Lawrence Dunn

A2 Media: Documentary evaluation

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

My media product, as a whole, generally tends to use conventions that are typical of a
documentary. The first and possibly most fundamental convention, which maintains
that a documentary should be informative, can certainly be found in my media
product. For example, there are facts and statistics used in the documentary regarding
the drug usage of an average teenager in Britain today, opinions from professionals
with respects to their views on drug use amongst the young and most importantly the
views of young people from a local college.

Another convention that my documentary followed was the use of an exposition: by

editing the introduction to show quick, bite-sized pieces from the documentary, this
allowed us to reveal some of what to expect to the audience and more importantly the
themes of our documentary, which were drug use, the facts of drug use and – to a
degree – the difference in views shared by professionals and teenagers themselves.
The exposition also allowed us to display the title of the documentary (Drug Britain)
properly and effectively, ensuring that it was both clear and evoked an image of
professionalism about the product. It was down to this urge to create something that
seemed genuine and believable which pushed us to use other conventions that we had
seen in other high profile documentaries, such as “Super size me”.

Although for the best part of this film Morgan Spurlock is filmed using the piece-to-
camera technique, there are parts of the film where it become necessary for Spurlock
to simply be a voice-over, such as when an image on the screen needs explaining. We
tried to follow this convention by recording a complete voice-over that was
appropriate for the documentary. I feel that this worked well because it meant that we
did not need to find someone who was confident enough to give a credible
performance and was thus one less thing to worry about. Furthermore, I feel that the
interviews featured in our documentary added to the authenticity of the production
mainly due to the air of formality that the interviewees bring to the film. Interviews
are typically included in documentaries to convey the opinions of different people and
to (generally speaking) support the viewpoint of the film. However there is an
important distinction to be made within interviews: Those that convey facts i.e. a
scientist with evidence to back up their claims, and those that are the opinions of those
being interviewed. Going back to “Supersize Me”, this distinction is clear. Morgan
Spurlock interviews
health advisors about the
harms and facts of fast
food consumption, and
teenagers about their
personal intake.
Similarly, in our
documentary we asked
experts for their facts
about the causes for drug
Lawrence Dunn

use, and also asked the young people in question what their views were – though this
would be considered a vox pop over an interview due to the fly-on-the-wall nature of
asking the general public.

However, there are a number of conventions that my documentary did challenge, such
as the medium of actuality. I feel that it can be argued that anything that has been
edited isn’t (strictly speaking) actuality, but even in the world of documentaries our
film did not contain any element of actuality, aside of the non-scripted views of those
who were interviewed. We felt that making a product that had a small element of
planning to it would be more interesting to watch and would allow us to organise
ourselves to film appropriate material. An example of dramatised scenes is the part of
the documentary where myself and Amy can be seen studying some “cocaine” – this
is clearly a scripted situation and so completely contrasts the basic convention of
filming events as they happen. Moreover, my documentary also challenged the typical
convention of archival footage. This is a technique used by more well known film-
makers with the access to useful footage to show historical events or to add detail
without the need for additional filming. I didn’t use archival footage mainly because I
did not have any access to any and any that would have benefited me in any great
deal. Also, there was not any need for me to use stock footage because there were no
suitable references from the script. Finally, there was one more convention that my
documentary did not follow, and this was the use of reconstructions. This was because
of the same reason I did not use stock footage, that there was no need in the
documentary to have any reconstructions. In the planning stages I considered filming
a pseudo-reconstruction to add to the dramatics of the film but this was a feature that
the group and I decided could be left out.

