Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
To an extent our documentary follows with the main common codes and
conventions of TV documentaries. However due to the research of
documentaries prior to the filming we based our filming on the research and
notes we conducted during the research of conventions such as: Misé en
Scene, Camera, Sound, Interviews and The voiceover technique. We noticed
that the issues tend to use a contemporary and relevant issue that is current
in the particular social context. We applied this notion when planning the
theme of our documentary: Smoking, Underage drinking, Drug use, Casual
sex, The effects of the recent government changes and its implications,
Recession and the influence of the overall media were all original ideas on
what could possibly make an interesting issue for our documentary. However
due the heavy ambiguity of the other ideas we decided, that ‘Social
Networking’ would be a more accessible and intricate issue to explore.
One of the documentaries we analysed prior to our documentary was ‘Are the
Net-police coming for you?’ A panorama documentary series on BBC. The
documentary explores the negative implications of the illegal downloading on
the music industry. In the documentary there were various interviews with
specialists in the field, cutaways of computer shots during interviews and
numerous amount of montage of shots. We decided that this documentary
would be most applicable to analyse as it highlights issues with the 21st
century profound obsession with a cyber reality. Throughout the documentary
Corey Evans
there was a series of conventions and techniques used to convey the issue
concerned. These include:
Title, ‘Are the Net Police Coming for you?’ using this as a starting point we
decided to use a title that indirectly speaks to the audience member through
the use of a rhetoric question. We decided to adopt this notion as we felt
through the use of speaking (indirectly or directly) to an audience member
would evoke more thought and therefore increase the likelihood of them being
keen to watch the documentary.
Corey Evans
Furthermore we did get criticism during the audience feedback about our
documentary lacking realism to it, however we did bear in mind the codes and
conventions we researched during the production of the documentary. Our
documentary did though have good quality of footage in relation to the
voiceover this was due to excessive filming of potential cutaways that we
planned using during the filming period.
The production of the documentary was in two stages after the original
planning and research we did. Firstly there was filming. We tried to plan as
much as possible prior to when filming was due to start but a problem that
arose during the filming which arguably we saw as inevitable was the ideas of
what to film. Three essential genres of filming were seen as crucial during the
documentary: Montage still/shots; cutaways and
interviews. During the planning of the filming process
we decided of what to film by brainstorming ideas of
either social networking or overall cyber connotations,
we then watched documentary’s particularly ‘Are the
net police coming fro you’ (As it was cyber based) and
assessed what they too filmed as we thought this
would be most relevant to our documentary and would help in doing so. We
noticed frequent amount of computer cutaways with various users of again
different gender/religion/ethnicity and age etc were using he computer, even
though our college has a limited amount of people concerning these
stereotypes we did apply to the best of ability a wider audience when filming
cutaways and future montage shots. However during the end of the couple of
days we had run out of ideas of what to film, we had recorded everything on
our brainstorm and everything we saw as relevant to the documentary through
watching ‘ATNPCFY?’ and various other documentary’s (Surprisingly there is
little or no documentary’s about
social networking!) and we carried
out the ideas we recorded during
the filming. During the second week
we were struggling to find what to
record after we’d finished our
interviews etc. however like I
previously mentioned we did predict
this inevitable
Problem to come hence why we
carried out heavy emphasis on our
planning and research during pre-filming. However this problem was soon
resolved by simply using our common sense and deciding to get more than
enough footage in order to use a more ‘Pick what we need to use’ style of
filming our piece, as we concluded it was better to have to much footage than
not enough, obviously. One thing that proved easier than originally thought for
our filming was organizing appropriate interviews. Our imagination at the start
struggled with who to interview and the sort of questions we could ask, this
then got resolved quite simply by agreeing that as the documentary would
appeal to a wide audience we would like the views of different perspectives on
the issue of Social networking, so ultimately we decided on A youth worker, IT
specialist, A student and a Parent. The questions were all revolved around
there status in order to emphasis importance on there perspective.
Corey Evans
The second stage of the production was the role of editing our filmed footage
in order to make it into a documentary. Overall this task had minimalistic
problems; personally I believe this was due to a good amount of limited time
of ensuring we would not slack but at the same time a sense of not being
rushed. During the editing of the documentary we also had to construct a
voiceover script, arguably there are two ways to approach this task either
before the editing to revolve the editing and interviews around the voiceover
or to produce the script after and revolve the voiceover around the
documentary footage. We decided that it would be easier If we produced the
voiceover script before. To record the voiceover we had to use a small empty
room in order to reduce any potential background noise that
could jeopardise the quality of the voiceover. There was a
frequent problem in the recording of the voiceover that was
the same room was also used by every other media student.
