My Evaluation Q1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real documentary?

The shots I used throughout my documentary use the conventions of a real documentary. For my research and planning I watched several different styles of documentaries in order to gain knowledge of the codes and conventions of documentaries.

Vox Pop-shots When I filmed vox pops for my documentary I made sure they were all mid shots. This meant only showing a person from just above the waist and upwards. This convention was shown in all the documentaries I watched so I thought it was important for me to use to ensure my documentary looked professional.

Expert interview shots Likewise I also used the convention of having a mid shot for my expert interviews. However for these interviews they were more serious so there was more thought into the set up and positioning. After watching real documentaries I learnt that a convention was to have the expert the the left side of the shot with space on the right. To ensure the spacing was right we used the rule of thirds.

Mise en scene mise en scene was an important factor to represent our topic of alcohol. We concentrated a lot in the formal interviews to ensure we had a lot of mise en scene to represent the experts. Examples of this included: In the interviews at the bars we had the bartender standing at the bar with all alcohol bottles in the background to represent that they are an expert as their job surrounded by alcohol.

In the interview with the student councilor we located it in her office. We briefly introduced her by showing her typing on her computer as if she was at work communicating with students to set the scene. We also stuck a poster about alcoholics in the background to again represent our topic.

The interview with the police. We made sure he wore his police uniform. We also had the west midlands police website on the computer in the background of his office to create a location of relevance to the police man.

Cutaway shots in interviews I used the convention of cutaway shots within the interviews. During the interview I cut away to shots showing objects/people/places which the expert was speaking about in order to keep the audience interested showing different visuals. An example of where I used this convention was in the police interview he Is on the topic of drunk people being violent so a cut a way shot cuts to cctv footage of two drunk girls having a physical fight. This made it is better for the audience to really engage in what the officer is saying, while also shocking them by showing them visual examples. In the documentaries that I watched which used an on screen presented I found that the cut a way shots they used throughout the interview were changing from a shot of the the presenter to the expert being interviewed. However my documentary used a voice over so you could say in a way I developed this convention in order to fit my style of documentary.

Establishing shots In order to introduce a new location for the next few scenes I used the convention of establishing shots. For example to introduce Solihull sixth form student (people in the vox pops) I used an establishing shot of the sixth form. An example of a real documentary using this convention was in ‘ready stead drink’ When they arrived in London they showed an establishing shot of London city.

Titles on screen I learnt after watching real documentaries that a convention of expert interviews was to have a title on screen. However this was only for expert interviews and not vox pops. This was because it is not important to know personal information for vox pop interviewees but it is for expert interviews. This is because the audience needs to know their title and occupation as its relevant to the information they are giving. For example it was important that we showed on screen the title for the police office- PC Luke prescott- police officer at West Midlands police to show he is authoritive and knows what he is talking about.

Expert interview shots After finishing the documentary I realised that we had challenged the conventions of titles on screen. We positioned our titles on the right side however the convention is to have them on the left side. In addition we also did not leave the titles on screen for the whole duration of the interview. This was unintentional as we would’ve preferred to have used these conventions to ensure professionalism.

Correct use of convention Incorrect use of convention

Non diegetic sound Lastly I used the convention of non digetic sound throughout- backing track. This track was an upbeat dance track with no lyrics. We chose this particular one because it linked with out theme being about young people drinking alcohol. So represented a club scene therefore attracting our young target audience. However we did develop this as we changed the track to a quieter less upbeat track just for the time the expert interviews were on for so it matched their serious tone and sound levels didn’t damaged by interferring music. Super size used 18 released song with lyrics. All of the songs related to the topic of fast food for example ‘Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen’. This created humor which couldve been something we couldve used in our documentary considering we used an informal tone in the majority of our documentary. However we needed permission to use released songs so It was near enough impossible to get this as our documentary was on such a tiny scale. But if we were to get a song like this we could’ve developed super size me idea and used Tipsy- J Kwon

There was some cases within the documentary which I developed conventions of a real documentary. This included:

Opening SceneOne way which we developed convention of a real documentary was in our opening scene. While most documentary open their documentary with facts and description about the topic they will be discussing we chose to be different. We got the idea from the first 25 seconds of ‘Super Size Me’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewFJz0G2no

Opening sceneFor our opening we created a montage of different videos of young people drunk e.g. dancing at a house party with a drink in their hand. We then put a voice over of a father of a teenage girl telling a story about him finding her drunk. We chose to do this because it made it more dramatic so young people watching immediately are aware of that the documentary will be educating them on the side effects of alcohol. While at the same time showing young people having fun with alcohol will let them identify with what they are seeing so they carry on watching to see more.

