GROUP A02 ///

SIXTH FORM COLLEGE SOLIHULL

SUNDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2010

Evaluation- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
codes and conventions of media products?

Documentary:

Documentaries:
A documentary is to present information about factual topics. They can cover a variety of aims; to
record important events or ideas; to inform viewers; to convey opinions and to create public
interest. The codes and conventions are all used to help fulfil these aims. Documentaries are not
just about facts and figures. These are used to create arguments which invite the audience to
draw conclusions and form opinions from. They draw upon different realities and peoples
concerns on them.

There are quite a few codes and conventions typical of a documentary. We have taken these into
high consideration when producing our documentary. We often found massive links between
some of them which meant we had to consider a few at a time for one particular shot. Mostly we
tried to use the codes and conventions of a documentary to make sure it was clear to the
audience it was intended as a documentary and make it seem as professional as possible.

Observation: This is one convention that we did not use. This is because it was not relevant to be
used at any point throughout the documentary. It was not appropriate to have the audience in the
shoes of anyone in our documentary as there wasn’t any main ‘characters’ to it. Our documentary
was a more direct, informative style with a casual tone, than a watch and wait and see
documentary.

Interviews: These played a heavy role in our documentary. We filmed three docume
 ntaries in total, two of which were included in our
final product. Two of the three we filmed were ‘expert interviews’ to add depth to our documentary.
However, we decided not to use one of them as it was lacking in another key convention, good
mise-en-scene. This is particularly important in the use of interviews as without a good mise-en-
scene it completely detracts from the validity of what the person is saying.

It was important to us to try to set up our interviews like other interviews in real documentaries.
We even used the same style of titling so that it looked professional:

Dramatisation: The way we used the convention of dramatisation was by focusing mainly on the
bad side of our topic. This made the problems more prominent than the good things, thus making
our topic more ‘dramatic’ than it is in day to day life. We used statistics throughout, mainly in the
voiceover, to highlight issues within our topic and draw the audiences concerns in.
Reconstructions: There was an opportunity to use reconstructions in our documentary, but we
decided against it. This is one way in which we challenged the codes and conventions of a
documentary. We decided to not ‘over-sell’ issues in our documentary as that could just put the
audience off or bore them instead of pulling them in.

Voiceover: We chose a young female voiceover for our documentary. We added it as

a soundtrack relevant to our footage, rather than filming it at the time. This
made it easier. We tried to choose someone with a clear voice that would also appeal and be
believable to our audience. As our audience was young we thought it best to have a young voice
over as this would mean it would be more easily relatable to them.

Music: we were asked to pick non copyrighted music to use in our documentary which we thought
we had as we chose from a folder provided for us. However, this may have not been the case.
This first song we hear in our documentary is a well known song and may very well be
copyrighted. This could cause us big issues in the real world and would of had to been taken into
consideration. This was an unintentional mishap and if we had had more time we possibly would
have changed it.

Montage: This featured heavily in our documentary and without it we would have been lost for
footage. I think we used it cleverly as a way to both introduce the topic and for filling in-between
interviews. One way in which we may have developed this convention is by having a montage of
voxpops. This added more content and kept the audience’s attention well.

Exposition: The main exposition of our documentary is obviously based around our topic of how
teens are influenced and effected by technology. Our underlying argument is that there are issues
concerning this topic and this needs to be addressed. Without having an argument behind it, a
documentary is pretty much useless. Of course there is the discussion of a topic but the makers
always have a conclusion they are hoping to lead the audience towards.

Mise-en-scene: This seeped into every shot we filmed. Without a good mise-en-scene the shot
would loose all validity and impact to the audience and therefore be more of a discredit to our
argument than a credit. We wanted all shots to be set well, but some weren’t like the interview
mentioned above and the issues we had with the microphone being in the shot. We also tried to
consider camera angles in some of our shots. This was difficult at times as we had to ‘make do’.
Taking this into account I think we did manage to get reasonable if not good mise-en-scene in
most footage used in our final documentary.

Self Analysis of Documentary:

Purpose of the doc: to show the influence technology may be having on today’s teenagers and
how it is affecting their lives.

Footage used: Use of an Ident at the beginning is typical of documentaries a

nd the voiceover on top of it introducing the

documentary I feel works fairly well. Unfortunately he sounds a little bored and uninterested which
may rub of onto the audience, this could have been improved. All footage in the documentary itself
was filmed; none of it was taken from other sources. This means that the producers have
intentionally gone and gotten the shots used in the documentary to portray their argument. This
has both good and bad sides in the fact that it’s been chosen and put together in a meaningful
way; however, having footage from other sources would have helped to back up the producer’s
argument with more reliable evidence.

