In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

The documentary we created does conform to the norms expected of a documentary to a degree.
Our documentary was about technology and how it has influenced us as a society, we decided that
our documentary would be show on channel four because we felt it was the most appropriate
channel for it to appear on if it was ever broadcasted.

Our documentary does conform to some conventions that you expect within a documentary. Our
documentary did have a voiceover but it wasn’t powerful like the piece needed to emphasize the
point it was trying to make, for example in supersize me the voiceover was strong carrying and git
the message across. However with ours, although it was informative and described the point of the
documentary well, it was quite and you needed to really listen to understand it. Our documentary
also has a few visual elements, which made it more interesting to watch, we tried to show
technology in its varying forms through the ages, using a montage of pictures, it’s not entirely
cinematic but it had the desired effect we wanted to achieve. However if we had of drawn our
inspiration from the documentary ‘an inconvenient truth’ we would have realised that we needed
some cinematic shot’s to really make our documentary stand out. An area our documentary was
strong in was interviews and voxpops. The people we asked about our topic seem genuinely
interested in it and it reinforced that the idea of our documentary was good, we got some
interesting and detailed answers from the public which we struggled to cut down as we had so many
good answers. There is a danger that our within our documentary there are too many people talking,
but I think this is an example of how we have diverged from the conventions of documentary
making. I don’t think this necessarily a bad thing but at times it can be tedious to watch people
giving their opinions. The expert interview in our documentary was concise and informative, every
documentary needs an opinion from an expert, it makes it appear professional and I’d say it acts as
reinforcement to the viewer that the documentary is relevant to them. The camera shots and
compositions we used are typical of a documentary. There are a lot of shots where we pan around
the area which seems to be a feature in a lot of documentaries it’s adds a creative flare to the
documentary makes it more visual and dynamic, which will hopefully interest the viewer.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
Our documentary was successful and I think that the ancillary tasks contributed to the effectiveness
of it. However I find that our group didn’t use our time wisely and we realised once we had
completed the tasks that if we had planned our time more effectively we could have made a more
satisfactory project. Consequently our ancillary tasks, though effective, could have been better.

The double page spread we created, I think, is the stronger of the two ancillary tasks. It tied in with
our theme of technology well; we choose colours that we think are associated with ‘technology’ like
grey, black and red. I think this made it look professional and gave our documentary ‘credibility’. We
researched into what we thought a double page spread should look like by looking in magazines, we
found that the main features were striking images that would grab the audience’s attention. The
article with the double page spread consisted of an overview of the documentary, which described
what it would be about in minor detail. The techniques we used for this was to incorporate linguistic
devices that would advertise the documentary and entice the potential viewers. The other feature
within our double page spread was an interview from the creators; we thought this was appropriate
as when we were researching we found that this seemed to be apparent within double page spreads
advertising documentaries.

Consequently the radio trailer, I feel, was the weakest of the ancillary tasks. I think this was because
we didn’t manage our time effectively and we thought that it wouldn’t need as much effort as the
other two. However although it was rushed and not very well thought out I think as a whole it did
work well. We used a voiceover which advertised the bare bones of the documentary and we
introduced snippets from the expert interview and the vox pops to ensure that the flavour of the
documentary was introduced into it again this was to entice the viewer. This is typical of radio
trailers and although we didn’t research well enough into it the little bits we did showed us the
minimum components that we needed.

I we have created a brand identity to an extent, our products have a theme of technology, we tried
to use terminology from the field of technology, ‘technological determinism’ we tried to feature as
many different types of technology as possible within our documentary, we tried to become well
informed of the topic we were researching so we could come up with a basis for what we think is
necessary for the project to work successfully.
 (example of brand
identity)

Overall I think that our documentary does promote our products, but I think it could have been
better if we had of realised how important time management was. Our documentary does explain
the topic well, but the voiceover was lacking in charisma therefore it detracted from the overall
success of the product. I felt that our documentary had some good visual images, but I felt that there
was too many people talking, what we really needed was some great cinematic shots to really bring
it together. I think this would have highlighted the extreme differences between technology and the
world, yet shown how entwined they have become.

The double page spread, again has some strengths like the images were well thought out, they were
of different pieces of technology that people carry around with them every day. Yet the way it was
constructed was wrong for the effect we were trying to achieve. It looked more artistic than
technological which is what we were going for.

The radio trailer, worked well, it could have been more interesting my having a better backing track.
However it did describe the topic well which would hopefully attract the audience.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To complete the audience feedback we used questionnaires so that we could gauge the right
responses. We used a mixture of open and close questions. By doing this we found out exactly who
would be likely to watch our documentary and what people’s general opinion was. We found that
our documentary was lacking in interest and that the public wanted background music more visual
images and more variety in the documentary. However they seemed fond of the double pages
spread and said it was creative and highly representative of our documentary. The radio trailer by
comparison was what I found came across as the weakest element within our tasks. It seemed that
people would not want to watch our documentary if they solely heard that trailer, making us again
realise that we should have spent more time on this task.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?

The 1st process in construction our documentary was getting the footage we needed. To do this we
used a video camera, tripod and microphone. Then we went out and recorded our footage in Solihull
and our college. I think this part of production went quite well as we managed to get all our footage
quite easily.

We then had to create a voiceover, we again used a camera and microphone for this.it was
important when doing this to use a quiet room and make sure all the sounds levels were correct. We
thought that this went well however we realised that the voiceover was quite quiet.

We then had to upload all our footage onto the computer using a usb cable.

To create the documentary, we used the apple mac computers, in a programme called final cut
express. I found this tricky to get the hang of as I wasn’t used to mac computers so I found it tough
to comprehend. However with perseverance I think I got the hang of it and soon learned what
buttons to use to trim down footage and edit my documentary.
Creating the blog showed how our research and planning was coming along; we had to write posts
by logging into the website blogger. We had to write about how the editing process was doing and
show how we collected the information we used to make our documentary by putting links, pictures
and writing into the post.

To create the double page spread we used, photoshop to edit images, which we took from our
camera and indesign to write the articles and insert images. I found using
this easier as I had used last year for my other
coursework.

To create the radio trail, we used a microphone

and a recording device, this went quite well as it
was a simple task and I think the overall effect was
satisfactory.

Overall I think my documentary went quite well, but if I ever made another one I would use my time
more effectively.