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

Several months ago we were briefed as a class and were told that we would be over the coming months be creating a media production. The brief was as follows: - Produce an extract from a new documentary TV programme together with the following 2 ancillary tasks: a) A radio trailer advertising the documentary. b) A double-page spread from a listings magazine focused on the documentary. The documentary TV programme we had to produce consisted of the opening 5 minutes of our documentary, which would be aired on Channel 4, so therefore we had to follow the typical conventions and features which come with a documentary produced by channel 4. I personally did some research into the Channel 4 Remit, which quotes the specific specifications which have to be followed in order for a production to be aired on Channel 4. These distinct needs include: (a) demonstrates innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes; (b) appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society; (c) makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; And finally, (d) exhibits a distinctive character. I do believe that we followed these distinct needs in order to satisfy the Channel 4 criteria however, as we have displayed innovation, experiment, and creativity in the fact that this is a completely new subject in which to surround a documentary. This also satisfies the requirement that the documentary exhibits a distinctive character. The documentary does also appeal to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society, as the subject of the documentary surrounds the unemployed young population today, and the struggle that faces students to find a job when they do eventually graduate from university, covers an extremely large proportion of the population. This includes people from various different ethnic groups and social classes, as university and jobs are not so much a problem for the upper class society, but also for those who do not come from such privileged backgrounds. Also finally, the documentary satisfies the requirement that it does make a significant contribution to meeting the need to educate the target audience, as it provides valuable information and guidance as to how the students should possibly plan the years between them leaving school and finding a job, and whether university is always the best option, including expert opinions.

Ident
The first thing that will appear on the screen when it comes to any documentary is an ident, provided by the actual broadcasting channel themselves, in our case Channel 4, which states the program that is to be aired, ours titled The Jobless Generation. We were given access to a folder which contained several idents, however the one we chose to include at the start of our documentary was one which has a small filming sequence of an American Diner, which at the end shows that the documentary is set to be aired on Channel 4.

This is shown above, and this is a very typical convention of documentaries, and you will struggle to find a documentary on Channel 4 which does not include one of these idents.

Image Montage
Following our extensive research into other documentaries, we also found that an effective way to start/introduce the documentary was to include a short montage of a set of images/shots from the documentary, to pretty much sum up the whole documentary in a matter of seconds. We included images of Solihull Town Centre, as a lot of our filming was based here, and included screenshots of interviews and various other footage from our documentary. This is a typical convention of TV Documentaries and is widely used throughout nearly every documentary. We compiled research into other documentaries also, and found that the BBC documentary Panorama - Are the net police coming for you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwoPTYTLcRg, also had a very effective image

montage, which includes various images and shots from the documentary, something of which we tried to replicate in our production. These are some examples of screenshots from the Panorama documentary montage:

We did take ideas from this footage, and tried to replicate it in our documentary and I do believe that we did an effective job when it came to doing this. This is an example of whereby we have tried to use and develop a typical convention and I am in the belief that it is an extremely effective convention when it comes to documentaries. Our attempts of creating an effective montage are shown below, and I believe it was successful, as it prepares the audience for the rest of the documentary. It could be considered as possibly one of the most important features of a documentary, as it is one of the first parts of the documentary to be seen, and as people always say First impressions are everything, and I believe this also fully applies to documentaries. Taking this into account, I believe that it creates a good impression for the rest of our documentary, and if the opening minute is deemed interesting, the audience is much more likely to continue their viewing of the program.

Voiceover
In addition to the Image Montage, we also constructed an extremely effective voiceover for the opening 20 seconds of our documentary and various other parts of the opening 5 minutes of the documentary. An effective voiceover is a vital part of any documentary, regardless of the subject or genre. This is because the voiceover effectively guides the audience through the documentary, giving them a great insight as to what the documentary is actually trying to inform the audience about. It also keeps the audience engaged and interested in the

documentary, as it is likely that they will switch off and become lost if it is just images on the screen. However, if there is an effective voiceover, the audience could almost be grabbed in by the documentary, making them more likely to watch the remainder. In Panorama - Are the net police coming for you?, the voiceover involves the audience, as it states If youre a persistent downloader, the government is threatening to cut you off. This is almost as though the voiceover is speaking to you and directly involving you within the documentary. It almost makes you as the audience question whether you are in-fact, directly involved with what the documentary is about, and the likelihood is that the majority of people watching the Panorama documentary, are downloading material illegally. This is what we have done with our documentary, as we have directly involved the audience, and have almost made them question whether they are in the situation that is looking for a job, or considering their options whether to carry on into further education or seek full time employment. This is what will make people more interested and grabbed in by the documentary, as by asking rhetorical questions and identifying common issues, they will want these questions answered and their problems solved.

