QUESTION 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products? DocumentaryDuring the five minute documentary task (that our group would decide upon after reviewing many topics and names) and two ancillary tasks of the double page article that would correspond with the documentary and hopefully all three would promote each other. Research and planning was an integral part of gathering information. An overall view of what the current conventions were for documentaries, magazine double page articles and radio trails so that we could adopt techniques and codes from them and develop them into our chosen topic area of underage drinking. This specific topic was considered in detail by our group and from that we felt that due the mass amount of ideas we had toward, we would develop our ideas into the documentary. Our group decided that from watching multiple documentaries that the more interesting correlates with how controversial the topic is so this is where we thought of underage drinking (out of the many other suggestions put forward). Deciding before and after construction, which of Bill Nicholls (2001) documentary mode(s) we would aim toward. These modes were Expository mode mostly with small parts of Participatory and Reflexive featuring also. Expository

dominating the documentary entirely with such things as voice-of-god narration flowing each clip to the next, even when there is text on screen. These features are interviewing people and giving reactions and opinions from these vox-pops and expert interviews (Participatory) and also having the readjustments of the assumptions made toward underage drinking. Also reflecting the formal perspective and the expectations from todays world. However the most vital portrayal was the expository aspect of the first five minutes. To give a clear insight into the knowledge, importance and first hand truth about the topic. Whilst planning in the storyboard we discussed creating a contents-like opening featured in Supersize Me.

During this opening period the audience were bombarded by facts and figures such as the staggering 1 in 8 College students drink alcohol openly and Underage drinking in the last ten years has DOUBLED in the UK. These outrageous facts were intriguing and worked well for the opening. Taking this effect from Supersize Mes opening sequence as it had me glued to

watching it and heavily intrigued me. Also featured within our contents-like were short snippets of upcoming clips to be featured further on in the documentary that mention the most influential points made to once again draw the audience attention to look onto the rest of the documentary.

When filming we had to following convention of documentary in order for the audience to recognise what we were addressing and when editing some frames were closed tighter so the person in the frame abided the rule of thirds. For background footage, we lay text upon it explaining facts and figures and also using editing software to display the convention of an experts name and status. Long shots and medium shots were a good use for background footage.

Existing docs - comparison to my documentary.

Trying to get appropriate mise-en-scene was something I wanted to achieve and was explained in the story-board, however this could not happen because either the potential interviewees declined or the experts did not want to travel to a suitable location. If I were to record this again I would ensure the mise-en-scene behind the experts was suited better. This is because in aired documentaries, the companies have the money to go to a studio and/or take experts to locations whereas our group unfortunately, could not. Lighting was essential in order to show the mise-en-scene clearly and get a purpose for the displayed image across, in some situations this was not to perfection due to not having the correction equipment but considering we had to use daylight/room lighting it was achieved well in shots such as these:

So that there were something that kept the documentary flowing when there were no voiceover, some background music was implemented underlying the dialogue, non-diagetic (voiceover and sound effects) and diagetic sounds (from the clips). Made on GarageBand, by myself, the song: Backing Track was logged and transferred into Final Cut Express.

We decided that an interesting melody that wasnt to distracting to the audience would suffice. Furthermore using the pen tool I controlled the sound levels so they were all fairly the same amounts of dB.

Editing and transitions were important to keep (or stop) the flow of the documentary with usage of straight cuts to have a section all relating to each other whereas

when reaching the end of a segments, existing documentaries often have a fade-to-black or cross dissolve so I also implemented that when switching from one sub-topic to another.

Magazine double page spread -

Above is the final magazine that we thought should be featured after reviewing which magazine was most appropriate to suit our target audience of 16 - 32 year olds (The age range that BBC Three chooses to aim their shows). However the age range of radio times was a little older (24+ years) We felt that the teenager audience which we were primarily aiming towards were lost. Moreover, we aimed to follow the conventions of radio times as much as we could with inspiration from existing double page articles:

Doctor Who articles were a large inspiration:

When analysing these during research and planning, I located the positioning of the title and style of contrast against the main image and adopted that within my article. Also the convention of having the lower third of the page dominated by text and the rest mostly pictures/ main image was also something that would be transferred from existing RadioTimes magazines. Page number location and magazine logo were also featured as they would appear in the real thing to keep the professionalism and authenticity of the article at a high

standard. The usage of Drop-Cap and Columns in the paragraphs would be used to gain a professional, formal and crisp display throughout the article, using pull quotes to emphasise certain parts of the text. This then led onto multiple transformation from the default paragraphs once I got used to the tools I had available to me.

In conclusion, I feel that I developed the original standard codes and conventions of existing products to work around the chosen topic area: Underage/teenage drinking. Using existing products to gather information, camera and editing techniques, documentary modes, voiceover styles, motifs and a contents-like opening had the effect of a real professional documentary and radio trail. The magazine

article also followed convention from existing products that had inspired my double page spread. Mainly my desire was not to steer to far from the conventions of these media products. I felt that this was met into a combination of corresponding products that gave a professional insight into a controversial topic.