Use of sound: Music is used effectively to set a theme and tone to the opening
of the documentary. The voiceover is a young female with a fresh clear voice. There are a few
stumbles which do affect the documentary overall. The music selected goes well with the topic
and the scenes that are being seen at the time. The music is often quite upbeat as though there’s
a lot to come, keeping the audience in a state of anticipation.
Use of Titles: The Main title is very effective as it is as though it is being typed. This has been well
chosen and fits very well with the topic, tying in nicely and keeping the audiences mind on the
subject of the documentary. Other titles are used on the interviews. These are more captions than
titles and are there to introduce the interviewees. They work well, although some of one is a little
hard to see as it is white on a white backing.

General Techniques: Camera angles have been taken into consideration in some parts of the
documentary. During the interview with a cyber bully victim they have used a slightly high angle
shot, so it’s like the audience is looking down upon him in away showing his vulnerability. This is a
typical convention from other programmes especially documentaries.

Listings Page:
The listings page pretty much follows the conventions of the Class Warrior. This means we do not
have to worry about the conventions being used incorrectly but sti;l making it our own.

Radio Trailer:

Our radio trailer I feel is the weakest task out of the three. I say this because it doesn’t seem ver

y professional and has possibly being the hardest in terms of following codes and
conventions. Whilst of course there are codes and conventions to follow, they are varied and
manipulated in many ways. This has made this task difficult and could make this question difficult
to answer as u could say the radio trailer conventions are being developed constantly.

We wanted to know the best techniques in order to attract our audience to our radio trailer. This
meant finding out the codes and conventions used by real radio trailers and trying our best to
implement these into our own. The conventions were fairly consistent it was more the order or
slight variation in terms of voiceover vs. extract.

We started off with an extract from the voiceover, followed by an extract of an interview from our
documentary acting as a teaser. We then have an inclusive line to the audience by a different
voice over solely for the trail, “find out more” pulling the audience in. We have stuck to the
traditional convention of having the schedule at the end of the trail. This is followed by an effect
which tells the audience it’s the end of the trail and adds a little more interest to it.
Having the time, date and channel, or schedule, at the end of the trail means that it’s the last thing
the audience hears. This hopefully will mean that they will remember it, especially if they are
interested. This is why we chose to follow this convention as having it at the end the listener is
leading up to it and will definitely hear it as it won’t be lost among other content.

One thing our trailer does not do that most intend to is advertise the station it will be played on.
This is down to the fact that this trailer may be broadcast on more than one station so needs to be
adaptable to any station.
The ‘teasers’ of the statistical voiceover and interview extract taken from our actual documentary
act as a device to entice the audience. We decided to go straight into these extracts rather than
have a voiceover explaining the content of the documentary. This is more direct, just like the
theme for our documentary itself.

The music used is also from our documentary and is an upbeat track. This gives the audience a
sense of busyness and excitement. This will set a good tone for our documentary, hopefully
interesting the audience.

Overall, in all tasks I would say we have mainly tried to follow codes and conventions so that our
products would seem as realistic and professional as possible. There have been cases where we
have tried to develop conventions by putting our own spin on things but I think all new producers
or makers of media will have their own slant on how to do things. This brings forth progress and
new ideas which is always good.

Posted by Group A Student at 23:59 0 comments

Labels: Harriet Craig

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

It was important to us for all of our products to maintain a certain amount of consistency so that if
they were real life products they would work well together and fulfil their individual purposes.

One main inconsistency we face was an issue with the titling of our documentary. We were torn
be tween two titles up until the end. Initially we had decided to
go for the title 'Technology Teens'. We thought this would give the audience a good idea of what
the documentary was about and if they are interested in it or not. However, 'Wired Up?' is more
mysterious and would attract our audience of young teens better as it’s more their vocabulary. It
seemed to be a more interesting and appealing than our initial idea and it flowed r

eally well with our voice over right before the title.

Due to us changing our minds on the title of the documentary, this meant that we have an
inconsistency in one of our ancillary tasks. The title on the listings page is different to the title used
on both our documentary and our radio trailer.
In a way we are quite lucky that it was the listings page title that differed as we could say that we
wanted to give a broad overview title on the listings page and keep the ‘Wired Up?’ as an attention
grabber. Also as teenagers these days are less and less likely to actually read magazines to even
see our listings page.

The radio trailer was consistent with the documentary in the fact that it involved extracts from the
documentary itself, things from both the voice over and interviews used. This means the two work
well together. In this respect the listing page works well too as the main article leads the audience
through a few things to expect from the documentary.

The radio trailer also used music that is in the documentary. This is another consistency between
the two. It is of course easier to match our radio trailer and documentary together than the listings
as you can use extracts in the radio trailer but it is much more difficult to do this for the listings
without seeming forced and out of place or giving too much away.

The main purpose of having multiple products, i.e. the ancillary tasks, is to advertise our main
product of the documentary. This means that we will reach a broader audience and hopefully get
more people tuned in to the documentary itself. This meant choices about which magazine to
have our listings in and which station to have the trailer on had to be made. These were crucial as
the wrong choice would have made no sense and would make these advertisements a waste of
money if they were to be real.

