A2 Media Evaluation1. In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

products? At the start of our A2 course we were told that we would have to produce a 5 minute introduction for a television documentary. As well as this, we also had to produce a radio trailer and a double page spread for a TV listings magazine. These two products will be used to advertise our documentary. To produce our documentary, we first had to decide on a target audience and a interesting topic that would relate to our particular target audience.

As we were only producing the first 5 minutes of our documentary, we had to decide what the tone for our documentary was going to be; whether it was going to be light- hearted, serious, optimistic or pessimistic. It was extremely important for us to set the tone of our documentary straight away. However, because we had chosen contraception as our topic which is a serious matter, the tone was immediately set for us as contraception is a topic people don’t like to joke about. Although, we kept this in mind during our documentary, we also included a few light- hearted moments as we had to bear in mind that our target audience are only young and will not enjoy a documentary that is purely serious.

American documentary theorist Bill Nichols distinguished traits and conventions between certain documentary film styles. In his 2001 book, Introduction to Documentary (Indiana University Press), Bill Nichols defines the following six modes of documentary:

• Poetic: Transforms historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form• Observational: Watches the subject and allows the audience to form thir own opinions. • Expositional: Social issues assembled into an argumentative frame.• Participatory: The filmmaker engages in the documentary they are producing.• Performative: Acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of the documentary• Reflexive: Engages actively with the issues of realism and representation.

Using these six modes, we have been able to watch documentaries and identify which of the six modes that documentary falls into. However, more often than not, most documentaries feature elements from more than one mode in them.

Our documentary mostly fits into the expository mode but also features elements from the reflexive and poetic mode.

It fits into the expository mode because our documentary 'Underage and Protected' uses a voiceover which acts as a commentary from the filmmaker, spoken while the camera is filming. We chose to use voiceover rather than a presenter because that way we could speak directly to the viewer whilst the

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

products?

camera was filming something relevant to the topic. For example, the voiceover in our documentary states the statistic that "about one in ten women are at risk of an unintended pregnancy“ whilst the camera is filming a visual aid showing a picture of ten women and one of them being pregnant. Morgan Spurlock also uses visual aids in his documentary “Supersize Me”. He uses the drink cups to convey the drastic differences between the sizes. Both documentaries use these visual aids to link in with the

voiceover. When the visual aids of these drink cups are on screen, Morgan Spurlock is emphasising how much sugar would be in each of the different sizes.The expository mode also states that the documentary proposes a strong argument which our documentary does. In our documentary we provide the audience with the strong debate as to whether contraception is too easily available to teenagers in today’ssociety. This is identical to how Morgan Spurlock proposed the strong argument that fast food has caused obesity to rise in his documentary “Supersize Me”.

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

products? During this course, I have spent a lot of time studying the codes and conventions of many different documentaries including “Supersize Me”, “The Undateables” and “Teen Mom”. By analysing these documentaries, I have managed to pick up on some codes and conventions which our documentary also features.

The uses of camera was one of the conventions I picked up on. This includes shots types such as, close ups, medium close ups, establishing shots, long shots and extreme close ups.

“Teen Mom” uses mainly close ups and extreme close ups to portray their feelings to the audience clearly.

“The Undateables” also use mainly close ups and medium close ups when talking to their interviewees.

In our documentary, we have used mainly close ups and medium close ups and made sure the framing on each shot is professional and looks clear to the reader.

“Supersize Me” used a handheld camera a lot whereas in our documentary we chose to use a tripod. We used this on various occasions such as establishing shots of the college and during interviews with our experts and teachers. Using the tripod ensured us that we would have a steady and be able to use camera skills such as pan, tracking and zooming which made our documentary look professional. The tripod also ensures that the rule of thirds was applied in our expert interviews during our documentary. “Supersize Me” uses the rule of thirds when talking to experts so we decided to use the same technique in our documentary too. The rue of thirds ensures that the expert is sitting at the edge of the

shot looking across the camera at dead space. From analysing “Supersize Me” we also chose to have the experts name and profession come across the bottom of the screen during the interview. After studying “Supersize Me” we also realised that filming the experts in a professional setting helps emphasis to the audience that the expert knows what they’re talking about and has a useful opinion on the topic.

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

products?

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

products? Sound is another code and convention that I discovered was important in a documentary. “Supersize Me”, “The Undateables” and “Teen Mom” all made sure that their sound whether it be digetic, non- digetic, voiceover or presenter was clear enough for the audience to hear.

