Question 1.

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

When it comes to documentaries, real media products of these have the roughly same
forms and conventions. You can always tell that what you are watching is a documentary
because of certain aspects you always find within it, such as voiceovers, factual
information, interviews and many more. We have looked into this, and have added all of
these common conventions into our own work.

Above, you can see that one of the conventions that we used, which are seen in real
media products, are cutaways. Cutaways are used to help break down the documentary,
and to keep the viewers interested still. They are usually shown when you can hear the
voiceover, or when an interviewee is answering a question. The cutaways often go along
with what the voiceover or the interviewee is saying to help maintain the viewers
attention and to help show the audience things about what they are hearing. Cutaways
are also often relevant to the topic in which the documentary is on. For example, our
documentary is based on ‘Binge Drinking’, and above you can see two stills from our
documentary, one actually showing binge drinking taking place, and the other shows an
ambulance outside of a hospital showing the audience consequences of binge drinking
and tells you that it is dangerous.

Here, you can see another convention seen in real media products, framing. When we
framed our interviewee we placed them to one side of the screen, using the rule of
thirds, so that they can be seen clearly and the viewers focus is on them. We also gave
enough room on the right hand side so that I could edit in the persons name and
description, which is also seen in real media. The shots were all filmed from a medium
angle, usually at eye level, ensuring that the persons face can clearly be seen Also, the
shots were usually mid-shots or medium close-ups, also helping to show the interviewee
clearly but not in so much detail that you don’t pay attention to what they are actually
saying. All of which is seen in real media products, however usually in real media the
shots will vary, from close-ups to mid-shots. We went against this in our documentary
and decided to keep all of the shots roughly the same to keep it consistent.

Another convention of real media products we used was voiceover. We listened to

documentaries and noticed that usually the person doing the voice over has a posh,
clear, informative voice. So, we found someone to record our script with a voice that
matched the voices you would usually hear in a documentary. This is so that the audience
can understand what exactly is being said, and will help keep their attention as you can
clearly hear what he says. While the voice over was playing, the screen had either
cutaways showing, or factual information being shown, as you can see in the two photos
above. This is so that the audience can either find out more about what is being said, or
to keep their attention with the cutaways of relevant things.

Another quite obvious convention seen in real media products which we also used is
interviews. Interviews help give more information and opinions about the topic. Our
interviews showed different people talking about their own experiences of binge
drinking, and what they think of it now. It gives both sides of the story and helps you
weigh out the pros and cons. Sometimes, real media products don’t do this, sometimes
the product tries to sway you one way, instead of giving you both points of view. I think
it was good to do this, as it lets the viewers make up their own mind about binge drinking
and weather it is worth it or not, as the title shows, we are trying to answer the question
Binge Drinking …Is it worth it?, not try to turn people against it. Also, the people in the
interviews are relevant to what the topic is about, therefore giving good information and
showing that their opinion matters, which would also be seen in real media products.

Another convention I am going to talk about is misé-en-scene. Usually in real media

products, the interviewees are dressed quite smart, in suits or dresses, they look well
presented and very formal. We didn’t look so much into this when filming, as we
challenged the convention to fit the documentary. Of course, we made sure that our
interviewees were presentable but usually we had the interviewees wearing clothes that
would be worn any day, this was because our target audience was 18-24 year olds, and
some of our interviewees fit into this age range, therefore by not dressing the
interviewees up, the audience can see that they are the same as the people in the
documentary and may be able to relate to them and their opinions. The surroundings of
the interviewee however use similar conventions to those seen in real media. The person
is either in front of a plain background, therefore drawing attention only to themselves,
or in the surroundings of the persons occupation, for example, MP Mike Gapes was
filmed in his office, as seen above (left).

Again, using the conventions of real media products, our documentary uses editing to
make it look more formal and real. Above, you can see the whole way through the
documentary is the ‘HCTV’ logo, which is often seen on many TV channels. Also, you can
see, that like the majority of media products it has a title sequence, reminding you what
the documentary is about at the start and end. Also, as seen above (right), we also used
the conventions of real documentaries using font. The most common font used in
documentaries is ‘Helvetica’, therefore, we also used this font, making it look more real.
Also, this font is very clear and easy to read letting the audience read any information
without problems.
Our documentary also uses the convention of factual information. Above, you can see
that we have found real newspaper articles that relate to binge drinking, which have
stories and facts on which may give the audience with more information than what is
said in our documentary. Also, when editing I looked up common things which happen
whilst binge drinking, or under the influence of alcohol (above, right), and added this
information into the documentary as it wasn’t mentioned much in the voiceover or
interviews and thought it would help show the audience that binge drinking branches off
to many different things.

Here, you see the mode of documentary that we have used. There are many modes of
documentary, such as participatory, expository etc. Therefore, we haven’t really
challenged real media, as all documentaries use one of these modes, but all use different
ones. After some research, I have seen both of the two above modes used in
documentaries which relate to binge drinking. However, the mode we decided to use
was expository mode. This was so that our documentary came across more formal and
factual, and we were then able to see many different answers and opinions, while
keeping the audience interested.

Another convention that we used, and developed was sound. Like many other
documentaries, we had not only interviews and voiceover, but we also had formal music
which helped the documentary flow, and keep the audiences attention while listening to
the information.