2. 1. In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our task was to create a 5 minute start of a documentary on a topic of our choice and a 30 second radio trailer and double
page spread in a TV magazine to advertise and report about this documentary. In order to successfully create these it was
important to first obtain a good knowledge of existing media products so that we could use conventions which would
create a professional look but also challenge and develop forms and conventions to personalise it and create
something interesting and new for our target audience.
Surrealism Fly on the
Documentary Wall
Firstly, it was important to determine
what sort of documentary we wanted
to make as there are a huge spectrum
of different types, from docusoaps
such as ‘ My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’,
mockumentaries such as ‘ This is
Spinal Tap’ and fly on the wall
documentaries such as ‘Gimme Docusoaps Mockumentary
Shelter’ .
In media lessons, we had learnt about B Nichols, a documentary theorist who, in 2001, developed a conceptual theme
ill
called ‘ Documentary Modes’ in which he talked about six different styles of documentaries based on what conventions they
use. Most documentaries will contain not just one of these but have a mix of several.
There is the P oetic M ode which is a mode that focuses more on setting a tone or mood instead of just including knowledge
or attempts at persuading the audience. There is a usually a subjective interpretation of a subject. There is a lack of
traditional narrative as character or event development is not particularly important. We felt this style was not suitable for
our documentary as our topic, homosexuality, was one that we felt needed proper developed opinions and include
knowledge and factual information rather than going for a certain tone.
4. The E xpository M ode is a form of addressing the audience directly and there is often a certain perspective, argument or
historical information. Either a ‘ Voice-of-God’ commentary is used in which the narrator is heard but never seen or a
‘ Voice-of-Authority’ commentary in which the speaker is heard and seen such as in ‘ Supersize Me’ , which is factual and
heavily based on the presenter Morgan Spurlock who is present a lot but also commentates over other shots throughout the
documentary. We liked this style as having a presenter creates a personal connection to the audience. Because of this we
chose to use the ‘ Voice-of-Authority’ commentary in our documentary with Ellie as the presenter who has a visual presence
throughout whilst also having her voice overs over shots in the documentary.
The Observational M ode is suitable for a documentary which is simply observing and therefore
letting the reader create their own opinion, rather than creating an argument or biased. This
relates very much to a fly on the wall documentary. This style probably doesn’ t relate to our
documentary too much as our presenter did voice her own opinions and the documentary is, as a
whole, supportive of homosexuality. It does, however, portray the views of people that have
contrasting views which is slightly observational.
In the P articipatory M ode, the film maker is part of the documentary, voicing their opinions and
adding a personal level throughout. A film maker who favours this style is Michael Moore. We
incorporated this idea in our documentary as Ellie was filmed voicing her own opinions and
shown researching on the topic etc.
Bill Nichols
The Reflexive M ode is used to help the audience understand and see the construction of the documentary they are seeing
and de-mystifying its processes. We did not really include this as our documentary doesn’t show any of the processes such
as filming/planning etc. but rather just shows the finished product.
Finally, there is also a mode known as the Performative M ode which is very similar to the Participatory mode and
differentiates in the way that there is more artistic freedom and narrative. It engages the narrator in the documentary to the
point where it is almost autobiographical and where the narrator may link the story to themselves, much like in Supersize
Me. I wouldn’ t say our narrator was this deeply connected to the stories as she herself had no particular experiences with
the topic but rather just opinions.
5. Documentary
We gained a lot of knowledge about documentary conventions from watching documentaries such as ‘ Supersize Me’ ,
‘ Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Airline’ . I have also spent a lot of personal time watching documentaries to really get a clear
understanding of how they are structured, made and presented. One thing I noticed throughout was name captions when
people are interviewed or a new person is introduced. The name is stated and mostly also the profession as seen on the
screen cap from ‘ Supersize Me’ below. We used captions in our documentary for Ellie, the presenter. Another important
thing in documentaries when people are shown, such as in a piece to camera or interview, the rule of thirds is very often
used. This is to create an aesthetically pleasing look and also gives the opportunity to add things into the background to
connote something, for example a doctor may have a shelf of medical books behind them etc. For Ellie’ s first piece to
camera, she was sat in what is obviously a classroom to show we were in a sixth form.