Title Page
In our documentary The Jobless Generation, we did use a title page. However it was extremely basic, and I believe this is an area which we could have spent a bit more time and effort on, as it is not very attractive and not very advanced.

As shown above, it just consists of a simple text on a plain background, with a small effect so that the text almost rolls onto the page. As I stated before I believe we could have been a little more creative in this section of the documentary. This compares to the title page from the Panorama documentary, as shown below.

It is clear to see that the Panorama title page is extremely creative and effective. However what I will say is that I believe we have got the positioning of our title page spot on, very similar to Panorama, as it is placed directly after the opening image montage, which is very effective in opening the documentary. However, they do say that It is good to make a first impression and I believe that the title page for the documentary Panorama, creates a much better first impression than that of our documentary The Jobless Generation. This is clearly an area in which we could have improved drastically, as we could have made the title page much more appealing to the target audience which is generally one of a young age, however, it isnt really appealing to any age range as it is so bland.

Interviews
Interviews are possibly one of the most important parts of a documentary, as they almost act as the backbone to the whole documentary. This is because interviews can carry many different points of view whether it be positive or negative, and is a main convention which should be utilised fully in order to create an effective documentary. In our documentary however, we included an interview with a specific student, who was talking about his troubles when it comes to finding a job, and his plans for the future surrounding university and full time work, which is the main subject of the documentary.

Student Interview
The student interviewee was in-fact myself, and I was asked a series of questions ranging from questions about searching for a job, to my plans in the future whether I am planning to stay in further education and go to university or not.

As shown above, the interview has a mise en scene of college life, as the interview is set in what looks to be a positive learning area at college, possibly a library or an internet caf. Also the fact that the subject of the interview is of the same age, and possibly social class as the target audience, the people watching the documentary may be able to associate with what is going on in the interview. They will also be interested into how other people of the same age view their problems, and compare them to their own problems and maybe how they could be solved. In addition to this, it could increase their own morale, as they will realise that they are not alone in their problems and that there are millions of other students in the country and even all over the world who are suffering from the poor economical climate, which could be affecting their ability to go to university or acquire a job. Questions such as Do you have a part time job?, and Are you planning to go to university? were asked, and the responses were something along the lines of I dont currently have a job as I dont have the appropriate experience and hardly anywhere is recruiting at the moment, and I do want to go to university, I will just have to see what grades I achieve, and whether it is financially viable before I make my decision. These responses would be very similar to the majority of the target audience I do believe if they were asked the same questions, as many students all over the country are struggling to find part time work. Also many students are worried about the fact that the university fees have almost tripled over the last couple of years, and the fact that it is very likely that there wont be a job at the end of it should they complete a degree. This along with the fact that they would end up having a debt of 30,000-40,000, is putting a number of students off going to university, and instead they are opting to get an apprenticeship or go into full time work immediately after leaving college. This is an extremely effective convention of documentaries, one which is used widely across various genres of documentaries.

Professionals (Experts) Interviews

We also included various clips from interviews with two professionals (experts).

These include: Sharon Greenall (SMBC): Head of Connexions at Solihull Theatre, Solihull.

And Emma Hurst: Head Career Advisor at Solihull Sixth form College.

It is extremely important to get interviews with experienced professionals in a relevant field of work that is extremely relevant to the documentary genre, and I believe that we did this extremely well. This is because one of the professionals, Sharon works for

Connexions, who specialise in giving guidance to young people surrounding careers, whereby the other professional, Emma works at a college providing vital information surrounding careers and further education, the two main topics which are covered in our documentary. It is extremely important to include these expert opinions, as many of the people watching the program are possibly looking for a little bit of guidance, as many students are confused as to what to do with their lives. With these expert opinions they will provide the essential information needed, as to the pros and cons of both going to university and full time employment. Also, they could give help and tips to those who are desperate to acquire a part time job. It is also important that the opinions of these professionals are not bias in any way, however, I believe that they have different opinions and tips as to what the best plan of action is for these students who are seeking advice.

