In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

In this section of the evaluation I will be comparing our documentary with real media
products (namely ‘Hillsborough, the Documentary’, ‘Panorama: Are The Net Police
Coming For You?’ and ‘9/11: The Falling Man’) thereby explaining the ways in which we
have followed or challenged their codes and conventions, why we chose to do this and
if I am pleased with the resultant effects.

During the research and planning stage of our project we each analyzed one
documentary. I personally chose to research ‘Panorama: Are The Net Police Coming
For You?’ because I thought we could potentially be investigating the issues regarding
copyright infringement and illegal downloading, of music in particular, on YouTube in
our documentary. So deconstructing this product would give us more insight into the
codes and conventions of this particular genre as well as how to apply them to our
product. Furthermore, after conducting some target audience research it would seem
that our documentary has a very similar audience to that of this product, as opposed to
‘Hillsborough, the Documentary’ and ‘9/11: The Falling Man’ which have fairly different
audience’s (not to mention tones as they both deal with rather tragic events) compared
to that of our product. Taking this into account, if we were to appeal effectively to our
target audience we should have followed this documentary’s codes and conventions
very closely, or at least more so than those of the other two documentaries. This is why
I will mainly compare our documentary with the forms and conventions of Panorama
and occasionally refer to those of 9/11 and Hillsborough.

The introduction to Panorama contains various clips from the entire documentary,
mostly from the interviews with professionals within the music industry (i.e. people
relevant to the subject of the documentary), as well as background footage of people
using computers and even accessing YouTube while information regarding the Digital
Economy is narrated to the audience by Jeremy Vine (BBC Radio2 show host) via the
voice-over. In my opinion this created a sense of professionalism and suggested that
the documentary will be informative and educational. Additionally, from the analysis of
our target audience research we discovered that 65% prefer the documentaries they
view to be balanced, exploratory pieces. Therefore, we wished to replicate this opening
sequence in our documentary so to create a similar feel suggesting our product will be
unbiased and investigative. I think we have achieved this fairly successfully and I was
pleased with the result overall, however there are ways in which we have and have not
followed the forms and conventions suggested by this particular opening sequence.
For example, Panorama begins by introducing the show’s narrator, Jeremy Vine,
whereas we have launched straight into clips from the rest of the documentary.
 We chose to do this quite simply because we didn’t have the option to introduce our
narrator, as we decided not to present our documentary in this way. This could be
considered to be challenging a form of documentaries in comparison with Panorama in
particular. However, according to Tom and Brad’s research, the Hillsborough and 9/11
documentaries both do not have an on-screen narrator and begin with a fade-in to
interviews or background footage accompanied by a voice over, respectively.

The slow pace of the fade-in is most likely used to suggest the sombre subject of these
documentaries. This is why we chose not to use a fade-in at all and instead straight cut
right to the interview clips, so that it is cohesive with the fast-pace of the remainder of
our documentary’s opening sequence, thereby adhering to the forms of all three
documentaries simultaneously i.e. the editing of Panorama and the content of 9/11
and Hillsborough.

Alternatively, we have obeyed a form suggested in Panorama by then utilizing a

combination of background footage accompanied by a voice over and clips from
interviews (shown above) in our introduction (shown below).

However, we have also challenged this form in a way because the combinations are
rather different. While Panorama uses background footage accompanied by a voice
over followed by interview clips that are relevant to what has just been said (in a
repeating fashion), we have simply grouped the interview clips at the very beginning
and followed them up with background footage accompanied by a voice over, so the
orders are almost opposing. We chose to do this because, while Panorama makes the
subject of the documentary clear from the offset, we wanted to have some ambiguity
 in the opening with regard to our documentary’s subject so as to make the viewer
curious, grabbing their attention and thereby drawing the audience in. The interview
clips we chose were more ambiguous than the background footage that accompanied
the voice over so it made sense to us to use the clips first, followed by the voice over
and background footage (as they are slightly more suggestive of the subject) that
would then culminate in the ‘reveal’ of the title sequence animation, in which the
subject becomes apparent. Thereby creating a kind of crescendo of information
leading up to the title of the documentary, which I think worked quite well. Perhaps we
could have made the voice over slightly less vague about the subject so that the lead-
up to the title was more gradual. Though this may have ruined our intentions for the
introduction to be almost suspenseful, so overall I am very pleased with the result.
The other forms suggested by Panorama that we have used in our introduction are:

• Fast-paced editing utilizing mostly straight cuts between interview clips and
background footage of very short shot duration. This code is not reinforced by 9/11 or
Hillsborough as they both use fade in/out transitions between shots of fairly long
duration. However, this is most likely used to connote the tone of the documentaries as
they both deal with tragic events. This is why we have applied a faster, more up-beat
tempo to our documentary’s editing because it has a much more light-hearted tone,
like Panorama, which works well in my opinion. In this case, I would say that there is a
common form amongst all three documentaries that we followed, in that we have
utilized a style of editing that is relevant to the tone of the documentary’s subject.

• Low volume, non-diegetic soundtrack throughout, including the title sequence. This
particular form is supported by 9/11 and Hillsborough, which we have followed
completely. Our backing track display on Final Cut Express is shown below.