Captions!
Rule of thirds!
6. We chose to have a piece to camera presenter, as we
really liked the way that ‘ Supersize Me’ included Morgan
Spurlock on a very personal level. We felt it added some
personality to the documentary and made it more than
just a factual piece- more relatable. Out of our group, we
chose Ellie to do this as we felt she was most suitable as
she has a likeable personality and has clear views on the
topic of homosexuality.
I feel we were generally very inspired by how ‘ Supersize M was filmed and by
e’
what it included. Our documentary was not exactly biased but Ellie did express her,
to a minority polemical, liberal views very clearly, showing clear shock and
disagreement when reading online articles and forums about homophobic people and
laws. A vast majority of the students we interviewed were pro-gay marriage and
adoption etc. and we interviewed two gay people- Frank and Toni to get a deeper
emotional understanding into what their lives are really like and what challenges they
face. Spurlock does this in the same way as he expresses his clear dislike for fast food
corporations and the people behind them, interviewing the victims and getting first
hand views through interviews, getting a deeper insight than merely factual.
However, facts were also a very important thing to include as they add shock value and illuminate the topic well, creating
a greater understanding. Facts are an essential part of ‘Supersize Me’ which includes shocking facts such as that ‘60% of all
US adults are overweight or obese ‘ , or that ‘the small size soda in the US is the big size in France’ . Our documentary told
the viewer interesting and blunt facts such as that ‘30-40% of all LGBT youth in the UK have tried to commit suicide at one
point in their lives’ . Our documentary was filmed in the enigmatic code, addressing a problem to which there is not a
particular answer or solution, much like America’s fast food problem.
7. As we didn’ t have Ellie present all the time throughout the
documentary, we recorded a lot of voice overs, using just
non-diegetic audio over a video clip relating to what is
being said in the voice over- for example when we had a
voice over about adoption laws playing over a close up
pan of law books and Ellie reading an adoption law
section
Close ups were important for connoting certain things or
highlighting their importance. This is a very common convention
we used a lot, such as for the above imagine, for the faces to show
emotional closeness and also in interviews, especially Toni’ s when
she is talking about marriage, connoting the idea that it is a subject
close to her heart.
Filming techniques and shots such as panning, long shots, medium shots,
zoom and focus pulls are also major documentary conventions that were
used in pretty much all the documentaries we viewed and which we used in ours.
Another convention we followed was using a tripod to film a completely still shot.
However, we may have used this shooting mode a little too much and didn’ t really
use hand held camera except for a few times, unlike ‘ Supersize Me’ and ‘ Airline’
which use a lot of hand held camera, so in some ways this is challenging this
convention. We were also unable to use conventional shooting techniques such as
tracking or aerial shots as we didn’ t have the budget or devices to do this. We
also didn’ t use any high or low angles.
8. In the editing process, we were also able to
challenge or use conventions. One of the things we
liked the ‘ Supersize Me’ was when shots were sped
up. We did this in our documentary for the clip of
students walking in and out of college and also our
title page as they were both too long at their original
speed. The original time for the title page drawing
was around 30 seconds, but we sped it up so it only
lasted about 12 seconds.
It’ s very rare to find a documentary which does not include some sort of music, whether it be a
theme tune, background music, non diegetic or diegetic music. A lot of documentaries we
watched obviously had a lot more funding than ours and were able to use copyrighted songs,
which we were not allowed to do. Instead, we used Garage B and to use their ready-to-use tunes
called loops. We chose non-diegetic piano music as the background music throughout to
create an emotional tone.
