In What Ways Does Your Media Products Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Brief
O For our A2 Media Coursework we were asked to create

the opening 5 minutes of a TV documentary of a topic of our own choice. Alongside this, we were asked to create a radio trailer and double-paged spread to promote the documentary as our ancillary tasks. Within our group we came up with ideas for our documentary, starting off by deciding the target audience youths. We then came up with topics that we felt could strongly relate to our target audience; smoking, drugs, alcohol, anti-social behaviour, crime, education, economy, government, etc. We finally came up with an idea that we felt had not been touched upon much by the media; the recession specifically how it has affected the youths of today and what can be done to help them.

Documentary Style
O There are numerous types and styles of documentaries that

vary from serious to satirical, bias to balanced and educational to entertaining. With the topic of the recession in hand, we knew for sure that the documentary had to be serious for it was a serious topic, but as youths ourselves we knew that it would be a struggle to keep our audience interested with just facts and figures. We wanted the documentary to be entertaining for the audience through balanced arguments and real-life stories of people their own age who are struggling with the recession people the target audience could relate to. This is what we wanted to have in our opening 5 minutes of our documentary, as like anything else, people make a decision within the first five minutes of seeing anything. A decision that either makes them want to see more or walk away.

Bill Nichols Documentary Modes

O Bill Nichols is an American documentary theorist who

developed the six documentary modes that recognise the similarities in codes and conventions of different documentary styles. The modes are as follows: O Poetic O Expository O Observational O Participatory O Reflexive O Performative O Although Nichols modes are true and most documentaries follows the structure, documentaries can have a mixture of elements from different modes.

Poetic Mode
O The poetic mode rejects the traditional narrative from

individuals and events remain undeveloped to create a particular mood or set a certain tone to the documentary. O These documentaries O Are incomplete O Use symbols and associations in time and space O Stress the mood and tone more than the displays of knowledge or acts of persuasion O Sacrifices the conventions of continuity editing and the sense of a very specific location in time and place

Expository Mode
O Apposing where poetic mode is thrived on a filmmakers

subjective visual interpretation of a subject, expositional mode collects footage that aims to strengthen the spoken narrative. O The expository mode addresses the viewers directly with title or voices that suggest a viewpoint which advance an argument or recount history. O Expository mode consists of what Nichols refers to as Evidentiary Editing. This is basically the use of images to illustrate or act in counterpoint to what is said. A good example of this is the use of cutaways during an interview. O Commentary is important in any documentary. Expository mode has two significant styles of commentary. O Voice-of-God: A voiceover with no on-screen presenter. O Voice-of-Authority: An on-screen presenter.

Observational Mode
O In observational mode, documentaries tend to simply

observe, allowing viewers to reach whatever conclusions they may presume. O In these types of documentaries the camera remains as unobtrusive as possible, mutely recording events as they happen. O The fly-on-the-wall perspective is favored and editing processes use long takes and few cuts. This means the footage appears as a first-hand the experience of the subject. O Pure observational documentarians proceed under the bylaws: O no music O no interviews O no scene arrangement of any kind O no narration

Participatory Mode
O In participatory mode, filmmakers move from behind the

camera and appear as subjects in their own work. O With the filmmaker visible to the viewer, and free to openly discuss his/her perspective in regards to the film being made, rhetoric and argumentation return to the documentary film as the filmmaker clearly states a message. O The participatory mode is a response to the idea that it is impossible for the presence of a camera to achieve objectivity and shows the film maker as a social actor in the film.

Reflexive Mode
O The reflexive mode considers the quality of documentary

itself, de-mystifying its processes and considering its implications. O It draws attention to the concept of the documentaries and sometimes shows filmmakers wrestling with the content of their own findings. O Reflexive documentarians are sceptical of the idea of realism captured on film. O In other words this process attempts to make the audience view the text in a more objective way.

Performative Mode
O The performative mode is Nichols most confusing mode

as he remains unclear of its distinctions from participatory mode. O The difference seems to lie in the fact that where participatory mode has the filmmaker in the story attempting to construct truths that should be self-evident to anyone, the performative mode engages the filmmaker in the story creating an almost autobiographical description of subjective truths that are significant to the filmmaker him/herself. O This is the mode that is likely to have elements of the other modes mixed into it.

Codes & Conventions

O Our documentary follows the basic codes and

conventions for TV documentaries as well as the narrative structure from Nichols expository mode. O Evidentiary Editing the use of cutaways to significant videos/images during interviews to help the viewers understand what is being discussed. Used when an interviewee is answering a question relating to crime. O Throughout our documentary we have used both Voiceof-God and Voice-of-Authority to show the viewers that although we know the facts and figures of this topic, we do not know our target audiences opinions on it. There are also elements of the participatory mode by doing this.

Comparison To Existing Documentaries

O Morgan Spurlocks SuperSize Me was one of the

documentaries analysed at the beginning of the coursework stage. It helped us gain ideas and inspiration for our topic choice as well as set a template for the basic codes and conventions of a TV documentary. It is only wise now to go back and compare our work with that of Spurlocks to see how well we have done.

O Interview from SuperSize

Me:
O Close-up shot O Lighting from behind O Positioned to one side

facing across the camera O Caption does not cover face O Framing is tight and compact

O Interview from our work: O Medium close-up O Lighting from behind and

side O Positioned to one side facing across the camera O Captions do cover face O Framing is a bit looser but not by much

O Establishing shot from

SuperSize Me: O Close-up shot O Location is clear O Well framed

O Establishing shot from our

work: O Close-up O Location is clear O Well framed

O Cutaway from SuperSize

Me:
O Observational mode O Lighting from behind

camera O Camera is out of the way low down O Framing covers the whole of shop. Can clearly see people entering shop.

O Cutaway from our work: O Observational mode O Lighting from street lights

O Camera is out of the way

high up O Framing covers the whole street. Can see riot forming.

O Presenter from SuperSize

Me:
O Medium close-up O Daylight O Presenter is centred

and facing into the camera talking to viewers O Presenter is framed in the centre of the camera with backdrop all around him and a little above his head.

O Presenter from our work: O Medium close-up O Daylight O Presenter is centred and

facing into the camera talking to viewers O Presenter is framed by staircase but is positioned a little low. There is too much space above his head.

Radio Trailer

O A typical radio trailer is between 3045 seconds long. As you can

see from the images above and below, the trailer is 48 seconds long with 3 seconds of dead sound at the end. This is very unprofessional as it means that it will have to be edited down again after production to eliminate the risk of having dead sound in the middle of a radio broadcast as time is money.

Codes & Conventions

O There arent many codes and conventions in radio

trailers. The main aim is to get as much information into as little time as possible without making it unappealing. O Trailers always have at least two tracks; background music and extracts. Some trailers also consist of wild tracks sound picked up from the surroundings during recording extracts that are placed into the trailer to give a sense of the atmosphere and add a sense of realism to the trailer.

Sound Levels
O Sound levels are possibly the most important things

when it comes to any sort of audio. We had to assure that sound levels were as consistent as they could be. If the music was too high the extracts would not be heard properly, if the music was too low the trailer would sound boring and unappealing. Also, we had to ensure that the volumes of the extracts were not too loud as they would create hiss and therefore we had to level everything to the extract with the lowest volume to guarantee no hiss.