• A title not accompanying clips from professional interviews as this is not their
formal interview section and if anything the clips we used weren’t long enough.
 The short title sequence animation I created seems to challenge conventions of TV
documentaries as all three documentaries we researched have either no title included
in the show or just a simple label rather than an animation. But we decided to include
one in our documentary because it seemed appropriate considering the technological
nature and theme of the product, which is also why I positioned the text in a way that
looks as though it is appearing on the screen of the Apple Mac desktop computer. I
think it was definitely suitable for the documentary and worked very successfully.
However, having said that, Panorama does utilize animations as well as other
computerised/digital-style effects in the rest of the documentary (shown below) to
depict information regarding digital fraud, thus making them relevant to the
information they are portraying and indeed the entire documentary.

This is ironic considering we have not used any other animations in our documentary
but this is mainly because they would have taken too long to produce. However, we
have followed this code of using animations that are appropriate to the subject of our
product (as mentioned above).

Moving on from the introduction, the main convention of documentaries used in

Panorama is interviews with specialists in the music industry, such as Feargal Sharkey
(Chief Executive of UK Music) and Louis Walsh, as well as artists like Roy Stride
(Scouting For Girls) and Sway (shown above), regarding the impact of illegal
downloading on the music industry. We have utilized this convention in our
documentary by interviewing professionals that are relevant to its topic (the pros and
cons of YouTube) such as Apple Mac Technician, Richard Jones and Computer
Engineer, Alex Webb. We have not challenged this convention because, according to
our research, ‘interviews’ are our target audience’s third favourite feature of
documentaries, and frankly specialist perspectives are necessary in an investigative
and educational documentary.
 However, from our documentary research I have discovered that there are several
codes in relation to the convention of using professional interviews. Some of which we
have adhered to and others we have not. For instance, in Panorama the specialists like
Feargal Sharkey are interviewed in a setting with a very professional misc-en-scene
while dressed in formal attire. Whereas the artists like Roy Stride, while also
interviewed in a professional setting such as their place of work (the interview with
Sway is conducted in a music studio for example), are dressed in their casual, everyday
clothing (shown above). During my research I suggested that this could imply a
difference in status between the specialists and artists. We have also, quite
incidentally, followed this form in our documentary because while Nick Waring is
dressed in a formal suit and shirt, Elliot Ford is dressed in his casual everyday attire. As
Nick is a teacher and Elliot is a student I think this is quite suitable for representing the
difference in status.

The other codes within the use of professional interviews are:

• The setting is always relevant to the interviewee’s profession and therefore the
theme of the documentary as well (because the interviewee’s capacity is relevant to
the theme, as aforementioned). Hillsborough supports this code of misc-en-scene as
the historian is interviewed in front of a bookcase and computer. Our documentary
adheres to this because Nick Waring (Media Studies Teacher) is interviewed in a media
room at our college, the interview with Richard Jones (Apple Mac Technician) takes
place in the ‘Mac Suite’ of our college’s Art & Design department, Alex Webb
(Computer Engineer) is surrounded by computers and laptops during his interview and
Elliot Ford (‘YouTube Fanatic’) is interviewed with this YouTube channel displayed on
the TV behind him. Not only that, but in every interview there is a screen on which a
YouTube page is displayed. We chose to do this because it creates a visual association
with the documentary’s theme regardless of what particular issue is being discussed.
This is evident in the still images taken from our documentary that are shown on the
next page as well as above.
• All interviews are accompanied by a title that is usually displayed in the bottom left-
hand corner, stating their name and profession. However, 9/11 displays titles in the
bottom right-hand corner and Hillsborough even includes framing squares and small
animations with their titles (shown below).

So I would say that we have developed this form in our documentary because we have
utilized titles to introduce all of our specialists by stating their name and profession,
but we have not always placed them in the bottom left-hand corner. For example,
Richard Jones’ interview is accompanied by a title in the bottom right-hand corner,
which we chose to do because if we had placed the title in the bottom left-hand corner
it would not have been visible against the largely light-coloured background. But, if
anything, we have adhered to the codes suggested by Panorama and 9/11 by using
simple text and not including any animations or framing squares, as it wasn’t
necessary to ‘lift’ them off the background. Furthermore, we have used a fade in/out
transition on our titles as Panorama and 9/11 have (shown below).

• Interviewees never look directly into the camera while talking. This form is
reinforced by 9/11 and Hillsborough. Therefore, I would say that we have challenged
this particular code because most of our specialists actually look into the camera more
often than not (examples shown at the top of the page). This was not intentional on our
part, in fact while interviewing them we stood away from the camera so as to try and
make them look at us while talking, but they couldn’t seem to resist looking at the
camera. So while it was not our intention to challenge this form, it is the end result,
though I don’t think it is detrimental because it engages the viewer.
• Medium Shot/Medium Close-up Shot on interviewee. This code is also supported by
9/11 and Hillsborough and we have followed this form almost to the letter, the only
exception being the interview with Alex Webb (shown above). Which I don’t think works
well because it makes Alex appear as though he is hunched over and there is even a
corner of his bed sheet in frame, which is perhaps not appropriate. This is something
we admittedly overlooked and in hindsight we should have enlarged the frame while
editing so as to exclude the sheets and Alex’s legs. However, if we had done this, most
of his hand gestures would also not be visible and therefore his body language would
have been rather stunted and not very expressive at all.