9. Magazine Article
This is our final double page spread in ‘ T Choice’
V
which tends to have very colourful articles so we tried to use
as much colour as possible. I feel that we should have
probably used some background colour for the text or
article in general as it ended up looking a little bit bare and
there was too much white, but in a way this could be seen
as challenging conventions and may cause it to stand out.
What we did do well, however, was using plenty of pictures
as most TV magazines always tend to do in order to give the
reader a little taste of what the particular TV programme is
about.
P hoto captions are a really important part of TV
magazine double page articles as they can be used to
introduce characters or explain what is going on in the
picture. We used this to make clear that our picture
was of Ellie, our presenter.
Another convention we followed was writing page numbers
at the bottom and also including the TV magazine logo next
to it. The below article in ‘ Radio Times’ did this in the
bottom centre of the page whilst we chose to do it on either
side as that is how they do it in ‘ TV choice’
10. Drop cap Pull quote
Magazine logo
Programme
information. Date, time,
channel and website.
We modernised, and
therefore challenged,
this convention a bit by
adding a twitter name
Masthead
Print screen from
documentary
Sub title
11. Radio Trailer
Before creating our radio trailer, we listened to lots of radio trailers in class, such as a Grand Prix trailer
from the BBC and a trailer about authors on Radio 4. We filled analysis sheets in and learned a lot about
typical conventions in radio trailers which helped us when creating our own.
All the radio trailers we listened to included some sort of non-diegetic
background music so we chose to do this too as it draws the listener in and
makes it more interesting. Even though we’ d used emotional piano music in our
documentary and our documentary was on a serious topic, we wanted our
background beat for the trailer to be something happy and upbeat as we
thought people would be more likely to listen to something like that, so we chose
a club beat on Garage B and.
Another widely used convention is asking questions, mostly rhetorical as they leave the listener with unanswered
questions that will only get answered by checking out the programme. We do this in ours as we talk about ‘ questions that
don’ t usually get asked’ and invite the listener to ‘join’ Ellie which is intriguing and leaves the listener on a sort of cliff-
hanger.
We Another essential convention that we followed is naming the date,
E4 dnes
4o …or day, time and T Channel as otherwise they would not know when it is
V
d. cat 10p on and where to find it. It’s important to make this clear so we faded
ch
up m on our background music before this information is said as most other
on
radio trailers we listened to did too- we also give the option to ‘ catch
up on 4oD’ .
We also used the convention of using extracts from the actual documentary to give the audience a taste of what is included
in the documentary and to use some interesting opinions expressed in the documentary. Overall, I feel that our radio trailer
doesn’t really challenge any conventions but rather follows them very precisely, with a background beat, voice over,
extracts, fade in and out of music, cuts in the voice overs and naming date, channel and time.
12. 2. How effective is the
combination of your main
product and ancillary tasks?
13. Radio Trailer
After we’ d completed our documentary, we were required to create a radio trailer and a magazine double page
spread. The goal was for both of these to advertise our documentary and reach out to a larger audience.
The radio station we chose to use for our trailer was Capital F as we
M
felt it was most suitable for our target audience of young people and
adults. Choosing the right radio station was important and if we’ d
chosen a radio station such as Radio 4 it would have been much less
effective as, even though it has a listening audience of around 11
million people, they are much older and upper class and probably
would not find our documentary appealing. Capital FM has a smaller
but still huge audience of 7.1 million listeners and their target
audience is 12-20 year old males and females, very similar to E4
whose target audience is 15-25 year olds. Capital FM also broadcasts
all over the UK which was important as we wanted to reach everyone,
not just one region. Another thing which led us to believe that Capital
FM would be the best radio station for us is that they have an
audience pretty much twice as large as E4(3.7 million)- increasing our
chances of high viewing figures.
14. As the radio trailer was only 30 seconds long, we needed to ensure that we could fit as much information about the
documentary in as possible and link it to the documentary.
