Documentary

This is our final product. Documentary: ‘Comfy, Funky, Essential’.

Print advert

This is our final product, the Print Advert.

Radio advert

This is our final product, the Radio Advert.

Evaluation

1. In what way does you product use forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product does not use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of a real media product, as it follows them. It follows them in many different ways such as.

The Framing of shots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtRGQWObmY&feature=PlayList&p=B807AC4FFC264AE6&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=41
The first image is a image of our documentary and the second is taken from http://www.youtube.com/ of a channel four documentary (the link for the documentary above). As you can see the same framing is used within the shots as the interviewee is to on side of the screen and in the mise en scene it is a natural environment with objects relating back to the subject within the documentary.

The framing of different shots is very important. The framing of shots represent the different people being interviewed, as you can see by the interview in our documentary we have represented that girl as young as she is located in her bedroom to signify that she is young. Also to show that she like lots of different show there a different shoes in the background to imply she has lots of different shoes placed all around her bedroom.

The Graphics

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/man-on-earth

To display the name of an interviewee graphics are used. As you can see both graphics use a plain easy to read front and a bright colour that stands out against all backgrounds. Our graphics are purple as some of the mise en scenes used we either to dark or to light for plain colours like black or white so we went with purple, as it links with are title sequence tying the documentary together with the graphics used.

The Cut aways

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/katie-my-beautiful-facetie-my-beautiful-face

Cut aways are used to split up different footage. The cut aways that are used are always relevant to the subject or the issues that is being raised at the time. The examples above are cut aways to establish were different interviews are taking place.

The Archive material

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stm3qv5mTV0

Archive footage is footage that already exists, the archive footage that is used in our documentary is of a DVD about MBTS this is to help the viewer understand about the shoes. But archive footage can also be used to show other clips of music videos and show.

The Voice overs

Voice overs in documentaries are often used to narrate the programme an tell people what is going on. This style of documentary is known as Expository as they all use a ‘voice of god’. Our documentary follows in this style making it an Expository style of documentary.

The Narrative structure

The most popular structure for documentaries is a linear structure, so we decided to follow this structure. As we start by talk about all the different type of shoes their history moving on to the move popular style of shoe of today.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

All of the ancillary tasks are linked connect the documentary together and so the audience isn’t confused as to what it is and what it’s about. We have linked the different tasks within these different ways.

The Images

To follow the code and conventions of a news paper advert, the print advert that we designed is in a landscape style. The reason for this is when buying space in a newspaper, landscape designs are easier as they can divide into smaller sections we putting then all on one page. Also if it is in a landscape form then the advert can be advertised easier in other forms such as on a billboard.

Music and Voice overs

It is effective to have all the ancillary task linking so the audience will be able to hear and look at the different forms of advertising and link them all with the documentary. If they weren’t linking and all have different styles and images then the audience would get confused as to what it is advertising and may not be as interested in watching the documentary.

The Advertising

To advertise my documentary the print and the radio advert were created. Below is a list of all the different places that I would have them printed and played.

We will also have our radio advert advertised to a section of local radio stations for different areas and a section of DAB radio stations as then the advert is getting out to all types of different listeners in all different forms.

Our radio advert would be scheduled for different times during the day. These times would be mostly prime time for example between the time of 7 am and 10am and people are on there way to work listening to the radio of on there way to School/University people often listen to the radio when travelling to work in the car or on there Phone/IPod . Another time of the day is lunch time 12pm and 2 pm as people are on lunch breaks and may put the radio on or often people leave the radio on thought out their working day. Another main time is in the evening 4pm till 6pm as this is the time that most people will be heading home and tuning into the radio or arriving home and putting the radio on, also as DAB has come about and we would advertise on some DAB stations as well they may listen to the radio on their television at home or on the internet.

It doesn’t really matter as to which day the print advert is advertised as people can read newspapers on different days and at different times, but it would make sure that the advert goes out in all the different papers on the release date of the documentary.

3. What have you learned learned from you audience feedback?

Audience feedback is very important as it is the audience that is watching you product and if they don’t like it or understand it then the wont watch it. By receiving our audience feedback it has then made use realised some changes that need to be made in order to gain our viewers and what things would kept our viewers watching.

To gather audience feedback we arranged a focus group of different people that were all within are target audience. Below is a video of the feedback we gained from the focus group.

We also played our documentary to different people to gain a mixture of feedback from a mixture of different people. Below is voice clips of some of the questions that they were asked.

From our audience feedback I learnt that the opening titles were effective and looked of a professional standards. All of the context of the footage and interviews were all relevant. The camera work was effective but some of the shots were a big jumpy.