Vox Pops are also included in Panorama, in an unconventional form though, as there
are no random interviews conducted in public areas. Instead, a normal everyday
family, as well as a group of students that live together, are filmed and informally
interviewed about their views on illegal downloading. They are conducted in an
intimate setting, like the family’s home, so as to make the vox pops more relatable.
This is rather unconventional as well though these segments still express normal,
everyday people’s opinions so they are technically vox pops. Another unconventional
feature of these vox pops is the inclusion of titles with the interviews.

Vox pops are conducted rather unconventionally in 9/11 and Hillsborough as well
because the interviews are also pre-organised and include titles. However, this could be
considered necessary in the context of these documentaries because the people being
interviewed must be connected to the respective events and the titles convey this.
 Regardless, we have not followed this form, but we have adhered to the traditional
convention by interviewing randomly chosen people around our college, rather than
conducting pre-orchestrated vox pops, thereby truly representing the ‘voice of the
people’. We have also not included titles with our vox pops. I think this worked very
well because it honestly expresses normal, everyday people’s opinions as we intended,
which is the whole point of vox pops. We could have conducted our vox pops in a more
widely recognisable/familiar public area, like Solihull Town Centre, in order to make
the views of the people we interviewed relatable to a wider range of people, but I think
the setting of our college works well in making their views relatable to our target
audience of 16-25 year olds.

Finally, other forms and conventions of TV documentaries suggested by Tom and

Brad’s analysis of 9/11 and Hillsborough are:
• ‘No interviewee speaks for longer than 7 seconds while still being shown on camera
(background footage is overlaid) and ‘lots of backup clips and still images’ (9/11), as
well as ‘cuts to and from images’ (Hillsborough). This form is supported by Panorama
and we have absolutely followed this convention by overlaying our interviews with cut-
aways to/accompanying the voice over with relevant background footage (examples
shown above). We chose to do this because it seemed prudent to reinforce what is
being said with visual evidence.

• ‘Fades are used in appropriate places’ (9/11) and ‘Fade out from each interviewee’
(Hillsborough). This is not supported by Panorama as fades are not used at all but it
does utilize various styles of transition editing as well as straight cuts. So we have
developed this particular code by making use of straight cuts between interviews, so as
to maintain the fast-pace style of continuity editing, as well as utilizing fades in
appropriate places. For example, in places where we removed a portion of footage that
we did not wish to use and a ‘glitch’ between the remaining pieces of footage was
visible, we had to overlay background footage or place a very short fade transition at
this point so as to retain the continuity of the editing, which I think has worked very
effectively and the feedback we have received shows that our audience concurs.

Background footage overlaying several edited pieces of footage (above)

Very short fade transition between edited pieces of footage (above)

 What have you learned from your audience feedback?
In this section of my evaluation I will summarise my findings from the detailed
audience feedback we carried out and comment on my response to this feedback in
terms of it did it surprise me or was it what I expected, and why? The feedback
questionnaire was answered almost entirely by media studies students, during a focus
group at our college, so there should be no misinterpretation of any of the questions
leading to misleading feedback. This also means that we will have obtained the most
informed feedback possible regarding questions of a technical nature.

The pie chart (above) illustrates that 100% of the feedback I have obtained from the
feedback questionnaire will represent the views of people aged 16-25. As this is the
age bracket of our documentary’s target audience the feedback received will prove
useful when determining how successful our media products are.

The above pie chart shows that I obtained the following feedback from an exactly
equal number of males and females. As our target audience research showed that our
documentary should appeal equally to both genders this makes the results obtained
from this questionnaire extremely prudent when evaluating our media products.
This pie chart illustrates that the results obtained from the feedback questionnaire will
mostly represent the views of people of White British ethnicity, 50% in fact. As they are
the target audience of our media products, and mostly white people are portrayed in
our documentary, their views are invaluable in evaluating the product’s effectiveness.

The pie chart (above) shows that 90% of the results obtained from this questionnaire
will illustrate the views of people of social class B-C2. Consequently, as this social class
bracket is our documentary’s main target audience, the following findings will prove
very useful when determining how successful our media products are.

The purpose of the last four questions was specifically to identify the demographic
profile of whose views are reflected by the feedback received via this questionnaire. So
to summarise the conclusions I have made from the results for each of the previous
questions, the demographic profile of those who answered the questionnaire are:
White British males and/or females, 16-25 years old, of B-C2 social class.

Therefore, as the demographic profile of those who answered the questionnaire is

exactly the same as our documentary’s target audience, the feedback received will be
as pertinent and relevant as we could have possibly obtained.
The purpose of the following three-part question was to ascertain whether the intended
target audience of our documentary could be easily identified or not. If so, this would
show that we have pitched our documentary successfully.

The pie chart (above) illustrates that 85% of people think that the age of our
documentary’s target audience is 16-18 year olds, while 70% believe our target
audience to be people of 19-25 years of age and only 20% think our documentary is
aimed at 12-15 year olds, and no one believes our documentary is aimed at anyone
older than 25. So, as the age of our target audience is 16-25 year olds particularly (or
younger people in more generalised terms), we have definitely pitched our
documentary successfully in terms of age.