We did this by using audio extracts from vox pops and interviews in the documentary which instantly created a link
between the two as it gave the audience a taste of what is included in the documentary. We also recorded two voiceovers,
using Ellie’s voice who is also the presenter in the documentary, again linking the two together and creating relations,
already introducing the presenter in the radio trailer.
We chose not to use the piano music we used in the documentary in the radio trailer as we felt it sounded a bit negative and
wouldn’t pull people in, so instead chose an upbeat beat which worked very well and created a fast-paced sound which we
thought would especially appeal to younger people as it sounded fun and appealing.
Overall, I felt the radio trailer advertised the documentary very well and they both complimented each other as we used a lot
of audio from the documentary and also the same presenter as radio narrator. At the end of the radio trailer we named the
channel and time which made it easy for the listener to go and watch the documentary.
We used audio from
our documentary in
our radio trailer!
15. Magazine double page spread
This is our magazine spread. Firstly, we chose to publish it in the TV
magazine ‘T Choice’ because it has a huge audience of up to 13
V
million people in the UK! However, I feel that it may not have been the
most suitable one to choose at its target audience is middle aged females
of around 35-40 years old which is not particularly the group we’ d
expect to be viewing our documentary but nonetheless it does advertise
programmes such as ‘ Sun, Sex and Suspicious parents’ which is a
programme aimed at around the same age group as our documentary.
The magazine is also very cheap, making it easy for students and young
adults to purchase.
I feel that our double page spread is effective. All the images we used in
it are screen caps from our actual documentary which creates a
connection between the two and gives the reader an insight into what
may be included in the documentary. The article itself is an interview
with Ellie, the documentary’ s presenter which again gives an insight and
introduces the documentary to a deeper level. A lot of interesting topics
surrounding the documentary are addressed but only to the extent where
the reader would have to watch the documentary to get more answers- a
technique to get them to watch it.
The pull quote is also derived from the documentary as it is a quote
someone would have said later on in the documentary. The colour
scheme used portrays the idea that this documentary mainly focuses on
Britain and the title is effective as the question mark shows that the
question is unanswered and the reader will want to find out whether
Britain really is homophobic.
Overall, I feel maybe our double page spread could have been a little
more colourful to fit with the ‘ tv choice’ style of colour and big fonts but
I do feel it advertises our documentary very well and gets across all the
important details such as content, times, channel and raises some really
interesting questions.
16. 3. What have you learnt from
your audience feedback?
17. When we were researching before creating our media products, we created and distributed some
questionnaires in order to make the most effective and successful media products possible. We
asked questions such as what would be the most suitable channel, what kind of things people
want to find out about relating to the topic of homosexuality etc. After completion of the media
products, we again made a questionnaire which we handed out to eighteen 16-18 year old
males and females in college after they had watched our documentary, looked at our double
page spread and listened to our radio trailer. This is our feedback converted into graphs…
Documentary Feedback
Have you learnt something from the documentary
you previously didn't know?
These results are not surprising to me as none of my group knew most of
20
18
the facts before researching for our documentary. We included a lot of
16
14
interesting and shocking facts which I wouldn’ t expect most people to
12
10
know. I’ m pleased with this result as, to me, the point of a documentary
8
6
is to teach people something new and give a different insight to what
4
2
they might already think
0
Yes No
Are the sound levels conistent?
No We spent a lot of time perfecting the sound so I’ m glad most people
thought they were good. We watched the documentary many times to
make sure they were all equal.
Yes
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
18. Was the background music suitable?
We changed the background music about three times and found it
pretty hard to find a suitable one as the guitar one we chose first was
too distracting, and the second one was a little too upbeat and
Yes
happy. We finally settled for a piano tune which I thought may have
No been a little depressing and if we’ d looked longer we probably could
have put together a better one. I’ m glad other people didn’ t think so.
Was the editing coherent and understandable?
