Analysis in relation

to other texts
I this evaluation I will be comparing my text to an old documentary and a new
documentary, I will be evaluating the similarities and differences between the
two documentaries and my documentary. I will be looking at five sections when
doing this which are:

 Introduction

 Content

 Mode of address

 Conventions

 Style and form

 Technology

The two texts that I will be analysing and comparing to mine are:

• ESPN: The Fab Five: 10 Years Later (Old text)

• Matt Z's BMX Piece for Extreme Sports Documentary (New Text)
Introduction

My documentary

My documentary is about the mental benefits of sports activities. People look at

sports activities as being physically beneficial, but I focused my idea on how
sports activities can be mentally beneficial. My angle was to prove that sports
activities do have metal benefits ad can mentally benefit the mind in many ways.
In this documentary I have gathered opinions from different sports experts on
how sports activities can mentally benefit people. Out of all my three idea, I
thought that this idea was the most unique, that is why I chose to take this idea in
to production.

Below is a link to view my documentary

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/media-documentary-mental-benefits-of.ht
ml
Old Text

This text is about the fab Five, who were a basketball player in America. This text
focuses on a player called Chris Webber and his timeout during the 1993 NCAA
Championship Game against UNC was a scandal. This documentary focuses on
the sport of basketball. This text talks about the team as a whole but mainly
focuses on one player and how his basketball career was a scandal.

Here is a link to view this text:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8wktL9NtDA
New Text

This documentary is about how the media have turned their attention
from common sports such as football and basketball to extreme sports
such as skate boarding and BMX bike riding. The main focus of this
documentary is how people who play normal sports become big stars but
now the media is wondering if extreme sports could have the same
success. In this documentary an average person talks about extreme
sports and how it affects them.

Below is a link to view this documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxKURzuVpNk
Content

My documentary

My documentary is on the mental benefits of sports activities, the content includes how sports
activities are mentally beneficial for normal people and how taking part in sports as a profession
mentally effects people. The other two documentaries that will be comparing to mine are about
sports but they focus on a different topic, this because I could not find any other documentary
that had the same topic as mine. To explore the topic of my documentary I had good resources
that knew a lot about the topic. In my documentary I visited many people who take part in sports
as their career and asked them why they think sports is mentally beneficial and how it has
affected their careers.

Below are examples of the different types of interviewees I used in order to prove that sports
activities are mentally beneficial.
Old text

This text is very old and is quiet different to mine in terms of its content, although it is about sports, it focuses
firstly on one sport activity which is basketball and secondly is about a basketball player in America. This
documentary focuses on this one player, who they interview, asking him what he thinks about this issue of
his career being a scandal. A similarity with this text and my text is that even though my whole documentary
is not about basketball I did do an interview with a basketball player. Which relates to the content of this
documentary. Another difference is that I think this text is different to my documentary because it focuses on
a male dominated sport, whereas my text focuses on sports that appeal to both genders. Although the theme
of the documentary is the same as mine, the topic and content is very different.

Although my documentary
does include a segment
related to basketball, the old
text's whole focus is
basketball, whereas mine is
about various types of sport
activities.
 New Text

This is the documentary is very current and is different to mine in terms of its content; it is about how
media have turned their attention from ordinary sports to extreme sports. This is different to mine
because although both documentaries are about sport activities, I talked about the mental benefits of
sports, whereas this one is talking about the change in sports in the eye of the media. Another different
between my documentary and this one is that this text is aimed more towards males because we only
see males in the documentary , whereas mine I use male and females.

My documentary

The mode of address for my documentary is formal, upbeat and direct, which I wanted the documentary to go for
because it is aimed at a young age group. The language used was not informal but it was not very formal, just enough
to keep the topic of the documentary serious whilst appealing to the audience. I kept the mode of address informal by
making the presenter speak to the camera as if she was speaking to the audience, I think kept the audience engaged
at all times.

The presenter is speaking directly to the

camera
The locations that I used set a casual tone to the documentary, location such as school sports halls and leisure centres.
These location appeal to the target audience of my documentary because these are places that they would visit.

Leisure centre
A secondary school

London Piccadilly Circus

Above are examples of some of the location I used in my documentary, as you can see I visited schools, leisure centres and
did vox pops in London. These locations set the mode of the documentary because all the location I used appealed to the
audience in some way.

Another way I set a casual mode of address is by the dress sense of the people in the documentary.

The dress code of my documentary was kept casual in order to relate to the target
audience, as you can see in the middle image above the presenter is wearing a casual
jeans with a hoodie, this is the type of clothing that the target audience would wear. Also
all of my interviewees wore casual clothing in order to keep the tone of the documentary
casual and would be the type of clothing that my target audience would wear.
Old text

This documentary uses a formal and both an indirect and direct mode of address because the presenter is
speaking to the audience but the interviews are in direct because they are speaking to the basketball player. It
is formal because the text is set out as a news report. This documentary has a hip pop vide to it, this is
because firstly hip hop music is used in the background and also there are mostly black people in this
documentary and hip hop music is usually related to them.

Some of the locations used in this documentary are similar to mine for example a basketball court; this is where I
had two of my interview.

