A2 media evaluation Q1

1. My Evaluation
Q1.In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
documentary?

2. The shots I used throughout my documentary use the
conventions of a real documentary. For my research and
planning I watched several different styles of documentaries
in order to gain knowledge of the codes and conventions of
documentaries.

3. Vox Pop-shots
When I filmed vox pops for my documentary I made sure
they were all mid shots. This meant only showing a person
from just above the waist and upwards. This convention
was shown in all the documentaries I watched so I thought
it was important for me to use to ensure my documentary
looked professional.

4. Expert interview shots
Likewise I also used the convention of having a mid shot for my expert
interviews. However for these interviews they were more serious so
there was more thought into the set up and positioning. After watching
real documentaries I learnt that a convention was to have the expert
the the left side of the shot with space on the right. To ensure the
spacing was right we used the rule of thirds.

5. Mise en scene
mise en scene was an important factor to represent our topic of alcohol.
We concentrated a lot in the formal interviews to ensure we had a lot of
mise en scene to represent the experts. Examples of this included: In
the interviews at the bars we had the bartender standing at the bar with
all alcohol bottles in the background to represent that they are an
expert as their job surrounded by alcohol.

6. In the interview with the student councilor we located it in her office. We
briefly introduced her by showing her typing on her computer as if she was
at work communicating with students to set the scene. We also stuck a
poster about alcoholics in the background to again represent our topic.

7. The interview with the police. We made sure
he wore his police uniform. We also had the
west midlands police website on the
computer in the background of his office to
create a location of relevance to the police
man.

8. Cutaway shots in interviews
I used the convention of cutaway shots within the interviews. During the interview I cut
away to shots showing objects/people/places which the expert was speaking about in
order to keep the audience interested showing different visuals. An example of where I
used this convention was in the police interview he Is on the topic of drunk people being
violent so a cut a way shot cuts to cctv footage of two drunk girls having a physical fight.
This made it is better for the audience to really engage in what the officer is saying, while
also shocking them by showing them visual examples. In the documentaries that I
watched which used an on screen presented I found that the cut a way shots they used
throughout the interview were changing from a shot of the the presenter to the expert
being interviewed. However my documentary used a voice over so you could say in a
way I developed this convention in order to fit my style of documentary.

9. Establishing shots
In order to introduce a new location for the next few scenes I used the
convention of establishing shots. For example to introduce Solihull sixth
form student (people in the vox pops) I used an establishing shot of the
sixth form. An example of a real documentary using this convention
was in ‘ready stead drink’ When they arrived in London they showed an
establishing shot of London city.

10. Titles on screen
I learnt after watching real documentaries that a convention of expert
interviews was to have a title on screen. However this was only for
expert interviews and not vox pops. This was because it is not
important to know personal information for vox pop interviewees but it
is for expert interviews. This is because the audience needs to know
their title and occupation as its relevant to the information they are
giving. For example it was important that we showed on screen the title
for the police office- PC Luke prescott- police officer at West Midlands
police to show he is authoritive and knows what he is talking about.

11. Expert interview shots
After finishing the documentary I realised that we had challenged the
conventions of titles on screen. We positioned our titles on the right
side however the convention is to have them on the left side. In addition
we also did not leave the titles on screen for the whole duration of the
interview. This was unintentional as we would’ve preferred to have
used these conventions to ensure professionalism.
Correct use of convention Incorrect use of convention

12. Non diegetic sound
Lastly I used the convention of non digetic sound throughout- backing
track. This track was an upbeat dance track with no lyrics. We chose this
particular one because it linked with out theme being about young people
drinking alcohol. So represented a club scene therefore attracting our
young target audience. However we did develop this as we changed the
track to a quieter less upbeat track just for the time the expert interviews
were on for so it matched their serious tone and sound levels didn’t
damaged by interferring music. Super size used 18 released song with
lyrics. All of the songs related to the topic of fast food for example ‘Fat
Bottomed Girls by Queen’. This created humor which couldve been
something we couldve used in our documentary considering we used an
informal tone in the majority of our documentary. However we needed
permission to use released songs so It was near enough impossible to get
this as our documentary was on such a tiny scale. But if we were to get a
song like this we could’ve developed super size me idea and used
Tipsy- J Kwon

13. There was some cases
within the documentary
which I developed
conventions of a real
documentary. This included:

14. Opening Scene
One way which we developed convention of
a real documentary was in our opening
scene. While most documentary open their
documentary with facts and description
about the topic they will be discussing we
chose to be different. We got the idea from
the first 25 seconds of ‘Super Size Me’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewFJz0G2
no

15. Opening scene
For our opening we created a montage of different videos of young
people drunk e.g. dancing at a house party with a drink in their hand.
We then put a voice over of a father of a teenage girl telling a story
about him finding her drunk. We chose to do this because it made it
more dramatic so young people watching immediately are aware of that
the documentary will be educating them on the side effects of alcohol.
While at the same time showing young people having fun with alcohol
will let them identify with what they are seeing so they carry on
watching to see more.