I agree with this feedback. We looked through the editing timeline
20
18
16
countless times to make sure there was no black spaces anywhere and
Amount of people
14
12
10
that everything transitioned smoothly. All the transitions and effects
8
6
we used worked well and the sound all fit in well. I was really happy
4 with our editing work and thought we cut our video footage down
well.
2
0
Yes No
Answer
Would you watch the rest of the documentary?
A couple of people answered no to this one which I’ m not too
surprised at as our topic probably wouldn’ t interest some people. We
also cut it off quite abruptly, not telling the audience what else would
Yes be included in the documentary like some other people’ s
documentary’ s did (for example: this is what’ s coming up after the
No
break.
19. Do you think the documentary is suitable to be
shown on Channel 4 at 10pm?
20 I agree with this as we researched channels and viewing times a lot
15 and all agreed that this was definitely the best time and channel.
10pm is a pretty standard time for our target audience to be watching
Number of
10
people
5 TV.
0
Yes No
Answer
Radio Trailer Feedback
After listening to the radio trailer would you want to
watch the documentary? This shows that some people may have not found our radio trailer a
very effective way of advertising the documentary. I feel like we did
include a lot of what’ s included in the documentary. However, we
Number of people
could have possibly made it a bit more dramatic by including a
No
shocking or controversial fact. I felt we showed too many pro views
Yes and there was no one that was radically against homosexuality so
0 5 10 15 20
maybe it sounded a bit biased and mild.
Answer
Were the sound levels consistent throughout?
We did check the audio levels a lot. The only thing that wasn’ t perfect
was the last voice over as it starts quite abruptly, we tried editing this
but did not succeed to make it sound completely smooth. I feel,
Yes
however, that our music and audio was the right volume and the music
No didn’ t overpower.
20. Do you think the music was suitable?
18
16 I agree with this and am not surprised with the high positive
14
12 feedback as our music was a very standard, conventional radio
Number of 10
people 8
6
beat that sounded upbeat, attention grabbing and happy.
4
2
0
Yes No
Answer
Do you think this radio trailer would be suitable for
Capital FM?
A few people answered ‘ no’ to this which I’ m surprised about as I
felt they have the same target audience, but I can see how some
Number of people
No
people may feel that it would also be suitable for something like
Yes
Radio 1 as BBC plays a lot of documentaries regarding sexuality
etc.
0 5 10 15
Answer
Is it clear to you, what the documentary is about?
Number of people
No
I agree with this as the extracts make it very clear what the
documentary is about and also the voice over. There is not really
Yes
any ambiguity.
0 5 10 15 20
Answer
21. Magazine Article Feedback
Do you think the double page spread is eye-
catching and attractive?
20
I thought more would answer ‘ no’ to this as, as I said before, I thought
15 our magazine double page spread was a little bit plain because of the
Number of
people
10 white background. I do think it is eye catching though because of the
5
face pictures. Faces tend to draw people in.
0
Yes Answer No
After seeing the double page spread would you
want to watch the documentary?
Again, I am surprised at the large number of people that said yes
20
because I thought that, even though the actual article was really
15
Number of
10
people
interesting and insightful, the images themselves and the layout didn’ t
5
0
convey the documentary very well and didn’ t really show what was
Yes No included in it.
Answer
Do you like the colour pallate used?
I’ m pleased about this because we really thought about what colours
No
to use as they had to connote something. That’ s why we chose the
blue and red- to connote that this documentary is about only British
Answer
Yes people and their views.
0 5 10 15 20
Number of people
22. 4. How did you use new media
technologies in the construction
and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
23. New media technologies used whilst filming our
To film all of ourdocumentary H H
footage we used a Canon D G20 camera. This camera was
great as it produced sharp, high quality film.
When using this camera we first turned it on
and then made sure the dial was in the
‘ video filming’ mode as this camera also
has a still shot mode which was also
really useful.