Posted by Group A Student at 23:59 0 comments

Labels: Harriet Craig

Evaluation- What have you learnt from audience feedback?

From our original audience feedback work we found out our audiences preferences:
• Channel 4
• Time preference 8:00-9:00 pm.
• We could see voiceover is an important factor that they looked for in documentaries as well as a
casual style. (See previous graphs on the blog for detail).

Based on these findings we produced our documentary, trying our best to incorporate what our
audience find important. This meant we had a big focus on adding a lot of informational voiceover,
as our audience seemed to prefer this to other methods that could have been used. We tried to
make the documentary not overly formal so the audience would be relaxed whilst watching it but
still informative. This fits in with the casual style of documentary they prefer.

We took a second lot of audience feedback after we had made our documentary, and asked 11
members of the audience to fill in a questionnaire based on their opinions on what they had seen.

As we made sure our audience was representative of our ideal target audience this made the
information more valid to us, as we could see how well we achieved our goals.

We made sure factors such as ethnicity, age group and gender was representative:

Here is an example of one of our audience filling in our questionnaire and an example of the
questionnaire itself:

The bottom comment section of the questionnaires was possibly the most interesting. This is
where we got the best feedback on what could have been better. One of the main points was
about the voiceover. I can see why the audience would have said this as at times the voiceover
does seem a little stuttered and unsure.

One more point that came up was about 2 pieces of filming in particular. One said about the pan
of Solihull that was a little fast. Another mentioned was about the microphone being in shot on
some of the voxpops.

Some of the main things listed as good about the documentary by our audience was the
interviews. This indicates what the audience find the most interesting, and that’s people’s
opinions. This is good for us as we has more than one interview included in our final documentary,
so it shows we had a good idea of what our audience would like.

Music was also said to of been chosen well. It was very difficult selecting the music for our
documentary from not copyrighted music so this makes it even better that our audience enjoyed
what we had chosen. I am glad they found it to compliment the rest of the documentary and am
glad our hard work of selecting and editing the music paid off.

You can see that our documentary had a ‘Very Good’ response over all. I am extremely pleased
with this response as it makes me feel that overall the audience enjoyed our product.
We didn’t actually encounter any real negative feedback. Most of the audience said everything
about our documentary was good or better. This is extremely pleasing and I feel we have
achieved a good level of work.

The audience feedback told us features that were good and those that needed improvement.
Some things were surprising that we found from audience feedback that’s why it’s such a key
stage in the project.

Posted by Group A Student at 23:59 0 comments

Labels: Harriet Craig

Evaluation- How did you use media technologies in the construction, Research
and Planning, and Evaluation stages?

Every stage within our project was affected by technologies. Some technologies were used only in
certain stages, however many technologies overlapped into more than one stage. Without today’s
breakthroughs in media technologies, in the way that they have been made simpler so novices
like me can use them better; this project would have been much longer if not impossible.

Internet- The internet seeped into every stage of the project for a few reasons. In the research and
planning we used the net to help us find information for each individual task. We also used it for
images; this is true for the evaluation too. We of course visited popular television and radio
websites during our research stages too.

I used the search engine Google for researching documentaries and radio trailers. It helped me
find key facts about conventions. I also used it to find pictures to go along with my research. This
made the blog itself more interesting. Another thing I used this search engine for is if I was having
trouble with any other software or with the Mac computers which were of course new to me. If I
had a question and wanted a fast answer when a teacher wasn’t around, I could just search for it
in Google and my question would be answered. It would refer me to other sites, sometimes ones
with other users’ answers on. This is sometimes where I have been referred to YouTube, see

below.

YouTube- This was useful as a resource tool. I used it to research other documentaries, to look at
possible music for our trailer and documentary, find interesting tips about software in step by step
tutorial type videos posted on the site. Also we have embedded a YouTube video into our blog, to
show those viewing it what we are talking about better. This has helped us to get more across and
made the researching and some of the construction stage easier.

The Blog- we used the Blog throughout the project to

update our progress on all stages. In the research and planning stage it meant that we could all
access the information the others in the group had found out. This helped us work better as a
team and meant we produced a more successful product overall.
The college Moodle site was particularly useful when analysing radio trailers. This is due to the
fact that some were put onto the site so that they were easily accessible by us students. This
made it much easier and meant that the content was good for analysis. Other things that Moodle
was useful for is looking for more guidance into the course and what was expected of us.

Social networking sites were used in some of the filming along with the site UCAS. These were
used as cutaways in interviews. This helped the audience and ourselves understand them in
better context.

Digital Stills Camera – These cameras allowed us to use images for

storyboarding, to get a logical order of shots for the opening of our documentary and stills for the

documentary such as cutaways.

Canon Video Cameras- This is clearly the main impact on our project. These cameras were
perfect for our task. They were small enough to take around with us in small groups, along with
the tripod, and also had good quality and more than sufficient features. We quickly got used to
these cameras as they were simple to use.
 Tripod- the tripod is not a technology as such, but it was a massive
part of the filming process. The tripod made our filming easier, steadier and more professional.
Without it our shots would have been shaky, there would have been less options for pans and
zooms as it would have been more of a disaster than an effect or variation in shot.