These expert opinions are also included in

Panorama. The above image is a screenshot from Panorama, and it contains an interview with an expert from the music industry, Louis Walsh. He speaks of the great problems that are being encountered for many music artists, because of illegal downloads and piracy, and how the possible problem can be solved, much like the experts in our documentary. This is another way in which we have used and developed a typical convention of

documentaries, and I believe that we have done it extremely effectively and professionally.

Presenter
In addition to the voiceover, we have also included a presenter in order to introduce the topic of the documentary, and almost structure the whole documentary.

Above shows our presenter, Ami as she introduces our documentary. Presenters are also seen as a typical convention, and as shown below in Panorama, are a vital part of the documentary, as they almost link up the different parts and help to change the subject somewhat in the documentary.

As shown above with both presenters, they both appear to be speaking in direct mode of address, almost as though they are holding a conversation with the audience and involving them directly into the documentary as they are making eye contact. This makes them appear more honest, and would make the audience want to carry on watching, as they know that they will be hearing the truth.

Different Shot Types

In our documentary we also used an extremely wide range of shots ranging from establishing shots, close up shots, and various other shots.

Above are two examples of establishing shots, one from our documentary displaying a shot of Solihull Town Centre on the left, and an establishing shot from Panorama, showing the house of an interviewee on the right. Establishing shots are extremely effective in setting the scene and the mise en scene of a particular passage of the documentary, and almost prepare the audience for what they are about to see next in the documentary.

Above are two examples of medium shots, or they could be viewed as head and shoulder shots. These are extremely effective when it comes to filming the presenter of the documentary, or another instance when they are effective is when interviews are taking place. This is because you can clearly see the subjects face and upper body, so you are able to view their expressions and body language, which can tell you a lot

about the individual who is the subject. Also, it allows you to see where the subject is and can give you a good scope as to the mise en scene of the shot, so is a very typical convention of documentaries.

Above are two examples of medium to long shots from both our documentary The Jobless Generation, and Panorama. These mid to long shots show the majority of the subjects body, and almost shows the journey that they are taking, or them moving from one particular place to another throughout one shot. They are effective, as they can sometimes represent someone making a journey or a certain period of time passing between interviews or other various shots. They are a key convention, and along with other various shots, using all

different shots all together can lead to an extremely effective documentary. Also the framing of the shots are very important, and we have used various framing techniques, along with direct and indirect modes of address.

Captions

Above is an excellent example of whereby we have used captions in order to introduce an individual, whether it be to introduce them at the start of an interview or any other part of the documentary. These

captions are almost always present on the subjects first appearance in the documentary, and are rarely used more than once on the same individual. They are effective, as they almost make the audience feel as though they are getting to know the person being interviewed for example, so they are more likely to take in and believe what they are saying.

Above is an example from

Panorama, whereby captions are used in order to introduce an interviewee in this case, and they are extremely effective in engaging the audience. They are a key convention that comes with documentaries, and I believe that we as a group have utilised them well and used them effectively.

Magazine Listings Page

Above is the listings page that I personally made. It contains many typical conventions that are present in nearly every magazine listings page, and some of these

include:

Drop caps are effective when it comes to defining the start of a new paragraph, or are even effective when it comes to changing the subject of the specific article. They consist of dropping one character over several lines (I have used 3 lines), in order to make the start of the paragraph stand out as a new subject, or change of subject.

I have also used pull quotes, which are quotes that are directly pulled out of the documentary, and are made to stand out because they are of a somewhat certain significance. I have used two of these, one a quote from the student interview, and the other a direct quote from the interview with an expert.

Also in my listings page, I have opted for a column layout. This is because a column layout looks extremely professional, almost like a newspaper article. It is also very neat which will hopefully make the listings page stand out from the competition, and will be extremely easy to read and navigate. The article is also mainly image

dominated, because nobody would want to read something in a listings page that is like reading an extremely formal newspaper article. By using various other images also, it gives the listings page an effective layout, and makes it very aesthetically pleasing.

The image above shows that I have included almost a bottom bar on each page of the listings page, which contains the page number, date and the name of the magazine which the listings page is actually placed in. This is a feature that comes with every listings page, especially one which is aiming to look extremely professional and stand out from the competition.