The above pie chart shows that 100% of people think that the gender of our target
audience is males, as opposed to 80% believing our documentary is aimed at females.
While not everyone thinks our documentary is aimed at females as well as males, this
does show that 80% think it is aimed at both. So considering that there may be some
gender bias regarding males being more interested in a technologically themed
documentary, we have also pitched our media product effectively in terms of gender.
 This pie chart illustrates that up to 90% of people think that the social class of our
documentary’s target audience is C1, while 70% believe our target audience to be
people of C2 social class and 60% think they are of B social class. So 60-90% of
people believe our target audience’s social class matches that of our documentary’s
intended target audience (B-C2). Whereas only 20-25% of people think that our target
audience’s social class is also/or A or D. Therefore, we have pitched our documentary
successfully in terms of social class as well.

Overall, the feedback received from these three questions did not surprise me because
I believed we had pitched the documentary effectively and the questionnaire was
answered almost entirely by media studies students, so if anyone would be able to
easily identify our intended target audience it would be them. Also, because of this, if
we had pitched the documentary unsuccessfully this would have been reflected in
these results. So I think they are very reliable in showing that our intended target
audience is easily indentified, hence the documentary was pitched very effectively.

The pie chart (above) shows that most people (60%) thought that the quality of our
documentary’s sound levels are ‘good’, while 30% believe they’re of ‘professional’
quality and the remaining 10% thought that the quality was ‘average’.
 However no one believed that they’re of ‘poor’ or ‘amateur’ quality. So this would
suggest that we have mixed the sound levels of our documentary fairly effectively,
though perhaps not as well as we could have. This was not unexpected either as
several pieces of footage that we used in our documentary had fairly constant, loud
background noise that partially drowned out the useful audio so we had to compensate
for this by elevating the sound levels so that the useful audio could still be heard
regardless of the background noise. We could have used other footage instead but we
believed what was being said in these pieces was essential to our documentary. So
taking that into consideration, a general rating of ‘good/professional’ for the quality of
our sound levels is very satisfactory.

Displaying the results for question 7 (Do you believe interviewees were relevant to the
documentary’s subject?) in the form of a pie chart would be redundant because
everyone, 100% of people, answered ‘Yes’. This is exactly the response I expected,
because the professionals we interviewed were unquestionably relevant to the
documentary’s subject, but it is still a pleasing response.

The above pie chart illustrates that 75% of people would rate the quality of our
documentary’s editing as ‘professional’, while the other 25% believe the editing is of
‘good’ quality, and no one rated it as ‘average’, ‘poor’ or ‘amateur’. Such positive
feedback did surprise me because we generally only used fade in/out transitions.

The purpose of the following two questions was to determine whether or not our
documentary’s intended style and purpose is apparent to our target audience.
However, question 10 was a trick question of sorts because we actually intended our
documentary to be all four of the options offered; or rather we intended it to be
informative and educational while hoping that it would also be entertaining and
thought-provoking (as explained in our TV listings magazine article). Although, if our
target audience believes our documentary possesses all of the aforementioned
qualities to some degree we will have successfully achieved all of our aims in the
making of our media product. I wouldn’t necessarily expect this response but I would
be surprised if most people didn’t think the documentary had at least two of the four
qualities given as options.
 This pie chart shows that almost everyone, 90% of people, think that the genre of our
documentary is ‘Informative’, while the other 10% of people believe that it is either a
‘Docu-soap’ or ‘Direct Cinema’ genre documentary. Based on this feedback, the
intended style of our media product is definitely apparent to an audience. I was very
surprised that even one person thought our documentary was of the ‘Docu-soap’ genre,
but at least no one believed it was a ‘Drama’ documentary. Whereas thinking our
documentary is of the ‘Direct Cinema’ genre is more understandable. However, I did
expect most, if not all, people to identify it as ‘informative’, and I am pleased that they
have because it suggests that we have effectively stylised our documentary.

The pie chart (above) illustrates that absolutely everyone believes the purpose of our
documentary is to inform, while 55% think its purpose is also to be entertaining and
35% believe the documentary is educational as well. Whereas only 20% think that our
documentary is also intended to be thought-provoking. So, as with question 9, I am
very pleased with the feedback we received from this question because it shows that
we have succeeded in achieving our primary aim of creating an informative and
educational documentary as well as fulfilling our hopes that it would also be
entertaining and thought-provoking!
 Portraying the results in a pie chart would be completely unnecessary for question 11
(In you opinion, was YouTube a good subject to create a documentary about?) because,
once again, everyone answered ‘Yes’. However, for this question we gave our target
audience the opportunity to respond freely by asking them why they thought this. We
received the following responses: ‘Original’, ‘because it was thought-provoking’,
‘everyone uses it’, ‘interesting and entertaining’, ‘not done very often’, ‘its relevant and
a lot of people use it’, ‘modern’, ‘relates to the target audience’ and ‘appeals to a broad
audience, contemporary topic, very 21st century’. So judging by this very positive
feedback it would seem that we chose our documentary’s subject matter well.