The camera also had a zoom tool at the top of it
which we used frequently to zoom in and out of
important stuff and to add shot variety.
Another good feature we made full use of
was the focus pull which we achieved by using manual focus and using the button on the left hand side of the
screen to pull the focus from one distance to another. We also played around with the white balance to create a
natural light look. We used a tripod for most of our shots to achieve a still, straight shot which looked professional.
However, for some shots we felt holding the camera in our hand created a better, more realistic effect.
Although the camera did have sound recording, it wasn’ t the best or loudest
so we enhanced sound quality and volume by using a microphone, when
filming interviews or vox pops. We
plugged the microphone into the microphone
jack on the camera and also plugged
headphones into the camera which the
person who was filming wore to make sure the
sound was good.
24. New media technologies used whilst editing our documentary
Once the filming process was completed, we
were left with several hours of footage which
we had to edit to create a 5 minute start to a
documentary. The programme we used for
editing was Final Cut Express on an Apple
iMac computer.
We had saved all our
filming footage to the
iMac after each session
so we had them all saved
on the computer already. Now all we had to do was transfer them onto Final Cut for which we used ‘ log and
transfer’ . We opened all our clips on this and chose which ones we wanted to use. Each clip we wanted to use had to
be named so that it was easily identifiable and ‘ added to the queue’ which then
transferred it to the main editing screen where we
could easily drag it onto our sequence.
25. Unedited footage we had previously Screen to view unedited footage
logged and transferred. Named and when clicked or our documentary
ready to be used whilst it is being made
Effects
such as
transfers
for video
and audio.
We had to
‘render’
video Time
before
using
these
Layers for
layering
audio and
video
Audio- linked to the video clips. We also used some Video Editing tools such as
audio clips that we had un-linked from video clips cutting, volume levels,
so they were solemnly audio, such as the come out
select tool etc
stories at the start
26. We wanted to make everything look really professional so we were very diligent with the editing.
We had a clip of students walking in and out of the college which was a little slow so we decided
we wanted to speed this up. We did this by going on ‘ Modify’ and
then ‘ Speed’. We sped up this clip by
150% as this looked best. We also
sped up our title page of Ellie drawing
‘ Homophobic Britain’ onto a piece of
Clip of
paper as this would have also taken
our docu
up too much time.
Another thing we did was making sure the sound levels were perfect throughout so that every clip blended
seamlessly into the next sound wise. This was a very time consuming task as we had to change every audio clip
individually and judge the sound by wearing headphones and watching the documentary over and over. Many of our
clips, especially the vox pops, were either really loud like the one of Lewis, or really quiet like Brian’ s.
These red lines were the sound levels. To change them, we simply used the mouse to grab them and pulled them up
or down. Sometimes we also wanted audio to change volume gradually so that it faded into and out of another clip.
We did this by using the ink pen tool which enabled us to made dots along the sound level line and drag them,
creating a descending or ascending volume. We made a lot of use of this throughout the documentary, especially
on the YouTube clips and the background piano music.
27. We used background music throughout the documentary as this is very conventional and adds some depth. We used
Garage B and to source a suitable sound and ended up choosing a Piano sound as we decided this sounded sincere and
serious to go along with the issue of homosexuality. The music went really well with the emotional voiceovers of people
coming out and interviews regarding adoption and marriage etc.
Another tool we used on Final Cut Express was the ‘Razor B lade
Tool’ to cut clips. We made extensive use of this and spent hours
cutting clips to source out the most important and relevant parts.
How we did this is view a clip and pause it where we wanted to split it from the rest of the clip, then clicked on the razor
blade tool and made a cut which split the clip into two. This way we could select certain parts within the clip and delete
them. This tool was especially important for interviews and vox pops as we grouped them together regarding a specific
topic, so we cut out the part of them talking about one topic such as gay marriage and grouped them all together.
Another editing tool we used was adding text over
video clips. We only made use of this once for Ellie’s
first piece to camera to that she is introduced to the
audience.
