In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and

conventions of real media products

Thinspiration follows many different codes and convention of documentaries

in particular, the participatory style in the different areas such as Narration and
Background footage. We took influences from documentaries of similar styles such as
The Truth about Online Anorexia and Super Size Me because they are aimed at
younger target audiences and use codes and conventions that we were able to follow.
Like other documentaries, we decided to use on screen narrators. The reason
we used this was to increase our credibility and attract the correct audience to watch
the documentary. Our narrators; Beth and Emily are both teenage girls that can relate
to the target audience and also inspire them, a common factor in documentaries aimed
at younger audiences. An example of a documentary which features a teenage girl as
an onscreen narrator is Stacy Dooley in Kids With Machetes. When studying this
documentary I found the age of Dooley made it very easy to relate to her as I felt we
had common grounds, this effect would have been strengthened if we had also been
the same sex as Beth and Emily are to Thinspiration‟s female target audience.
After watching on screen narrating featured in several different documentaries,
we came to realise that the narrators have very strong characters and use their speech
style to reach the audience. Stacey Dooley uses a young and undeveloped language
and style of speech to attract the younger audiences. Where as Morgan Spurlock uses
a very certain, slightly sarcastic style of language and speech to attract a wider
audience including both sexes and different ages. In the same way, these
documentaries also use style of dress to attract the right audience. We decided to
follow the codes and conventions in using our on screen narrators to appeal to our
target audience through simple but definite language, to appeal to younger audiences
but sound creditable at the same time, and by the girls dressing fashionably and
looking attractive during the filming of the documentary. We also portrayed them as
experienced in the area of fashion and image.
We developed the codes and conventions of documentary narration through
employing two narrators rather than one. The topic of our documentary has a lot to do
with friendship, support and peer pressure. Using two narrators suggests that they are
others in similar situations and other people to support girls who are the victims of
body dis-morphia. Having two narrators also has other benefits including credibility
because it is not just one person‟s views but two. Plus, it can be beneficial to have two
personalities attracting a larger audience and keeping them interested through
different ways of leading the audience through the exploration of the effect of the
media on young females.
Background footage is a vital factor in this style of documentary. We took
influence from Morgan Spurlock‟s Super Size Me, a documentary which backs up
everything Spurlock says with background footage whether its cartoons and maps to
footage of people eating. The introduction to Thinspiration is a montage of footage of
shops, posters and internet sites that all affect our perception of attractive women with
a voice over the top. This is frequently used in documentaries to give it drive and
energy, but most of all to show the audience what is about to be discussed in the
documentary. We made sure we supported the voice over with visual representation
just as Spurlock did. For example, as Beth talks about the Apple Diet, visually, there
is imagery of disappearing food until there is just one apple left in sight.
Shock is another technique that is frequently used to attract the audience and
keep them interested. Spurlock uses many shocking facts to keep his audience