The above image is another part of a screenshot of my listings page, and in this I have included an effective subheading which effectively summarises the documentary and tells you what the documentary is going to be about in a nutshell.

I have also included the listings information, such as the name of the documentary, the date and time that the program will be showing and most importantly the channel which we were told had to be Channel 4. In addition to all of these conventions, I have also used several others such as various other images, a big title which stands out from the rest of the text, and also small captions on the images to let you know what is actually going on in the images.

Overall, I have not challenged many, if any typical conventions of TV listings pages, and I do believe that I have created an extremely effective example of a listings page. The images below show that the final production looks extremely professional, and show that if you follow a strict plan taken from another publication, it is relatively easy to produce an effective listings page. This is our listings page compared to that of Alex: A Passion for Life

Radio Trailer

The second part of the ancillary tasks was to create a short radio trailer that would be placed on a radio station in order for us to advertise our documentary. Advertisement for the documentary would be the main way in which people would find out about the documentary, so is therefore a vital part of the production. We did some research into other radio trailers such as a wildlife documentary radio trailer, and also a BBC radio trailer advertising the Italian Formula 1 Grand Prix.

This was the script that was complied within the group: Presenter: New and exclusive to channel 4, a one off documentary. Ami (presenter on the documentary): This is the jobless generation Presenter: This Saturday night, channel 4 investigates the struggle young people go through in life after college. Sharon: Quote from the documentary about younger people not having the correct experience. Presenter: In 2012 it brings a new generation to the difficulties of the economical climate of the 21st century. Jack: From documentary saying that there was no job when he looked in the shop. Presenter: TV, Online, or on demand, Saturday, Channel 4, 8pm, this is your future.

I believe that there are not many typical conventions that come with radio trailers, as I believe that it would be more effective having the documentary advertised online or on channel 4 in the lead up to the documentary being released. This is because radio is no longer seen as the centre of all media products, as the internet it a million times more accessible than the radio. However, the conventions that we did use include the inclusion of the presenter in the trailer, as they not only have the vital role of walking you through the documentary, they also have the reliability of drawing people in and informing them of what the documentary is actually about. Also some clips from the interviews with both the expert and student could have been used, however we decided to include that of a student, as it would let the target audience know that it is aimed at them if they were to hear someone of their age group speaking about the issue on the radio. Also, possibly the most vital convention is to include the title, channel, and the time and date that the documentary is set to be aired. We have made sure that this information is placed at the end of the trailer, as people are more likely to remember these details if they are included at the end as a pose to them being placed at the beginning.

Finally, the radio trailer needs to have an almost catchy piece of music that is likely to gain the audiences attention. This is because when the audience are listening to the radio it is extremely likely that they are going to be participating in another activity, for example driving so they are not going to be concentrating on listening to the radio. Therefore, we needed to place a piece of music which would attract their attention, and I do believe we did this successfully.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Although the majority of our marks would be for the production of our actual documentary, it is extremely important that the actual documentary is extremely well linked into our ancillary tasks, the listings page and radio trailer.

I believe that we have done this extremely effectively, especially with our documentary and listings page. One way in which all of the tasks are interlinked, is the fact that the same faces/individuals are present throughout the tasks.

Presenter

This includes the presenter who is present throughout the documentary and also is involved in the radio trailer. It is effective having the same presenter throughout the productions, as people could get accustomed to hearing the same voice, and they will believe that Ami (The Presenter), is reliable in what she is saying, and therefore will feel more comfortable and at ease whilst watching the documentary. Student In our documentary, I believe we have been effective in the way that we have used one main student, and his story is followed throughout the documentary.

His first in the

appearance

documentary is in an interview, whereby he is asked questions about everything that is covered in the documentary, such as whether he has a part time job, his current occupation and problems he is facing, and what his plans are for the future. Not only is he involved in an interview, he is also followed throughout the documentary, and a story is almost based around him trying to find a part-time job in Solihull Town Centre.

This is effective, as this is the problem that many students across the country are facing, and from watching him and his struggles, they may be able to take the advice from the experts of whom we interviewed, so ultimately they are more prepared and have more knowledge surrounding the issue of The Jobless Generation. This interlinks with the listings page that we also created, as this particular individual is almost the star of the listings page, much like he was the star of the documentary, as the main article that was produced was surrounding his problems in acquiring a job and his further education and career prospects, as shown below.