To do this, we firstly clicked on the ‘ text’ box.
and from the menu chose ‘text’. The first top screen
will then say ‘ sample text’ which we dragged over the
video clip that we wanted text on. Then we used the
control option to alter the text and write what we
wanted, change the size, colour of font and also had the
option to create a background box which we made a
faded black as we thought it added a professional look
as it is conventional in a lot of documentaries we’ve
seen.
28. New media technologies used whilst creating our radio
trailer
The programme we used to create our radio trailer is Garage Band.
After opening the programme, I clicked on
‘ Create New M usic P roject’ which enabled
me to create my radio trailer.
I then used Final Cut to find appropriate extracts from the documentary which we could
use the audio from in our radio trailer. We chose to include extracts in our trailer along with
a voice over so that the audience could have a taste of what is included within, so we had to
make sure we chose interesting extracts from
interviews and vox pops. Once I chose which ones I wanted, I created a new sequence and cut them together. As
I only wanted to use the audio, I clicked on the modify tab and un-ticked the ‘link’ option which separated
audio from visual so I could delete the video but keep the audio. I then edited them together to create smooth
transitions and relate the tracks to each other. I also used this method for the voice over we filmed on the Canon
camera especially for the radio trailer. We transferred the file onto Final Cut and went through the same process
again on a difference sequence.
29. After we finished cutting and editing the audio
clips, we went on ‘ file’ and hovered over
‘ export’ , choosing ‘ using QuickT ime
Conversion’ . There was then several options
of formats to have the files converted to. We
chose ‘ W ave’ as this is a suitable format for
audio.
Back on Garage B and, I browsed through some already created beats that could be
suitable for our trailer as we definitely wanted our trailer to contain music as this is an
important convention and makes it more interesting. We wanted something upbeat to
make the documentary seem exiting, not boring. Garage Band has a whole library of ready
to use tracks called ‘ loops’ .
We ended up
choosing ‘ Club
Dance B eat 007’ as
it was upbeat and
conventional
We then dragged this beat and used it as one of the layers, dragging it out so that it was
around 30 seconds long. This beat worked really well and sounded youthful and
interesting, targeting our target audience and drawing listeners in.
30. Once we imported our documentary extracts
and Ellie’ s voiceovers we edited and moved
all the layers around to create a sequence and
create a professional sounding radio trailer.
We started off with a montage of vox pops
from the documentary talking about
percentages of gay people in the UK. The
dance club beat starts halfway through this
as we thought it sounded very effective to start
without music to make it sound dramatic.
After the montage finishes, we chose a voiceover by Ellie which introduces the documentary and draws the listener
in why stating that they will find out this answer to this and many other questions in the documentary. This is
effective as questions raised in the montage will only be answered if documentary is watched. We then used another
montage of vox pops and interviewees talking about gay marriage. We ended the radio trailer with another
voiceover stating times and channel and inviting the audience to ‘ join’ Ellie and find out answers to questions and
ideas raised in this trailer. The dance beat cuts off before channel, time and ‘ catch up on 4od’ is stated. We did this as
it is a convention of many radio trailers and also highlights this important information as the listener may have
missed it if they had been listening to the background music.
We had to split the end voice over as
Another thing that was really important was ensuring the Ellie was talking too fast and we
volumes were even throughout the radio trailer and that the wanted a create a pause. We did this
background beat was at a right level so as to not distract from the by positioning the red marker where
other, more important, audio. We did this by adjusting the we wanted to cut this and then
volumes of each track. We decreased the beat volume a lot. pressing the apple key and ‘T ’.
We also wanted it to fade in and out at the beginning and end Once the track was split in two we
which we did by putting dots on the volume line and creating a dragged the last half of the track
ascending and descending line. across, creating a small space.