Microphone- if we were intending to interview people or capture snippets of sound we would take
out a specialist mic to capture optimum sound quality. We did come across a few problems
however. Some of these were due to framing and were mainly found in the editing stages about
the microphone being in the shot, making it look slightly unprofessional. Another problem we were
faced with was to do with the connection of the microphone to the video camera. This resulted in
one of our interviews having to be stopped to try and fix the problem. In the end we sorted the

problem out by detecting the loose connection that was causing gaps in
the sound. It was fortunate that we caught it in the filming stage or this could have been more of a
problem later on. One more issue was in one of the clips of voxpops that we had filmed. There
was a ‘drilling’ noise in the background that was very distracting. I am presuming this was a fault
with the mic as at the time of filming there was no disruptive background noise.

We also used the microphones in interviews, other than mentioned above, and for the voiceover.
The voiceovers sound had to be of a high quality or else it would put the audience off. The
microphone was very important and helped us obtain just the right sound for our documentary.
When we took out the microphones to film with we also used headphones. This is so we could
check the sound quality whilst we were filming. This proved helpful in the case of finding problems
like explained above. We also used headphones when editing our clips, voiceover and music. This
meant we focused our attention onto the sound of our documentary, and radio trailer, and not
other sounds around us. We had to edit the levels of sound to make sure the documentary
sounded smooth. The headphones came in helpful at this stage as it meant we could focus on
every piece of sound with more accuracy.

MAC Computers & their software:

Although I had seen and used these computers before, my knowledge of them was basic and I did
find them rather confusing to begin with. As I began to use them more my understanding grew and
I soon found little tricks and shortcuts to use to make life easier.

We mainly used the Macs in the construction stages; however they were used for the software
comic life in the planning stage. We used it to create an initial story board for our intended
documentary.
 Main project of editing- Final Cut Express is the best thing I have learnt
through this project. This is where most of my new skills were developed as it is the software I
spent most of my time on. It was a long tedious task of editing but definitely worth it. Without this
technology this task would have been so much more difficult. I learnt many skills, such as how to
move, cut, edit, add, and delete clips in a sequence. I also learnt about the different lines, like the
audio and image lines, this came in useful when adding music and voiceover to our original line up
of clips.

Construction of the radio trailer- We used GarageBand to create our

radio trailer. This was initially linked to final cut as we had to take sequences from final cut, of
audio that we may use, and export it into GarageBand.
This is our trailer during construction:

You can see it has multiple lines, in a way like final cut, of audio so that they are layered on top of
each other effectively.

To create the listings page the main programmes we used were Photoshop and Indesign.

Photoshop was used to edit our images for the listings page. We made images
clear, brighter and more appealing, as you can see below:
We used Indesign to create our main listing page. We typed out our article, put in place a layout,
created the mast head and inserted the images. This brought all our ideas together in one place
so we could see how the product would look when completed whilst still working on it.

Evaluation- mainly for my evaluation did I need to use the function of print
screening images in order to put them into the blog. I already new how to do this on a normal P.C,
which luckily most of my print screening was done on. After print screening I used another
programme to save my edited down versions called paint.

However, I did have a problem when having to find out how to print screen on the Mac’s. As you
can see, the red circles, when using the Mac computer we had to press several buttons to
produce what is called a screen grab. This was then saved as an image to the desktop to use
however we wanted.

This project has been an exciting challenge to me and has meant I have learnt how to use many
technologies to my advantage. In many ways I take for granted the internet and when writing this
evaluation I had missed out many ways in which I had used it to help me. Other technologies were
completely new to me but I feel I have come a long way and have a good understanding of them
now. This has meant my skills have developed vastly which I am very pleased with. Without
technology, especially the specific media technology this task would have been almost impossible
to near novices like me.

As well as developing and broadening my skills on individual pieces of technology I have also
learnt the importance of technologies working together. Each stage entailed a variety of tasks,
each of which would use multiple technologies. This has made me much more aware of the great
links between all technologies and how they combine together to produce final products like our
own.

Posted by Group A Student at 23:59 0 comments

Labels: Harriet Craig

SATURDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2010

How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research and
Planning and Evaluation stages?

4. How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research and Planning and Evaluation
stages?

Throughout the process of research and planning, the production of the documentary, listings
page and radio trailer any other additional work associated with the main product and ancillary
task were all influenced by technology.

What Technologies were throughout the production process?

The types of technology we used were:

The Blog- we used the Blog to update all the information from research and planning and
producing the documentary, listings page and radio trailer in a creative and effective way.

Apple Macs- Comic life, final cut

express, garageband, the apple macs allowed us to use the specific software to create the
documentary, the radio trailer and storyboards

Computers- whilst using applications such as

Microsoft word and Microsoft excel to create text, tables and graphs, we used software such
adobe Photoshop and adobe indesign to manipulate images and to create the listings page.

