2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My film both challenges and abides to certain forms and conventions of real media products. The use of sound in my piece acts as an introduction and is also used against footage. This is to add a calming effect on the audience to portray the message that everything is better is getting better. To gain an understanding into what the conventions are of a documentary as part of my research I found a presentation on 'Slideshare' which helped me by showing what certain conventions are. For my piece i have used a music track, this is to compliment what is happening on screen without detracting anything from the film. I found my music off of Danosongs.com it’s calming and doesn't detract from the footage.
3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Text and titles are another convention of a documentary in which i have used. On the left are example of my own film and on the Right are examples from 'Bullying: A Documentary' which i found during my research. There is a similarity between them as they are both on a black background. I have in my piece tried to keep a continuity within my Font choice.
4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? In my product I challenge the convention of having a voiceover, mainly due to the fact I did not want the voice over to take away from the speaking actor. To keep a certain amount of tradition I have put in a small amount of voiceover at the end of the piece where there is a poem read out over the top of the screen. It does not detract from the action on screen and helps emphasise the message of the piece. The voiceover hasn’t got a gender specific basis and can be done by both Males and Females. To make sure my voiceover was clear, I asked Hayley White to do the voice over as she has a clear and relatable voice. Which allows the audience to feel at ease with the voiceover. I think this worked well as the rest of the film there is constant speaking so I think the seperation of the footage and the voiceover work well. In Louis Theroux’s behind bars we can tell that there is a gap between the two footages.
5. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts?
6. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts? Used a still from the film and silhouetted the picture. Crayon style background, connotes a childish feel which relates to the school aspect of the documentary. The colours of the crayon style is fiery colours which relate to the words that are in the centre of the silhouette. The character has been silhouetted to define the idea of not suffering in silence which I also on the poster.
7. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts? Catchy title, use of alliteration and the letter ‘B’ are blunt and force the message of the ‘beaten’. The title is straight to the point and relevent to the products meaning. Screenshots that relate to the text and the product. Rating system, there are no set conventions saying which icon can be used for a rating system.
8. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts? Same font has been used to create synergy within the texts Black background and white text is an occurring point in the texts. Similar pictures used in both text’s thus keeping an idea of continuity between texts.
9. How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary texts? There are elements of my products that are effective and are recurring in all of them. Each text is able to be linked together in a circle. The poster hints to subjects covered in the video, i.e the crayon pattern connoting school and childhood. The video then is reviewed by the reviewer in the film review. The review then allows the audience an insight into what the poster means and suggests. Together I think it is an effective combination as it doesn’t patronise the audience and all as said are relevant to each other.
10. Watching my film I think my work would be suitable online on a bullying site more than on TV. However I do think my film could be part of a TV documentary if it were integrated with more people and part of a bigger film. I think it would be more suitable for BullyingUK(www.bullying.co.uk) and ChildlLine (www.childline.org.uk) due to their online presense and the topic of my product. My work as a real media text.
11. What have you learnt from audience feedback? I have firstly learnt that gaining audience feedback is harder then it sounds. I did not want to seem annoying by asking everybody and anybody who was online at the same time as I was for their opinions, but did want some feedback. I first of all just posted out a link to the video which is on youtube to my Facebook page to gain an audience, then asked if people could comment their opinions and feedback. I also used twitter to gain feedback, by tweeting a link to my followers allowing a wider spectrum of audiences.
12. What have you learnt from audience feedback? The feedback shown was all due to Facebook chat or the private messaging system. One thing that if found on the viewable feedback was Cat’s feedback of ‘it’s a bit long’ This was the not the first time I had heard this whilst gaining feedback. I had received lots of verbal feedback where people had picked up on this. Charley’s comments on the use of the opacity levels over the shots, she also picked up on a flaw of the size of the piece height and width wise which caused a problem in the viewing the film. Jojo picked up on some timing issues which occurred towards the end of the film. Daniel Turrell’s mum also watched the video and verbally commented on that I had captured it well and she found it hard hitting. This feedback was great to hear as this was the goal of my piece (truthful, hard hitting).
13. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. Construction During construction of my product I used a PanosonicHDC-HS20 which I borrowed from the media department. This allowed me to film in very high quality and have lots of space in which to take the footage. ‘Imovie’ was the first programme the footage entered and this prepared the footage ready to be imported into ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’. Despite having the prior knowledge with Premiere I still hadn’t gained enough knowledge to be completely confident with my skills. To get help I asked fellow students and mainly worked it out for myself as to allow myself a challenge and to learn how to do things my way. In comparison to AS I think I have improved immensely as I did not really get to have an experience with premiere. Weaknesses I don’t feel that I had too many weaknesses in this area, I managed to overcome many issues such as editing techniques myself, I did however encounter technical problems with the mac itself. However I think I could over overcome this by backing up my work to other computers instead of just one which I would use for the majority of the time. I also should of checked battery levels of the camera on filming shoots as to avoid having to cut the filming short and shoot what is needed.
14. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. RESEARCH I used many new media technologies to conduct my research into my short film choice. My first point of call was Youtube this is due to it being home to Many video’s on varying topics. Youtube was easier to use due to my research from AS and I found it easier to narrow down searches on youtube by thinking about the keywords used. To put my research together I used Blogger this helped me see where I needed to add more research and keep an orderly updated calendar of my A2 year, One thing that I improved upon since AS in relation to blogger is the regularity of my posts. I tried to keep an up to date blog and blog as often as possible. In conjunction with my youtube research I used Google to search on topics which were relevant to my idea at the time. This helped me a lot during the research stage as there are vast amounts of information on the internet so I had access to a lot of help.
15. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. Planning For the planning stages of my production I mainly used blogger as my main outlet to voice ideas and updated turn of events. This was an easy way due to my knowledge of how to use it. During the planning stage although not for the final piece I had used ‘Slideshare’ to produced a storyboard, this came in very handy as I have a good knowledge of how to use the site due to AS media and my own personal use of the site. Research cont.I think I could of improved my research by doing a lot more of it. Due to many different reasons my idea changed loads so I didn’t really settle into one idea for too long. I feel that my research lacked depth of analysis in some areas and some posts I feel were not 100% relevant at all times. Weakness of Planning… I think my definite downfall was during my planning, despite thinking about the ideas I had and thinking about the pros and cons of them no idea seemed to stick or seem possible when it got down to the filming/making of the film. I also failed to complete an animatic for my final piece. This is down to my own personal planning and time constraints. I think I could of done this a lot better if I had sat down and thought about it a bit more instead of just going and doing the filming.
16. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. Evaluation As mentioned before when talking about audience feedback the two main ways of receiving feedback was over Facebook and Twitter. Out of Facebook and Twitter I would have to say that Facebook prevailed as it was more useful to me due to the chat system. It was the chat system which allowed me to gain the most feedback. Weaknesses As one of my feedback says she wasn’t able to see the footage properly on YouTube. This may of ment I lost potential on the film due to certain elements not being viewable. i.e the text that comes on screen. To overcome this issue to gain verbal feedback I have shown people the exported version, in which you can see everything. I also am a bit unsure on how to export a smaller version of the product small enough for youtube, so this is something I had to learn. I would have to say that I believe my only true weakness is that I did not ask for help. I think if I had asked for help I would’ve been able to achieve a better product/s and learnt some more skills.
