Media A2 Coursework Evaluation Questions

Media CourseworkMedia Product Evaluation Questions

Emily Brown

1. How did you use, develop orchallenge codes and conventions

of real media products?

Conventions of a Documentary• Hand held Camera - creates a sense of realism and personalised point of view• Narrative Voice Over - usually directly addressing the audience to involve them as well as giving added detail about the documentary• Interviews with experts / witnesses / general public - Vox Pops• Parallel Editing linking key scenes• Use of Archived footage to support filmed scenes• Mediated culture – documentaries select and construct, allowing opinion and subjectivity• Selective editing - filmmakers cut and edit clips in order to construct and portray specific meaning• Often point of view with encoded ideology, preferred meaning• Use of Establishing Shot and Close Ups/Medium Close Ups• Often single stranded, linear – the documentary is usually about only one topic• Exploration of narrative themes, messages and values• Different purposes – to entertain, inform, educate, shock, for propaganda purposes, etc.• Eye-Level Camera angles• Diegetic Sound - interviews• Non-diegetic sound - voice overs & background music• Non-linear clips - cutting back and forth between interviews• Linear structure - beginning middle end

In terms of whether my media product uses, develops or challenges conventions of ‘real media products’, I do not think I have used any editing or footage that particularly ‘challenges’ or goes beyond the common forms of documentaries.

In order to make my video look as professional as I could, I mimicked real media products, ‘using’ the forms and conventions to create mine.

As documentaries are usually based around one idea, where mine is ‘music and fashion’, documentaries often use non-linear editing to create a linear narrative, with an: introduction - a middle - and a conclusion.

I believe my product adheres to this as I use a non-diegetic voice over to introduce – ‘over the years…’, and conclude – ‘after our research’ the film – following conventions as media products often are narrator led.

In between this I use selective editing in order to tell the story I want, as real products often do in order to get their point across, cutting in between clips and creating a non-linear sequence in order to move the product through the main body towards the conclusion.

When studying ‘real media products’, such as the ‘Road Kill Couture’ documentary I analysed, I noticed that the use of vox pops are common in documentaries in order to get the public’s opinion on the subject of the documentary.

Real Media Product

My Media Product

I used this idea in my documentary, cutting between different members of the public and asking them different questions, in order to hear the public’s voice.

As well as vox pops, documentaries often get expert opinions on the subject, such as the fashion designer in the ‘Road Kill Couture’ documentary.

In order to mimic this convention, I put clips of interviews with Sam Webb, lead singer in a band, Amy Heard, a model, and Mark Radcliffe, a BBC radio presenter, in my documentary.

Sam Webb Amy Heard Mark Radcliffe

To make who I was interviewing clear to viewers, I used name captions in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

The use of name captions is also common in documentaries in interviews, reminding the viewer that the interviewee is someone of importance. I believe the use of professionals offers a more expert opinion of someone the viewer can trust, making the documentary more sophisticated and realistic.

Real Media Product My Media Product

Similar to real media products, I made sure to make use of the mise-en-scene in certain shots in my documentary.

For example, in this real documentary, the professional is surrounded by things which represent her job and what the documentary is about. For example, the necklace we can see in the back right of the screen, supposedly made from road kill, reminds the viewer who the speaker is as well as what the documentary is about.

In order to follow these conventions in my product, we took mise-en-scene into account when filming our documentary. When interviewing Mark Radcliffe, we made sure to get the radio studio in the background, constantly reminding the viewer that Mark is a radio presenter and showing, through the mise en scene, that he is a professional in the field and his opinions are trustworthy.

As well as the voice-overs included to open and close my documentary, I used other diegetic and non-diegetic audio to create my product.Real media products often use background music to avoid silences in between clips and interviews. I chose to follow this convention and put background music throughout the whole of my documentary, using tracks from the indie-pop band These Mortal Cities.

This could be considered ‘developing’ the conventions, as often with real media products the background music does not run throughout the whole video, sometimes documentaries have just diegetic sound when a narrator is speaking or people are being interviewed; however, due to the short length of my documentary, I chose to use non-diegetic music throughout.

A common trait of documentaries is the use of cutaways, allowing the product to move the topic onwards and time for voice-overs.

