Media Studies: Evaluation Activity 1

Media Studies: Evaluation Activity 1 | Minoli De Silva

Typical Forms and Conventions of Documentaries:

1) The concept and narrativeTraditionally the concept of a documentary allows for differing viewpoints to be communicated and an argument to be constructed. Our concept focuses on whether autistic pupils are being excluded from mainstream schools thus the two opposing arguments would be yes they are being excluded, or no they are not. The type of narrative that a documentary varies, depending on the kind of subject matter, but our text is the introductory section of a whole documentary. Thus the narrative here needs to introduce the issue, the key interviewees and different sides of the argument. I feel that these were each sufficiently addressed within our sequence. Thus we have used this particular form and convention. 2) The use of an informative and authoritative voiceoverOur inclusion of a voiceover ensured that we adhered to this particular convention of a documentary. The voiceover was extremely informative: there were a variety of pertinent facts and statistics included - as well explanations and definitions of the specialist terms. Some would consider that we did develop and challenge this particular convention with the use of a female voiceover. However, the delivery and impact of the information was in no way impeded by this. In fact, the person Holly - who recorded the voiceover for us, has the capability and confidence to deliver such a text as this. While the voiceover was certainly informative we were hesitant to make it sound authoritative. This was due to our conscious decision to make the documentary accessible and open for anyone and everyone, even if they have no knowledge of autism whatsoever. This was what also motivated the decision to pick somebody our age to read: we didnt want to alienate the younger part of our audience by having an individual significantly older reading the voiceover. LISTEN TO THE RAW VOICEOVER HERE3) Interviews with individuals knowledgeable about the subject/expert opinionsThe majority of individuals we interviewed are very knowledgeable about autism and the impact of the education system. For example, Aaron Sullivan is diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome and he and his mother Maggie are familiar not only with autism generally but the education system and how it deals with pupils who place on the autistic spectrum. Furthermore, we featured interviews with two teachers Ms. Trapp and Mr. Foster, both of whom have extensive experience in working with students who have autism. As a result all of our interviewees have informed opinions concerning the issue and are able to articulately communicate some concepts that a general audience may not have come across before. Once slight deviation from this convention is the lack of a vetted expert opinion, we were set to interview Dr Glenys Jones a professor at Birmingham University and she would have provided the expert opinion, unfortunately however Dr Jones failed to respond to my communications and the interview fell through. However, I feel that all of our interviewees, even the MP, have more than the required level of knowledge. 4) Footage of real eventsThis particular convention was followed, as the footage of Aaron utilised for cutaways (him at the War & Peace Festival) was natural and not staged. Additionally, the cutaways filmed within school were predominantly natural. We would go into classrooms and ask the teacher if the minded us filming the class for a few minutes, explaining that it is for our A Level coursework. If they consented then we would film students working and not ask them to do anything in particular. However, as they were aware that they were being filmed it is likely that students did not act completely naturally and chose to behave in certain ways for the camera. 5) Archival footage or stills that could not be filmed by the production teamTraditionally archived footage is found in historical documentaries, as this is discussing a very current issue there was not really much opportunity to incorporate archived footage. We did however included a still that we were unable to personally capture: the initial meeting between Aaron met his local MP Amber Rudd. This was obtained from a news article concerning the meeting and with Aarons consent a simple pan effect was added, and it was displayed as MP Amber Rudd spoke about her meeting with Aaron. 6) Natural sound and lightingThis convention was both adhered to and slightly subverted within our documentary, for example while we did not use any lighting set-ups at any point during principal photography, in post-production over-exposed scenes such Aaron at the War & Peace Festival had to be recolored in order to reduce the brightness in this sense the natural lighting was not completely preserved. In regards to sound the convention was challenged and developed, while we retained the natural sound of the interviewees speaking, we elected not to include any ambient sound recorded from the cutaways as we felt that it was distracting and took away from the professional finish we were aiming for. Instead of natural or diegetic ambient sound, we utilised a non-diegetic piece of score music. This particular piece of music is an upbeat, ukulele, instrumental that is obviously unnatural. However we chose this particular piece as we wanted to create a light-hearted tone and not represent autism as a grim and negative issue. The incidential music used in the documentary

7) Set-ups or reconstructionsIn terms of reconstructions we didnt really have any: there is one particular section where Aaron is discussing how he began his campaign by research someone, and we see a boy who looks similar to him typing on a computer. While this was initially intended to be a reconstruction of the early stages of Aarons research as he was getting his campaign off the ground, we felt that it was too obvious that boy at the compute was not Aaron and thus categorised it as another cutaway. Unfortunately, we didnt film any set-ups or constructed scenarios with Aaron as he felt uncomfortable being filmed beyond the interview. There were some cutaways within the school environment that were staged for example I sat at a table in the Sixth Form Common Room with my friend Penny and we engaged in conversation so that Alice could film me. I incorporated some hand gestures as I knew at that stage I wanted a close-up of a person gesturing with their hands. We used this convention in terms of incorporating set-ups but not reconstructions. 8) Shaped realismThis convention is similar to concept of verisimilitude: creating a believable world which the viewer becomes absorbed in. However it is slightly different given the fact that we are depicting real life events and not fiction ones as in a short film for example. In this case shaped realism means that everything depicted must seem as natural as possible. This was not as key as one may think given that the majority of footage captured was a natural situation. However, for example it meant not using a cutaway where a subject directly looks at the camera as this can break the 4th wall something not typically done (through cutaways) in documentaries. We also edited some of the segments of interviews to remove long pauses or speech fillers (e.g. um and err) in order to mimic a more natural flow of speech, often in these cases a cutaway would be edited on top of the individual speaking so that the jump in the image is undetectable to the audience (all they see is the cutaway).9) Mise-en-scene & Visual coding[Links with shaped realism] Mise-en-scene was especially considered when filming the interviews. For example, the location and setting for the interview reflected the nature of the role the individual has. Ms. Trapp and Mr. Foster were filmed in a school office and classroom respectively. Both were sat at desks and it was recognisable that they were in a school-like environment. Alternatively, Aaron and Maggie Sullivan interviews are set in a domestic environment, as they were representing the pupils and the families point of view. Colouring was also considered in the documentary with the incorporation of a blue colour scheme and the colouring of certain shots in order to allow the entire text to seem like a cohesive whole. The lighting was mainly (in not completely) high-key as we wanted to the documentary to have an open, light-hearted feel to it. Thus this could be seen as diverting from the conventional serious or poignant tone that accompanies documentaries about medical conditions. 10) Text and titles We adhered to the conventions of a documentary with the inclusion of lower thirds which introduced each interviewee as they appeared on screen. As this is the introductory section of what [in theory] is a whole documentary the only titles used was a titlecard following the general opening section of the voiceover. There was also a caption which appears at the end of this segment reading END OF PART ONE. This is also common feature in documentaries aired on television they inform that audience that there is more to come after the break. GraphicsThe inclusion of graphics in order to illustrate and highlight information communicated in the voiceover is a feature found across a wide range of documentaries. These are typically used for statistics or concepts that require breaking down visually in order to full grasp their meaning, for example ASD = Autism Spectrum Disorder. The graphics utilised the colour scheme incorporated into the titles and the lower thirds. The animation of the graphics can be said to be a development of the convention of static graphics.