Jason Lloyd Question 1 - In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions

of real media products? For our A2 media coursework we were asked to create an opening 5 minute documentary of our own choice within of group of 3 people. Pauling and Czimentiniylis theory supported this decision due to them elie!ing that the est ideas spring from group work as you need to ha!e loads of ideas efore you ha!e one really good idea. As well as this" we were asked to create two ancillary products" a dou le page spread and radio trailer that all conformed to the chosen topic. Following the criteria gi!en to us" we started y researching a num er of documentaries. Firstly # wanted to research into the meaning of the word Documentary. Documentary ilm is a !road category of visual e"pression that is !ased on the attempt to #document# realism. Although $documentary film$ originally referred to mo!ies shot on film stock" it has significantly e%panded to include !ideo and digital productions that can e either direct&to&!ideo or made for a tele!ision series. 'ocumentary" as it applies here" works to identify a $film making practice" a cinematic tradition" and mode of audience reception$ that is continually growing without clear oundaries. (he word documentary came a out after a )cottish documentarian *$ohn %rierson+ made his re!iew of a film in ,-2. /0oana1. &oana was the first docufiction /fictional documentary1 in the history of cinema" directed y 2o ert 3. Flaherty" the creator of 'anoo( of the 'orth which was one of the first silent documentaries to e made as well as one of the first 25 films to e selected for preser!ation in the 4nited )tates 5ational Film 2egistry y the 6i rary of Congress for eing $culturally" historically" or aesthetically significant$. )ill 'icholls* theory of 'ocumentary 0odes /277,1 is something that we egan to look into efore re!iewing !arious documentary e%amples. 8ill 5ichols elie!ed there were si% different types of documentary modes which were +oetic, ,efle"ive, o!servational, e"positional, +articipatory and +erformative. A +oetic mode is !ery impressionistic and mo!es away from the $o 9ecti!e$ reality of a gi!en situation. A ,efle"ive mode is where you usually see film makers wrestling with the content of their findings. An e%ample of a film maker in!ol!ed with refle%i!e documentaries is * -ouis therou" who is iconic for documentaries such as *8lack 5ationalism+ and *8ehind 8ars+. :is rela%ed and unconcerned approach as a film maker makes him uni;ue" whilst he tends to in!ol!e himself in situations within the documentary to try and understand the realism ehind the content of his findings. <e felt that it would e difficult to adopt such an approach in our type of documentary due to the fact it takes a certain type of character to present such contro!ersial su 9ect matters. An o!servational mode is where you o ser!e real life" mostly using handheld de!ices or a *fly on the wall+

Jason Lloyd approach to document realism. An e%ample of an o!servational documentary is that of *A =ood )mack+ /Filmed 22nd0arch 2772 > roadcasted !ia 88C1 which is trying to create the ideology to the !iewer that smacking their child is ad for their de!elopment. (he use of fly on the wall allows the !iewer to feel as if they are in!ol!ed with what theyre seeing as if it was their own room whilst the use of the diegetic !oiceo!er is incorporated to document the whole program. ?ur documentary was !ery different to this as it doesnt use any fly on the wall techni;ues" plus editing is used to e%cess within our documentary unlike this where its not implemented at all. A participatory documentary is used to emulate anthropological approaches such as studying human eha!iour. #t also shows the film maker as a social actor within the film such as the one # studied .upersi/e &e. (he e"positional mode was y far the most similar to our documentary style in many ways. (his has a narrati!e and a !oiceo!er throughout" which is how we chose to pursue our 5 minute documentary. #t is !ery factual which we certainly followed in ours" due to the amount of statistics that we used. (his style is also !ery rhetorical" in the way that it narrates to the !iewer" and this we found !ery effecti!e in our piece. (here are many ways that we ha!e followed codes and con!entions within the documentary" using different documentaries to outline suita le aspects which we felt should e included within our own. After watching !arious documentaries such as *)upersize 0e+" *A =ood )mack+" *Airline+ and *(een )pecies+ it was o !ious that all con!entions used in each documentary were similar" ut implemented at different times. .ound is a huge part of tele!ision documentary whether its a voiceover" !ac(ground music" diegetic or nondiegetic sound. All documentaries that we looked at used !oiceo!ers which we found to e !ery The voiceover informati!e as it conforms to the !oice of script god approach. 4nlike *)upersize 0e+ which engages with the audience through the use of !oiceo!er" whilst in!ol!ing a presenter within the program who of course is the same person * &organ .purloc(+" as presenter he is more up eat which fits with the su 9ect matter. <e compared this to the 88C documentary *A =ood )mack+ which we found lacked warmth due to the tone of the !oiceo!er. <e hea!ily decided against using any features from a good smack as we felt it was rather dismal and lacking con!iction. <e felt that the most insightful documentaries for using a !oiceo!er were *Airline+ and *(een )pecies+. 8oth documentaries used the !oice of god approach effecti!ely@ we felt this was powerful as you felt a sor ed y what you were watching. (he choice of ackground music was essential ecause it had to compliment the !oiceo!er as well as those speaking within the documentary /e%pert inter!iews" !o% pops1 whilst not coming across as too o!erpowering. <hen

