Our documentary follows conventions of real media products such as using vox pops and statistics with visuals to back them up. It includes establishing shots, professional interviews with proper shot composition, and cutaways during interviews. The documentary falls under public affairs genre as it investigates a current issue, and could be seen as polemical by focusing on perceived societal wrongs. Audience feedback found the documentary average, noting good sound and interviews but inconsistencies. The radio spot and magazine spread helped promote the documentary brand but some felt the tasks failed to target the intended teenage audience.

1. Hannah Precelton 6154

2. In what ways does your media product use develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Our documentary follows many codes and conventions of real media products for
example, We used vox pops from students within The Sixth Form College, Solihull. we
had witnessed an example of this when watching Super Size Me.
Another convention we used which we noted from The Morgan Spurlock documentary
was the fact that the voice over gives statistics which is supported by visual feedback.
Therefore if can be said that Supersize me has influence some of our decisions in
elements we used with the documentary Link to opening of documentary

3. Before our interviews, we included an establishing
shot. This is common practice as it strengthens the
spoken narrative. It’s something Grierson defined
under the expositional mode as “evidentiary editing”
as it gives support in visual format to the voiceover.
During our filming process you can see we improved
upon shot composer, as the picture below
The vox made up our fast pace demonstrates what our original vox pops looked like
in comparison to the above where we learn that
montage and from what Bill framing was important
Nicholas 6 different modes our
montages come from the soviet
montage theory which we have
borrowed from within poetic
mode.

4. Occupying just
over half the
frame
We made sure for our interviews that there was
relevant mise-en-scene because it shows
authenticity and it makes the audience believe in
what they say because of their surroundings
The use of interview to back up the film makers
opinion is an element we have taken from
cinema verite. Also the fact that the interviews
support the main theme means they are To add to the
interview set up.
rationale too.
We had a Skeleton Oona Stone
which adds to the is wearing a
Stop smoking Small space connotation of a lab coat
website open above head biology teacher
behind.
Mrs Breeze
is in NHS
For both of our professional
Nurses interviews we made sure we focused
uniform on shot composure insuring the
experts who were being interviewed
looked across the dead space and
not directly at the camera.
Text Overlay

5. During our interviews, we included a selection of
cutaways in the form mainly of over the shoulder shots.
This classes as archival footage. We were only
advised to use a small amount of this but it made our
interviews more visually stimulating than they would have
been had we only shown the subject talking on the
documentary topic. They also strengthen the spoken
narrative.
The use of this borrowed from within the expositional
modes introduces important dramatic segments
as it catches the viewers attention

6. On a whole our documentary falls under the category of public affairs
documentary as it’s made in a traditional format because we have chosen to
show it using public service broadcasters , BBC. This type of documentary is
known for investigating and exploring into current affairs.
It could also be know that our documentary is polemical because it focuses on
a perceived wrong within current society .

7. This is our final version of our double page spread. A Caption with
connotations from
words used
The title with emphasis on adjective
Stand first in larger print
Important detail about
Documentary
schedule
Drop Caps to emphasis the
start of the article
A Pull-Quote Picture Credit
Text in columns
Article Credit
Consistent
House style
Smaller Images
depicting parts of
the interview Footer with magazine name and issue date and page numbers
Our article follows most of the conventions specified by other products of a similar nature. But one feature that challenges these standards is the
larger picture of an inanimate object. This is possibly the only occasion in all three of our tasks where challenging a convention has adverse
consequences, because many other magazine adhere to having a person as the larger image.
This may be something for us to consider if we were to redo this, however we felt that a picture of cigarettes as the main image really emphasised
the main theme of the documentary.

8. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We tried to follow a house style when making the combination of tasks in
order for the audience to be able to associate all three as being about one
product. We were aiming for a clear brand identity.
Therefore as planned to air our documentary on BBC 3, we felt it appropriate
to have our double page spread, TV listings in Radio Times because of the
association between the two. Although it is questionable that our desired
target audience would not themselves read this magazine, we said that they
would read their parents copy.

9. Pull Quote taken direct
from interviewee in
documentary
However with reflection on our magazine
article promoting our product the image
which we used in the final double page
spread does not actually feature within the
documentary however it is still relevant to
the topic of the documentary. This was
unfortunate for us, thus being that our first
choice of image would not place properly
in portrait format

10. To further this and to keep a house style we made the decision to use the same
music sound bed from within Garage band for both our documentary and our radio
trailer with the aim that it would contribute to the brand identity
Music from
Radio Trailer
Music from
documentary
Within our radio trailer there were sound bites from the documentary itself to continue
to establish a brand identity. This hopefully will also enable the audience to associate
the two products.
On reflection I feel this was a good decision because it appeared to work effectively

