Evaluation: Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop

or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
For our A2 media coursework we were given a brief which explained
that we must create the first opening 5 minutes of a TV
documentary as well as two ancillary products: a radio trailer and
double page spread for a TV listings which will be used to advertise
our documentary. We knew that in order to complete these tasks
efficiently we first had to carry out intensive research into what
documentaries are about, including the different types and
structures.
We discovered a theorist called Bill Nicholls who came up with 6
different Documentary Modes (2001). We found out about the
many modes of documentary including; poetic, participatory,
reflexive, performative, observational and expositional.
The decided that the most common styles of documentary are:
The expositional mode; it aims to educate the audience and portray
an accurate representation of reality using a logical order, and a
voice of god narration through out the documentary.
The Participatory/ Performative modes are very similar as they both
include a filmmaker who is present through out the documentary.
They provide their opinions and share their emotions and
experiences with the audience. The filmmaker therefore influences
the documentary, for example this is shown in Morgan Spurlocks
Super size me.
We decided that the expositional mode would be best suited to our
documentary as it is only 5 minutes long so we thought that a voice
of god narration throughout would be more effective as we wanted
to present facts on social media and make sure we get a variety of
opinions portrayed in the documentary so that the audience could
make up their own minds on the topic.
Our Documentaries narrative structure is open we chose to follow
this structure as throughout our documentary we gathered the
thoughts and opinions of experts as well as students who are the
same age as our target audience to provide more than one view and
argument on our topic of social media. We intended on our
documentary being informative and investigative so we decided to
follow theorist Claude Levi- Strauss idea of binary oppositions. We
thought this was best suited to our documentary as it allowed us to
show the Good Vs Evil on how social media affects our generation,
as this allowed our audience to make up their own opinions on the
topic.
After we carried out our research we had a clear idea of the type of
documentary we wanted to create, so we decided to research into

similar documentaries such as Supersize me, Steve Jobs iChanged

the world and The killing screens in order to learn what makes a
professional documentary such as the typical codes and
conventions.

Interviews
It was evident that interviews are used in every documentary; they
are used to portray opinions. Experts are used in order to share
their professional opinions and reiterate a point being made, these
interviews are more factual and often who the audience appreciates
as they are professionals in their field of work. Other interviewees
are known as Vox pops whom are normal people (voice of a
population) giving their own personal opinions on a subject matter
by answering questions. In our documentary we included 3 experts:
An instagram activist, a guidance counselor and College Principal.
We also included a variation of Vox pops from students around the
college.
Our Vox pop interview. It was important
to include a variation of Vox pops as they
present various opinions to our audience,
they are also the same age as our target
audience so will therefore share the same
opinions and thoughts as them. This
makes them more relatable and therefore
more appealing to our audience.

Expert interview with Guidance counsellor

Julie Maitland. Julie has been used to give
her personal experience and opinions on key
points, this will perhaps contrast the vox pops
opinions as it her own professional opinion so
our documentary will therefore contain a
variation of opinions, which is what we
wanted to do in order for our audience to
make up their own opinions on social media.
Similarly. Supersize me includes both Vox pops and Experts. The Vox
pops are people who he finds walking around the streets and are
therefore seen as unbiased as they have been randomly selected.

Vox pop used in supersize me

Expert
used in
Supersiz
e me

He also
includes a wide
variation of
Experts. For
example throughout the documentary we hear numerous health
experts talk about the effect McDonaldss is having on his health.
Spurlock chooses to ignore their advice about stopping eating
McDonalds which is a shock factor the audience as the experts are
deemed respectable and reliable people so are shocked when he
ignores their professional advice.
Rule of thirds/Framing/Text and Titles

Our Documentary

Supersize me

I followed the convention typically used in interviews, which is the

rule of thirds, which means the eye line of the interviewee must be
1/3rd of the way down the frame, so that they are usually on the
same eye level as the audience. The interviewee also is usually
placed left or right to the frame which oscillates in order to make it
more visually interesting to the audience and is another key
convention used in interviews,
Text is used to anchor the expert the interviewee is usually placed
on the opposite side to the interviewee so that it is easier to red for
the audience, we followed this convention however, this convention
was not followed in supersize me who positions the text on the
same side as the interviewee.
Text adds realism as it makes it clear to the audience that this is an
expert who knows what they are talking about, as they can clearly
see who they are and what they do. The interviewee also does not
look directly into the camera. We decided to follow this convention
as it made our documentary more professional and this way the
audience would not feel as if they are being force fed information
but instead are getting an insight into the experts opinion.

Visual Coding (mise en scene)

It is very important in documentaries to take into consideration the
mise en scene such as the background, props and costume. For
example the mise en scene is usually relevant to the interviewee, it
will reflect their work or personal environment as well as their
occupation.
We consciously decided to
film the principal in his office
in front of his computer as
this reflects his profession. He
is also wearing a suit, which
also reflects his occupation,
as people who wear suits are
often deemed important.