Jason Lloyd looking at documentaries such as *0irline there is no music used throughout the program apart from the opening and closing credits. (his didnt appeal to us due to wanting a !oiceo!er that complimented our documentary throughout the whole 5 minutes. *.upersi/e me had a !aried selection on ackground music that went from *Othar Turner and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band Shimmy She Wobble+ which had a sort of southern feeling to it" as well as eing passi!e. ?n the other hand" the song Fat Bottomed Girls by ueen was used which of course is a part of 8ritish cultures A7B-7s that is a completely different genre to the first song. 8oth songs are copyrighted meaning they wouldnt e a le to e used within our documentary. For our documentary we wanted something more electronic and current that conformed to the technology theme which is futuristic. <e used a software called * %arage !and that allows you to create your own mi% of sampled eats gi!en to you within the software. After testing various samples we created a mix that we thought worked perfectly with our technology theme (as shown above). We imported this into Final Cut Express and changed the sound levels to compensate with the diegetic sounds. We also felt that using a more exciting, electronic beat would give aesthetic pleasures to our target audience due to it conforming to the current music era. Other conventions in the documentary such as the Camera work were essential if we wanted to portray a quality documentary. Camera shots that we research were 12. 31"treme 2ide .hot4, 56 35lose 6p4, &. 3&id .hot4, &56 3&edium 5lose 6p4, 156 31"treme 5lose 6p4, 50 35utaway4, 7wo.hot and the 'oddy shot. #n *.upersi/e &e+ a long shot was used ;uite fre;uently when emphasizing the large scale skyscrapers of 5ew Cork City. <e felt that this shot conformed to the large audience that their documentary was aimed at y showing how !ast an area such as the 4)A was eing affected y the growing fast food epidemic. <e thought the use of the long shot would e useful in our documentary due to the fact mo ile phones like fast food is targeting the whole population.

Long shot used in ourLong documentary. shot used in Supersize Me. 0y fa!ourite shot included in .upersi/e &e+ that we researched was the *'oddy .hot+. (his shot refers to a shot of the inter!iewer listening and reacting to the su 9ect e.g. inter!iewees eing told that *.7D of American adults are o ese+. #n the documentary *0irline, the most common shot used