11. Issues may occur with how well the tasks appeal to their intended audiences.
The documentary is probably our best piece, as it has a range of editing techniques which have been
applied and interviews that present hard hitting information. Therefore, the documentary virtually has
something to cater for any type of viewer. The radio trailer is similar in many aspects. In the brief 30
seconds that it plays, it contains a montage of voiceover and documentary sound bites, this is example
of fast editing which we have used in order for the radio trailer to be attention grabbing. With regards to
the double page spread problems may arise when looking at the chosen magazine for our article to be
published in although it follows suit with us airing our documentary on BBC3, the Radio Times is not a
magazine frequently read by our target audience (teenagers). Therefore on reflection if we were to
repeat it’d be suggested we look for a more suitable magazine to aim directly at our target audience
Overall, I think our ancillary tasks combine with our documentary quite successfully. They look and
sound as if they have a brand identity, and are clear and effective when promoting the program this
can also be seen by the audience feed back results

12. What have you learnt from audience feedback?
To gather our audience feedback, we produced a simple questionnaire, asking fellow
students to rate our products overall, and also on how appropriate they were.
These are the results for our final product.
Overall Documentary Score
12
Amount of people
10
8
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Score out of ten
From the bar chart we can tell that our documentary was believed to be average
because 11 out of 23 people rated our documentary 7/10.
These results tell us that our documentary was not thought of as poor this is shown by
us not receiving anything below 4. On the other hand students believed if given the
chance there was still elements which we could improve upon as 10/10 was not
scored. We believe that that score was adequate for our documentary although we
would have liked higher

13. Information
The following bar chart shows Establishing shots
what codes and conventions from
Proffessional Interviews
the people in our audience
feedback questionnaire stated we Vox Pops
had used. Mise-en-scene
0 2 4 6 8
No. Of People
When asked if we have
effectively developed
Out of those 9 people, 5 specified what exactly we
any codes and
had developed effectively .
conventions in the
90% believed that our interviews were a point in
documentary we found
which we had effectively developed. 10% said they
the following: 9 people
thought that it was the cutaways which was a
said we yes, 12 said no
convention which they noted that we had effectively
developed

14. The following pie chart represents whether or not students thought the
ancillary tasks which we produced effectively promoted the
documentary. Overall unfortunately 39% of people we asked believe
that the radio trailer and double page spread failed to effectively
promote our documentary. However 61% believe that our ancillary tasks
did work successfully in promoting our documentary.
No
When asked if they thought our 3 tasks had a clear defined brand identity. The
pie chart on the left shows that 78% believe that our 3 products did but 22% of
the 23 people we questioned disagreed.
From the verbal feedback we received it was noted that the documentary had good sound quality and
that the choice of music was appropriate as it was insistent which create tension. Furthermore we
were informed that our interviews were very informative and that the mise- en- scene and shot
composure were of high standard.
A point raised in the verbal feed back about our documentary was that there seemed to be an
inconsistence, with questions appearing on screen and the voice over asking the questions. In
addition with regards to the double page spread it was advised that if we had the chance to edit/
tweak our tasks that the photograph of the cigarettes shouldn’t be the feature image. These are both
points we would take on board as improvements if we were to repeat this project. Unfortunately our
questionnaire lets us down because it didn’t clearly enable us to gain enough qualitative data with the
audience’s opinions. A question was asked about target audience however the exacts of target
audience was not specified.

15. How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stage?
During all stages of the production we used an assortment of technologies and
software, ones which we were both familiar and unfamiliar with. However in our initial
research into the project we also used a wide range of technology; this involved the
analysis of existing documentaries our primary internet research. Also throughout we
uploaded materials and proof of our work onto Blogger.com

16. Blogger.com allowed us to organise and share our research and planning with the rest
of the group, I feel that this medium was effective way in storing our work as it
didn’t involve needing a large quantity of paper evidence. Other than text and
images, there is little else Blogger offers in the way of features. However,
one technology that was ample and convenient for our research was a scanner,
this enabled us to generate digital versions of our the few pieces of paper-based
work which we had to produce in order to update our blog.
Click logo to go to our blog This internet site was incredibly useful as it enable us to access the work we
had done from any computer and I found it easy to deal with but it was a shame it didn’t
enable us to upload videos without embedding links from site like YouTube.
In our production phase, the video cameras which we used to create the documentary involved fairly new
unfamiliar technology. This was convenient as the uploading process was incredibly simple. The convenience
of the video cams was they were easy mountable on a tripod meaning we were able ensure that our shots
were still and level. As the camera had ports for headphones
and a microphone, we were able to monitor the audio,
this feature was particularly important to us when conducting
interviews as we could monitor and attempt to reduce
the background noise.
The majority of our post-production took place on an Apple iMac Computer. To me this
technology was difficult. Mac’s have a tendency to crash and also simple commandments
on a normal computer vary on Apple Macs thus making the tasks more confusing. However
once we knew the basics of this revolutionary technology it aided our development in our
tasks.
This viral video aided us in our research as it allowed us to look at previous smoking
documentaries in order for us to decide where to take inspiration from. We watch two in
particular Talking Butts and a BBC Horizon documentary by the name of We love cigarettes

17. In order to edit and produce our documentary, we used Final Cut Express.
The software was new to the whole group, this means it took a little time for us to familiarise
ourselves with the program and how it functions.
Myself , I found it a little complicated at first because of the fact that the programme was quite
complex with it’s smaller feature on the other hand the initial main idea of Final Cut was
rather simple.
This is the layout of Final Cut, the time line above displays the last 3 minutes of our documentary. The blue
tracks shown are the visual files whereas the green tracks are the audio files. The timeline also allows clips to be
layered. In the canvas in the top right you can see the documentary title which appears at the end of the five
minute montage. The middle screen is the viewer it allows pre-screening and trimming of video and also for titles
to be added therefore it’s purposes are to adjust and modify. On the left, the browser contain the raw footage
which we transferred in from where saved during our recording process.