1
interested, just as we used images of underweight girls. It is a simple way to keep the
audience interested however I felt it was important to keep it light hearted and make
sure the images were not offensive when targeting a younger audience.
Thinspiration uses background footage not only for visual representation of
what is heard from the voice over but for fluidity in between sections of the
documentary. We developed the simple cut transition with cutting between a shot of
magazines falling on a surface. Another example of using background footage for
transitions is the montage of shots of women showing their clothing sizes on a piece
of paper. This appeals to the audience through assuring them that they have nothing to
be ashamed of, going against the typical media influence.
Documentaries such as Super Size me and Bowling For Columbine reel off
fact after fact, however, Thinspiration focuses more on opinions and statements. After
research we found that documentaries aimed at older ages and either both sexes or just
males include many facts and figures, whereas documentaries aimed at younger
female audiences prefer to use more opinionated statements. In our documentary we
use quotes from the Pro-ana and Pro – mia websites and used the images also from
these websites in the way facts would be used. Another documentary that has also
developed background footage in this way is The Truth about Online Anorexia.
In our documentary, we shot and used two formal interviews. One with a
media expert and one with a health expert. Interviews with experts is common in
interviews as it is very informal and also gives the documentary viability. It means the
documentary is not just the narrators opinions, but also the experts who have studied
both sides of the argument. We used the two interviews with experts in the different
areas to cover all aspects of Body Dis-morphia. If we were to produce a full
documentary, we would film interviews to argue the other side to what our
interviewees argued however, using the typical codes and conventions of
documentaries, this generally comes later than the first five minutes.
After studying the camera angles of interviews in other documentaries, we
decided to follow the codes and conventions of this subject. We felt it was important
to focus on the face and the mind of the interviewees and a medium shot would
capture the interviewees face but also some body language too, plus, using medium
shots helped to capture the mise-en-scene of the shot.
The interviewee‟s professions were made obvious for the audience to see with
the aid of the mise-en-scene in the footage. The interview featuring the
presenter/director was set in a media suite at the Millennium Point in the heart of
Birmingham. In the background were media Mac computers and artistic décor, we felt
this immediately created a realistic environment for this interview. The interview with
the hospital psychologist was set in an office, we found that there was not much
choice of scenery or objects that would set the scene for a psychologist and therefore
filmed in a professional office environment instead.
We developed the codes and conventions of formal interviews through using
background footage to support statements that the interviewee made. Hannah
Yellowitz tells the audience about the media calling people „Fat‟ and criticising them
with words such as „cellulite‟, as Yellowitz says this, images appear to support her
statement. This is a technique generally used to back up the narrator, not the
interviewee. However, the group and I felt that giving evidence of the interviewee‟s
accusations made her words even more viable and kept the pace of the documentary
up.
We aimed to capture vox pops of mainly our target audience, or the opinions
that generally matter to our target audience i.e. young males. We also captured males

2
to broaden the target audience and present anorexia and bulimia as not only problem
for teenage girls, but also for teenage boys too. Older women were captured because
we felt it was important to open the documentary to parents who should be aware of
the problems their children may face.
Vox pops are designed to capture what the public is actually thinking and
therefore are generally short, on the spot interviews with down-tp-earth members of
the public speaking off the top of their heads. We aimed to follow the codes and
conventions of vox pops entirely as it is the main aspect of a documentary that keeps
the programme in reality. The vox pops in Thinspiration are short, easy to listen to,
and immediately give the views of the public, and are also truthful.
Vox pops are a good way to explore people opinions and create a sense of
community within the documentary. For example in Thinspiration, several members
of the public had the same views when answering the question „who do you think in
the media influences young girls the most to become skinny?‟. Many of the
interviewees answered Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole, this could inform the
audience that many people feel the same way as they do, and make them feel a sense
of belonging. Plus the fact that many answered the same thing shows the audience
how prominent this issue is becoming. I feel this challenged the way that vox pops
were produced in Super Size ME, where the interviewees frequently had different
opinions to one another.
As the vox pops were featured in the introduction, we thought it was
appropriate to keep the theme superficial as we wanted to go into depth later in the
documentary. We chose to make the vox pops slightly humorous with some
interviewees laughing slightly.
In most documentaries such as Super Size Me, the vox pops are shot as a
medium close-up frame with hand held cameras. We chose to capture some members
of the public using medium shots because our documentary topic focuses on image
and fashion and this way the audience could see the diverse range of fashion styles
and opinions simultaneously.
Originally, the document featured Sugar Babes – Girls as its main backing
track, the song was up tempo, appealed to the female audience and gave a sense of
„girls together‟ community. However, after we discovered the copyright limitations
we decided to use this song as inspiration for our new backing track. Thinspiration
features an up tempo, rhythmic and catchy theme tune which is used in the
documentary introduction and in the radio trailer. The backing track features no lyrics
or singing and therefore follows the codes and conventions of backing tracks, it
doesn‟t interrupt any important diegetic and non-diegitic speech and sound. We used
appropriate background music for the developing atmosphere. For example as the
documentary gets increasingly serious, so does the music.
Clear high quality speech is very important in this style of documentary, for
the recording of the voice over I recorded Beth in a recording studio to make sure it
was as high quality as possible. For the diegetic speech we used a boom microphone
to capture sound. In the formal interviews we made sure all sound quality was
excellent and edited moments with sound problems out of the final production
however, we challenged the codes and conventions of vox pops. Our sound quality
was lowered due to wind issues, on the other hand, this could improve the realistic
element to the documentary.
Thinspiration challenges the codes and conventions of documentaries because
we used tripods for almost the entire project. We found the cameras did not have as