One of the main improvements were the sounds levels as they differed within different interviews and the voice over sounded different to the other sound. Some found this to be effective as you were able to tell the differences and others were distracted by the sounding of it.

The scheduling and the channel is perfect for the type of the documentary and for the target audience. People understood the aim of the documentary and felt the energy that we tried to create. The music played a big part in this and people felt this by the music in the opening titles and on the radio advert as it was young with attracted the target audience.

The radio and print advert for filed their purpose as after the target audience looking and listening to each they would then go on and watch the rest of the documentary. They also related each of the print, radio and the documentary with each other and all thought they matched with the use of songs and the image being the same.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used many different technologies during the different stages of making the documentary. From using the internet to help me with my planning and research, then the different cameras, microphones and tripods used during filming. Then the different software used for the actual construction of the documentary, to the movies and images used during the evaluation stage. This is a short film to show how I used the different technologies.

The use of technology is very important as with out all the different technology we would haven’t been able to get this done, from the filming process down to the editing. All the different levels of technologies that I used was very useful an effective. Different programmes and light weight easy to handle equipment made it easy to film, record and editing in the easiest more effective way. For example the filming was easier done on and then easily uploaded onto the computer, to the correct software of Adobe Premier, which was effective to use and was able to allow you to edit in a professional manner and within a lot of detail.

Print and Radio advert

Print and Radio advert

As well as produce the actual documentary, we had to produce a radio advert and a newspaper advert. To do this we started to look at different types of adverts as a class and come up with a simple code and conventions that they all face.

We came to the conclusion that all radio adverts:

Had extracts from the actual documentary

Voice over from the documentary – often clips of the voice over in the documentary but others that added still to be done using the same voice. Often the voice over would be questions causing an enigma code so that the listeners would have to watch the documentary to find out the answer.

The time of the documentary

The channel that is it going to be on

Radio adverts of often kept short and quick so the audience isn’t bored it last no longer the 50 seconds

There is often music in the background that will either feature on the documentary or have a relevant to the subject.

Here are the radio adverts that we listened to:



We came to the conclusion that all newpaper adverts:

Have a main central image that is very eye catching and the mise en scene of the image is relevant to the subject of the magazine. This image will often make you thing as it is different making you want to watch the advert.

There is little text on the advert often just the time and the date then maybe even a tagline to make you think again making you what to watch the documentary.

They always have the logo of the channel in stead of saying what channel it is on as people know all the different logos.

It also has the scheduling of the program on it.

Here is the website that we looked at for the newspaper advert: http://www.4creative.co.uk/flash/#/keywords/print_ad/factual_cutting_edge_storm_junkies

To get all of this work done we split you can each took on a different section. After coming up with each of the ideas and planning them together we each went of and produced the work, asking for advice and checking with each other along the way.

Ideas

For the new paper advert we came up with the idea of having a big shoe image that was made up of little shoes inside of it. As if would be effective and eye catchy to look at. Then have the channel for logo and the time and date in the bottom cocner and have the title of the documentary at the top. We decided to do it like this as it is known as a teaser advert as it is teasing the audience as they aren’t getting much information making them want to go an watch the documentary to find out. We also did it like this as after looking at different example the channel for adverts were mostly like this and as are documentary is going to be on channel four we decided to follow their code and conventions.

Here are the deigns that were planned for this advert.

For are radio advert we decide that we were mostly going to use clips from the documentary and the main clips that we wanted to use were the voxpops as it shows the listener that is a documentary done for the public as the public are being featured in it. Also we decide as it was little clips of footage it would be fast and funky and young sounding which is the idea that we are going for. We also decided on using fast pace music to keep up with this theme.

This is the edit decision list that we did for the radio so who ever was to do it would remember what we had decide on and be able to find the exact footage of the documentary. We also planned out the voice over script that we would to get off the footage and other things that would need to be recored.
Voice Over for Radio Advert

-Shoes are they the new drug of choice?Is wearing the hottest new pair of designer heels addictive? (an addiction?)

-What is it exactly that hooks us in the shoe depertament? Is it comfort, fashion or just basic necessity? -Men, women, boys and girls- we all wear them?

-Comfy Funky and Essential. Thursday. 9 0'clock. Channel 4.

-Take a walk in our shoes..... -Where did they originate? Where are they going?

The production work

As at this point we had everything decided on we split the work to get it done quicker. Sasha did the newspaper advert and Whitney did the radio advert while I added the finshing touches to the editing of the documentary checking sound levels, checking cut away and making sure that all transitions moved smoothly.