Sony HD video cameras- The video canon cameras with hard drives allowed us to film all the
footage we needed for the documentary

Additional equipment- tripods, microphone- The additional equipment such as the tripods allowed
the camera to be steady whilst we were filming to give a professional look. In addition, we used
the microphone to make sure we had optimum sound quality

Sony Stills image cameras- The digital stills cameras allowed us to use these images for
storyboarding and to get a logical order of how the documentary should run.
 Internet- Social Networking sites and youtube, moodle,
google, channel 4, BBC- The internet which we used for research and planning allowed to look at
specific sites relating to documentaries such as looking at TV schedules online at Channel 4’s and
BBC’s websites. We also used social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace for
Cutaways

How have they implicated the overall documentary?

The implications these technologies have had on our documentary have been to large extent. We
used all these technologies through the research and planning process and through the
construction process of the documentary. Through the research and planning they have allowed
us look at professional documentaries and see what the codes and conventions of the
documentaries, from using specific sites on the internet to using digital still cameras for
storyboarding and location shots. From looking TV schedules online to TV schedule magazines
and specific radio stations. The technology available to us in terms of research and planning
allowed to make sure we had the knowledge and understanding to go on to producing the tasks.
Through the construction process of the documentary the Apple Macs and software such as the
final cut express and garageband influenced how effective we were able to complete all the tasks
set.

Posted by Group A Student at 18:54 0 comments

Labels: Student C- Suraj Korotania

What have you learnt from Audience Feedback?

3. What have you learnt from Audience Feedback?

Through the research and planning and once we had completed the documentary we used
audience feedback as medium to get to know what the target audience was and what there
response was to the documentary. Here are the questionnaires we used for research and
planning and the response of the finished documentary and the results, graphs and tables to go
with them.

Documentary Target audience- Questionnaire, Results, Graphs, Tables, Summary

Whilst going through the process of reaching and knowing what our target audience is, we gave
out Questionnaires and then received results, which we put into image format such as graphs and
table.
Here is a copy of our Questionnaire:

Media Documentary Questionnaire: Social Culture and Teen Life

Hi I’ am an A2 media student and I’ am currently producing a 5 minute documentary on teen

life and social culture. Can you please take a few minutes of time to complete the survey?

Please tick the appropriate box:

1. What is your gender?

Male/Female

2. What is your age group?

Under 18/ 18-25/ 25+

3. What is your ethnicity?

White-British Asian Black- British Other (Please Specify)
4. How often do you watch Channel 4?
Very Often/ Occasionally/ Rarely/ Never

5. What is your stylistic preference for a documentary?

Casual/ Formal facts/Statistics/ Other (Please Specify)

6. Who would you prefer to be interviewed?

Students/ Experts/ Teachers/ Other (Please Specify)
7. What type of sound do you prefer? (Tick more than one if needed)
Voice over/ Video Diary character/ Natural/ Music linked to topic/ Other (Please Specify

8. What time would be convenient and appropriate to watch this documentary?

7:00-8:00/ 8:00-9:00/ 9:00-10:00/ 10:00-11:00

Thank you for taking the time to take part in this questionnaire, we will treat this as confidential

Here are the set of results in graph form:

What is your Gender? To make it equal

for both genders I made sure I had an equal amount of results from both sexes giving me fair
result, this could be reflected in the documentary as we will represent each gender equally
showing how technology and influence each gender.

What is your Age Group?

 For this particular question I wanted to get a
variety ages but wanted to particularly target under 18's but made sure I can get a fair reflection in other age
groups which impact on the topic of the documentary. Targeting under 18's is reflected hugely in our
documentary as we look to focus more on the youth culture of today.

What is your Ethnic Group?

For this area, I wanted to give my questionnaires out to a range of ethnic groups, which made sure I was not
being bias and targeting a particular area. Targeting ethnic groups give me a wider range of information on
how the documentary is produced. This will be reflected in the documentary by showing different
ethnicity's.
 How often do you watch Channel 4?
Showing how often, people watch channel 4 will give me an insight into how popular channel 4 is
in the youth culture of today, this will not be directly shown in our documentary but will effect
potentially how often the documentary is watched.

What is your Stylistic Preference for a documentary?

The stylistic preference for a documentary shows what sort of style the documentary is made in whether it is
casual or formal. On basis of results, the documentary will be portrayed and perceived by the audience in a
more informal way.
 Who would you prefer to be interviewed?

This section is vitally important in showing

who is going to be interviewed and how they provide information on the subject. Based on the
questionnaire, students, experts and teachers are the ones we are going to focus on interviewing.

What type of Sound do you prefer?

Sound is very important to a documentary because it can change the mood and style of a
documentary, making sure we have the right sound at a particular time of the documentary is vital.
Most of the music we surveyed is going to be in the documentary but voice over is the type of
sound which is going to dominate the documentary.