The above pie chart shows that the majority, 65% of people, thought we had used all
four of these conventional components effectively in our documentary. In fact,
according to the feedback received from this question, the order of feature most
effectively to least effectively applied in our documentary is as follows:

1) Editing i.e. transitions (80%)

2) Camera i.e. shots, angles and movement (70%)
3) Misc-en-scene i.e. props and framing and Sound i.e. (non/diegetic) (65%)

This response surprised me in a similar way to the feedback received from question 8,
because we only utilized straight cuts and fade in/out transitions, so I would not have
expected editing to stand out as component most successfully utilized in our
documentary. However, it does reinforce the apparent opinion of our target audience
that we have applied this simplistic style of continuity editing in an effective manner
that seems to appeal to them. Most likely because of the fast-paced cuts and short
shot durations. I was also surprised to find that our audience thought we used misc-en-
scene only as effectively as sound, because I believed we had framed and organised
the props in each of our shots very well. Whereas sound being considered the least
effective is understandable, and indeed expected, due to the shots in which we
overcompensated for the fairly loud background noise (as aforementioned in my
reflection on the feedback received from question 6). Similarly to editing, this also
reinforces our target audience’s views regarding the quality of the sound levels in our
documentary, as expressed in the feedback received from question 6.
 This pie chart illustrates that 50% of people think that the audio in our documentary
was applied ineffectively to some degree. I say to some degree because according to
the feedback received from the previous question, 65% of people believe that we used
‘Sound’ effectively. Therefore, 15% of people must think that we have utilized sound
successfully in places, and unsuccessfully in others. Whereas only 15% believed
‘Camera’ and ‘Misc-en-scene’ were applied ineffectively and no one thought ‘Editing’
was utilized unsuccessfully in any way. However, in conjunction with the feedback
received from question 12, this means that roughly 20% of people thought that
‘Camera’, ‘Editing’ and ‘Misc-en-scene’ were utilized neither effectively nor ineffectively.
This is assuming no one considered ‘Camera’ or ‘Misc-en-scene’ to be features that
have been applied successfully in places and unsuccessfully in others, like ‘Sound’.

I find the response regarding the ‘Sound’ component of our documentary quite
interesting, because it almost confirms that the reason I suggested for why most
people only rated the sound levels as ‘good’ in question 6 (i.e. the background noise in
some pieces of footage was too loud) is most likely correct. Moreover, after analysing
the feedback received from the previous question, our target audience’s views on the
‘Camera’, ‘Misc-en-scene’ and ‘Editing’ components of our documentary are not
surprising whatsoever. It simply further reiterates their opinion that we have used
‘Editing’ especially to a high standard, in such a way that appeals to our target
audience very successfully.

Question 14 (Do you believe the documentary lived up to the idea suggested by the
title?) is yet another that does not require a pie chart to illustrate the feedback
generated by it, as yet again everyone answered ‘Yes’. I included this question in the
questionnaire, firstly because I was unsure if the title (YouTube: Viral or Valuable?)
would even convey a message of ‘is YouTube good or bad?’ to our target audience as
we had intended, and secondly because I was also curious to see if our audience
believed we had effectively explored the pros and cons of YouTube in our documentary.
The resounding response clearly shows that we have successfully produced an
unbiased, investigative documentary in response to their desire for a balanced,
exploratory piece. Honestly this surprised me because I was expecting at least a few
‘unsure’ responses, mostly due to a possible lack of clarity in the title.
 The pie chart (above) shows that 80% of our target audience thinks that our
documentary is of ‘professional’ quality overall and the remaining 20% believe it is of a
‘good’ quality. So according to these results 4 out of 5 people would say our
documentary is of a professional standard, which is extremely pleasing feedback.

However, the next three questions, 16-18, do not require pie charts to illustrate our
audience’s responses because everyone answered ‘Yes’ to all three. So from the
feedback generated by these questions it is apparent that our target audience thinks
my article design has a layout that they would expect to see in a professional
magazine, utilizes colours relevant to the article’s subject and makes use of suitable
still images from our documentary. I expected this response because I am confident in
the deliberate choices I made while designing the magazine article, such as using a
limited red, black and white colour scheme to connote the YouTube logo.

The above pie chart illustrates that 70% of people think that the article promotes the
documentary ‘very well’ while the other 30% believe the article promotes it ‘well’.
Therefore no one would say it promotes the documentary ‘poorly’ or ‘very poorly’. Once
again, I expected positive feedback from this question but not necessarily this positive
because I was not sure of how well the article promoted the documentary.
The pie chart (above) shows that 80% of our target audience thinks that the article is of
‘professional’ quality overall and the remaining 20% believe it is of a ‘good’ quality. So
according to the feedback received from this question 4 out of 5 people would say the
magazine article is of a professional standard, which again is very pleasing feedback.

The pie chart (above) shows that most people (65%) thought that the quality of our
radio trailer’s sound levels are ‘good’, while 25% believe they’re of ‘average’ quality
and only 10% thought that the quality was ‘professional’. However no one believed that
they’re of ‘poor’ or ‘amateur’ quality. So this would suggest that we have mixed the
sound levels of our documentary fairly well, though not as well as we could have. I did
not think that the sound levels were mixed as well in our radio trailer as in our
documentary so this was the response I expected. However, I would not have been
surprised if the feedback was more negative so this was still fairly satisfactory.

