By: Ali Butt

In What Ways Does Your Media Products Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
Our task in media was to create a 5 minute TV documentary regarding a topic of our choice and that we felt comfortable about. In addition, we had to alongside our TV documentary we had two ancillary tasks of which consisted of a radio trailer and a magazine to enhance and make our TV documentary more realistic. Furthermore, in order to begin our TV documentary we had to decide upon a topic to base our documentary around so we choose Recession. We choose this topic as it was a serious issue in todays day and age and that numerous people are affected by this and they are unable to do much about it as they have no control over it. This meant that we had to do our research regarding the topic and how it has affected a range of people ranging from college leavers right the way up to businesses and causing them to close down due to the fact that they are unable to afford the daily running costs, etc..

How Much Of Our Documentary Follows and Uses The Conventions Of Real Media Productions?

Introduction Interviews Voiceovers Framing Graphics Archive Footage

Introduction
We first got our inspiration for the Panorama Show on BBC iPlayer where by this show covers the topic we chose to base our documentary on an we found it very useful when were doing our research aspect of it. It helped give us useful facts and figures as to how bad the recession really is and which areas of the economy it is affecting. We also liked the presentation aspect of the BBC Panorama documentary so we used parts of it in our documentary. We used parts of the Panorama show in our documentary like how they presented interviews and how the actual presenter was presented etc

BBC Panorama

Our Documentary

Interviews

With the interviews we tried to make them similar to the BBC Panorama documentary as it was very professional and they had the mice en scene correct with each interview they had so we did the same as it was professional and related to the topic at hand.

BBC Panorama

Our Documentary

Voiceovers
Voiceovers are known as the Voice of God which were used to narrate a scene. We chose to do a variety of different voiceovers while the duration of our documentary. We used it to draw the audiences attention to specific facts and figures that were important and needed to get across. As I was the narrator and presenter of the documentary and I had to do the voiceovers in order keep it consistent and flowing. It also helps the documentary seem more important and professional to the audience.

Framing
This is whereby the presenter is interviewing a student regarding how theyve been affected by the recession. Notice have the interviewee is positioned facing the left and is looking across the screen this shows that he is having a 1-1 interview with the mice en scene with the apprenticeships website on.

In this panorama interview again is positioned to the left looking across to the right making the shot more interesting also known as the rule of thirds.

Text/Graphics
Like the Panorama interview we made sure that the font and text used was very simple and big enough so that the audience could read it and was visible to the audience of who they are and what occupation they are in.

In this panorama interview the text overlaps the interview at the bottom this makes the audience aware of who the interviewee is and who they are. Its made clear via the text and font used to make the audience aware of who they are.

Archive Footage
Archive footage is footage that has already been developed and filmed by someone else. Several documentaries use archive footage for various different reasons i.e. broadcasting companies like the BBC have vast archives of footage of which then the production team can trim and edit the footage to fit certain parts within the documentaries.

However with our documentary with aren't allowed more than 5 minutes of film so we are limited as to how much archive footage we are able to use.

How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?
Along with our documentary we also designed and created a magazine and radio trail to help support our documentary to make it more realistic and professional. As well as the ancillary tasks which consisted of a radio trial and magazine double page spread this backed up our documentary and helped engaging different types of individuals i.e. people who like to read, people who like watching documentaries and people who like to listen to the radio this helped and supported our documentary they were also used for selling and informing our target audience of how bad the recession is and how each individual is affected by it. We worked on our target audience as to which sort of people our documentary would appeal to and who would take interest into our documentary we found that individuals males and females aged 18+ are affected by the recession as we researched into various different topics i.e. unemployment, apprenticeships, higher education, etc.. I played the presenter role in the documentary which made the documentary more interesting and enjoyable.

Radio Trail
The radio trial goes hand in had with our documentary because it gives a short brief of what the documentary is going to be regarding and will interest the right target audience in order for them to go out of there way to watch the documentary. The documentary uses the same background music to keep the consistency going this enables them to stay interested and engaged with the documentary. Due to the in-depth research we did we found the facts and figures part to include in the radio trail wasnt really a challenge because we already had them at hand. We found that using someone else to do the radio trailer would make it seem more fun, interesting and informative for the audience . We also decided upon of using a serious tone of voice as it was a serious topic we chose.

Magazine Double-Page Spread

Collectively we decided upon using a shot from our television documentary so that it links very well together. We used the shot of our presenter to show the viewer someone that they can expect to hear from in the documentary. This linked the documentary well with the magazine article as it directly showed something that the audience will see when they watch it. It also appeals to our target audience because it is targeted at individuals (males & females) from 18+ years of age. The magazine article is a still picture media product which meant that is was a lot harder to create a relationship between it and other media products. To show more of a relationship between the documentary and the magazine we used various different images of the documentary in the magazine double page spread. It also allows the audience to prepare expect to hear from this person in the documentary. Also when taking each individual picture we made sure of the mise en scene would contrast through.