What time would be convenient and appropriate to watch this documentary?

Making sure we sure we would show the documentary at the right time if very important as it enables us to
make sure we have the maximum amount of viewers able to watch the documentary at a suitable time.
According to survey, 8:00-9:00 is the best time and we would show our documentary at this time.

Summary:

In conclusion, to the results of the target audience questionnaire, the audience want a
documentary, which equally reflects both the effect of technology on teenagers on both genders.
An age group, which they can associate to, and a fair ethnic group representation. A casual
stylistic preference, students to dominate the interviews and voiceover as the main sound
category. Finally, that it is on at 8:00-9:00.

Documentary response- Questionnaire, Results, Graphs, Tables, Summary

Once we had finished our documentary, we needed to know what sort of response it received, so
we gave out Questionnaires and then received results, which we put into image format such as
graphs and table.

Here is a copy of the documentary response Questionnaire:

1. Overall, How would you rate this documentary? Please circle your response

EXCELLENT/ VERY GOOD/ GOOD/ SATISFACTORY/ POOR

2. Please rate the documentary on the following categories. Tick the appropriate box for
each category

3. What did you like about this Documentary

4. What changes would you suggest in order to improve this documentary?

Here are the set of results in graph form:

 Our audience feedback suggested that 73% of the audience that watched our documentary thought that it
was professional to a 'Very good' standard. This is a high statistic and gives us confidence that we have
produced a quality piece of work. Only a minority rated defiantly 27% thought that it was of a 'Good'
professional standard. This result is still encouraging as no one described our documentary as 'Poor' or 'Ok'.

Overall, our documentary was described as of a 'Very Good' overall standard. 91% in fact stated this; only
9% described it as anything lower as only 'Good'. Although yet again no one expressed a dislike for our
work, or described the work of a bad standard.
Here are over shoulder shots of the target Audience filling a documentary response
Questionnaires whilst watching the documentary:

Improvements: Documentary

Although we believe, the documentary to be of a good standard there may be certain areas of the
documentary, which we could improve in comparison to real life media products. A lot of
professional documentary producers film a lot footage before hand to make sure that they can
work through the footage and see what shots are the best and the most suitable. We would also
may have used more captions such as facts to be even more informative and we might have used
more effects and transitions which moving from one scene to another.

Improvements: Radio Trailer:

Although we believe the radio trailer was to a good standard we believe there are certain aspects and points
of the radio trailer we could improve upon in comparison to real life media products. Professional radio
trailers often have additional voiceover at the beginning of the trailer to give the audience a better idea of
the genre of the documentary, the length of the documentary extracts may have also been shorter to
incorporate the additional voiceover, and finally the sound quality may have been to a better standard.
Overall, each aspect of the trailer is completed to a good quality of standard.
Improvements: Listings Page:

Although we believe the radio trailer was to a good standard we believe there are certain aspects
and points of the listing page we could improve upon in comparison to real life media products.
Any possible changes or improvement to the listings page may include different layouts and
include times of other documentaries; we might have also improved by using a different style. A
Major change that would be made is to use another medium of advertising the documentary as TV
listings magazines are very popular amongst teenagers and thus advertisement of the
documentary would be poor.

Radio Trailer/Listings Page Response?

In comparison to the feedback and response we receive for the documentary, the response to the
radio trailer and the listings page were overall very positive and little changes needed to be made
in order to improve

Posted by Group A Student at 18:47 0 comments

Labels: Student C- Suraj Korotania

GROUP A02 ///

SIXTH FORM COLLEGE SOLIHULL

WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2010

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge codes and
conventions of real media products.
At the start of our product our brief was to produce an extract from a new television documentary
which would last approx five minutes with the following two ancillary tasks

A radio trailer for the documentary

A double page spread from a listings page focused on our documentary.

No one in our group had any previous experience in producing a short documentary of any sort,
so to ensure that we produced a documentary and ancillary tasks of reasonable professional
standard we conducted a variety research, into television documentaries and the range of codes
and conventions they use. For example we analysed three different documentaries which had
previously been broadcast on TV and studied the use of titles, sound and background footage/
establishing shots. The codes and conventions we were most interested in researching where
interviews and mise-en-scene as it was vital to incorporate these into our documentary if we
where to produce a quality product of professional standard.
The research we conducted proved to be very useful when planning our documentary as we knew
what we would have to include, and what the audience would expect. Our finished product
incorporated many codes and conventions we had seen in our research such as the use of
interviews to make the documentary interesting, as well as the use of titles and sound/ voiceover.

At the beginning of our documentary we included a channel four ident as our research told us that
it would be most suitable for our documentary. This is typical of all professional documentaries as
an ident introduces the programme and gives the audience a small insight what it’s about.