My overall opinion is that there a number of strong points to the documentary which I
think work well. Firstly, I feel the introduction featuring the eye with the union jack
and “Drug Britain” within the pupil was an effective and creative way of drawing
attention to the title of the film, an important aspect of real documentaries.
Furthermore, I feel that what the audience can see is happening in the eye (with the
change of colours and appearance in the centre of the eye) has connotations of drug
use and the assumption that you can detect drug use by looking at someone’s eyes, a
consensus strengthened by adverts such as one shown below. I think by editing the
image of the eye we created a subtle way of reflecting the main theme of our
documentary: drug use.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390"

src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VAevpklHrfg" frameborder="0"
allowfullscreen></iframe>

Another aspect that I think worked well was the atmospheric shots that carried some
metaphorical connotations, linked by what I feel was a well written script to carry the
“walking down this road” message. The long shot shows a wider environment and
distance of the road, further playing up to the image set out by the script. I feel that
the strong imagery is repeated towards the end of the documentary where the picture
changes to the beat of the background music 1, a feature which I think again creates a
level of drama to the documentary and therefore challenging the conventions of a
typical documentary. Finally I was pleased with the sound levels throughout the
documentary because there was no sudden changes in volume and the interviewees
Lawrence Dunn

were easy to hear. There are a couple of things I would change in retrospect, and these
would be to add more aesthetic shots to separate the vox pops to avoid a “talking
heads” effect, and to use some more creative angles to film certain shots. I feel that
there are parts that could have been filmed from a more interesting and visually
pleasing angle that would have given our documentary a more professional feel. To
conclude, I believe that the documentary is successful in its most important role of
being informative for the viewer and interesting to watch and despite the urge to
tweak a couple of things proves to be a good opening for a feature length film.

1 – video of jake walking in the documentary?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our ancillary tasks were to create a radio trailer to advertise the documentary and
produce a newspaper “pick of the day” style review, a feature which is commonly
used in television listings to promote a certain program which is predicted to be
popular. Probably the most recognizable example of this would either be the Radio
Times or the Mail listings that comes with the Daily Mail.

The first strong point about our adjoining newspaper advertisement is that it has an air
of continuity about it through the use of similar graphics. For example, the union
jacks that can be seen at either end of the masthead of the article relate back to the
theme of this being a documentary about Britain and to the union jack shown in the
eye on the documentary. Another aspect that boosts the brand identity of our
documentary is the style of fonts used on the product; all of them are similar in the
sense they follow the basic style of graffiti writing, which I think plays up to the view
drugs come hand in hand with a criminal / yobbish lifestyle. I also think the
atmosphere of the video, being quite dark in terms of topic, is reflected by the black
colour scheme of the article. This is an effect which I believe fits nicely with the
vignette photo of a “joint” because the vignette does not look bold and clashing but
Lawrence Dunn

quite simple and intriguing, something that attracts the audience’s attention, relates
back to the themes of the documentary and looks visually pleasing. I feel that the
article was further strengthened by screen shots of individuals that are in the
documentary because it again relates back to the actual film and in the same way the
dominant picture shares certain connotations with the audience, these screen shots add
information to the article without needing to add more words.

The article content was another part of the ancillary tasks that we had to come up
with. These articles tend to convey information about the program and can take a
review style twist, with it being recommended or not so by the writer. As you can see,
the “pick of the day” shown above says “a new series of the heritage version of
casualty, set in a London hospital and dramatized, we are told, by original records”.
This immediately gives the audience background information that may be useful prior
to watching the program. This is something we tried to include in our article and
achieved successfully in my opinion, although I have to admit that ours was probably
a bit more review orientated than the typical feature article. Something that I feel
benefited our article was the inclusion of an interview with the documentary makers; I
think it was an original and creative way of putting our own views across from the
perspective of a director and perhaps making the audience feel like they are more
aware of the potential biases because they have read what the directors have said were
the intentions.

The radio trailer was the last of the ancillary tasks to complete, and I think this is a
particularly good part of our whole product. I feel this way because the sound levels
are equal and well balanced meaning that the voiceover was easy to hear, whilst
filling the empty background sound with appropriate “lift” music. For the soundtrack
we needed something that was not going to divert the audiences attention from what
was going on in the film because of the music’s intensity, but something that would
sit nicely in the background. However, we also wanted to avoid having a song that is
quite boring because this would oppose our attempts to appeal to a younger audience.
So, with this in mind, we selected a track that combined both of these points to be the
background music. Another strength of the radio trailer is the fact it shares all the
necessary information with the audience, such as the time, channel and name of the
program – key to the advertising of a documentary. This information is concise and
delivered in a way that means it is clear and together, but there are other clips that
share with the audience what is in the documentary. For example, there are small clips
of audio taken from some of the interviews in the documentary to give the audience
sharp, key ideas that put across the themes and style of the film. This is also an
example of further continuity, because nothing has been too revealing. Instead, the
audience is being fed chunks of what to expect and thus creating hype for the
documentary. The article does not contain any pictures that show too much of the film
to people before they have seen it, the radio trailer keeps most of the documentary
content to a minimum, intriguing the audience and promoting the product more.
Finally, I feel that the fact the radio trailer and the introduction of the documentary
share the same soundtrack highlight the feeling of a brand identity and continuity.
Surprisingly there is nothing I would change about the radio trailer because I think it
is successful in its delivery of information and in sounding appealing to the audience
which is vital to an effective advert.
Lawrence Dunn