Displaying the results for question 22 (Are the clips taken from the documentary used
effectively?) in the form of a pie chart would be redundant because everyone, 100% of
people, answered ‘Yes’. I did not expect this response though it did not surprise me
either because I thought we had utilized the audio clips in our trailer fairly effectively.
The above pie chart illustrates that most people (3 out of 5) think that the radio trailer
promotes the documentary ‘well’ while 25% believe the documentary is promoted ‘very
well’ by the radio trailer. However, 10% of people think the radio trailer promotes the
documentary neither ‘well’ nor ‘poorly’, and only one person thought that the radio
trailer promoted the documentary ‘poorly’.

This pie chart shows that the majority of our target audience (65%) believe the radio
trailer is of a ‘good’ quality overall and 30% of people each thinks that the quality of
the radio trailer is ‘professional’ or ‘average’. Whereas the remaining 5% of our target
audience believes the radio trailer is of a ‘poor’ quality. This is not surprising as I do not
think our radio trailer is of as high a standard as our documentary and article, still the
fact that most people considered it to be of a ‘good’ quality was a pleasant surprise.
 Finally, the pie chart (above) illustrates that 20% of our target audience believes that
our project is a complete success (10 out of 10)! Almost everyone (95%) thinks that it
has a success rating of 8 on a scale of 1-10. Whereas only one person (5%), most likely
the 5% that believed our radio trailer to be of ‘poor’ quality, thought that it is any less
successful than that and even they believed our project to be deserving of a success
rating of 6 overall. This is very impressive feedback. Although, taking our audience’s
response to the entire questionnaire into consideration it is not entirely surprising.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
In this section of the evaluation I will be considering how effectively our products target
the same audience and to what extent I feel that we have created a clear ‘brand
identity’ for our 3 texts, as well as how successfully I feel our radio trailer and
magazine article promote the documentary.

First and foremost, I would say that our documentary targets our intended audience of
‘White British males and/or females, 16-25 years old, of B-C2 social class’ extremely
effectively, as is proven by the results obtained from our feedback questionnaire,
specifically question 5. So this is the benchmark against which to judge how effectively
all three of our products target the same audience.

In terms of our TV listings magazine article, it is published in Radio Times which,

according to our research into TV listings magazines “would be a good preference for
advertisement of our documentary as 2 out of the 5 main programs advertised on The
Radio Times website are documentaries”. However, it “has a target audience that is
slightly older than ours but they are very similar”.

This is clearly apparent in the Radio Times article for The Armstrong and Miller Show
(left) that I analysed, which is “written in serif text to connote the highbrow, old-
fashioned style humour of the show, and possibly even to make the article seem very
much like a broadsheet newspaper so as to appeal to a more mature audience”. From
this I surmised that “our TV listings article must be relevant to our documentary and
representative of its nature then it should naturally appeal to its target audience”,
which is why I chose to use a san-serif font almost entirely throughout our article (right)
so as to connote the text used in the YouTube logo and make the article appear more
lowbrow which would appeal to our target audience of B-C2 social class. Additionally,
the real Radio Times article has a rather boring colour scheme whereas I used very
colourful stills from our documentary as well as a red theme (to once again connote
YouTube), which should appeal to a younger audience as well as an equal number of
males and females because red is quite a gender-neutral colour. Therefore, even
though The Radio Times generally has an older target audience than ours, our article in
particular should appeal to the same audience as our documentary rather effectively.
As for our radio trailer, it would be aired on Capital FM that, according to our research
into Radio Stations, “fits in with our target audience”. Furthermore, the “background
music Tom has created would appeal to the type of audience who listens to Capital
FM”, thereby appealing to our intended target audience as well apparently. However,
these are mostly unsubstantiated claims so I could not honestly say that our radio
trailer appeals effectively to our target audience based solely upon this. Personally, I
think that the up-beat tempo of the backing track would appeal to a similar age group
as that of our audience and the voice-over’s informal manner of speaking e.g. “Don’t
miss it!” might attract and audience of similar social class as ours, but the over-
saturation of male voices (at a ratio of 5:1 against female voices) would most likely
appeal more to a male audience. So in conclusion I would say that our products target
the same audience fairly effectively, though not completely successfully.

With regard to how well our documentary is promoted, I think the magazine article is
more effective than the radio trailer and our audience feedback reinforces my opinion.
This is because, as aforementioned, the article’s red, black and white colour scheme
and the san-serif typeface are connotative of the YouTube logo and indeed the style of
the website’s design, thereby effectively representing the central focus of the
documentary. Additionally, through the interview section of the article we were able to
describe every facet of our documentary including the inspiration behind it, our aims
and motivations during its creation as well as specific features, all without giving away
much at all regarding the actual content of the documentary. So it effectively grabs the
reader’s attention without spoiling the documentary itself, thereby perking their
curiosity and inviting them to watch while supplying them with all the information they
need to then find and view the documentary. Whereas the radio trailer, while it does
supply the listener with the necessary details for finding the show, it is ambiguous
regarding its premise and even its subject because YouTube isn’t even mentioned until
19 seconds from the beginning and the only specific comment relayed via the voice
over being “we expose the secrets of YouTube”, which isn’t even strictly true.