Interview with basketball

player in sports hall

Cutaway in Basketball Court

Old text

The dress code in this documentary also sets off a formal vide because a lot of people in this text are wearing formal
suites, which is a element that is really different to my documentary because in mine I did not have any formal
clothing. Also the clothing that was wore by the other people can be seen as casual and sets off a relaxed mode of
address.

Casual top

Formal Suite
 New text

This documentary is very current and uses a formal and indirect mode of address, but it is less formal than the
old text and would appeal to my target audience more. One of the features I think that makes this
documentaries mode of address informal is the type of typography they have used, the typography that is used
looks informal, this could again relate to the audience of my documentary.
The locations used in this documentary are very different
to mine; the location used in this text is places where
extreme sports would take place.

Park

The locations used set a relaxed mode of address, these location would relate to the target audience of my documentary,
although the location used in this documentary are very different to mine.
The style of clothing in this documentary is also casual, although in my documentary I have more sporty type clothing, whereas
in this documentary the dress code seems to be casual. This would again appeal to my target audience.
Conventions

My documentary

In my documentary I feel that I have used a range of conventions such as vox pops, interviews, music,
archive footage, graphics, presenter, sign in and off and voice overs. I feel that I used these
conventions well and included a lot of conventions that made my documentary flow better.

These are some examples of the conventions I used.

Interviews

Sign in/off

Archive footage

Graphics
 Old text

This text did use similar conventions to mine such cutaways, graphics, voce over’s, interview,
music and sign in/off. One element that is very similar to mine in this documentary is that at the
beginning they have archive footage of the team playing basketball and in my text one of the
archive footage’s that I used was of people talking part in basketball.

Cutaway

Interview

Another convention that I think is similar to my text and this text is the music, even though it is not the
same music, this text has used hip hop music and so have I in one section of my documentary.
 New text

This text used a lot of the conventions that I did such as archive footage, cutaways and graphics, although
all documentaries produced today would use similar conventions. However this text did not include some of
the conventions that I used for example a presenter, instead the topic was introduced through a voice over
and there was no graphics included.
The archive footage used was very similar to mines because in my one I used archive footage of
professionals talking part in sports activities and the archive footage in this documentary was of
professionals taking part in sports activities. Also this person showed a lot of cutaways and I feel in my
documentary I showed at least one cutaway for each element.
Although the music used in this documentary was very different to mine, music was used in the background
during archive footage and cutaways, this is similar to my documentary where I used music in the
background of every piece of archive footage and cutaway.

Archive footage

Cutaway
 Style and form

My documentary
I wanted my documentary style to be sporty and adventurous because I wanted to make the audience feel like they
were going on a journey to find out about the mental benefits of sports activities. I did this by having each section
start of with an introduction about what I was going to find out from each interviewee. Another element that made my
documentaries style sporty is the fact that I mostly used sports related people in my documentary.
Basketball Player

Sports Instructor
Sports Trainer

P.E teacher

Swimming Teacher
Old text

I think the style of this documentary is similar to a news report, this is because it is set out as a news report for example
the presenter is sitting at a desk in a studio when she is signing in and signing off, this is the type of sign in element is
used in news shows/programmes. The style of this documentary is very different to mine because mine is set out a
journey in order to find out the mental benefits of sports activities, this text is a news report about a basketball player.

This is how the sign in and off is presented in

this text, this is how we would see the presenter
in a news show.
New text
In this documentary I think the style is street like because there are rough shots used in rough locations. Also the
facts that the main location show graffiti further connotes that the style is trying to portray a street feel. Although
the style of this text is professional. The style of this text is not similar to my documentary because my is more
like a journey. Although the only thing that is similar is that I tried to make my documentary also look professional
like this text.

As you can see the location they used is very urban street like, which I think could
relate to the same target audience as me.
Technology
My documentary

I think with my documentary I used standard technology such as

• a camera
• Tripod
• Microphone
• Apple Mac
• Ride mic
• Built in camera mic
• Voice recorder

which was good enough for the project. I was able to produce a good documentary by using the equipment, also I think that
the iMovie software was really useful because it allowed me to edit easily. I was able to use IMovie, this software is better for
making documentaries more creative. This software allowed me to create all my graphics as shown below.

Although I do think that if I had a microphone which was

a higher quality I could have made the sound levels of
the documentary much better because in some places
the sound of my documentary was usable but was very
hard to hear properly.
Old text

In this text I think the technology was used really well. I think the camera shots are particularly good in this text
because there is a wide range of camera shots shown. This related to my text because I have tried to use as many
different camera shots as I can. The sound quality of this text is really clear., so it seems that they had a good quality
microphone to record sound.

Below are examples of the different camera shots that are used:

Long shot/over the shoulder shot

Close up

Mid shot Establishing shot

New text
The new text looks like the technology was used really well, there are a range of good camera shots used, the sound is
very clear and the graphics are creative. The overall quality of this documentary is very good. I think in this documentary a
professional camera is used and a very good microphone has been used. I also think that this documentary is
professionally edited because it includes very good effects such as the video slide show effect. This documentary is similar
to mines in terms of the graphics used because in most places there are graphics used, like in my documentary.

As you can see the picture has a video

slide effect on it, which I think looks very
professional