Jason Lloyd was the medium shot. <e felt they used this shot !ery effecti!ely when filming !o% pops with frustrated passenger" which made you sympathise with inter!iewees. A useful tool we had was the tripod that allowed us to take a !ariety of technical shots such as a panning shot /,E5, > ,E5F1 of the college. #t was also useful when taking close ups of mo ile phones eing interacted with y students /2E5. > 3E721. #t was mostly needed when filming e%pert inter!iews that wouldnt look professional if it was filmed using a hand held method. #t was key that all e%pert inter!iews were filmed using a tripod as it conformed to all the documentaries we had studied. .pecial 1ffects were used effecti!ely within our documentary in clips such as the long shot of )olihull s;uare. For e%ample a pull focus was used when displaying on screen statistics eing descri ed y the !oiceo!er. <e thought that this it of creati!ity would make our documentary stand out" howe!er we decided that to further the creati!ity@ we should also change the speed within the shot to try gi!e the ideology of us slowing down time. <e first saw this feature used within *.upersi/e &e when a tilt shot was used filming /,,E5> ,2E751 Americans walking through =rand Central )tation. Furthermore the speed was increased within the shot to accentuate the statistic eing read y the !oiceo!er *5ew Corkers walk GB5 miles e!ery day+. <e found this shot to e !ery effecti!e" as it emphasized ;uality within our own documentary. hows the speed being changed to !"#$ ?ne of the most important factors that needed to e Pull focus being used esta lished efore e!en starting filming was the with peed edit whilst initial ,esearch. *.upersi/e &e displaying statistic. displayed ;uantitati!e and ;ualitati!e research that supplied the audience with a !ariety of facts and figures" trying to frighten you y the shear amount of shocking statistics. <hen displaying their most shocking statistics" they usually used a form of animation or whole screen te%t montage to try and catch your attention. <e incorporated this idea within our own documentary as we felt it was !ery effecti!e in keeping the audiences attention.

Other statistics displayed within documentary (shown as montage).

%ontage used in ,adio 7railer Supersize Me&

Jason Lloyd

For our ,adio 7railer we listened to . different radio trailers. From these ." we chose the est 3 which differed in !ariety and offered different con!entions. (he radio stations consisted of ))5 ,adio 1 and 8, 9live, and ,adio :. For the chosen 3 radio trailers clips" we analysed them using a sheet that outlined different aspects of each trailer for e%ample *4se of musicH+" *)ound effectsH+" +Ioiceo!erH+. (he radio channel that we decided on was 2adio G" e!en though our target audience was young@ we were still likely to appeal to an audience of an AB8 social class" which conforms to 2adio Gs target audience. <e used garage and yet again to create an effecti!e eat for our radio trailer that would complement the diegetic !oiceo!er. 6ike our documentary" we wanted to further our e%citement y going for an e!en more electronic soundtrack. <e chose the samples@ 1lectronic .ynth !eat :, 9 and ; which we felt for perfect. After importing the sample into the inal 5ut 1"press, we added a <oiceover that we pre&recorded using a script we had written /shown to the right1. 6ike e%tracts we had pre!iously listened to" it was noticea le that all radio trailer included snippets on the actual documentary. 4sing this knowledge" we included rhetoric ;uestions such as =ave we create a generation of nomopho!ics? as well as a series of snippets from the documentary to complete our G5 second radio trailer /as specified1. &aga/ine 0rticle 4sing dou le page e%amples such as *7he <ampire diaries and *5all the &idwife we were a le to get a good idea of the type of style we wanted our dou le page spread to go y. 8oth Articles included a picture from the documentary which we thought was a good idea" as it ga!e the reader an idea of the genre. <e also noticed that the main &asthead

Jason Lloyd wasnt the same as the title of the documentary in oth dou le page spread co!ers. 4sing this knowledge" we decided to title ours as *&o!ile %eneration. :ere shows our dou le page spread outlining all the key features we wanted to include within our 'ou le page spread.

?ne serious mistake that we made when designing the draft is that we didnt ha!e G columns. (his is something that we would definitely change in the future ecause it meant that people trying to read the magazine would struggle reading the article centred to the middle of

Jason Lloyd the page. A) you can see" we ha!e highlighted the pro lem that we created from not using G columns.

J!aluation All in all we stuck to the main con!entions of a tele!ision documentary" ut if could change anything" it would e con!entions of the dou le page spread. 5ot including G columns instead of 3 within the co!er will cost us marks which is frustrating" after we stated this factor numerous times. An impro!ement within the future would e to make sure that e!erything is thoroughly checked efore handing in the finished product. (his was a mistake that could ha!e een a!oided if we werent careless@ howe!er all in all # am happy with the result of our documentary.