The mise en scene adds realism and reinforces the fact that he is an
important person, which makes the audience to value his opinions.
This convention is also evident in supersize me as Spurlock has
chose to interview a man who loves McDonalds, in McDonalds, this
reinforces the fact that this man loves visiting McDonalds everyday,
he is also wearing casual clothing which shows he is just a regular
guy and so adds realism.

Shot types:
We decided to use a tripod to film the majority of our footage as it
gave us the ability to film various shot types such as Zoom, panning
shot, over the shoulder shot and an Establishing Shot. This allowed
us to create a much more professional documentary as it was clear
that documentaries use a variation of shot types to create meaning
and make the documentary visually interesting for the audience.

An Establishing shot is
conventionally used to set the
scene for the audience. This
shot was used to introduce the
sixth form college before
introducing Julie Maitland.
Therefore we were able to et the
scene for the audience

A similar shot has been used in

supersize me, they have used an
establishing shot of McDonalds to
set the scene for the audience.
A medium close up has also been
used in supersize me during
interviews; however Spurlock does not use a tripod. Instead he uses
a hand held camera shot, which makes the interviews less formal
and in my opinion less professional. Therefore I chose to always use
a tripod when conducting interviews as it helped me keep to other
conventions such as the rule of thirds and helped maintain a steady
shot, making the documentary much more professional looking

Cutaways

I discovered that an important feature in a documentary is the use

of cut aways. These are conventionally used to break up interviews
and avoid jump outs. They are often edited in, in order to illustrate a
point being made by the interviewee, making it visually aiding for
the audience as it adds meaning and it allows the documentary to
flow.

Supersize me

Our Documentary

We decided to add a cutaway of a person using Instagram to edit

their photo to reinforce the idea that the generation is obsessed
with the social networking site. And also makes the audience think
about how editing a photo may reflect how people perceive
themselves .Therefore we have used the cutaway in the
conventional way as it has been used to reinforce a point and add
meaning.

Archival footage
Archival footage is essential when creating a mixed documentary, it
was a key convention for this genre and so we knew that it was
important we included it in our documentary. It can be used in many
ways, i.e. as a cutaway to reinforce a point being made or to show
contrast between then and now.
We decided to include archival footage at the beginning of our
documentary in order to introduce how the use of social media has
grown. We look at what people got up to before social media such as
roller skating, hanging out on the streets and at the beach with their
friends etc. We did this in order to emphasize how dramatically our
society has changed trough the years, and make a point about how
social media has effected our generation.

Similarly, Supersize me also included

archival footage at the beginning of the
documentary. The footage shows young children singing the
Kentucky Fried Chicken song Morgan spurlock has used his footage
in a similar way to us as he has used it in order to make his
audience think and question whether this is right.

Facts and statistics

A documentaries main purpose will be to inform and educate,
therefore documentaries must include facts, statistics and opinions
in order to educate their audience. This can be done in many ways.
Morgan spurlock
illustrates facts by using
graphics, which is
appealing to the
audience as it makes the
documentary more visual
as they are learning
something new in a fun
way.

We followed this convention in our documentary too as it was

evident we had to include facts in order to educate our audience
and make our documentary believable. We chose to present our
facts in a more visual way too. We included facts about instagram

and decided to present them

using percentages and photos
posted onto instagram. This
meant that we were still able to
stick to the use of social media
which made our documentary
look very professional as the
same themes were being
presented throughout.

Title of Documentary
In super-size me the documentary
question is posed 5 minutes in;
this is effective as the audience
are first drawn in due to the use
of archival footage and
facts/statistics and therefore feel
the need to keep watching to see
what the documentary is actually
about
As supersize me is a participatory documentary, Spurlock is often in
front of the camera, therefore we first see him asking a series of
rhetorical questions, making the audience
think before saying supersize me he
therefore introduces
what the documentary is about which is
then followed by the title page which
plays with music in the background.

As our documentary follows the expositional mode, it has a voice of

God narration. We followed a similar structure as supersize me,
which is also conventionally used in documentaries. First it was to
introduce the question once the audience had been drawn in. We
also posed rhetorical questions to our audience before introducing

the final question, which is

what we were going to be
investigating. We decided to
write our question out on a
mobile phone as a Facebook
status. Therefore we did not
conventionally have a title
page which poses the name of
our documentary, however we
felt as though it was much
more interesting to pose a
question to the audience so
that they know what the documentary is really about. Also we
believed the use of a Facebook status to introduce the question was
more interesting as it linked to the topic of social media.

Sound
Sound is very important, Documentaries include: A voice over,
diegetic sound , non-diegetic sound, A presenter and Background
music.
Super-size me used a presenter in their documentary as well as a
voice over which worked well as it made the documentary feel
much more personal to the audience, which fits with in with the
reflexive mode, as the audience are able to sympathize with
Spurlock throughout.
On the other hand we wanted our documentary to be informative
and felt as though the best way to do this was to have a voice of
God narration throughout also as our documentary is based at
college we did not feel the need to have a presenter as all scenes
take place around the college, which the audience will be familiar
with.