The finished opening five minutes of our documentary contains two interviews, just like in
professional documentaries we used an interview with an expert to authenticate the views
expressed in the documentary. Also we used text/titles to introduce them to the audience as this is
a quick and simple way to convey the information without taking attention away from what they

where saying. The majority of our

documentary featured a voiceover as well, the purpose of this was to introduce the audience to
the topic of our documentary and what it was about, (What effect does technology have on British
Teenagers). It is also an important convention as it links parts of the documentary together and
keeps it running smoothly. We chose a young female voiceover as she sounded young and fresh
our target audience would hopefully be able to relate to her and not be put off watching the
programme by a dull droney voice. The use of the voiceover was also important as it introduced
the audience to the location of the camera as well.

The majority of our documentary featured a voiceover as well, the purpose of this was to introduce
the audience to the topic of our documentary and what it was about, (What effect does technology
have on British Teenagers). It is also an important convention as it links parts of the documentary
together and keeps it running smoothly.

We chose a young female voiceover as she sounded young and fresh our target audience would
hopefully be able to relate to her and not be put off watching the programme by a dull droney
voice. The use of the voiceover was also important as it introduced the audience to the location of
the camera as well.

We used many establishing shots of Solihull and The Sixth Form College Solihull so that the
audience knew where the footage had been filmed so they could trace the progress of the
documentary. This is a common code and convention of documentary making and the one we
developed to our cause to inform the audience of our location.

A final convention we used was incorporating many different camera angles into the documentary
just like a professional one; the use of different camera angles gives the documentary variety and
makes it more interesting. Close-ups, medium close ups, long shots all appear in our
documentary. The use of different angles can also help to convey certain messages, and in an
interview with ‘Brad’ in our documentary that had been subject to cyber-bullying we wanted to
show that he was helpless. So by positioning the camera at a slightly higher angle then usual we
could reduce the power of the character and make him look vulnerable.

We also used developed and challenged forms of media conventions when producing our
ancillary task of the radio trailer. We studied three different radio trailers before we started
produced by the BBC. This informed us what to include in our own trailer and gave us an
appreciation of what our audience would expect.
The voiceover is a very important part of a radio trailer as there are no images to support the
information, so the voiceover must be informative and clear in relatively small amount of time. Our
trailer was only 30 seconds long and only included a small amount of voiceover informing the
listener how and when they can watch our documentary as well as introducing the name of the
programme. This challenges the codes and conventions of professional documentaries as
normally the voiceover dominates the majority of the trailers sound, we felt though this would not
appeal to our target audience teenagers who have a shorter attention.
The majority of our trailer was snippets of sound from our documentary which we hoped would
interest the listener to watch out programme, this is a typical convention of radio trailers and it’s
used to engage the audience’s attention.

Like we did before producing our documentary we also researched listing pages, so that we could
identify codes and conventions used in this media product, to incorporate into our own work so
that it looked professional. Like professional listings page ours included a main anchor image and
a large main title called the masthead. The purpose of these is to attract the reader’s attention and
hopefully make them want to read the article. Another convention which we used that relates to

Posted by Group A Student at 19:51

Labels: Danny O'Nyons

WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2010

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

The combination of our documentary and our ancillary tasks (radio trailer & Listings page), was
very important, the three pieces of work collectively had to represent the same product although
they had been produced for different media audiences on different formats. We feel as if we
succeeded in our efforts to combine all three tasks to produce a successful media project.
The documentary was the most important part of our project as it is worth the most marks, and
involved the most amount of work. Our documentary was about how technology influences
teenagers, and questions the social consequences of this. We wanted it to appeal to teenagers of
both genders and this had to be considered when planning our ancillary tasks, and how they could
reach there audience.
So when combining our documentary with our radio trailer for example we had to think about what
station would be best to broadcast it on, a station which would attract our target audience in terms
of age but also gender. It would not have been suitable to chose a male dominated radio station
when we wanted to appeal to both genders, because the trailer would have unlikely reached that
segment of our target audience.

The listings page combined well with the radio trailer because effectively they have the same
purpose, to advertise the documentary to our target audience and encourage interest in the
programme. Another reason why they combined well was that they shared the same information,
both included important information such when the documentary would be aired, what channel it
would be on, and what it was about. Neither of them conflicted in terms of information which could
have confused the listener/reader.

One strength of our ancillary tasks was that they would have reached a large audience as the
radio trailer would have been heard potentially by millions of listeners. Also the listings page
subject to being placed in the right magazine would also reach a considerable audience. You

could argue tough that t he radio trailer would arguably be more successful
then the listings page because of the larger amount of teenagers likely to be listing to the radio
rather then reading the listings page. But because both advertisements have been made you
could perceive this as a strength as both are likely to reach a wider audience existing together,
than one would on its own.

Posted by Group A Student at 20:12

Labels: Danny O'Nyons

THURSDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2010

What Have you learned from audience feedback?