I feel that overall we created a recognizable brand identity that was linked by the three
ancillary tasks, and I feel we completed this to a good standard.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Do you take any drugs (excluding

pharmaceuticals)?
Do you feel the docum entary has changed your
view s at all? 12

Number of people asked

10
12
Number of people

8
10
8 6 Series1
asked

6 Series1 4
4 2
2
0 0
yes no
Yes No
Ans w e rs
Answ ers

H o w w e l l d o y o u t h in k t h e d o c u m e n t a r y p u t s a c r o s s
t h e v ie w s o f t e e n a g e r s ? H o w w e ll d o y o u t h in k t h e r a d i o t r a ile r is in
a d v e r t is in g t h e d o c u m e n t a r y ?

6
6
4 S e r ie s 1
4 S e r ie s 1
Number of people
asked

Number of people

2 S e r ie s 2
asked

2 S e r ie s 2
0 0
V e r y w eQllu ite w eCllo u ld b eN o t a t a ll V e r y w eQll u it e w eCllo u ld b eN o t a t a ll
b e t te r b e tt e r
An s w e rs A ns w e rs

How w ell do you think the article is in conveying

inform ation about the docum entary?
Number of people

8
6
Series1
asked

4
2 Series2
0
Very w ell Quite w ell Could be Not at all
better
Answ ers

The above graphs show the answers to the questions that we feel are most important,
and these questions are as follows:
• Do you feel the documentary has changed your views at all?
• Do you take any drugs (excluding pharmaceuticals)?
• How well do you think the documentary puts across the views of teenagers?
Lawrence Dunn

• How well do you think the radio trailer advertises the documentary?
• How well do you think the article conveys information about the
documentary?

Firstly my audience feedback has surprised me in a way because government statistics

say that 22% of all under 16 year olds have tried drugs of some sort, but the findings
of my questionnaire disprove this theory because not one person said they take drugs.
However I am doubtful about this because I feel it’s to be expected that people are not
willing to admit that, seeing as it is quite a taboo subject. However if we take the
results at face value, they definitely signal a link between those who have not tried
drugs and those who are not willing to. This is clear because again all ten people said
the documentary had not changed their views at all.

The general consensus regarding the quality of a documentary seems to be that it was
solid but not outstanding. 3 of the 10 voted “very well” and 5 out of 10 people said
that the documentary puts across the views of teenagers “quite well” and 2 voted for
“could be better”. Similarly, 5 out of 10 people said that the radio trailer did “quite
well” in advertising our documentary and 3 said “very well”. Finally, 6 out of 10
people agreed that the article conveys information about the documentary “very well”,
and the remaining 4 said it was done “quite well”. The conclusion I draw from these
results is that to appeal to a certain target audience, you need to portray the target
audience suitably. Clearly the interviewees felt that teenage attitudes could have been
represented better so if I could go back this would be something that I would change.
Overall I am not wholly surprised by the responses of the audience because I was
expecting very few people to answer yes to drug taking, regardless of the fact the
questionnaire was anonymous. However saying that, there was one thing that I was
surprised about and this was the fact that the majority of people had said they
considered the radio trailer to be “average”. This surprised me because I thought that
was radio trailer was a key strength to our product as it was clear and concise.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?