I do

ultimately believe that this is an extremely effective combination, as in the end the audience will know about every aspect of his life and his struggles, almost as though they are familiar as him as a friend or peer, which is the effect that we were aiming for when we began producing all of our tasks regarding the documentary. Quotes/Interviews. Another area in which we have combined our productions well is our use of quotes from interviews from the documentary.

The image above is taken from the listings page, and is an example of where the interviews have been used in the other productions instead of just the documentary. In addition to this, snippets from the interviews are also used in the radio trailer so that the audience gain scope as to what the interviews are going to consist of and whether the documentary is actually going to appeal to them. Titles In addition to this, the title of our documentary The Jobless Generation, links in to the title of the article which I produced in the listings page, which almost questions the title of the documentary, as it states The Broken Generation? This is effective, as it could create intrigue within the audience, as it is questioning the title, something which is rarely ever done, therefore challenging the typical conventions of TV documentaries. Finally, the title is used in all 3 publications quite regularly, therefore meaning that it will almost be drummed into the audiences head so they are more likely to remember it. However, what I will

say is that I believe that advertising the documentary would be more successful were it advertised on the channel 4 website for example, or on a host of social networking sites. I say this because the reality is that the documentary is aimed at students currently at or about to start college, and the likelihood is that they will not be reading The Radio Times, and will not be listening to the radio, as we are in the 21st Century now, and everything revolves around the world wide web.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Main Task Audience feedback is a huge part of any media production, whether it be in the print, radio or television industry. In our audience feedback we compiled together several questions in order to ask our target audience ranging from their opinion of our choice of topic, editing skills, even to the strengths and weaknesses of our documentaries. We asked them to watch through our documentary, listen to our radio trailer and look at our listings page, and here are our results from the questions we asked:

The first question that we asked our audience was what was their opinion on the documentary, and what were their overall ratings of the documentary that we had produced. As the table above shows, the majority of the people who we asked believed that the overall rating of the documentary was Okay or Good with one person having the opinion that the overall rating was excellent. Overall this was a satisfactory result, as we did not get anyone believing that the documentary was poor or very poor. However, as a group we had hoped that we would have got more people with the opinion that the documentary was excellent, but overall an average of okay/good was satisfactory.

In

addition to this, we asked the audience what they thought of the choice of our topic. We were as a group pleased with the response that we got for this question, as overall the majority of the audience believed that our choice of topic was good, along with 3 individuals who thought that our choice of topic was excellent. This was promising as these are the kind of results that we were looking for. In addition to this the main feedback was that the topic was interesting, and that some people wanted to watch more of the documentary.

The feedback for the editing of the documentary was very much what we expected with the majority of the audience believing that the editing was Good, along with a few people who thought that the editing of the documentary was Okay. We believed that this was a fair representation, as we had spent a lot of time editing the documentary so that it was professional and effective, however I believe that given slightly more time,

we would have been able to tweak and almost perfect the documentary in respect to the editing.

The

feedback from the question surrounding Sound was rather disappointing, however, we were aware that if there was a section of the documentary in which we would fall down on it would have been the sound section. As the graph above shows, the majority of the feedback was Okay with 50% of the people questioned believing that the sound in our documentary was okay, along with 1/6 believing that it was Good. However, 1/3 of the people questioned believed that the sound section of our documentary was Poor. The feedback we received was that they believed there were a few issues surrounding the sound, with the main issue being that the documentary consisted of poor sound quality, with many describing it as even being fuzzy.

Finally, we asked a question surrounding the transitions within our documentary. This covered transitions and captions, but there was a real mixed opinion on this. As the graph shows the majority of the audience believed that they were okay/good, however one person believed they were poor and one believed they were excellent. Overall, I believe that this question was not a very good question, as it may differ in different peoples minds as to what a good transition is, therefore it is not fair to evaluate the effectiveness of transitions from the results to this question.