3
good anit-shock functions as professional cameras do and therefore we used tripods
during all interviews.
Although we aimed to follow the codes and conventions originally, we found
that developing and challenging the ways of other documentaries made Thinspiration
more professional in visual quality and more unique.

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

Many Documentaries use ancillary texts such as magazines, television

advertising and radio trailers to promote the program. Although these ancillary texts
are not the main product, they can however be the most important when it comes to
target audience and the number of views the documentary achieves. For our
documentary, Thinspiration, we used a Radio trailer, and a magazine article to
advertise.
We thought brand identity was very important when producing both the radio
trailer and the magazine article. The radio trailer features the same recognisable, up
tempo, rhythmic backing track as the actual documentary. We knew that if the
backing track was appropriate as the main music theme in the documentary then it
would be suitable for the radio trailer, again, creating an up tempo, light hearted and
young feel to the documentary.
A similar voice over was used in the radio trailer also. We originally wanted to
use the original, however we felt that the timing needed to be tweaked authentically
and the quality could be even better with the use of some newer recording hardware in
the studio. Using the narrator‟s voices in the voice over was a way of reinforcing the
brand identity, plus, if Beth and Emily were famous just as other narrators are, their
voice would be recognisable to the target audience and therefore attract them further
towards watching the documentary.
Using a male voice proved to be very effective in separating the radio trailer to
make it clearer. Without the male voice, I feel the trailer could have been slightly too
complicated, but the contrast in the voices was designed to keep the attention of the
listeners right up to the most important point „Catch it Friday at nine, on BBC3‟.
There were some difficulties when creating the radio trailer. To target the right
age and sex of audience we originally wanted to record many young females, and
some males and older people to target our audience and also broaden it, however, time
was limited and we were unable to record as many people as we wanted and therefore
left the idea with just Beth speaking instead with an effect over her voice.
The magazine is written in a very professional way which appeals to young
females and focuses on the two presenters giving the readers a chance to warm to
them and get to know them before they watch the documentary. The text is very
affective at creating attachments between the audience and the narrators because it
gives them an insight into their personalities „she is back in perky, peppy mode‟ and
„“We were really nervous about fully exploring this issue,” Emily admitted meekly,
with and embarrassed smile”
The layout achieves a scrapbook effect which appeals to younger audiences,
the text and the images are slanted creating a messy and modern feel. The images use
a theme from the documentary to create brand identity again. The Images of the
narrators holding up their sizes on pieces of paper while posing with confidence. The
sizes let the audience know what the documentary and the article is about within a
quick glance

4
 The article uses contrasting colours including black and bright pink; these
colours give the article an edgy personality which again attracts a younger audience.
I think overall, the radio trailer was the more successful ancillary text because
it seemed more professional and used the features of the documentary well to create a
brand identity.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

It is only after we had received audience feedback, and watched the
documentary amongst others that we realised the true strengths and weaknesses of our
documentary and that we had been focussing our attention to other things that were
actually fine. The main improvement for our documentary was the pace, and the speed
on the narration, and after watching the documentary on a large screen we also
realised how unnecessarily fast the narration was.

