Katie Line

Media Evaluation Question One; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Since the beginning of the A2 course I have watched many documentaries in preparation for creating our own. They can all be very different, however will use many of the same conventions as each other. I spent a lot of time analysing documentaries such as Supersize Me, Airline and A Good Smack. Many of the conventions that I picked up from these were the uses of Camera. This included the shot types such as Close ups, Medium Close ups, Establishing Shots/Long shots and Extreme Close ups. In Airline the most commonly used shot was the medium close up, which we then used a lot in our documentary to get a good look at peoples expressions and how they feel towards the situation. We used handheld camera a lot in our documentary to make the viewer feel as though they are there, and get a feel for what is going on. This was used a lot in Supersize Me and we found that it was very effective for our documentary. The other type of use of the camera, is by using a Tripod. We used this on various occasions such as establishing shots of the college, for showing college equipment such as computers, classrooms, and of students walking in and out of college. The tripod meant that we could have various steady shots, and use skills that we know such as Pan, Tracking and Zooming, in a professional way. The main use of the tripod was for expert interviews, which enabled us to set up the camera in a professional manner; Supersize Me Our Documentary

A main convention used when interviewing experts, is using the rule of thirds to set up the screen. The interviewee should be looking out into an empty space which we have done here, and positioned a third of the way in, with their eye level at a third of the way down.

Sound is another important part of television documentaries, and this included Background Music, Voiceover, Presenter, Diagetic and Non-Diagetic sound. Super Size Me used a presenter in their documentary, as well as a voiceover. This worked very effectively and makes the documentary feel much more personal with the audience, however we found that for our documentary being more informative and based at a college, we did not need to use a presenter, so had just a voiceover. This is what the documentary Airline uses, as they have a narrator to tell the viewers what is going on, and guide them through the documentary.

This is part of our script that we recorded using the Microphone and Headphones and put into Final Cut Express.

Katie Line

Background music was something that we used in our documentaries just like all others we had looked at. The background music had to be simple and and not overpowering of the voiceover/sound from the documentary. We looked at simple sounds such as those used in Super Size Me, however a lot of their music included copyrighted songs such as Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen. In Airline they didnt use so much music, just the theme song that is used at the beginning and end of the documentary. Again this was copyrighted music, and for our documentary we needed something that wasnt. We used GarageBand for our background music so that we had simple beats, like those used in real documentaries.

The music worked effectively for using real media conventions, however the music that we chose, was slightly more overpowering that the script, and didnt feel like a background noise. This is something that we would certainly improve to match the conventions of a real television documentary.

We then imported our track as an MP3 into Final Cut Express so that we had a beat running throughout our documentary.

Research; the research into the topic is very important to a documentary, especially if it is to inform the audience. In Airline their research is first hand and primary, no facts/ statistics, but upfront with the customers and their views/opinions. However, in Super Size Me it is filled with first and second hand research. The beginning of the documentary is very informative, and filled with so many facts said by the voiceover. We used this in our documentary and filled our opening with statistics.

Our documentary. We used facts on our documentary, throughout the opening five minutes, and found that the large numbers worked well coming up on the screen in large text.

Super Size Me statistics in the first five minutes of the documentary.

Katie Line

Special Effects are used several times throughout the documentary Super Size Me, they work very effectively, a lot done with special graphical effects, and some done with the camera. We used a few effects in ours on the camera such as changing the focus and zooming. However, when we came to edit the documentary, we looked at real documentaries on ideas of how to edit our footage to make them effective. One of these was changing the speed of our clips. We sped up students walking in and out of college, to emphasise the amount of students that there are, and how many people are effected by job unemployment, university increases, EMA cuts etc. This is how the same effect is used in Super Size Me uses the effect when they are emphasising the amount of people that go in and out of McDonalds every single day.

Super Size Me

How we changed the speed on Final Cut Express

Still clip from our documentary on Student Finance, we sped up the shot for the purpose of showing the amount of people that go to college.

Magazine Article This was our final magazine double page spread, which we produced for the magazine Radio Times. We looked at various magazines first, to get an idea of the conventions that they use and how effective they are. Magazines range so much from TV mag to Radio Times, but each with similar conventions. As our documentary was based on a serious topic, we kept the layout very simple and straight to the point.

Katie Line

Magazine articles for television documentaries almost always have a more than picture. These tend to be shots from the documentary, showing still clips of people that are involved. We put in a still clip from our documentary, of an expert we have interviewed, showing the readers who they can expect to hear from.
Captions are always used with the images, to explain what is going on in the photo, or who the person involved is.

Images from Radio Times with captions.