16. Mode of our documentary
I found that a lot of the documentaries that I watched were an
expository mode addressing the viewer directly to advance an
argument an argument or recount history. For example ‘Super Size me’
was only showing one side of fast foo- (bad effects such as it being
unhealthy).

17. Documentary styles
We realised that there is several different styles
of documentaries (Bill Nicholls’ of documentary
modes) such as observational and expositional.
‘Super Size me’ used a participatory and
performative modes. Morgan Spurlock was
narrating on screen giving his personal
opinions on the issues of fast food. This gave a
very subjective perspective to the audience
because it was autobiographical.

18. Documentary style
We decided to use an expositional mode
which meant we used a narrative and voice
over throughout. It is also very factual which
was something we also included by showing
facts and figures about drinking. Over all this
style of documentary is a rhetorical way of
narrating to our audience.

19. Off Screen Presenter
We chose to use the convention of an off screen
presenter rather than an on screen. This is because
we didn’t want to be biased and subjective to one
opinion. However we still wanted to be informative
and factual to educate our audience about young
people binge drinking. We also thought that some
on screen presenters are very ‘cheesy’ because they
have to be very enthuastic in order to entertain the
audience. This was why we chose not to use an on
screen presenter because we thought teenager
would not be appealed by a cheesy presenter.

20. Mode of the documentary
We tried to have an observational mode so
that the events were observed and
recorded objectively with no authorial
intrusion. In other words Fly on the wall.
We chose to use this mode because our
target audience are young people 16-25 we
didn’t want to be overly dictative or
preaching too much instead we wanted
audience to be free of opinions on the
topic.

21. Mode of the documentary
One way we used conventions of observational mode documentary was by
filming students in the vox pops who drink and shared funny stories. But on the
other hand we showed a few student that do not drink and stated they still have
fun without. However it is hard to completely give a objective view for example
the experts we interviewed focused on problems which arise from young
people drinking such as peer pressure or violence. Our over all objective was to
educate. So by using the convention of graphics on screen we put facts and
statistics on screen. We wanted our viewers to know the effect of alcohol, so
giving these facts about bad effects of alcohol was mainly to make them aware
of them.

22. Graphics
I found that in supersize me a lot of the background footage and
visuals of the topic was shown through graphics which made it
easier to engage with the documentary. However we chose to
not use as many graphics but this was down to the short
amount of time we could show our documentary for (5 minutes)
so if our documentary was a whole hour long then I think we
would use this convention. Especially when we have a young
target audience because they enjoy to see a lot of visuals. So it
would appeal to them more. One area where we could of used
graphics was in the after the break clip where it showed
students being shocked from the amount of burgers equivalent
to what they drink on a night out. So we could’ve of includes
graphics of burgers and drinks coming up across the screen as
we were telling them.
Here is an example of some of the
graphics in the Supersize me
documentary.

23. Clips from Geordie Shore
Finally, another way I have developed conventions was by showing
clips of the show ‘Geordie Shore’. Even after watching several
documentaries I did not find anyone showing clips from other TV shows
however they did show clips from youtube clips and In supersize me
they did also use clips from other media forms such as Mcdonalds
adverts. We chose to develop this by showing geordie shore because
TV has a huge influence on young people nowadays. Especially this
show as it is all about young people going out drinking 24/7. In
supersize me they did also use clips from other media forms such as
Mcdonald adverts so this was where we the idea of these clips
originated from.

24. In what ways does your Double
page spread use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?

25. Before we created our double page spread for the radio
times we closely looked at professional double page
spread that are in the radio times and analysed them in
detail. This helped us to ensure we used the main
conventions but also helped us be confident with them so
we could develop our conventions to make an individual
house style for our documentaries house style.

28. Main headline
I thought an important convention to follow in order to look like a professional
double page spread was to have my main headline in a large font across the
top of the pages. It is one of the most important features on the pages as it tells
the reader by one or few words what exactly the article is about. We put it in
red as it represents danger like the danger of drinking alcohol. In order to
make it stand out more we put a black border around it. This also helped us to
create a colour scheme for brand identity.