18. The first thing we did was part of our post-production which involved having to Log
and Transfer our clips, during which we looked through and selected the most
appropriate footage which we thought we could make the most of. To access this
we went to file Log and Transfer then the image on the right appeared. Once our
footage had been selected, organised and considered suitable for use, it appeared
in the Browser; and was available for us to use anywhere in our sequence.

19. For our over the shoulder shots it can be seen
that we used a feature which enabled us to
alter the speed. The reason we applied this
feature to our documentary was to use the
footage as a cutaway thus meaning it didn’t
need to be on screen very long and we
wanted to make sure our audience got the
information we wanted to convey.
In our final editing stage in order to
professionalise our documentary, we
went to Modify, Audio and applied
Normalization Gain to all our clips. This
feature of Final Cut allowed us to ensure
that we had a consistent sound level
across our documentary. We decide to
apply a constant -5 across the board.
The smaller features within Final Cut were a tad complex to find however they
enabled us to fine tune our documentary

20. We then added video transitions to the clips, by dragging them from the viewer to
the rough position on the timeline. We watched the edit through a couple of times,
and tweaked where needed. They then appeared on the time line as grey rectangles
Also in order to make sure during our editing
process that the footage stayed in sync with
the audio, there was a special function
which we had to enable, seen on the left
called linked selection.
But in order to make sure our
transitions worked when we
replayed them we had to make
sure when a red line appeared
we made sure we rendered the
footage so it would play
smoothly.

21. In order to follow conventions, we
insured our interviewees names
appear onscreen in for of text
overlays. This making them
identifiable during the rest of the
documentary.
We did this editing within the viewer.
To change screens we had to select
the controls tab. It enabled us to write
our desired text, change the font, its
colour and adjust the size to coincide
with our documentary.
As it can be seen here between the experts it is much more effective
when the name is shown. Also having the chance to insert two texts
allowed us to be able to write the experts name on the top line and
then underneath in a smaller font size, their job description

22. This tool bar appeared in the bottom right of the final cut screen. It enable us to do a variety of
different commands
This function serves to select it
enables you to move footage around
and select transitions and other extras
to add to the footage
On the right is the sound level.
Throughout the documentary we had
to ensure that we monitored this as we
didn’t want to have any extremities in
our documentary sound level.
The appropriate level of sound which
we were searching for was green
going into yellow.
This is another function we used in our
production stage this function enable us
to cut up our footage so we could
select the appropriate from what we
had filmed to use within our
documentaries

23. Garage Band
When it came to the production of our radio trailer, we chose to use GarageBand, an
apple Mac program as it is fairly simple to use however it fulfils our needs.
Combining
segments of audio
New tracks appear on different line
this is a simplified version with
just two tracks
Background music
from which we were
able to select our
backing track
Directly records a new track

24. The image above show 5 back to back clips. The tracks contains chunks of audio from different sources there is a variety of sound
bites from the documentary and Voiceover. These were easy to insert as it involved dragging into a timeline much like Final Cut
however Garage Band is much more accessible.
Furthermore we also picked a music track in which we repeated throughout the 30 second trailer. This track we also used
within our documentary
Adjusting the sound was easier than Final Cut and in my opinion aided
the success of the production of our radio trailer . We were easily able
to adjust the left and right panning of sound and also each individual
track had a volume slider this therefore allowed us to lower the volume
of the backing track so it didn’t overpower the information relayed in
from the voiceover
Viewing the track in this format allowed us to get a close up of the variation in the audio in case we need to make adjustments
to make the sound consistent.

25. In Design
This function was useful for us
when we needed to tweak our Multi tab side bar which is
spread customize able to users
needs
Toolbar
which
contains
different
cursor
options
Although Adobe InDesign it is not the most straight forward Desktop Publishing package available, We
used it because precision it allows you create when used properly.

26. When designing our magazine article we used Adobe InDesign
Colour picker was used
from this software to insure
a consistency of colour with
box a pull-quote
InDesign works on the of Placing images
into frames in the document, so that they
are still linked to the original file. Although
we used this technology at AS I
myself, found it challenging as the software
isn’t self explanatory. Although the text is in
columns like you would see in a normal
double page spread it isn’t level and drastic
tweaking is needed. However the software
allows our double page spread to look
relatively like a everyday newspaper spread