The Masthead is the headline/title of the page, and is always used in magazines/newspapers. Magazine articles for television articles are sometime headlines based on characters/puns/ plotlines, but sometime the title of the program, especially when it is a one off documentary/series.

A Drop Cap is nearly always used in magazine articles at the beginning of the text. I used this in my article to make it look professional.

A Pull Quote is a clip of the article showing something that may interest or pull in the reader to the article. In this case we used an interesting/shocking fact. Many magazines use pull quotes as a way of grabbing the readers attention. Example of a pull quote from a magazine article

Articles are always written in 2 or 3 columns, which is why we have used columns in our article for talking about our television documentary.

The date, time, channel and name of the program is often here on an article. We liked the way that this was laid out, and therefore used it in our article, to make it clear when they program was on.

Katie Line

Radio Trailer For our radio trailer, we listened to lots of real ones to get an idea of the conventions that they use and what makes them effective. We have listened to radio trailers off radio five, bbc one, capital radio, and different radio stations that play advertisements. As our radio trailer is for capital radio, it needed to be something to appeal to the audience, and reach out to young people/students.
We filled in sheets to analyse radio trailers, including the the music, target audience, tone of voice, effects, sound levels, length etc.

We used rhetorical questions in our trailer to include the listener, such as Worried about going to university? Or where to go next? these are personal questions that the listener may think they really want to find out more. It puts them in the situation, and We created our Radio Trailer on Garage Band if what they are saying appeals to them, then this documentary could be of some interest to them. Even though the documentary is on a serious topic, it is for a younger generation who could get bored easily. Therefore we added a good beat to the background, and had an enthusiastic voiceover reading the script. This pulls the listener in and catches their initial attention. The time, date and channel of the documentary is something that all radio trailers will have in them, to make sure the reader knows when it is going to be on. We added this to the end of our documentary, by saying 8pm Tuesday, on Channel 4, followed by dont be late! this added something associated with the documentary to the end, and was then followed by the sound of the college bell. Most of the radio trailers that we listened to were around 20 to 40 seconds long, as they dont go on too long, yet are long enough to get their point across. We made ours about 33 seconds long, as this was long enough to say what we needed to say to sell our documentary. We also used clips from our documentary, including something a student says, and some shocking facts from the voiceover. We used ambient sound such students talking, and the general background noise at college between clips, to keep it fast pace and realistic. Our documentary overall Our documentary used many elements from real documentaries, such as fly on the wall where the camera is filming students at college, as if the camera isn't really there. It is part of a series which is common for documentaries, as it keeps the viewer watching each week. We used a narrative structure, which meant that we started with a problem and then went on to discussing the facts. If we had finished the documentary, then this would have gone onto how to solve the problem, and a summary. As we made the opening, this was just to hook readers in to see more.

Katie Line

Our documentary used the enigmatic code, as it was filled with questions, but there is no solution/answer at the end of it. It meant that we could leave this open for discussion and be something that the viewer can question themselves on. This is common in television documentaries, as they often will be on a topic that there is no answer to, and a problem that many people may face. The documentary is informative, and to give the viewer lots of facts that they do not already know, and possibly help them with their options. The tone is serious and pessimistic, as it is on a situation that we have portrayed as negative and very difficult. This is because negative situations are often what someone will be interested in. We stuck to the main conventions of a television documentary however the only part that we challenged was the use of our transitions. The most common cut in a documentary is the straight cut, and is used far more than any other. We did use the straight cut a lot, however we put in transitions such as cross dissolve and non additive dissolve, as we found that it put our clips together effectively and looked effective and appealing to the viewer.