Our target audience for our documentary was British teenagers; we wanted to create a program

suitable for males and females. So when collecting audience

feedback we didn’t exclude either gender. We selected a mixture of males and females to watch
our documentary as part of our Audience feedback.The second part of the questionnaire was very
helpful when concluding how successful our documentary was as it is very informative, and
includes many information useful to determine what parts of the documentary was successful and
the others less successful.The problem with the latter questions on the questionnaire (questions 3
& 4) where that people responded to vaguely and some responses where to broad to make a firm
conclusion. Many people only bullet pointed parts of the documentary they most like for example,
and not particularly why they fought this. So this meant we don’t have a firm explanation for there
choices.
Generally overall our documentary was described as of a 'Very Good' overall sta

ndard. 91% in fact stated this; only 9% described it as anything lower

as only 'Good'. We are happy with this statistic as it goes to show that our documentary to some
degree has been successful. Had the majority of people expressed a strong dislike for our
documentary then we have known that in our attempts to make a successful documentary we had
failed.
Our audience feedback informed us that the strengths of our documentary included the music we
used and the use of interviews. 63% of our audience feedback said that the interviews where
there favorite part of our documentary. This is a particular high statistic and one that convinces us
our interviews where a success. Although one person in particular expressed a strong dislike for
the footage we used during our interviews, this doesn’t concern us to much as this is more of an
anomaly than general opinion, and we have to accept that our documentary wont appeal to
everyone’s tastes.

However, the feedback also brought to our attention areas that the audience where less than
happy about. 36% who responded said that they fought the voice over needed improving, and a
further 18% criticized the sound. This could help us when producing our next documentary, as we
would pay extra attention to detail when recording the sound so that it didn’t disappoint our
audience.

Another criticism someone highlighted was that in one scene a microphone was visible in a shot.
Knowing this information is useful, as when producing another documentary in the future extra
attention could be applied to this detail to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated. Overall,
the audience feedback is very positive and suggests that we were successful in our efforts to
produce a documentary. However, it is clear that parts of our documentary could have been
improved, and in hindsight we would have done some things differently. However, the positive
aspects of the documentary such as the very good response we received for our work and
encouraging comments outweigh the negative aspects, and as a result the final outcome of our

documentary should be considered a success.

| THURSDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2010

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

During the construction, research and planning, and evaluation of our media product we used and
developed our skills on many media technologies. These are the technologies we used in
chronological order. Research & Planning

One technology which was used prolifically throughout all stages of our work was the internet. The
internet is a great source of information and during the research part I used the internet to learn
about different styles of documentaries and there codes and conventions. It is important to know
that the statistics and facts stated in our documentary where always found by research produced
on the internet. The Internet also allowed me to go on websites such as www.blogspot.com to
publish blog entries for this project.

I have used this blog to publish my progress of my work and to express ideas for our
documentary, such as the storyboard for our opening sequence of our documentary.
The blog allows you to upload images and videos with your posts to make them more attractive.
Specific websites I used are Google, Wikipedia and YouTube I used Google as a search engine to
research certain topics and explore previous documentaries made.
I used Wikipedia to find our background information on stuff like radio stations and documentary
conventions for example, although it most be recognized that some information on this site might
be biased therefore it maybe unreliable.

On YouTube there are lots of amateur documentaries which I watched to get a feel of how a
documentary should be made and produced as well as giving me some ideas of my own to
include in my own work...During our planning stage we used digital cameras for stills which we
incorporated into our story board. This involved taking stills of images and then transferring them
onto our hard drive on the college computers.

Construction
In the construction stage, I also used a range of different technologies,
All of our footage we filmed for documentary was recorded using a Canon camera, this camera
helped us achieve a professional look to our documentary due to the sheer quality of the footage

this camera is capable of recording.

In setting up the camera we had to learn how to assemble the tripod and connect the microphone
etc in order to start recording, back in the class room we had to transfer AVCHD files onto the
Mac.
Final Cut Express was the software we used the most during the construction stage. Final cut
enables the user to edit there footage, by contstructing a timeline of events and adding special
effects and music etc. Final Cut Express allowed me to ‘log and transfer’ footage, add transitions
such as ‘dissolve’, and add voice over to our recorded footage a major role in the constructon
stage.

Garage Band was the software we used to create our radio trailer, it is also possible to add
sounds effects and different layers of sound to your trailer using this software. I hadn’t used
garage band before constructing this media project so I’d consider this has a skill developed.

In Design was used in order to construct the T.V listing page. The software is easy to use and
enabled us to create a double page spread. In Design is also well known for its text manipulation
as it gives a variety range of fonts and the rectangle box tool is very convenient.Photoshop was
also used in order to construct the T.V listing page. Photoshop enables the user to edit images. In
Photoshop there a features such as ‘crop’, ‘resize’ in order to edit your image.
Once our documentary was finished we had to burn our film onto a disc by using IDVD software.
The Evaluation

In the evaluation stage, I have used technologies such as the Blog to publish my entries of
completed work such as the documentary, radio trailer and T.V listing page.the last software I
used such was Microsoft Word. I used Microsoft Word to type up my evaluation.

Posted by Group A Student at 12:31 Labels: Danny O'Nyons