Mode of our documentary I found that a lot of the documentaries that I watched were an expository mode addressing the viewer directly to advance an argument an argument or recount history. For example ‘Super Size me’ was only showing one side of fast foo- (bad effects such as it being unhealthy).

Documentary stylesWe realised that there is several different styles of documentaries (Bill Nicholls’ of documentary modes) such as observational and expositional. ‘Super Size me’ used a participatory and performative modes. Morgan Spurlock was narrating on screen giving his personal opinions on the issues of fast food. This gave a very subjective perspective to the audience because it was autobiographical.

Documentary styleWe decided to use an expositional mode which meant we used a narrative and voice over throughout. It is also very factual which was something we also included by showing facts and figures about drinking. Over all this style of documentary is a rhetorical way of narrating to our audience.

Off Screen PresenterWe chose to use the convention of an off screen presenter rather than an on screen. This is because we didn’t want to be biased and subjective to one opinion. However we still wanted to be informative and factual to educate our audience about young people binge drinking. We also thought that some on screen presenters are very ‘cheesy’ because they have to be very enthuastic in order to entertain the audience. This was why we chose not to use an on screen presenter because we thought teenager would not be appealed by a cheesy presenter.

Mode of the documentary

We tried to have an observational mode so that the events were observed and recorded objectively with no authorial intrusion. In other words Fly on the wall. We chose to use this mode because our target audience are young people 16-25 we didn’t want to be overly dictative or preaching too much instead we wanted audience to be free of opinions on the topic.

Mode of the documentary One way we used conventions of observational mode documentary was by filming students in the vox pops who drink and shared funny stories. But on the other hand we showed a few student that do not drink and stated they still have fun without. However it is hard to completely give a objective view for example the experts we interviewed focused on problems which arise from young people drinking such as peer pressure or violence. Our over all objective was to educate. So by using the convention of graphics on screen we put facts and statistics on screen. We wanted our viewers to know the effect of alcohol, so giving these facts about bad effects of alcohol was mainly to make them aware of them.

Graphics I found that in supersize me a lot of the background footage and visuals of the topic was shown through graphics which made it easier to engage with the documentary. However we chose to not use as many graphics but this was down to the short amount of time we could show our documentary for (5 minutes) so if our documentary was a whole hour long then I think we would use this convention. Especially when we have a young target audience because they enjoy to see a lot of visuals. So it would appeal to them more. One area where we could of used graphics was in the after the break clip where it showed students being shocked from the amount of burgers equivalent to what they drink on a night out. So we could’ve of includes graphics of burgers and drinks coming up across the screen as we were telling them.

Here is an example of some of the graphics in the Supersize me documentary.

Clips from Geordie Shore Finally, another way I have developed conventions was by showing clips of the show ‘Geordie Shore’. Even after watching several documentaries I did not find anyone showing clips from other TV shows however they did show clips from youtube clips and In supersize me they did also use clips from other media forms such as Mcdonalds adverts. We chose to develop this by showing geordie shore because TV has a huge influence on young people nowadays. Especially this show as it is all about young people going out drinking 24/7. In supersize me they did also use clips from other media forms such as Mcdonald adverts so this was where we the idea of these clips originated from.

In what ways does your Double page spread use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

Before we created our double page spread for the radio times we closely looked at professional double page spread that are in the radio times and analysed them in detail. This helped us to ensure we used the main conventions but also helped us be confident with them so we could develop our conventions to make an individual house style for our documentaries house style.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w_cMRqVgE48/Vpz_hPISflI/AAAAAAAABNI/WOY0dgaHqB0/s1600/analysis+of+DPS+.jpg

Main headlineI thought an important convention to follow in order to look like a professional double page spread was to have my main headline in a large font across the top of the pages. It is one of the most important features on the pages as it tells the reader by one or few words what exactly the article is about. We put it in red as it represents danger like the danger of drinking alcohol. In order to make it stand out more we put a black border around it. This also helped us to create a colour scheme for brand identity.