Even though our products target the same audience and promote the documentary
fairly effectively, I don’t think we have been successful in creating a clear brand
identity for our products at all. This is because our documentary is aired on Channel 4
while our magazine article is published in The Radio Times, which is a client of BBC
Television and published by BBC Magazines so this is definitely not appropriate
‘branding’ for our documentary. However, Channel 4 is not associated with any radio
stations so Capital FM is as good a choice as any for the advertisement of our product,
in fact it is the most appropriate considering its supposed appeal with our target
audience, but it still doesn’t particularly create an absolutely clear brand identity.
If we had chosen to air our documentary on BBC1 with an article in The Radio Times
and an advertisement on BBC Radio 2 we would have succeeded in creating an
extremely clear brand identity for our products. Taking this into consideration, at best
we have only partially succeeded in branding our products effectively.
How did you use media technologies in the research and planning,
construction and evaluation stages?
In this section of my evaluation I will reflect on the production process by describing all
of the different technologies I used throughout and how useful I found them to be.

First and foremost, the only two computer systems I have utilized during the production
process is a Dell Vostro 1500 laptop, my personal laptop (shown left above), and the
Apple Mac Core Duo iMac 2.0gHz desktop computer with a 20-inch flatpanel monitor,
my computer of choice while at college (shown right above). While the Dell laptop
carries out instructions at a much slower rate than the Apple Mac it proved very useful
in the development of the title sequence animation, though altogether I found the UI
(user interface) of the Apple Mac to be much smoother than of the Dell and not as
‘clunky’ or rigid. Since the very beginning of the process I have used the Internet
Explorer (when using the Dell laptop) and Safari (when using the Apple Mac computer)
browser software programs to procure information, conduct research and regularly
update our blog. Once again, the Mac-based tool was much more user-friendly mainly
because of its fluidity. For example, it enabled for simple transference of text from a
document or data from a spreadsheet onto the compose post interface of the blog, just
by highlighting the desired text and using the ‘drag-and-drop’ method. Whereas
Internet Explorer did not allow for this simple method of transferring information
because of the Windows Vista OS (operating system) being far more rigid. Due to this, I
also experienced problems with formatting posts on the blog when using the Dell, such
as it not responding to the addition of gaps between lines of text, automatically adding
spaces at the beginning of a post and even refusing to embed videos in the post.
Additionally, I also used the command-shift-3/4 function of the Apple Mac to capture
all the print screens that I used in this evaluation, yet another area in which the Mac
outdoes the Dell because the cmd-shift-4 function allows for the capture of a
designated area of the screen. Therefore, I would say that I used the Apple Mac
desktop computer to its full extent and it definitely was more useful than the Dell
laptop in the production process, especially as most of the software programs I utilized
were only accessible on the Mac. But before I list all these programs and discuss the
way that I used them in my project I will first discuss the other hardware I have used.
 The photograph (above) shows most of the hardware I used, including the Apple Mac
computer as well as the Canon HD20 camera, Audio Technica AT8015 Condenser
Microphone and Vinten Pro5 tripod that we used to capture all of our footage.

In addition to this I utilized the Epson Perfection V30

scanner (left) for scanning handwritten documents so
that they could then be added to the blog as a JPEG
file. This proved to be very useful because it meant that
I did not have to re-write all of the rough notes that I
had made on paper throughout the project. Through
the Epson Scan software interface I was able to modify
the dpi (dots per inch) i.e. resolution of the images,
rather than just conducting an ‘auto scan’ so I have
used it to a fairly high extent.

The main part of the production process for which I utilized Adobe Photoshop (CS3 and
CS4 editions) was the creation of the title sequence animation, and here’s how:
Firstly, I used the 'Polygonal Lasso Tool' to cut out the YouTube Logo from an image I
found on the web using a Google Search and laid this over the photograph of the
AppleMac computer we took during filming. However, due to the white background of
the original image, this process left a white trim remaining around the logo, the
corners in particular. This lead to the next step:
 Secondly, I used the 'Eraser Tool' with a small brush diameter, low opacity and low
hardness to lightly airbrush the remaining white trim from the edges of the logo so as
to attribute it a polished, professional aesthetic. Adding the text was as simple as
adding text and I used the transform controls to position them as shown above.

Finally, I opened the 'Animation' window from the 'Window' toolbar, then created an
individual frame for each step of the animation and allocated each of them a time
period corresponding to how long the voice-over will take to say each word, so the
animation should mirror the voice-over perfectly, thereby completing our title
sequence's animation. I even annotated these screen prints and converted them into
JPEG files (images) for use on our blog using Photoshop. Finally, I also used Photoshop
to adjust the image size of stills taken from our documentary for use in this evaluation.
So I have definitely made the most of this particular software program and found it to
be very useful in all.