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Once we showed people our documentary at The Sixth Form College Solihull we asked them to take a minute and fill in a feedback questionnaire with simple questions asking what they liked the most and things that they thought could be improved. We asked our target audience which was males and females aged 18+ that had been affect by the recession. From our questionnaires we found that nearly the majority of the people had been affect by the recession in some shape or form. We also found that they wanted to see a varied use of expert interviews, facts, music, voiceovers. We tried our upmost to include these into our documentary. From the questionnaire results I have collated their top replies an I created two columns of what they liked and what they though could be improved:

What The Audience Liked:

Consistent sound levels Consistent music throughout Useful and relevant facts and figures used Very informative Relevant and good interviews Excellent editing and smooth transformations between clips

What The Audience Thought Could Be Improved:

Sound was echoing a bit Sound varied slightly Camera shots could have been more smoother

Documentary
For our documentary to gathered some feedback once our target audience had watched our documentary we handed out questionnaires to get their view of what the good/bad points were and what could be improved.
With this we asked our target audience whether or not the sound levels were consistent or not. As you can see from the results it is believed that they weren't consistent and I totally agree with this as even I believe that we could have improved on the sound levels. Throughout the documentary i.e. interviews, presenter, etctheir vocals were fluctuating. Again we asked our target audience if the editing and clips used i.e. interviews, etc.. Were relevant or not and as you can see majority of the people we asked said yes it was and I agree upon their reply as I thought everything within the documentary was relevant and that it all linked back to the topic of the Recession.

Yes No

Yes No

Radio Trail
When I asked our target audience whether or not the music used in the radio trail was relevant and whether or not if it went well. 18 people said it went well and that it was relevant however the other 2 people disagreed with this.

When I asked our target audience whether or not they felt as if the sound levels were consistent throughout the radio trail. 6 people said that sound levels were consistent, however the other 14 people we asked disagreed and said they weren't as they felt as if the sound levels kept fluctuating.

Magazine Article
We asked our target audience whether or not the images used were relevant and helped to get the message across and we found that 15 out of the 20 people we asked said they thought the images were relevant. However the other 5 people disagreed.

We asked our target audience whether or not they liked the layout of the article and if they liked the text around the images. we found that 15 out of the 20 people we asked said yes they liked it however the other 5 people disagreed and said that they didnt like it.

Media Class Feedback

From asking the students at the sixth form we decided to ask our A Level media class to watch the documentary and to give us feedback at the end. I thought it was imperative that we did this because they will pick up on certain things that your average student who doesnt do media wouldnt. What The Audience Liked: Liked the editing throughout the documentary Liked how the interviews cut from interview to interview Liked the voiceovers/ spanning used Relevant use of shots What The Audience Thought Could Be Improved: Could have interviewed more females Used more voiceovers Used more establishing shots

How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?
The research and planning stages of our documentary was critical before the production because it gave us an idea of how our documentary was going to be like and what to include. Most of the planning didnt use much of media technologies at most we used a computer thats all most of it was all pen and paper mind storming and storyboarding ideas of what to include and how and where to include it.

The research stage of our documentary we researched various different websites in order to be 100% sure of what topic to base the documentary and what topic had facts/figures readily available and which was an important and recent topic that millions are affected by so we chose the recession as it fits right in to what we were looking for.
We used BBC iPlayer & YouTube to help us see videos already based on that topic and get ideas of how things were presented and what to present so it gave us an idea of presenting. Furthermore, to researching we had to research what channels to air our documentary i.e. Channel 4 BBC3 & BBC1. In addition, we research into similar documentaries like ours to enable us to decide whether or not weve got the right channel for our documentary, and so judging from that we could use similar conventions that they used. To do this we used online websites like BBC iPlayer and YouTube too see existing documentaries. At This point of our project we kept uploading our research onto the blog at www.blogger.com as it would show the process of our documentary forming shape and to get to the final piece. The technology we used was very useful as it helped us to gather all of our ideas and thoughts to put it into the final piece and gave us some direction of what to do for the documentary itself. I have created a collage on the next slide to demonstrate the programmes/products I have used throughout our documentary

Collage Of Media Devices Used

Construction Stage
FILMING: During our filming we used a cannon HD camera so that we got the best possible image for our documentary and that it looks professional, we also used a tripod to rest the camera on so that we get a steady shot, we also used a microphone that was connected to the camera itself so we dont hear too much of the background noise. Voiceovers: We used the camcorder microphone for our voiceovers because it gave the highest quality sound and did the best as to blocking the background interference. Editing: For editing our documentary we used an Apple iMac as it is the best machine to edit video. We used a software on the apple iMac itself called Final Cut pro as it is very simple and easy to use and produces the highest of quality in terms of videos i.e. documentaries, films, etc..

Planning Stage
Before we went out and actually started filming we first planned our documentary of what we were going to do and how it should be done so we first brain stormed it and then tried our best to stick to it as we improved and added to the filming/editing. We used the BBC iPlayer website and the show Panorama to get useful tips and tricks of how to present certain facts and figures to make it look professional. We used a blog to upload all our planning an research and all our work throughout the process of creating our documentary, magazine and radio trail.

Research Stage
Once we picked an idea we then looked at other documentaries to improve and develop upon that idea before we put it in our documentary. Throughout the documentary I research useful facts and figures from various places be it from books, internet, economic teachers, etc To find research I used the internet, by using websites such as Google and YouTube to find videos and information which I could then post in my blog on Blogger.