31. New media technologies used whilst creating our double
page spread
We used InDesign to create our double page spread. We firstly opened a new
document and chose the ‘ double page’ option which automatically gave us a two page
layout which we could work on. From our drafts we knew that we wanted a little more
than half a page filled purely with screen caps of the faces used at the start of our
documentary as we thought this would create an intriguing look and is meant to convey
the idea that everyone is equal- you can’t tell that someone is gay just by looking at them.
We decided to recreate the ‘ T choice’ logo as we were unsure about copyright etc.
V
so we used P hotoshop. This was quite simple to do. Firstly, we chose two
Photoshop made shapes- a circle and a rectangle and merged them together. We used
the colour bucket tool to fill them in red. We then used the text tool and in bold,
white font wrote ‘ TV choice’ . Using the lasso tool we cut out the background so it
was transparent and saved it, later on opening it as an image in InDesign.
32. The title is one of the most important things about a magazine article.
We made ours on P hotoshop as there are more options than on
1. InDesign. We changed our title several times, but this was our initial
one. Firstly, we got a picture of a British flag and imported it into PS. In
the layers palette we only had one layer called ‘background’ so then
duplicated this layer so we had two. We then also made a blank layer in
between the two and filled it in white.
2. We then made it into a ‘ pattern’ , naming it ‘Pattern 1’
3. On another PS document, we wrote the word ‘ Britain?’, using a
transparent background. This was another layer.
We then merged the two together, making the Britain text
4. transparent and using the pattern of our British flag image as the
background. This is how we created our own font background. We
did like it but however did not use it in the end as we had a lot of
problems with resizing it- it kept going blurry so instead opted for a
blue and red coloured font instead which worked just as well and
distracted less from the images.
33. New media technologies used whilst researching and planning
A lot of research was required in order to make our documentary, radio trailer and
double page spread. We did a lot of research by hand such as a story board and mind
maps. However, the use of new media products made researching and planning a lot
easier and more effective. One of the main resources for research was the internet and
Google. On Google we found tons of articles relating to topics surrounding
homosexuality such as laws, marriage, adoption, views from different countries etc.
We watched a lot of documentaries such as ‘ Standing Tall’ and ‘ I woke up gay’ and
also used websites such as bbc.com/ layer to watch a documentary called ‘ The
iP
World’ s Worst Place to be Gay’ which was a really shocking insight into gay rights in
Uganda. Watching these documentaries really helped as we made notes and thereby
learned a lot about conventions, how these documentaries are edited and also more
information for our research. Websites like P rezi and Scribd were also brilliant for
presenting our planning which we then uploaded onto the blogging website
B logger, another new media technology which helped us a lot and enabled us to store
and present all our planning and research in once place, including videos, word
documents and images.
When researching radio stations and TV channels suitable for our products, we again
used the internet and looked on the actual websites of the channels such as
Channel4.com and B C.com as they gave a lot of information about target audiences,
B
viewing figures, programmes etc.
34. We also used the Canon camera to film our
group discussing and planning things
concerning the documentary and editing
etc. We then uploaded this onto YouTube
from which we could easily put it onto our
blog. We did this to add some variety and
also showed us discussing ideas as they
came to us, not just written thoughts and
planning.
In order to create this evaluation, I used several
media products. The first being, obviously,
PowerPoint Microsoft Office. I will then upload it
to SlideShare and publish it onto our Blogger blog
where it’ s there for all the world to enjoy!
Overall, I’m really please with all our media products, especially the documentary as I
felt we edited it really well, interviewed some really interesting people and got some
good shots and footage which showed in our audience feedback. I liked that we had a
presenter and I think our documentary portrayed a really positive imagine showing
that Britain is quite liberal and that old laws really have no place in the contemporary
anymore. E veryone should be equal and shouldn’t be judged by something they can’t
choose or change. I also really liked our radio trailer and am content with the double
page spread but felt like there could have been some improvements. I feel we
followed a lot of conventions to create a professional feel and made a lot of use of