Katie Line

Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? With our television documentary we created a magazine article and radio trailer. As these two products were to sell and advertise the documentary to our target audience we needed to make sure that they work well together. Our target audience Our target viewer for the documentary is teenagers/young adults that are going through education/ looking for a job. Narrowing this down, the main audience is those leaving college and are unsure whether university is the right option, but if not, how can they get a job? It appeals to both males and females and is a problem right at the top of students minds. It will be aimed at people from a working to middle class family, as they may be able to possibly pay the fees, but it is still a large sum of money. Under the different demographics that society statistically splits characteristics, there are a few that we can define our target audience under. There is no specific race, religion or disability that our documentary is aimed at, and in terms of gender we are aiming at both. The age range is particularly 16-19 year olds, however this can range further to those in their early twenties, where they may be leaving education and needing a job. Location is another aspect, where we can appeal more to hose that live in high unemployment areas, such as Birmingham, where our documentary is based. Pyschographic profiles define people in their lifestyle characteristics, including aspirers, strugglers, resigned and explorers. This was created by the advertising agency, Young and Rudical, called the Cross Cultural Consumer Characterization. In terms of our documentarys target audience, we have focused particularly on the succeeder and the mainstreamer. The succeeder is someone that has goals, wants to do well in their life, and in the case of students, pass their grades and go on to higher education/a successful job. This also links in briefly with the aspirer, who in this case, isn't materialistically aspiring, but aspiring to be someone in a few years time. The aspirer tends to be a younger person, which our audience aims at. Another pyschographic profile that we are aiming our documentary at is the mainstreamer. Someone who is passive, habitual, domestic, and part of the mass group of the population. Someone that wants an ordinary lifestyle, to find their best route for the future, and not end up with any money issues. Judging how each of our products appeals to the target audience shows whether they are combined together effectively. The Radio trailer and the magazine article both back up the documentary by using clips from it. Radio Trailer In the radio trailer we used clips from the documentary such as a student talking, the background noise, the bell from the opening of the documentary and facts from the narrator. Each of these are aspects that the viewer is able to recognise in both the documentary and the radio trailer, and they then combine well together. We also used a similar beat from the documentary in our radio trailer, and the enthusiastic radio voiceover appeals to a young audience. I think that the radio trailer sells the documentary, and tells students what they can definitely expect to hear from it. It is for Capital Radio, and therefore will be reaching the right target audience for the the documentary on Channel 4.

Katie Line

Capital Radio has a listening figure of 7,079,000, in which each of these listeners on average will tune in for 6.5 hours a week. As Capital Radio reaches out to a lot of people, it is a suitable radio station to put our radio trailer on, as the more people, the more viewers.
Capitals target audience of 15-34 year olds are big fans of popular music, they are media savvy and are on trend. Capital gives them social currency which they use to fit in with their friends. They live on their mobile phone and life is just a text, tweet or status update away. - Target Audience from thisisglobalradio in cooperation with RAJAR.

Their main listener group is between the age of 15 and 24, which is our main target age range.

The social class is very similar in figures, and as ours is aimed at around a B,C1,C2, this is suitable for our target listener.

Capital FM radio also reaches out to people all over the country as shown on the right hand side. It especially will reach those in main cities, such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, etc. This is helpful, as it will advertise for the documentary that needs to reach all sorts of students all over the country. In big cities such as Birmingham especially, is where our early research showed low unemployment, and as the map shows, there is FM and digital coverage, and this may attract a lot of the listeners. This fits in very well with our documentary, and the radio station has the same target audience as Channel 4. The elements that we put in our radio trailer, such as the documentary clips, voiceover, background beat and ambient sound all help back up the documentary and combine them both very well together. Magazine Article We used a still shot from our television documentary in our tv listings page so that they link very well together. We used the shot of our expert interview 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.

Katie Line

However, the magazine article is what doesnt appeal to the target audience anywhere near as much as the radio trailer. The magazine article has a professional finish for a serious topic, however this caused us a few problems. As the colourful TV mag style article looked tacky and unprofessional, we used a simple layout that you would expect from the radio times, and something that would be based on a serious topic, which is what we had chose. However, as our target audience is a young 16-19 year old area, it needed to be far more colourful, exciting and eye catching for the reader. The dark background and lack of images meant that we were unable to make someone of a young age group want to see the documentary at a first glance, yet it worked for the topic that our documentary was on. We chose Radio Times, and even though they are genuinely appealing to an older audience than ours, they still have a readership of 2,280,000. Although 579,000 readers are in a younger age group (15-44 year olds). Even though the readership for young people is not as much, the circulation will be less as this is the amount of copies that are sold. The readership is the amount that it is read and passed around, for example someone aged around 45-50 may buy the Radio Times, and their teenage/student daughter/son is likely to read something that they have at home. On average between 2003 and 2010, each copy of the Radio Times has 2.3-2.9 readers. Radio Times includes many different articles, ranging from those aimed at BBC 2 viewers, to a younger audience watching Channel 4/BBC three. As there are pages for all different age groups, and ours is based on a serious topic, Radio Times is still appropriate for our documentary. However, this is what I feel let us down the most in terms of the combinations between our documentary and ancillary tasks.

Katie Line

Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback? In the research and planning stages of our documentary production, we used questionnaires to find out information about our target audience and what they want to see in a television documentary about student finance. We asked males and females aged between 16 and 18 years old, our target audience. From this we found out that nearly all of those asked only rarely to often watched documentaries, and that over 50% were not kept up to date with the latest student finance news. We also found out the main conventions that they want to see, such as expert interviews, facts, music, a voiceover, and we put as much of this as possible into our documentary. Following on from this, we decided that using questionnaires would be the most suitable way of gaining feedback from our documentary, radio trailer and magazine article.