We used Final Cut Express for a number of processes during the construction of our
documentary such as logging and transferring of footage, editing of footage on the
timeline via the various tools and toolbar-accessible options as well as adding text via
the ‘Viewer: Slug’ screen and exporting the finished piece as a QuickTime Movie file.
Overall I found Final Express to be an extremely useful program that did not over-
complicate procedures and was not irritating or confusing to use in any way, and I
think we utilized it to its very full extent.
 The entire Final Cut Express user interface in its ‘standard’ format is shown above. It
can be seen from this print screen that our logged footage was displayed in the
‘browser’ section (top left) for easy access. These could then be viewed in the ‘Viewer:
Slug’ (top middle) section so as to make sure that the intended piece of footage is
selected. From there it was a simple case of using the ‘drag and drop’ method to add
them to the timeline section. The footage could then be easily edited using the variety
of tools. The ‘razor blade tool’ was very useful when we wanted to trim some more
unwanted footage from our logged footage. The ‘link selection tool’ allowed us to
separate the visual from the audio of a particular clip so we could then get rid of either
one or the other. This was a crucial element in the construction of our documentary
because it allowed us to do away with unwanted audio that was attached to useful
background visual footage and vice versa for the voice-over clips. It also ensured that
when we moved a particular piece of footage the visual and audio remained synced,
which was very helpful for the adjustment and positioning of interview footage.
Another tool that was helpful for this particular task was the ‘snapping’ tool, which
snapped the end of a moved piece of footage to the corresponding end of the closest
stationary piece of footage when it came in close proximity, resulting in no blank or
empty space between footage.

Another feature of the ‘Viewer: Slug’ screen that was very useful was the ‘text’ tab
which allowed us to create the titles for our interviews and adjust the text in terms of
its typeface and size, orientation i.e. positioning, as well as rotation.

Furthermore, the ‘canvas’ screen enabled us to view our documentary, as it would be

when converted into a QuickTime movie file as well as allowing us to ‘zoom’ particular
pieces of footage to solve problems such as the microphone being in the frame. This
was also crucial as it allowed us to frame our shots effectively.

Finally, from the drop-down ‘modify’ menu of the toolbar we were able to speed up
certain clips and the drop-down ‘effects’ menu from the toolbar enabled us to add
video transitions, mainly fade in/out dissolves, to our clips. Hence, Final Cut Express
was definitely a pivotal program in our documentary’s construction.
 From the print screen of the ‘Log and Transfer’ window (above), it is apparent that
logging our footage was a simple case of selected the raw, unedited piece of footage
that we wished to log from, viewing it an using the hotkeys ‘I’ and ‘O’ to select the
parameters of the desired footage, then clicking ‘Add To Queue’.

I used Adobe InDesign (CS3 Edition) for the creation of our TV listings magazine article
exclusively. Overall I felt that InDesign was a rather rigid program to be honest despite
being very useful in our article’s production. The entire user interface is shown below.
 I did not need to utilize many of InDesign’s specific features, as all I need to do was
manipulate text and add stills from our documentary. However, the process of
‘framing’ the stills was very helpful because it allowed me to exclude unwanted
sections of the still taken from Richard Jones’ interview (bottom right) and the ‘fit to
image proportionally’ option was useful in not excluding any of the two smaller stills.
Additionally, the ‘text wrapping’ tool was very useful for positioning the grab-quote and
stills effectively and the option of auto-collumated text boxes was extremely useful for
helping me to easily obey the ‘rule of thirds’ convention of magazines.

Personally, I did not use the GarageBand software program much at all because Tom
and Brad produced the radio trailer (using GarageBand) while I created the magazine
article using InDesign. The entire user interface is shown below.

However, I did conduct a small amount of editing of the radio trailer near the
conclusion of the project and I found that the method of editing the clips taken from
our documentary was seemingly over-complicated. For example, the pieces of footage
could only be cut down/split by dragging over the precise piece of audio you wished to
remove/keep from the ‘Enhance Audio Track’ section at the bottom of the interface,
without being able to adjust the parameters of the selection before the actual ‘cutting’
took place. This caused a lot of unnecessary hassle. However, the program was useful
in that each audio lip could be placed on a separate track from the others, which
allowed us to adjust the sound levels of each clip independently. This is unlike Final Cut
Express where only three tracks were available each for footage and audio. So I
wouldn’t say that I have utilized GarageBand to its full extent due to the fact that I only
conducted a small amount of editing.
 I utilized both the Windows Vista OS-compatible (2003) version, while using my
personal Dell laptop, and the Mac OS X-compatible version, when working on the Apple
Mac desktop computers at college, of the Microsoft Word software program. I used this
program for a variety of purposes, such as this evaluation (most significantly), typing
the target audience research and audience feedback questionnaires as well as typing
the article script so it could then be transferred into InDesign. Microsoft Word is unique
in that it is the only program for which I prefer using the Windows Vista OS-compatible
version because I find the Mac OS X-compatible version to be far more obstructive
when trying to alter simple facets of the document, such as having to go to the toolbar
and open up a separate window to simply change the font or make it italic. So I prefer
to begin producing a document on my Dell laptop then transfer it to a Mac, then edit
the document in ‘compatibility mode’.

Unlike Microsoft Word, I have only used the Mac OS X-compatible version of the
Microsoft Excel program. This is because I wished to use the ‘charts’ toolbar option
(shown above) to create the pie charts for my target audience research and audience
feedback, which is much easier to use than the ‘Chart Wizard’ of the Windows Vista
OS-compatible version of Microsoft Excel. Furthermore, the pie charts produced by this
version are far more sleek and impressive, especially as they offer the option to
produce an angled pie chart. In fact the whole selection of possible charts is much
more extensive, so this program definitely proved useful in the research and planning
and evaluation stages of my project. Although, I suppose I could have used the
program to a greater extent by trying out various chart options other than pie charts.