For the print advert that Sasha was doing she went onto the following website to produce a example the main image to show the rest of the group and check that we think it would still suit are audience. This is the website that Sasha used to created the example image.http://www.polyvore.com/ below is some work in process of making the example.

After doing this and seeing the example image we all decide that it was the image we were going to go ahead with. We then went out and took different images of different types and styles of shoes to then create the over all image in Photoshop. After cutting out all of the individual images of shoes and laying them out in the right position, Sasha then added the channel four logo, and the time and the date of the documentary to the advert. She added a block around the time and date as while research into different articles we found this was a common factor in all channel fours adverts.

For the radio advert that Whitney produced, she edit the sound away from the actual footage of the documentary to make an advert. She then imported the different sounds into Adobe Audition. She kept to the editing decision list that we decide on and kept playing it aloud to the rest of group while working to check we liked it. Also she had to play around with the different sound levels checking the listener would be able to hear everything clearly without having to adjust the sound when listening. We arranged for the recording of the voice over to be recorded It was then added to complete the advert and tie it all together.

Below are some print screens of the radio advert work in process.

Editing process

As we haven’t used the editing software on the computer for a while when we first started to edit it was only the basic that I knew and had to tell the rest of the group, but as we got future into it things started to come back to us and we were then able to edit to our highest abilities.

To make sure that we all took it in turns to edit and knew how two use the software we divided it into different sections that they would edit but talking to the rest of the group the whole time to make sure that we all agreed with what was being done.

As I designed the opening titles I asked the group if I could edit them. To do the edit the opening titles was tricky at first as there is many different layers to the video footage to add at the same time, after I got all the footage on the timeline I then started to add the footage onto the same screen as there would be three different moving video footage going on the screen at the same time. I then resized them and added a white background to make them stand out, also added the graphics that Sasha had made in Photoshop. Then it was ready to add the music that I have edited in a different software called Adobe Audition, I cut out the chorus of the song and edited it down to the exact time that was needed for the opening sequence. The reason why I cut out the chorus was it is the most catchy and funky part of the song and it is very happy and will hopefully make the audience feel this.

We had a collection of different songs all relating to shoes that we could use within are documentary. We decide on the song ‘New shoes’ by Paolo Nutini for the opening titles as out of all the different songs it was the most up to date and the one that went with the target audience the most. The other songs that I download for the documentary were the sound track to the film ‘Foot lose’, Evlis presley Blue suede shoes and finally ‘these boots are make for walking’. We used two of the these within are documentary, we decide to add them to different cut way shots that had no voice over and add one of the songs to the graphic that we had in them.

While we were adding we where always checking to see whether everything was relevant towards are target audience a prime example of this is the voxpops. As are target audience is mainly women we made sure the voxpops where mainly done by women, also some of the things weren’t suitable such as swearing even though are documentary would be on after the 9 o’clock watershed we still didn’t feel it would fit in with the documentary itself.

Here are some screen shots that I took at different stages during the editing process.

This is a scene shot of me editing the different music on Adobe Audition. This is a scene shot of me changing the different sound levels.

This is a shot of me importing the video from the cameras to the computer.

While we were adding we where always checking to see whether everything was relevant towards are target audience a prime example of this is the voxpops. As are target audience is mainly women we made sure the voxpops where mainly done by women, also some of the things weren’t suitable such as swearing even though are documentary would be on after the 9 o’clock watershed we still didn’t feel it would fit in with the documentary itself.

I thought as a team we worked very well together as we all had are own sections but asked each other what they thought and we weren’t afraid to tell the truth if we didn’t like it. We would use are spare time and organised with each other when we were going to do it and what parts to do.

After we finished editing it we all sat down as a group and watched the documentary, made our own notes as what bits we would thought we could improve and checking all the volume alright thought out the film. After it finished we then disused what notes we had each come up with.

As we more onto the next section of are work I decide to carry on adding the finishing touches to the documentary as the others moved onto the print add and the radio add.

Permission Letters

We needed to sent an email to the ask the companies if we were able to play there music on our documentary. Below is a copy of the email that we sent.

To: humanresources@sonymusic.com

From: Sasha Jones

Dear Sony Music Records,

We would like to use the following songs in a documentary we are producing for our A Level coursework:

Paolo Nutini- New Shoes

Footloose soundtrack

Elvis Presley-blue suede shoes

We will not allow any other resources to use your music tracks in any way, we will not edit them in any way and will only use them in our documentary.We would really appreciate it if you would give us permission to use your songs.

