print advert would be suitable for are;

The channel we have chosen our documentary to be broadcasted on is channel 4. Therefore we cannot advertise on any of the BBC radio stations, as they are only used to advertise BBC television programmes. This lead to the decision that we would broadcast our radio ad on commercial and national radio stations, suitable for our target audience, such as;

Voice over for Documentary

We scripted the voice over that we would be using in our documentary so that we could prepare the most suitable words. We thought that asking rhetorical questions, would make the viewers want to carry on watching the documentary, as it gives them clues as to what is coming up, e.g "heels;every girl loves them don't they?". Our voice overs also introduce the clips/interviews following "but why do we love them so much?".

Radio Advert script

Initially we had an idea to create the sound of a woman coming home from a night out wearing heels and taking them off, throwing her keys on the table etc, therefore hearing the sound of this at the opening of the radio ad. However due to the poor quality, an uncertainty of what was happening we went with sound footage from the documentary, following key codes and convenions of radio trailers.

Overall, we followed the media campaign techniques, and have a documentary that has been emphasised, and advertised effectively, through the ancillary tasks. The link has been clearly made through the slogan, repeated in each product, the voice over, linking the voice and scheduling and broadcasting times.

QUESTION THREE

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We gathered a group of our target audience to watch, view and listen to each of our ancillary tasks and documentary. We collated to results.

1. On a scale of 1-5 how would you rate this documentary? (1 being poor, 5 being excellent)
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 5
5 - 2

2. On a scale of 1 to five how informative was the documentary?
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 1
4 - 2
5 - 4

On a scale of 1-5 how entertaining was the documentary?
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 1
4 - 3
5 - 3

3. On a scale of 1-5 how good was the technical quality of;
a. The sound
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 1
4 - 5
5 - 1

b. The editing
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 3
5 - 4

c. The music
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 3
5 - 4

d. The continuity
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 4
5 - 3

e. The framing of the interviews
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 2
4 - 2
5 - 4

f. The camera work
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 3
5 - 4

4. What were your thoughts on the title of the documentary?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Is the print advert eye catching?
Yes - 7
No

a. What was eye catching?
The picture - 4
The title - 2
The colours - 2
Everything - 3
Nothing 0

6. Did the chosen images, on the print advert, convey the idea of the documentary?
Yes - 7
No - 0

7. If you saw the print advert, would it make you want to watch the documentary?
Yes - 7
No - 0

8. Did the documentary follow the conventions of a professional documentary?
Yes - 7
No - 0

9. Did the radio advert attract your attention, and make you want to watch the documentary?
Yes - 7
No - 0

a. What attracted you?
The voiceover - 5
The sound - 2
The music - 5
The documentary clips - 3
Everything - 1
Nothing - 0

10. If you heard the radio advert would it make you want to watch the documentary?
Yes - 7
No - 0

11. Is this a documentary you would watch?
Yes - 7
No - 0

The lowest feedback number, reached to a three. This is positive as it means our peers and target audience thought that the majority of our production was successful, and overall our peers put the score as numbers four and five. Therefore we were very happy with the results from our target audience feedback. Our peers seemed to enjoy our ancillary tasks the most, with the documentary getting the score of three a couple of times. This was due to the sound levels in some of our interviews, such as 'Grayham Carter', meaning that if I had the chance to re-film the documentaries, and interviews in it, I would make sure that the sound was of a good quality, and the target audience would have been satisfied.

Images of some of the audience to support this feedback...

We also put our documentary and ancillary tasks on a social networking site to collate feedback from the specific target audience yet a wider range of them. Below are screengrabs of people comments.

Documentary feedback.

Some members of the target audience, really enjoyed our documentary, and didnt have much critisism to give.

Radio Advert feedback.

It was mentioned that the sound quality was not as good as it could have been, which could be an improvment for next time. It is alos mentioned a couple of times that the target audience now would like to watch the documentary, meaning that the radio ad was a success.

Feedback of the Questionnaire from target audience.

Name:Chloe Jones
Age: 17
Occupation: Waitress
Hobbies: Shopping, reading, and socialising.
Interests: Fashion and literature

Therefore, through viewing all the feedback, from each area of our target audience, our product was a success, however the ancillary tasks were more professional and effective. Through gathering the feeedback I have found that it is very important to include every inch of detail which the target audience prefers, and to make sure that each age member of the audience is satisfied to collate a full, positive set of results.

It is important to collate audience feedback, as it is important to advertise the programme effectively and efficiantly to the target audience. Real media producers follow this scheme of audience feedback as they find it key to make their programme suitable for their target audience also.

QUESTION FOUR

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

Adobe Premier Pro

Below are screengrabs showing myself using the programme adobe premier pro and using tools such as the move tool and the razor tool. This programme, was used by myself a lot through the editing process. I found it challenging at time as I was introduced to many new tools, however once I had the practice, it was easier to use, and I found that it was really enjoyable editing our documentary.

Adobe Photoshop

Although having used Photoshop before for my AS coursework, I found it even more challenging this year, having to learn newer skills and create a whole new porject more challenging than before. I struggled with creating the right print ad, using the programme as you are limited, to your imagination, therefore I used each tool and skill that I could in order to create a good, suitable, effective print advert.

Camera phone

I used my phone camera to take pictures of us at the interviews, as proof. I then uploaded the pictures onto blogger. In cases where the camera would not work or take the image as we wanted it to, we were able to use the camera phone to zoom and get the photograph.

Blogger

Through creating my whole project I had to consistantly use blogger.com, in order to present all of my work, and show my progress. By using blogger, I have been tested with many skills, such as new technology, and uploading videos, and images. New technologies have changed over time, and without them I would not have been able to produce such work as I have, and to the modern standard it is in.

Through the creation of my documentary, I have used media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages. We used equipment which consisted of; camera, tripod, microphone, still camera, and other essentials to produce our documentary. In order to make sure that the filming was accurate, the tripod was used at the right height needed and the microphone was in a certain position so that we cold hear the interviewee clearly. We used a still camera and mobile phones to gather our proof photographs as evidence that we did the filming. In the construction of the finished piece I gathered all my archive material, research and images that related and were used in my documentary, off specific websites that reflected the style and genre, therefore where reliable. Through editing and creating our documentary we used media programmes such as adobe including photoshop and premier collating all our footage to produce a 5 minute documentary. I also used microsoft word in order to save the research. In the area of planning our media teacher provided us with documentaries and we gathered questionnaires to create a target audience for our documentary.

Video Camera

Tripod

Hand held camera

Still Camera

The camera, microphone and tripod equipment, was challenging to use in a certain way that was needed. Ordinarily, we decided to film the voxpops in Liverpool One with each of the three members in our group taking in turns asking the questions, however this was a little confusing to our audience when we shown it to them, therefore we re-filmed the voxpops without ourselves in the shot. Meaning that through the use of interviews, voxpops, cutaways and most areas of our documentary, I endured a lot of practice of the technical equipment.

Ice Radio Recording Suite

Ice radio recording suite, is another area of new technology, where we learnt how to record voice overs to add to our documentary, and ancillary tasks. It was challenging at times to produce a good quality, and suitable voiceover, however through learning how to fully use the suite, we were able to create a good standard of voice overs for our products.

Other Programmes and technology

Microsoft word was used for our target audience research as we needed to collate graphs from our results. For my evaluation stages I used the built in audio on my laptop, to collate my views on the codes and convention of real media products.

Windows Movie Maker

I have used windows movie maker, in order to produce the short movies of each of the stages in the construction of my documentary added to my evaluation.