My product uses cutaways between clips, separating the interviews with professionals from interviews with the public, as well as splitting the introduction and conclusion from the main body of the documentary.

Similar to the ‘Road Kill Couture’ documentary I analysed, I wrote the questions I was asking the public onto the screens, allowing viewers to see it for themselves.

I used a black background when interviewing members of the public.

I used a grey background for the text when interviewing professionals.

I used these colour schemes repeatedly throughout my documentary, hopefully allowing the viewer to make a link between the questions with grey backgrounds and the interviews with professionals, the constancy creating a somewhat professional feel. I also made sure to use the same text throughout the documentary, again giving it a professional look.

My use of camerawork also ‘uses’ forms and conventions of real media products. Real documentaries are often made up from interviews, in which people are shown in a medium close up, allowing viewers to clearly see who is talking and what they are saying, which I took into account and used in my documentary.

Because my documentary is about music and fashion, I use a number of long shots alongside medium close ups, where the viewer can see the person’s whole outfit. I put the long shot images into a collage in the introduction and conclusion of my product, allowing the viewer to compare fashion senses and see how they vary from person to person.

Newspaper AdvertWhen creating my newspaper advert, I looked at other channel 4 adverts for documentaries, and tried to mimic these conventions in my documentary. I do not particularly challenge any of the conventions shown in the real media product, but use them in my product.

One focus background image to catch readers attention and give information about the documentary.

Channel 4 logo creating brand identity, showing viewer what channel the documentary will be shown on

Tag line to intrigue reader, information on the documentary, title/date and time.

Radio Advert

Radio AdvertWhen creating my radio advert, I listened to other radio adverts to get an idea of the conventions. As it was difficult to find radio ads for documentaries, I analysed a couple of radio adverts for things like food chains and cars.

I used clips from my documentary in my radio advert as I often hear clips of interviewees in real media products. The use of integrated clips from the documentary allows the listener to get an idea of how the documentary is presented and what it is about. I therefore used this convention in my radio advert in order to make it sound more like real media products.

Similar to other media products, I used background music in my radio advert, raising the volume at the beginning and end to open and close the advert. The use of background music keeps the advert interesting as opposed to if it was purely speaking.

Real Media Product

To close the advert, I state the title of the documentary, and date and time it will be shown. I chose to give this information at the end of the radio advert as I think it is more likely to stick in the listener’s memory if it was the last thing they heard. This technique is often used in real media products to ensure the listener has the necessary information for the advertised product in the front of their mind.

2. How effective is the combination of your

main and ancillary texts?

Final Products

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odBJnoVt76I

DocumentaryNewspaper Advert

Radio Advert

https://soundcloud.com/emily-brown-87/inside-manchester-radio-ad

I believe my main and ancillary products work effectively together due to the links between them.

I think my newspaper advert works well with my documentary mainly due to the image I use in the advert. Because my documentary is about music and fashion, I chose to use an image of a hat placed on a guitar, linking the two aspects of the documentary together in the advert, and creating running themes of music and fashion in both the advert and documentary itself.

As my documentary is supposed to be shown on channel 4, I tried to make sure my newspaper advert was similar to channel 4’s adverts, to keep the brand’s identity consistent.

I mimicked the conventions of channel 4 adverts with the use of logo, tag-line and main background image in order to support the fact the documentary would be shown on channel 4 and make it realistic as the advert accompanying the documentary was channel 4 – style.

I use the caption ‘Hold On To Your Hat’ as the tag-line on my advert.I chose this as the line is a well known phrase that viewers would recognise and may catch their attention, and because I wanted to try and incorporate music again in the tag line. In order to try and do this I googled ‘songs with links to fashion in the title’, to which I found a Rolling Stones song called ‘Hold On To Your Hat’, and so chose to use this tag-line on my advert as it incorporated both music and fashion, again portraying the subject of the documentary.

I also think my two ancillary products are well connected through the information they give.

The title, date and channel the documentary will be shown on are shown on the newspaper advert, the information standing out away from the main picture to ensure the reader can see it clearly.

Similarly, the date, title and channel are the last things said on the radio advert, making it memorable to the listener and consequently linking the two adverts through their familiar information.