Overall, there were many main strengths of the documentary which were identified by the audience. These include good quality cuts and good editing. Also, a comment which the majority of the audience stated was the fact that we had used the element of interview well, including a variety of interviews with great relevance to the subject in question. In addition to this, another strength identified was the fact that the content within the actual documentary was good and effective, including the locations of the filming and the representation of a job search identified in our filming. However, with every positive you have to look upon the negatives. Some of the negatives identified were again relating to the sound, with many commenting on the poor sound quality, in the fact that the music volume levels were either too loud or quiet, and the fact that in some shots, many people were unable to hear what the subject was actually talking about. Also, in some shots the camera was actually shaking, whereby in some shots the microphone actually crept into the shot, so these could be an area in which we could have improved and made the documentary more professional. Ancillary Tasks Radio Trailer: In the feedback for the Radio Trailer, much of the feedback was extremely positive, with some of the comments being: Good background music; Effective voiceover; Good use of a presenter, helping the audience to understand the topic; Effective use of snippets from the documentary, and good cuts within the radio trailer; The trailer had good flow, and was easy to follow.

However, some of the areas for improvement were: Not very exciting, could have possibly made the content a little less boring; Change in the sound levels throughout the trailer, should be kept at a constant level;

And finally, The sound was fuzzy in some place. This shows that again that sound was an issue within the radio trailer, much like the documentary, so it is apparent that this is the general theme in which we could have improved both our main and ancillary task. Listings Page: The feedback for the listings page was also extremely positive, with some of the positive feedback being: Looks very professional; Extremely effective layout; Good use of images from documentary; Good content within the article. These were promising results, however a lot of the audience reviewing our products believed that the main way in which we could improve the listings page would be to make it more creative, and make it stand out a bit as it looked a bit bland and wouldnt stand out from the crowd.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Research and planning
Initially, we were unsure of which topic to actually base our whole coursework project on. This called for us to use the Internet and the world wide web in order to compile sufficient research into the choice of our topic. This included using Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer.

We also used various services provided by TV channels such as BBC, ITV, and Channel 4. These include the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, and the 4oD service, and we used these in order to compile research into existing documentaries, and in order to gain scope into what existing documentaries consist of.

In addition to this, there is a huge selection of material that we found useful that is actually on YouTube, the largest video hosting website in the world. These included past documentaries such as Panorama for example, and a host of other material. Panorama - Are the Net Police Coming for You?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwoPTYTLcRg

In

addition to this we used Blogger, in which to blog our developments throughout the project, giving details of our progress daily with a regard to filming and planning our documentary. It almost acted as the main portal for all of our work, as it contained the publication of all of our planning work, and literally shows how we went about

putting our documentary together, step by step. This is a link to our Blog: http://c03documentary11.blogspot.com/ And here is a screenshot of the blog.

As shown above, it has quite a simple layout, and is easy to navigate. At first I struggled with the blogging side of things, as I found it difficult to find things to blog about. However, after a few weeks it became second nature blogging posts, and you didnt really need to think in order to blog. Below shows the navigation screen in order to create a new post, and as you can see, it is extremely easy to navigate.

Finally, on blogger.com, it is easy to navigate through your previous posts also. This is due to the helpful and simple archive feature that is present on the right hand side of the screen, as shown below.

This shows almost a timeline of our bloggings, that are dated, and split into years and months so it is easy to see the progress we have made throughout the project. Once we had got to grips with the project, and had chosen our topic in which to orientate our documentary, we had to start properly planning our documentary. This consisted of us using a digital camera in order to take photos of potential ideas of footage. For example, establishing shots were taken in Solihull Town Centre and around Solihull Sixth Form College, images of students were taken as potential ideas for interviews and so forth. When taking the consider various of planning, such camera shots, different and modes of Also the mise en factor that we consideration, as settings of shots order for the documentary plan to look professional, and images we had to different aspects as using different consisting of distances, angles, address. scene was a huge had to take into the correct had to be used in

more like a documentary that would actually be aired on Channel 4. In order to properly plan our documentary however, we used a software package on the Apple iMacs named Comic Life, which was a program made specifically to create storyboards.