Throughout the production of this documentary, I used a number of technologies that

I found useful in helping me create something good. I have experienced some of the
technologies in previous years such as the digital camera and photo-shop. However I
also became familiar with a range of different technologies,
which broadened my technical knowledge greatly.
The first piece of technology that I had to use all the way
through the duration of this coursework was the Apple
computers. The computers were our access to the vital things
in the coursework – internet connection & Google. I’ve
never used one before so getting used to it was a learning
curve in itself, but after that it was straight on to Final Cut
Express - our editing software. But before we could get to
uploading footage onto the computer, we needed to get
some first. This is where we first became familiar with
the video cameras and their tripod stands. The cameras
we used were Sony HD Handy cams, complete with the
ambience sound resistant microphone. I think it’s obvious
Lawrence Dunn

that we were using this equipment because it’s the best that is available to us and
enables us to get a quality piece of footage, unhindered by the working technologies. I
found the video cameras particularly helpful because of their simple user face and
relatively easy-to-understand commands, which meant that we could attain more
interesting shots such as pulling and throwing focus to create a more varied selection
of shots. I have to say that the microphone is a bit of unsung hero but we benefited
hugely from the microphone – the good sound levels are an important aspect of our
documentary and I feel that without this microphone it would have been a lot worse.

Once we’d got all our footage, we had to upload the various clips unto Final Cut
Express. To do this we had to “log and transfer” the
clips from the video camera via a USB cable and then
drag them into the timeline, ready to be edited into a
recognizable order. I personally found Final Cut to be
difficult to work with at first but once we’d had more
practice the possibilities with what we could do to our
documentary in terms of conditioning it. For a while
we sampled various effects simply to get a feel for the
program, and then moved on to serious editing. It was
during this time I learned how to make an effective
vignette, make use of transitions and add a wide range of effects to the clips we had.
In addition to Final Cut we also used the software “Garage Band” to create the radio
trailer and Adobe InDesign to create the article. Out of the three I’d say that I like
garage band the most because I find it is the
easiest to use and is not too complicated. The
simplicity of working it meant that we were able
to come up with a suitable background track
very quickly, and this was simply achieved by
going through all the sound bites and noting
down which ones we liked. After short listing a
few of the firm favourites, we settled on a track
called “pendulum”. Furthermore, when it came
to the point of recording the script for the radio
trailer by simply using the camera and microphone again, editing all the sounds
together was surprisingly easy because the software allows you to make around the
various pieces of recording freely. InDesign is a program that I have used before so it
wasn’t anything new, but I still have some difficulties at times with the program.
However, with some practice and guidance I managed to create a vignette for the
article. In the end product we didn’t use the one made in InDesign but another one I
had made on my home computers called “Coral Photo-Paint”. In order to get this
home-made image onto the computers at college I had to export the file and a jpeg
and then import the image later on. The text in the article was just typed up in
Microsoft word as it is the easiest and best word processing package.

The research and planning technologies was fairly low key in comparison to the
gadgets needed for the production. Essentially the only technologies we need for this
part of the coursework were the internet and the scanner. At this point I had swapped
for a normal PC because whilst I think that Apple products are good for the editing
and production power, a standard computer serves
better than Apple for research, downloading and
Lawrence Dunn

copying of images. I felt that the Apple computers made this incredibly annoying and
so stuck to the PC. It was during the planning stages that I had to make use of the
scanner because I had prepared several storyboards and needed to put them onto the
blog, and the scanner was there to help. Although this is a small and maybe menial
task, I still consider this to be something else that I have learned over the course of
this production.

The blog was an aspect of coursework that was new to me, and a further example of
varied technologies used on this documentary. It is an online storage place where all
three members of the group can access, share and publish different posts – this was to
be our means of research. The blogs are definitely a better way of storing coursework
because it’s online and therefore getting rid of lots of paperwork. They also store the
posts in a chronological order so the things we have published are in a logical
placement.

In conclusion, I personally think I made good use of all the technologies available to
me. Throughout the production, we used all the hardware at our dispense and all the
software too. We used a range of technologies to create a film that we were happy
with, that had evidence of calculation, consideration and thought. We were able to
suitably edit our revised timeline and I think the end result is a documentary that
carries most of the conventions seen by most films, but also challenges some of them
too to create a worthwhile piece of film.