The repetitive use of the title ‘Inside Manchester: Music and Fashion’, makes the title familiar to the reader/listener, meaning they would recognise it if they were to see it elsewhere.

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I think my radio advert links well with the documentary itself due to the fact I use clips from the documentary in my radio advert, making the subject and aspect of the documentary familiar to the listener before they watch it.

3. What have you learned fromaudience feedback?

Ancillary Product Feedback

‘I think overall the colour scheme you use is quite dull, nothing really stands out as it’s all black, white and grey.’

‘The channel 4 logo and use of the image is good as it represents the subject of the documentary and gives the channel’s identity, but there could be a wider and more interesting use of colour.’

When I had completed the first draft of my newspaper advert, I showed it to some people to get their opinions and feedback. I took note of what they said and tried to alter my advert to adhere with their feedback.

Once I had collected feedback, I redrafted my advert, changing the colour of the hat and using a gradient background. I received more positive feedback on this draft, and decided to use it as my final advert.

Feedback QuestionnaireIn order to get feedback from audiences of my documentary, I created a questionnaire which I asked people to fill out after watching the first draft of my documentary. After collecting the questionnaires back I chose some of the answers I was given and put them all in one document.

Area of Focus Comments

Feedback QuestionnaireIn some cases, the feedback did not particularly offer any opinions that suggested that area of the documentary could be altered to improve, so I chose to leave these areas and focus on points of constructive criticism.

Feedback QuestionnaireAfter receiving feedback on my first draft, I took into account some of the comments and altered my documentary in the hopes to improve it.

In the questionnaire, people said that the cuts and editing could be improved. Before I altered the video, some of the cuts between clips were obvious as the subject of the interview changed positions and so appeared to jump from one place to another. In order to fix this, I tried to mask the changes with the transition ‘cross blur’, which allowed the video to cut from clip to clip continuously without showing jumpiness.

Feedback Questionnaire

Feedback also showed that some of the audio was louder than others, so when I re-edited my documentary I altered the audio levels until they all sounded relatively equal.

Similarly, feedback suggested that some interviews were slightly too long, perhaps making the viewer lose interest in the video. I attempted to fix this by shortening and putting more cuts in the interviews, to keep them interesting and to the point.

In the first draft of my video, I did not use any transitions when moving from clip to clip. When I showed this version to people, I got advice in their feedback to make the clip cuts smoother. I followed this advice in order to improve the video, and once I had done this I showed the video to the same audience, and got their feedback again.

Click to play:

General FeedbackI also recorded some feedback off my friend after she had watched both the first draft of my documentary and the final version.

General feedback on the interviewees chosen.

4. How did you use technologies in the research and planning,

construction and evaluation stages?

Technologies used in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages:

• DSLR cameras, microphones and tripods – to record our interviews and take pictures• iMovie – to edit the recorded clips together and create the documentary itself• Photoshop – to edit the picture I took which I used for my newspaper advert• Picasa – to put the photos of different fashions we took into a collage• Publisher – to put the text and channel 4 logo onto my newspaper advert• Garageband – to create and record my radio advert• YouTube - to upload my final documentary, allowing me to link it onto my blog• Powerpoint – to create the powerpoint of my evaluation questions• Slideshare – to upload the powerpoint on to, allowing me to link it to my blog• Soundcloud – to upload my radio advert to, allowing my to link it to my blog•iPhone – to create the video diary we filmed whilst conducting our interviews•E-mail – to contact our professional interviewees

Research & PlanningBefore I could start creating the documentary, I had to do research in order to discover the conventions of similar products so I could mimic them to make my documentary look more professional. I researched using technologies such as YouTube to watch similar products, Google, to find their codes and conventions, and use of email to contact the people we chose to interview in our documentary.

Research & PlanningI used publisher and google image search to create a mood board of what my target audience would be like. Creating a mood board allowed me to see the general idea of the target audience all in one place.

Creating My Newspaper AdOnce we knew what our documentary was going to be about, I was able to start constructing my newspaper advert. I started the construction with a flat plan, and then went on to start taking photos, with a DSLR camera, which I could use in my advert.