As we began to use the program, we all struggled as it was software that none of us had used before, however, after a brief walkthrough and handout sheet we knew the basics and we left to experiment with the program. We each created a storyboard for each of the minutes of the documentary, so this allowed us to each have an equal turn in planning the documentary and producing a storyboard. Here are the links to our storyboards on Blogger.com Minute 1-2:http://c03documentary11.blogspot.com/2011/12/storyboard-minute-12.html

Minute 2-3:http://c03documentary11.blogspot.com/2011/12/2-3-minutestoryboard.html Minute 3-4:http://c03documentary11.blogspot.com/2011/12/storyboard-minute-3-4.html Minute 4-5:http://c03documentary11.blogspot.com/2011/12/storyboard-for-4-5-minute.html

Construction
When constructing our documentary, we had to initially start by actually gathering some footage that would get us started on our documentary. When filming this initial footage we used Canon Camcorders which contained a hard drive in order to store our footage. When filming the footage, we had to take many factors

into account, for example, we had to make sure that the mise en scene and setting was correct for the shot we were taking. Also, we had to make sure that the cameras had the correct settings for the job we were planning to do, which consisted of us making sure that they were in an Auto-setting mode, which would automatically adjust the settings of the cameras, judging on the levels and types of light, whether it be from a natural or unnatural source. Also, we had to make sure that we knew how to use the functions of the camera, such as the record button for example, and how to use the zoom, as this would be effective in making our footage a little more professional and interesting. For the majority of our filming, we used a tripod in order to make sure that our footage was no shaky as it would be if we were holding the camera in our hands for example. The tripod also makes sure that the camera is actually straight and not going to record the footage at an angle, which would be a mistake that many amateur film-makers would be prone to making.

Finally, we would have to use an external microphone with the camera, as if we just used the microphone that was built into the camera, the sound quality would have been poor. The external microphone ensured that the sound quality was of a high standard, and it also ensured that any background sound would be eliminated, something of which would not happen if we didnt use a separate microphone. We used one very similar to the one on the right, and it was simply plugged into our camcorder when filming the footage. Finally, when we had collected the sufficient footage that we needed, we could watch them back on the small navigation screen on the camera. This allowed us to see whether we needed to shoot any parts of the footage again. When we were entirely happy with the footage however, we had to go back to the iMac, and transfer the footage to the Media Student Drive via. USB cable.

We would then transfer the footage into our Filming Footage Folder, so that we didnt lose any footage. We created folders for each days worth of footage that we created to make sure that it was well organised and easily accessible.

Following this process, we would then have to open another software package, named Final Cut Express. It was in Final Cut Express in which we had to import our footage from the Filming Footage file, and select and edit the footage in which we wanted to use. We would then Log and Transfer the footage into the main Final Cut Express screen so to speak, whereby there was the main timeline, and we could finally put our documentary together.

This is the main Final Cut Express timeline in which we edited our documentary. In this software package we could add and edit the footage, and add and edit sound. In addition to this, we could add captions also, for use when we introduce a new interviewee. We could also add different transitions between the different shots, and all of these put together along with our footage made the documentary appear professional and effective. When creating our Radio Trailer however, we used a software package called Garage Band. It was in this software package that we imported all of the appropriate material needed, including sound bites from our actual documentary. In addition to this, we also used a microphone and an Maudio device. This allowed us to create a voiceover for the radio trailer, including stating what the documentary is about, and also when it is going to be shown on

Channel 4. It also allowed us to see how long each sound clip was going to be, and allowed us to tweak the volumes of the sounds clips so that they were at the same level in the final product. Finally, we used Adobe InDesign in order to create our listings page, and I believe that this was very successful. This is because we able to almost replicate a current listings page, and it had all of the tools to create an extremely professional looking listings page. This includes the ability to add images, and sort the text into columns, which is vital for a listings page. Also effects such as drop shadows on the images and text make it stand out, and look a lot more attractive than a plain listings page.

When we had completed the documentary, we were able to use iDVD in order to burn the documentary onto the DVD disk. All this consisted of was opening the program, then following the simple steps, and then the documentary was completed.

Evaluation
Finally, when we had completed our main documentary, listings page, and radio trailer, it was time for us to complete our evaluation. We were given 4 questions in which to answer. The program I used in order to complete my documentary was Microsoft Word, however a few people used Microsoft Powerpoint in order to create their evaluation.

I used Microsoft Word as it is extremely easy to navigate, and I have over 10 years experience of using Word. It also allows me to use a variety of different fonts, and gives me the availability to add images at my hearts content. Following completion of my evaluation, it was time for me to upload my document to the blog, and in order to complete this task, I used the website scribd.com. This allows me to upload my final word document, and it allows me to link it to the blog.