However this was resolved simply by waiting fro it to be free
and simply recording our whole voiceover in one session. In
all fairness I believe this had no negative consequences the
only obvious one being, that when we needed to record
further footage for the voiceover we had to use another
room, so therefore the sound levels were inevitably differed, we tried to the
best of our ability ro resolve this and It seems that the only clear distinct one
that appears noticeable is the statement just before the title shot The only
difficulty during the editing of the documentary was factors such as technical
difficulties and deciding on how to edit the piece. However a more problematic
difficulty was not with the editing itself but choosing the pieces of footage to
use on our documentary. It wasn’t that we had too much; more we were trying
to match the relevance of each image with the voiceover. However like
previously mentioned this didn’t in the end cause a huge struggle. During the
editing we did all use systematically learn how to use the final cut programme,
which all in all furthered our overall IT skills.
After the editing the next stage in the process was producing ancillary texts
that would advertise our documentary to an audience. We systematically
created a listings page using ‘indesign’ and ‘Photoshop’ and a 30 second
radio trailer created using the ‘garageband’ programme.
Corey Evans
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Each three of the main texts were all researched with a similar frame of mind,
to portray the issue raised through a contemporary way in order to reflect the
very epitome of the issue raised. For instance when we watched
documentaries In order to prepare for making our own we concentrated
heavily on the ones involving not just computing themes but contemporary
themes (such as underage drinking/sex etc.) in order to establish a similarity
in the way the issue is conveyed. We established that contemporary issues,
when explored follow three similar themes: Ambiguity (on the advertising
primarily), Simplistic and straight forward and Repetition of the theme
conveyed through cutaways and montages.
All three of our texts individually play a role in the overall combination. For
instance all three individually target a younger audience. All three have similar
connotations, for instance ambiguity on the subject in order to evoke a
response to the issue raised. This technique can be seen in the title of the
documentary for instance, the fact that the question is rhetoric alludes to the
idea of ambiguity and a desired need for the audience to think about the
question put forward. The radio trailer uses non linear language format in the
process of the script writing this to convey an ambiguous tone as if listened to
by the public they are simply faced with a short sentence followed by music.
This creates should hopefully convey a connotation of curiosity in which the
audience member would want to be informed by. Moreover the listings page
uses the title of our documentary to create an ambiguous title in itself and
directly linking the documentary with the magazine listings page (i.e due to
use of title) Together with the radio trailer and the magazine using a
connotation of ambiguity this not only advertises the documentary subliminally
through repetition of the use of the rhetoric question : ‘Is the social net-
working?’ but it also creates a brand of questioning as neither the title, radio
trailer or the listings page fully inform what the answer of the question is, thus
increasing the likelihood of people watching.
Corey Evans
Another technique that all of our ancillary and our main text have in common
is that they all try to keep a simplistic and straightforward manner, this is
purposely designed as it evokes a connotation of contemporariness, which
arguably is the epitome of the issue at hand. This theme would also appeal to
a more culturally aware audience as the issues raised would be a more
contemporary issue for concern, this is not necessarily the primary audience
we enable to address but it is arguably still appealing to a more wider
audience. That said however the documentary [filmed] in a simplistic way
could evoke a more traditional response due to the minimal complexities in
filming it. Overall the simplistic manner of the documentary, radio trailer and
listings page create a contemporary feel due to the minimalistic manner of
them and the way they convey the information straightforwardly, this creates a
connotation of simplicity and contemporary, however the minimalism of
complexities could attract a more traditional audience, so therefore overall
attracting a wider audience.
Another theme that all three of our media texts are able to produce is a
semantic of cyber. Firstly this is conveyed in our documentary through the
constant montage of computer related images; such as mobile phones,
computers, and various companies that primarily dominate the revolutionary
shift in the virtual world (Such as ‘Orange’, ‘Vodaphone’, ‘Apple’ etc.) not only
that but there is also a frequent amount of cutaways that involve pictures of
the internet, this purpose is to illustrate to the audience member the amount
(as it were) of relations to the ‘virtual world’ in the interviews and voiceover
used, thus reiterating to the audience member the relevance of the virtual
world.
