1. In What ways does your Media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

2. The Brief
At the start of or course, we were told that we
needed to produce the opening 5 minutes of a
documentary as a film clip. Alongside this were
to ancillary tasks; to produce a 30 second radio
trailer to advertise the documentary and to
produce a double page magazine article to
advertise the documentary.

3. To start our coursework, we began by looking into
existing documentaries; researching the codes and
conventions used, and gathering data to help us create
a professional and realistic documentary.

4. One of the first things we did was look
at previous documentaries made by A
level students in the media centre of
our intranet. This was to help us get a
better understanding of what we were
going to produce, what content and
layout we should be using and what
kind of interviews were relevant.
We made notes on the documentaries
that we saw, noting down about the
content, style, layout, voiceover etc.
This was for us to look back on later
when we were designing our own
documentary.

5. We researched the codes and conventions of documentaries. We looked into how
to create good foundations for documentaries and the aspects that make the
documentary work. All of these notes helped us take the right codes and
conventions for our choice of documentary and make it work.

6. We also looked into existing TV documentaries on TV. Notes were made on the
documentaries that were watched, including general notes, notes on content,
notes on conventions etc. Some of the documentaries that we looked at
included: ‘Sixteen and Pregnant’ and ‘Turn it loose: The real street dance’. These
were selected specifically because they were aimed at our target audience and
related to the type of documentary we were looking at.

7. We looked at Bill Nichols Documentary modes to learn about the
different types of documentaries.
Expository Mode Addresses viewer directly to advance on argument or
recount history.
Characterised by hidden narrator whose voice is
supported by images.
Subjective and often polemical (one point of view)
Observational Mode Events observed and recorded ‘objectively’ with no
authorial intrusion.
Observes how life itself is.
‘Fly on the wall’
Participatory Mode Filmmakers appear in their own work, interviewing and
expressing views to camera.
Polemical
Micheal Moore
Reflexive Mode The documentary often reflects on its own certification,
drawing attention to this.
Performative Mode Personal approach, individual filmmaker telling their own
story
Often political stories told by minority groups.

8. Our Documentary
• We chose to use the expository mode for our
documentary.
• This is because we were using a voiceover
instead of an onscreen narrator,
• We were also addressing the viewer directly.

9. Use of Camera
A lot of the research done on conventions included the use of
camera, so we had plenty of research to use when deciding
what camera shots and techniques to use.
We used many different camera shots in our documentary;
most of which were done specifically to fit the type of
documentary we wanted. Below are some shots from our
interviews. As you can see, we have taken into account the
conventions, in this case from ‘SuperSize Me’ and used them
to influence our shots. As you can see, both documentaries
shots are mid close-ups and contain professional establishing
footage in each.
Our documentary SuperSize Me

10. After a few shots of each documentary, mid close-ups
appear, shown below. As you can see, we have taken
the camera use from ‘SuperSize Me’ and
incorporated it into our documentary. Obviously, we
have used this kind of shot for a different purpose to
suite our choice of documentary, but the technique is
still the same.
SuperSize Me
Our documentary

11. Our documentary
We found that background footage was an important part of our footage, so it was
important that we had professional footage. You can see here how we have looked at
‘SuperSize Me’ and used the knowledge we took from it to get suitable background
footage for our documentary. It consists of capturing footage that is very relative to the
subject, so that the viewer is constantly reminded of the documentaries purpose and
subject.
SuperSize Me

12. Our documentary SuperSize Me
Once again, here you can see how we We decided to make ours a bit
have taken our research of codes and different to the others that we
conventions and used it to impact our had looked at because we didn’t
footage. We have added in titles for our want to come across as too similar
interviewees so that people know who to other documentaries. Hence, it
they are. This is done in most of the looks a bit different to the one
documentaries that we looked at, so it shown above.
was a clear decision to use them in our
own work.

13. Here you can see how we have taken the
‘Rule of Thirds’ into account when filming
our interviews. We have aligned Mike’s
heads to cut at the crossing of thirds,
much like it is done in ‘SuperSize Me’.

14. Sound
Sound is an important factor for a good documentary. We listened to how the sound
was used in other documentaries and used what we found when producing the sound
for our documentary.
After listening to things like ‘Turn it loose; The real street dance’, where sound is very
important, we gathered that we would have sound running all the way through the
documentary to keep it flowing.
Here you can see that the sound level on the background has been dropped to a
quiet level, for when the interviewees are talking.
This is done in other documentaries, like ‘Big Fat Gypsy wedding’ and ‘SuperSize Me’.
The music is still heard, but it makes it easy to hear the interviewee speaking too.

15. Radio
We started off by listening to existing radio trailers, making
notes about length, tacks, style etc.
We found from our research that most radio trailers had the
main information at the end, including times, dates, channels
etc.
Therefore, we chose to put the information at the end of our
radio trailer as well.
We broke our radio trailer up into
Nikita did the voiceover for the information because we found
several tracks. On average, the trailers
that it was a different voice that said the information on most
we looked at had about 6 tracks each.
of the radio trailers that we listened too.
We only used two tracks; myself and
Nikita. This was to keep it simple.
Because we were aiming at a young
target audience, we wanted it to
appeal to young people. Other Radio
trailers that we heard had used
voices of people who fit in to the
target audience; so we used voices
of young people who fit into our
target audience.

16. Magazine

17. Comparisons
The main images both take the Both images go over onto both pages. Our
top left corners of the articles. image takes the full width of the two pages
whereas the Doctor Who image takes only two
thirds of the width.
The article text covers the bottom The background for the Doctor Who article
third of both pages. has been left plain white, whereas we chose
to have a coloured background to make the
page stand out more.

18. Both articles have pictures on the right side of the Both articles start with a drops
articles. Ours have been slanted with drop shadow, cap. This is to make the article
whereas the Doctor Who ones are straight and flat more visually appealing.
onto the page.
Both pages have main headings on the left page, above the article text. Ours is related
to our topic choice so it stands out more that ‘New Who!’
Both article have an image breaking up the Both Articles have symmetrical page numbers
text in the bottom left corner of the right with the magazine name next to them. The
hand page. only difference is that ours are on the outer
side of the page and the Doctor Who ones are
on the inner side of the page.

19. Conclusion
In conclusion to question 1, I think that we have used and
developed lots of media codes and conventions. We have
researched them well and used them to influence our
documentary. As you have seen, our work has followed
many codes and conventions.
I also think we have challenged some of them, for
example; our radio trailer is quite different to what we
researched because we needed it to fit with the audience
and topic. I think we have challenged them appropriately
and effectively.
We have used, developed and challenged codes and
conventions, but mainly used and developed.