“Supersize Me” used a presenter as well as a voiceover in their documentary which makes the documentary feel more personal as the audience can see the person the voiceover is coming from. Also, a presenter works well because the presenter can have a direct eye line to the audience whilst delivering their point or opinion. “The Undateables” however, only uses a voiceover because the documentary revolves around a set of individuals therefore the subjects become a type of presenter for the audience to relate to. “Teen Mom” is different from both of these documentaries as it does not have a presenter as the teenage moms shown in the series are voiceovers themselves, so the documentary cuts from one mom to the other with that certain mom becoming the voiceover relaying her story to the audience.

Taking all the techniques used in all three of these documentaries, we decided that we would use a voiceover because our documentary is more informative and a presenter was not necessary. We used the voiceover to convey facts and statistics to the audience but also to guide the audience through the documentary as it progressed.

We recorded the voiceover using a microphone, headphones and inserted it into Final Cut Express.

Background music was another code and convention of documentaries that we had to consider using in our documentary. Near about every documentary we have watched has involved background music somehow so we knew that we had to find some background music to play whilst the camera was not on our experts.

We researched what other documentaries had used, for example, “Supersize Me” uses a lot of copyrighted songs which we could not use. “Teen Mom” doesn’t use much music apart from when the title sequence is playing which didn’t really help us because we knew we needed some form of background music.

However, “The Undateables” helped us to decide how to incorporate background music smoothly into the flow of our documentary. “The Undateables” uses background music during the title sequences but also uses clips of music when the camera is filming shots such as establishing shots which needs a piece of music behind it to keep the audience interested in the documentary. Keeping this in mind, we decided to have a continuous background music track playing throughout the documentary but lowering the volume of the music whilst the voice over or experts were talking.

We used Garage Band to find simple beats that we could compose into a track to use as background music. We chose Club Dance Beat 007 to use as our background music because we thought that our target audience would enjoy listening to this type of music.

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

products?

Facts and figures were used throughout “Supersize Me” to help emphasise Morgan Spurlock’s point to the audience. He placed a visual aid on the screen whilst the voiceover described it to the audience. We also decided to use this technique in our documentary as we thought it was a great way to convey our point to the audience clearly. Both documentaries have used a map which helps to portray the

From watching “Supersize Me” I realised that special effects are used throughout the documentary. Special effects are used to make the transition from shot to shot more different and smooth for the audience. We also used special effects during our documentary as it makes each transition creative.

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

products?

point to the audience in a simple way. We decided to use this so that the audience wouldn’t be bombarded with facts all through the documentary and could deduce the relevant information for themselves.

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

products? As well as our documentary, we also had to produce a double page spread and a radio trailer to support our documentary.

This is our finished double page article which we produced for the TV listings magazine TV Choice. We decided not to use Radio Times to publish our double page spread in as we thought our target audience wouldn’t read Radio Times therefore our documentary won’t be advertising to the right audience. The aim of our double page article is to sell and advertise our documentary. We had to look at existing double page spread’s featured in various TV magazines to identify codes and conventions that will make our article look professional and will use the codes and conventions of real media products. Because we have chosen TV Choice as our publisher, we decided to look specifically at their existing articles to make sure ours looked professional.

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

products?

Our double page spread Existing TV Choice article

Both double page spreads use a purple banner at the top of the page with “The best of this week’s TV” on it in yellow. Both

articles also have a yellow box that states what type of programme it is, the title and the time it is airing.

Both spreads have structured their text into columns to make the article look more professional.

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

products?

The existing TV Choice double page spread uses a drop cap to start the article and I also used a drop cap to start our double page spread.

If you compare our double page spread to the existing TV Choice article you can point out codes and conventions we have followed in our double page spread. Both of these double page spreads follow the codes and conventions of professional TV listings double page spreads.

To understand the codes and conventions needed for radio trailers, we analysed many existing radio trailers. We listened to many radio trailers from various radio channels such as Radio 1, Capital FM and 5Live. We decided that our radio trailer will be broadcasted on the radio channel Radio 1 because their target audience fits into our target audience which will ensure that our radio trailer is targeted at the right people.

We knew that because our topic was serious that we had to make our radio trailer light hearted somehow without demeaning our topic. We used the background music to soften the tone a little and we produced it on Garage Band. We chose a beat that would appeal to our target audience and keep

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

products?

them interested throughout the radio trailer.

The purpose of the radio trailer is to advertise and sell the documentary to the audience so the time, date and channel for the documentary needs to be conveyed clearly through the radio trailer directly to the audience. This ensures that the audience have the information they need to watch the documentary if they find it interesting and want to learn the more about the topic.