Page numbers We also followed the convention of having page numbers as it is essential for readers to navigate their way through the radio times magazine. We made sure that the even number was on the left and the odd number was on the right so we strictly followed conventions to ensure it looked like a real double page spread. Page 1 is the front cover and so on.

Main images We chose to use the convention of having images from our documentary throughout the DPS as it was important for the reader to see a link between the DPS and documentary. But also so they can have a taster of the visuals to entice them to watch ‘Tipsy Teens’. We also used the convention of having images integrated in the article so there was visuals to back up what the article was focusing on in that area. However we did challenge the conventions of a real DPS with our images. We did not include images from behind the scenes of the documentary which was a common feature of nearly all the DPS I analyzed from the radio times.

Columns & Drop Cap Having our article in columns was an essential convention to follow to ensure out DPS looked professional. Columns make it easier to squeeze more text onto a page, and make the long storis more appealing. For example, if you see a long bit of text with no columns, it looks dauting, and you ae unwilling to read it. So this was an advantage to us because of our target audience being young people 16-25 they prefer to not read a lot. Drop cap was another important convention to use.It makes the audience feel visually/aesthetically entertained. This can be a form of escapism because the drop cap makes the whole text different from the texts often seen in society for young (target audience).

Lead LineWe used the convention of a lead line to introduce our article as we thought it would give the reader a quick insight to what the article is really about before they start reading. It gives a bit more information than the main headline e.g. telling them the topic of the documentary. It was important that this was in a larger text than the article so it could be easily differentiated from the rest of the text on page.

Real DPS

Our DPS

Grab quotesWe chose to use the convention of grab quotes within the texts. This helped the important information which we wanted the audience to read stood out away from the rest of text. We used statistics. We also developed this by putting it in red color font to make it further stand out.

Date and time The main reason for the radio times DPS was to advertise our documentary to the audience so they will be intrigued in the topic and want to watch it when it is broadcasted. Therefore we needed to ensure the time, date and channel was very clear to the audience but also did not look messy out of place. It was hard to find a convention to use for the format of the date and time so we put a tiny paragraph at the end of the paragraph in red text to stand out to give them all the details. In terms of the channel we put the Channel 4 logo in the top right corner as well as in the lead line.

Website In the footer we used the convention of addressing the radio times website. This allows the reader to visit the website and find out more about our documentary if they wish to, such a short preview clip of our documentary. Most of the double page spread in radio times have the website in the right bottom corner like we did in small font so this was a convention we thought we’d use to look more professional.

Date of publication and by lineEvery page of the radio times has along the footer the radio times logo and the date the article was published. Therefore we use this conventions so we look like a real DPS which you would see in the radio times. In addition we also used the convention of having the by line very small by the strapline.

In what ways does your Radio trailer use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of a real media products?

Voice over This convention was essential to use in our radio trailer as it allows our audience to hear important information about our documentary. We chose to broadcast our radio trailer on Captial FM because they also have a young target audience of male and females. So I listened to numerous different captial FM radio trailers to learn the conventions they use. In terms of the voice over they tend to use young presenters in the voice overs. Therefore we used this conventions with our radio trailer we chose a 18 year old female to read our script. This would appeal to our audience as they would be able to identify with her.

Clips from the documentary A typical convention of a radio trailer is to include documentary extracts. We used this convention by creating a montage from the vox pops. We extracted key words which people in the vox pops used in relation to alcohol. Such as ‘off my face’ and ‘shots’. This montage was a development of this convention we chose to do this as it was a diverse way of introducing the topic so would interest the audience.

Backing track

The music we used was upbeat like the music in the documentary. We played this music for the full duration of the radio trailer because it was a convention of radio trailers but also because it kept up a pace so it the voice over didn’t said too monotone on its own which would bore people.

Date and channel of documentaryAnother main convention Capital FM radio trailers used was informing the audience about the channel the documentary and the date and time it would be broadcasted.

Duration Radio trailers tend to be quick and snappy with delivering their information. Therefore our radio trailer was the duration of 30 seconds. This ensured that the audience would not get bored by a long advert but would still get the information needed such as the channel which the documentary airs on.