12-16 17-21

2.5 8
7
2 6
1.5 5
4
1 3
0.5 2
1
0 0
Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No

Males Females Males Females

22-30 31-40

3.5 4.5
3 4
3.5
2.5
3
2 2.5
1.5 2
1.5
1
1
0.5 0.5
0 0
Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No

Males Females Males Females

41+

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
The audience Yes No Yes No feedback that
we received Males Females from women
aged 12 to 53 answering

5
the question „does Thinspiration appeal to you‟ proved that our focus on the female
target audience was successful. As the ages increase, the appeal seems to decrease,
however the appeal to older women was successful.
One of our focuses regarding target audience was the broaden the ages and
increase the appeal to men. However, after receiving the audience feedback of males,
it is obvious that this may have not been as successful as we had originally hoped.
Only two out of seventeen males felt that the documentary appealed to them. In this
case we could have used properties that typically appeal to males such as a more
serious approach, with more focus on facts and figures rather than opinions.
These previous results were reinforced by the answers to the question „Who do
you think the target audience is for Thinspiration? Select as many as appropriate‟.

Target Audience

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
s
es

rly
ts
ts
es

er
en

ul

ul

de
al
al

ag

Ad
Ad
te
m
M

El
en
Fe

g
Pr

Te

un
Yo

Clearly, according to the respondents, the target audience appears to be

teenage females, which is the age and gender that we aimed for. Another success in
terms of targeting audience groups is that some respondents thought that Thinspiration
could appeal to preteen, young adult and adult audiences, this does however,
contradict the other results where towards the higher ages, more viewers felt that the
documentary did not appeal to them compared to those who did Perhaps this could
mean that Thinspiration does aim at adult audiences but we did not ask adults who felt
it targeted them, or simply that the viewers have different opinions to classifications
of age groups and that we should have asked the two questions with the same age
classifications i.e. 31-40.
Although documentaries main objectives are to explore and inform issues
there are also elements of entertainment and argument especially in similar
documentaries to our own such as The Truth about Online Anorexia and Super Size
Me, when the audience can predict what the conclusion will be to the documentary.
We chose to include these other objectives because it aims at younger audiences, and
we felt they would not be as interested in the information alone, so we aimed coated it
in a blend of argument and entertainment. When the viewers were asked „What do
you think the purpose of Thinspiration is?‟ we received the following figures:

6
 Purpose of Thinspiration

25

20

15

10

0
To Entertain To Inform To argue A Mixture

These figures show that we achieved our purpose of Thinspiration goal.

However, the feedback from the question „How well did Thinspiration explore the
issue‟ gives us more of an insight into whether the „mixture‟ contains the appropriate
amount of information.

How well did thinspiration explore the issue?

30

25

20

15

10

0
Very Well Well Not Very Well Poorly

Although the majority of the answers were „Well‟, the results from this section
of the questionnaire are the most disappointing, this could suggest that the audience
would be prefer the mixture of objectives to contain more information such as facts
and figures.

Interviews

25

20

15

10

0
Very good Good Okay Poor

The answers to „What did you think of the interviews?‟ told us that our interviews
were a success, however, if we had asked for more detail such as sound, camera angle
etc, we could have improved even further.

7
 Background music

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Too noticable Suitable Did not notice it

This feedback shows that the background music and the levelling was a
success, although this was an aspect of the documentary I criticised.

Overall the audience feedback showed that our documentary was a success in
terms of targeting specific audience groups and exploring and informing. However,
had we produced some more in-depth questions for example focussing on camera
angles, and the quality of the voice over we could have gained extra information on
improvements that could have been made.