Yours Sincerely

Sasha Jones, Natalie Allcock, Whitney Griffiths

Fliming process

I believe that the filming process went very good for us as a group. As are documentary is about shoes we did most of are filming in a shopping centre in Liverpool. We planned are time in detail before we went out on different days to film, we did this so we weren’t wasting anytime while there. We went early for some of our filming so that we get a number of different cut away shots in different shops, the reason for us going early was so that there weren’t many people around once we had most of the different cut away shots done it was mid day so there were more people around so we could get are vox pops done. To make sure we had enough vox pops we went to the same area on two different days, as some of the answer given we could use and others we couldnt.

We did most of are filming as a group and we all went together so we could all decide what shops we like the look of and what angels what would best. We each took it in turns to film and interview and be the interviewer. I filmed the Mr Swindelle’s interview which I feel went very well and was filmed to the best of my abilities.

This is an action shot of us doing are vox pops.

This is a shot of us checking the mircophone was working and checking out the mise en scene for our vox pops.

Are interviews with a shop assistance in Kelly Clarks we had to ring up and plan in advance, went we arrived there they said we were allowed to film anywhere. There was a lovely well lit quite area in the far corner of the shop floor we decide as a group that this would be a lovely mise-en-scene for the interview, we did have one problem with this place it was there was a mirror very close to were we where filming, as we didn’t want to get the mirror in a shot as it would be a distraction to the audience watching we were able to place Kelly to side of the shot as we had planned. It word as find as she was still positioned to the side but not as far over as we would have liked. Other interviews that we planned were with Mr Swindelle about the health shoes that he wears. It was hard for us to find a good mise-en-scene as he came into school for us to film him all about the MBT footwear that he wears. So with the quick thinking of are group we came up with the idea to get a image of the shoes up on a computer scene so there was something relevant to what the was talking about in the mise en scene.

Unfortunately we were let down by two of our interviews, one of are interviews at a New Look store, as we arrive they pulled out on us even thought we had rang up in advance to say if it was ok to film. Another interviewee pulled out of us Jessica Gibbions talking about wearing wide shoes, as was unable to meet us with us for the filming as she had a family emergency. This left us two interviews down and not much time to try and plan more. We interview Sadie as she a shoe manic and has a many views and many different pairs of shoes. The mise en scene for this interview was hard but as Whitney a group member went of to do the filming for this quick interview, was quick with her thinking decide to add some of Sadie’s shoes to the bedroom in which the interview took place. The final interview that we did was with Lisa talking about kids shoes. As are target audience is aimed at 18- 30 year old women they are mostly likely to have children or be an aunty or god parent to a child so we thought it would be good if we had an aunty talking all about where they get the children’s shoes from one what places they think are the best. This interview then tied in with the Clarks interview as they were both talking about child’s feet. The mise en scene for Lisa interview was in the child bedroom so it was clear she was talking all about the child. The room was very dark but Sasha who was filming the interview tried to make it as light as possible.

When film we did an equal amount of filming, an all had an equal say in what to film and what type of shot to use. To help us get different angled shots we use different levels that we could find such as using a bin to create a high angle shot and within different shops we used different items such as chairs and stools to help us get this angle. We wanted to add a mixture of different shots into documentary should as a tracking shot, so to create this effect I drove the car alongside what we wanted to film to create the effect of using a dolly. Always to create another type of tracking shot we used the escalator in the shopping centre.

These shots of us using different levels and objects to
help us get the perfect shot and many different angle shots.

This is an action shot of Sasha asking if we can film inside the Everton shop as we asked before filming in or outside of any shop. For this shot we held the camera still and turned it around to get a panning shot of the shop Office.

These are some pictures that we took when we were filming and playing it back checking it if was the right shot, and seeing if we need to film it again.

We made a list of what needed filming during the day,

here is a shot of us checking and ticking off our list.

Ticking and checking of the to do list ( please note this is a pen in my mouth)

We took a section of photographs that we use for possible cut away shots this is just a collection of some of these photos.

Permission form

We filming anyone under the age of sixteen we gave then this permission form to get filled in by a parent or guardian. Below is copy of the permission form that we gave out.

Dear Parent/ Guardian,

As part of my A-Level Media coursework I am producing 5 minutes of a documentary. For all under 16’s I need permission on behalf of them from their parent or guardian.I would really appreciate it if you could fill in the slip below to allow me to feature them in the documentary.The documentary will not be broadcasted and will be kept confidential.

Yours Sincerely

Sasha Jones, Natalie Allcock and Whitney Griffiths

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I give permission for……………………………………..to feature in the documentary ‘Comfy Funky and Essential’

Signed…………………………………(Parent/Guardian) Date…………………………............