Corey Evans
Voiceover: "400 Billion actvive posts and fileshares every 24 hours" (Fact to furthermore entice
audience member)
Voiceover: "Catch Corey, Jay and Amer This Saturday at 8!" (First names increases familiarity possible
Following the class/audience feedback our teacher then had the responsibility
of assessing our other ancillary media texts. The fundamental criticism of the
radio trailer was that the Voiceover was not clear. I was not shocked by this
criticism as it was more my intention to convey a more ambiguous and
abstract voiceover to evoke a reaction from the audience member to have the
desire to find our more about what the documentary would be about, the only
clear bit admittedly of the voiceover in the radio trailer is the conclusion of it
when the voiceover presents the date and time the documentary is to be
Corey Evans
screened, this again was intentional as I wanted to give the effect of questions
and no answers and then directing the audience member where to get the
answers (to the otherwise ambiguous statements) – towards our
documentary. The statements and then the clear direction at the end is a
proven methodological way of advertising, for instance the famous ad
campaign of ‘Martini is…’ in the 1970’s.
Another criticism that was given by teacher is that it didn’t follow the normal
conventions of a normal advertisement. I personally was shocked by this
criticism as I found that as it was clearly mentioned at the end a clear date
and time to watch the documentary (with the title proceeding it) that it was
clearly a documentary, however I can see the professional angle she is
coming from as it doesn’t follow with the overall conventional advertisement
technologies but again I believe this was semi intentional as I wanted my
advertisement to be more stand out again further emphasising the audience
member to want to watch it.
Our teacher then evaluated the listings page. Our teacher commented on the
use of variety in the images as this overall leads to a more desired effect of
attracting an audience member visually, I believe this was due to student c
having very good skills with the programme he created it on. Furthermore my
teacher commented on the way that the Listings page clearly advertises the
documentary, which is an essential factor of it. Our teacher didn’t really
criticise the radio trailer in terms of technological issues or layout problems.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
After the research and planning was completed we then moved onto the
construction and production of the documentary. This process of all of them
involved most use of a wide range of media technologies, computer
programmes and various uses of software.
Firstly we started of with the filming this primarily involved minimal use of
computer software. This task consisted of essentially using video camera’s,
tripods and microphones. We would usually head to Solihull Town Centre in
order to gain more interesting footage and when an interview was taking place
we would try to make it take place within the college, not just for practicality
but also in a way of professionalism, the only exception to this is when we
filmed a ‘carphone warehouse’ worker within the shop. This was however
done intentionally as the setting of where she works
additionally sets up a semantic that is clearer to the
audience. During the filming there were a few noticeable
frequent problems with the cameras and the equipment
that surrounds it. For instance setting up the tripod and
dismantling it became very time consuming and especially
(as it happened on a few occasions) we would end up with a
faulty tripod so therefore ensuring more time was wasted.
However that said during the filming we encountered very
few problems.
Corey Evans
After the filming was completed we then moved on to importing the filmed
footage to the final cut express programme. To import all the footage was to
say the least a simple and comprehendible task, the task after this however
proved more difficult. In order to have a produced documentary there needed
to be numerous amounts of editing to the footage we filmed. In all honesty I
found this task tedious and time consuming as factors such as
sound levels, cutaways and the montage of the shots required
intricate and precise editing, however I did commit my full
concentration, I just feel looking back that if we
took more consideration to this issue prior to filming then we
could have had more time committed to the substance of the
documentary, as we did consider it just it seems we didn’t
understand the problems with it. That said however it wasn’t a difficult task
and the final cut express programme was a relatively easy programme to
come to grips with as it was fairly simple and we as a group encountered few
problems with it, however the problems we encountered were primarily
technical difficulties and they were easy to solve after help from our college IT
technician.
Another media technology that I wasn’t familiar with and should be worth a
mention is the 'Apple MAC software.' Prior to the
documentary project I had rarely used this software and
was extremely unfamiliar with it, however it the Apple MAC
software is extremely easy to grasp and after about an
hour of it i became very confident with the software.
Overall I believe this Project went extremely well. We committed not only
our lesson but our free time to the completion of this project, as a group
we all co operated excellently and got every necessary task completed
without any worry by the deadline. Furthermore I am happy with the
overall end result of the project and am pleased with the product(s) we
produced, I believe that we all committed all our efforts and arguably it
paid off. If I was to do this project again the only issue I could see being
solved much sooner would have been to able to comprehend the
amount of time needed to edit the documentary and to further the extent
of research in the documentary and radio trailer. Another self criticism
that I believe is fair to say is that i think if we received more peer advice
and took into consideration other projects and received advice from the
peers rather than relying on our teacher and/or IT technician I believe
that some issues could have been resolved quicker, Overall however
like previously mentioned I am extremely happy with the end result and
our efforts as a group, the tasks have not only furthered my skills in
media production but my overall skills of IT.