George Mobley

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Documentary
At the start of our A2 course we were given a brief to create the opening 5 minutes of a television documentary along with two ancillary texts; a radio trailer and a double page spread for a TV listings magazines. This left us looking at other documentaries to see what basic codes and conventions come with TV documentaries. Bill Nicholls Theory of Documentary Modes outlines the different types of documentaries that there are such as; Expositional, observational, reflexive, participatory and performative. Each of these documentary modes comes with different codes and conventions and from here we had to make a decision regarding which one of these documentary modes we wanted to use. We started by looking at what features we could include in our documentary in regards to narration, sound effects and interview styles deciding that the documentary mode we were going to use would be expositional as it uses an off screen narrator and it is factual, something we felt would be the best way to get any the message of 'Illegal downloading' across to the audience in the opening 5 minutes of the documentary. This documentary style is also rhetorical in the way it conveys the point to the viewer which works well with our documentary as we were trying to push the damage that is being done to the music industry by illegal downloading. Since starting the A2 course we have watched many documentaries to gain knowledge about what codes and conventions are typically used in making documentaries focussing mainly on 'Supersize Me'. Even though they all differ dramatically between documentary styles it is still clear that there are typical codes and conventions that are followed most of the time. Camera Throughout any documentary you will be able to notice a range of camera shots that have been used. Things such as long shots, close ups, establishing shots, medium shots and group shots. When creating our documentary this was something we needed to focus on as the camera work would be very similar to many documentaries aired on television and we needed to make sure we followed this convention correctly. Looking at 'Supersize Me we noticed that they made use of a handheld camera for parts of the filming which we believed worked very effectively and decided to use in our work. Also we decided that we liked to way in which they positioned the camera for any formal interview and followed this convention in our work as we felt it gave the documentary a professional feel.

For the majority of the time we used the camera with a tripod which is how the majority of documentary filming is done, this allows for a steady shot but still allowing pan and zoom to be incorporated into the work,

George Mobley another convention that we followed. The tripod allows for long establishing shots to look professional while also allowing the camera to sit in the right position for professional interviews. Sound Sound is a vital part of documentaries as it covers so many parts such as the background music, voiceover, diagetic and non diagetic sound and the presenter if the documentary has one. One of the main conventions we followed here was the voice over. We used a strong male voice which would stand out over any background music to keep the audiences attention. This feature can be seen in many documentaries including 'Supersize Me' as the voice over is such a vital role delivering so much information throughout the documentary. We also had to make a choice regarding background music a convention that can be seen in many documentaries but we had to use un copyrighted music which meant we couldnt use songs from many artists. Instead we used music through 'Garageband'.

We had to choose music that fitted with our documentary style and complimented and other sounds in the documentary. It couldnt be too overpowering so after deciding on the music we played with the sound levels until they were where we wanted them. Editing When it came to editing our documentary we followed many of the conventions that we had seen in other documentaries. Things like the 'cut' transition and zooming into shots. We didnt deviate from effects that we had seen used in other documentaries as to give our documentary a real feel to it. We also used editing to slow some of our shots down to allow use to lay text over the top and talk about it. This is a convention that isnt seen in all documentaries but still fits in with the general style.

As seen in the above picture we added text into our documentary to support what was being said on screen and give vital information to the viewer. This is a convention seen in most documentaries and one we felt it was very important to follow to allow the viewer to get as much factual information as possible from our documentary.

George Mobley

Radio Trailer
Before creating our radio trailer we started by listening to other trailers that we could find on local radio stations to get an idea of what we should include. This means our radio trailer also follows many of the codes and conventions that can be heard in a real radio trailer. Things such as the voiceover, the music and any sound effects that have been added. To link our radio trailer and our TV documentary we decided to use the same voice over which would stand out to the audience the same way it does in the documentary. We added this voice over into garageband where we were creating the trailer and adjusted the levels to make sure the voice over could be heard properly.

A section from our voice over on garageband

Again, like the documentary, we couldnt use copyrighted music so we used music from garageband. Me decided to use upbeat catchy music to draw the audiences attention but also music that complemented the voiceover. Because of the target audience of the documentary we also had to make sure it would be music that would appeal to them specifically and catch there attention, something I feel we did with the music choice. Our trailer used clips from our actual documentary, something that can be seen in many radio trailers as it gives the listener an idea of what to expect from the documentary. We also give the date, time and channel that the documentary is aired which is another convention we followed.