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

Throughout the production of the Thinspiration documentary and the ancillary

texts, I have used an extensive amount of technologies including both software and
hardware. Although I take interest in media technologies already, I found the different
software programs and types of formats challenging, and I took on the more technical
role within the group.
Within the research process, we found the internet came in use frequently
searching for sites with content that was informative such as
http://www.prettythin.com/ and sites that helped us create the documentary in a
professional way such as http://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-
documentory Watching other documentaries such as The Truth about Online Anorexia
gave us both content and advice, we watched many documentaries using Youtube, a
site where users can stream, comment on and upload videos. We also used the internet
to listen to radio trailers on sites such as http://listen.galaxybirmingham.co.uk/.
Google was used to find images of double page magazine articles to inspire us in
making our own magazine article, plus sites such as http://www.ok.co.uk/home/ gave
us an opportunity to look into other articles in similar magazines to the one we wished
to feature our article in.
Another method of watching other documentaries for research was using DVD
players, I used several DVD players including a computer‟s internal DVD drive to
analyse Super Size Me. I found watching the documentaries on my computer screen
was useful because I was able to type notes in the Microsoft Notepad program whilst
being able to see and hear the documentary in the background.
Whilst researching radio trailers I chose to listen to BBC Radio 1, this is
because the group and I knew that this would be the most appropriate channel for our
radio trailer to feature upon and therefore it informed me of the codes and conventions
of radio trailers and what was required to make a successful radio trailer.

8
 I also listened to Spotify advertisements. Spotify is a program that enables
users to stream music legally for free providing that the listeners hear the occasional
advertisement. These advertisements are chosen to suit the listeners music taste, I
found I had an insight into advertising aimed at younger audiences because I listen to
music which is listened to by teenagers. However, I rarely heard any trailers that
advertised television programs other than a dating program advertisment, however
this was clearly aimed at females and helped slightly.
For most of the research, we used Windows XP computers because we are
more familiar with the system and because we felt that the Apple Macintosh
computers weren‟t as easy to use when surfing the internet and using the copy and
paste functions.
For the construction of our documentary, the group and I used a variety of
hardware and software technologies that developed our skills. For the capturing of
moving image we used a Sony hard drive video camera upon a tripod. Although the
camera is meant for home use, I found operating functions such as manual focus and
optical zoom difficult in situations where we had to work quickly and under pressure
for example when shooting vox pops. This was due to very small dials, triggers and
buttons. Another difficulty we had when using this hardware was the format of the
videos it made upon its hard drive, converting these AVCHD files for use in Final Cut
Express, video editing software, proved to be a slightly complex task.
For sound capture, we used a mono directional microphone designed to be
used on a boom stick. I would have preferred to use a powered microphone as they
offer higher sound quality in terms of sound-to-noise ratio however we found the
microphone easy to connect to the video camera‟s audio input through an unbalanced
mono XLR to 3.5mm Jack lead. Unfortunately, we made the fatal error of capturing
the microphone in some shots, a problem a boom stick may have helped with.
To edit all our video and sound we used an iMac computer, these systems are
commonly used in professional editing suites. The high processing speed and large
hard drive enabled us to work on high quality video and audio without fear of
processing problems, or any long latency delays.
We used Final Cut Express to edit our documentary; we used the „log and
transfer‟ tool to import the videos and audio into the project. We had problems with
the version of the program initially; however, after it was upgraded to the latest
version we found the program was reliable and simple. I have used other video editing
software such as Ulead 8.0 however; Final Cut Express is definitely a much more
capable program.
As I have a background in sound engineering I produced the majority of the
backing tracks and voice overs in a recording studio. For this we used Cubase, a
professional recording program. There was a lot of hardware involved in the recording
of the voice over but the main aspect was the Behringer B1 condenser microphone
that I chose to use for its excellent balance between tones. There were some problems
with transferring these files onto different Apple Macs but it was fine in the end.
I used Garage Band, an Apple program to arrange loops, samples and
recording to arrange our radio trailor. It is a simple and easy to use program and the
exported mixdown was successful once we converted the file to a .WAV format.
We also used Photoshop and Indesign for the magazine article, making use of
contrast, magic wand, lighting and hues, saturation and colour balances when editing
the photo of Beth and Emily.

9
 For the evaluation, we used PCs for ease of use with printing and typing. The
programs Word and Excel were used to tally the feedback and put into graphs and
charts.
Overall, I feel we used media technologies to our best advantage and I enjoyed
taking the technologists role in the group.

10