29. Page numbers
We also followed the convention of having page numbers
as it is essential for readers to navigate their way through
the radio times magazine. We made sure that the even
number was on the left and the odd number was on the
right so we strictly followed conventions to ensure it looked
like a real double page spread. Page 1 is the front cover
and so on.

30. Main images
We chose to use the convention of having images from our documentary throughout the
DPS as it was important for the reader to see a link between the DPS and documentary.
But also so they can have a taster of the visuals to entice them to watch ‘Tipsy Teens’.
We also used the convention of having images integrated in the article so there was
visuals to back up what the article was focusing on in that area. However we did
challenge the conventions of a real DPS with our images. We did not include images
from behind the scenes of the documentary which was a common feature of nearly all the
DPS I analyzed from the radio times.

31. Columns & Drop Cap
Having our article in columns was an essential convention to follow to ensure
out DPS looked professional. Columns make it easier to squeeze more text
onto a page, and make the long storis more appealing. For example, if you see
a long bit of text with no columns, it looks dauting, and you ae unwilling to read
it. So this was an advantage to us because of our target audience being young
people 16-25 they prefer to not read a lot. Drop cap was another important
convention to use.It makes the audience feel visually/aesthetically entertained.
This can be a form of escapism because the drop cap makes the whole text
different from the texts often seen in society for young (target audience).

32. Lead Line
We used the convention of a lead line to introduce our article as we
thought it would give the reader a quick insight to what the article is
really about before they start reading. It gives a bit more information
than the main headline e.g. telling them the topic of the documentary. It
was important that this was in a larger text than the article so it could be
easily differentiated from the rest of the text on page.
Real DPS
Our DPS

33. Grab quotes
We chose to use the convention of grab quotes
within the texts. This helped the important
information which we wanted the audience to
read stood out away from the rest of text. We
used statistics. We also developed this by putting
it in red color font to make it further stand out.

34. Date and time
The main reason for the radio times DPS was to advertise
our documentary to the audience so they will be intrigued
in the topic and want to watch it when it is broadcasted.
Therefore we needed to ensure the time, date and
channel was very clear to the audience but also did not
look messy out of place. It was hard to find a convention to
use for the format of the date and time so we put a tiny
paragraph at the end of the paragraph in red text to stand
out to give them all the details. In terms of the channel we
put the Channel 4 logo in the top right corner as well as in
the lead line.

35. Website
In the footer we used the convention of addressing the
radio times website. This allows the reader to visit the
website and find out more about our documentary if they
wish to, such a short preview clip of our documentary. Most
of the double page spread in radio times have the website
in the right bottom corner like we did in small font so this
was a convention we thought we’d use to look more
professional.

36. Date of publication and by
line
Every page of the radio times has along the footer the
radio times logo and the date the article was
published. Therefore we use this conventions so we
look like a real DPS which you would see in the radio
times. In addition we also used the convention of
having the by line very small by the strapline.

37. In what ways does your Radio
trailer use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of a real
media products?

38. Voice over
This convention was essential to use in our
radio trailer as it allows our audience to hear
important information about our
documentary. We chose to broadcast our
radio trailer on Captial FM because they also
have a young target audience of male and
females. So I listened to numerous different
captial FM radio trailers to learn the
conventions they use. In terms of the voice
over they tend to use young presenters in
the voice overs. Therefore we used this
conventions with our radio trailer we chose a
18 year old female to read our script. This
would appeal to our audience as they would
be able to identify with her.

39. Clips from the documentary
A typical convention of a radio trailer is to
include documentary extracts. We used this
convention by creating a montage from the vox
pops. We extracted key words which people in
the vox pops used in relation to alcohol. Such
as ‘off my face’ and ‘shots’. This montage was
a development of this convention we chose to
do this as it was a diverse way of introducing
the topic so would interest the audience.

40. Backing track
The music we used was upbeat like the
music in the documentary. We played this
music for the full duration of the radio trailer
because it was a convention of radio trailers
but also because it kept up a pace so it the
voice over didn’t said too monotone on its
own which would bore people.

41. Date and channel of documentary
Another main convention Capital FM radio
trailers used was informing the audience
about the channel the documentary and the
date and time it would be broadcasted.

42. Duration
Radio trailers tend to be quick and snappy with delivering
their information. Therefore our radio trailer was the
duration of 30 seconds. This ensured that the audience
would not get bored by a long advert but would still get the
information needed such as the channel which the
documentary airs on.