Flat PlanOriginal Photos

Creating My Newspaper AdOnce I had chosen a photo to use in my advert, I then used photoshop to edit out the background and put the channel four logo and text on the advert.

I used the ‘quick select’ tool on photoshop to remove the background on the image, which allowed me to then alter the colour of the background I would use in my final advert.

Creating My Newspaper AdOnce I had created the basic image I would use in my final advert, I then put in the other features needed to complete the product.

I found a channel 4 logo with a transparent background on google images, and so imported this into my advert.

I then went on to a font website to find a font similar to the one channel 4 use. I copied and pasted this onto my advert in photoshop to create the advert.

Creating My Newspaper AdAfter creating the first draft of my advert, I showed it to some people and was advised to change the colour of the hat to make it stand out more.

I changed the colour of the hat using the ‘colour replacement tool’ on photoshop, making the hat green so it would stand out more.

Creating My Newspaper Ad

Gradient Tool

Finally, I chose to alter the background on my advert, using the ‘gradient tool’ on photoshop to make the background more interesting than the grey I used on my first draft.

Final AdvertOriginal Image First Draft

Creating My Radio AdI used the computer programme ‘garageband’ to create my radio advert. I recorded my dialogue straight onto the Mac, and then cropped the recording to my liking. To put the clips of interviews into the radio ad, I played the videos of the interviews on the mac and then recorded the section I wanted in my radio ad straight from the mac.

Once I had recorded my voiceover, I chose the background music I wanted to use, which was Bastille- ‘Of The Night’, and put that into Garageband, cutting the song to the section I wanted to use, and fading the volume down as the dialogue was on.

Once I had completed my radio advert, I uploaded it onto ‘soundcloud’, where I could embed the link onto my blog.

Filming the DocumentaryTo film our documentary, we used DSLR cameras, microphones, and tripods. We used these combined technologies to film our interviews, and once we had collected our footage we uploaded the videos onto Apple Mac computers, where we edited the clips together.

When filming the clips for our documentary, we used cameras, tripods and microphones, while simultaneously keeping a video diary to show how we created our documentary.

Video Diary - filmed using an iPhone and created using a video editor app to edit the clips togetherClick to play:

Filming the Documentary

Creating My DocumentaryBefore I could start editing, I had to upload all the footage we had filmed onto iMovie, which I would then use to create the final product.

Uploading the footage.

iMovie

Selecting Footage

Once all our videos had been uploaded onto iMovie, I then had to go through the clips and decide which clips would make it into the final product.

I had to cut the clips using the clip trimmer on iMovie, and use transitions to ensure they flowed smoothly in the documentary, with no jumpy obvious cuts between clips.

Audio

Once I had edited my clips together into roughly their final order, I had to alter the audio of the clips to make sure they were all around the same volume.

I did this using the audio editor on iMovie, and changed the volume of each clip until they were all equal.

TitlesWhen showing interviews with professionals, I chose to highlight their importance by putting their name and role in the bottom left corner of the screen.

For my documentary I chose to use the ‘Gradient – Black’ text bar, as I think it looks professional and clear.

VoiceoversBefore recording my voiceover for the documentary, I had to write the script for it.

Once I had written the script, I recorded the voiceover straight onto iMovie using the microphone on my headphones, then cropped and moved the recording until I was happy with it.

TransitionsThroughout my documentary, I used a number of different transitions. I used the ‘cross

blur’ transition to cut between different shots of the same person, to mask jumpiness.

I used the ‘cube’ transition to indicate that a clip of a professional was beginning/ending.

I used the ‘doorway’ transition at the beginning of my video to introduce the title ‘Inside Manchester’

Introduction & EndingTo open and close my documentary, I created a collage of all the pictures we took of different fashions, adding one picture each time. In order to create this I created a ‘collage’ on ‘Picasa’, and screenshotted the page each time I added a new photo. I saved these images as J-Pegs, and then put each image into iMovie, adjusting their duration to fit with the background music to open and close my documentary.

Final ProductOnce I had completed the final editing of my documentary, I used the ‘Share’ option on iMovie to export and save my product.

Once I had saved my documentary, I uploaded it onto YouTube.

I then uploaded the video from YouTube onto my blog.