Media evaluation

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE,

DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Becky Brickwood

VOICEOVERThe voiceover is an important part of a documentary as its helps the audience understand what is going on. My documentary uses a voiceover to give more information about what’s being shown.

For example in my documentary on Role models the title sequence shows somebody writing the term role model, with a voice over stating what the documentary is about and what a role model is.

VOICE OVER CONTINUED..However, originally I filmed the voiceover on an Iphone, the end product didn’t sound professional and was difficult to hear. Therefore I challenged the form of my media product, which did not pay off.

PRESENTERS Some documentaries use presenters to guide the audience through what’s being discussed. However in our documentary I have relied on the interviews, B-roll footage, voiceovers and different editing effects (dip to black, Cross fade etc.) to guide the audience through the stages of our documentary.

ARCHIVE FOOTAGEThis adds further information to what is being discussed in the documentary and helps explain what is being discussed and highlights things that might be important to the documentary.

For example in my documentary I have used the music video ‘love on top’ by Beyoncé as it highlights her dancing skills which relates to why she is a Role model for one of my interviewees.

VOX POPSVox pops are usually filmed with people off the street who give their opinion on a particular topic being discussed and often filmed with a handheld camera. Our documentary doesn’t contain any vox pops, all our interviews are formally conducted with consideration to the mise en scene. This challenges the conventions of documentaries.

RULE OF THIRDSRule of thirds is used to create a good visual look to the shot. It helps to make the scene look professional. In my documentary I have made sure the set up of each interview uses rule of thirds.

For example in my documentary the interviewee has been positioned in the right third of the screen looking just left of the camera, this makes the scene look balanced.

INTERVIEWS Interviews are used to gain an opinion or further insight to the topic being discussed. They are filmed with a camera on a tripod to make the shot look professional and not shaky. Details of the interviewee are placed on the bottom of the screen, to inform the audience about the person being interviewed. In my documentary I used a tripod to make the interview look consistent I also put details of the interviewee at the bottom to inform the target audience of the age of the person and who their role model was.

CHROMA KEY Chroma key – blue or green screens are used to create a background for the topic being discussed the photo or video is added in the editing process.

Extracts from my documentary which use Chroma key.

CAMERA ANGLES In my documentary I shot B-roll footage from lots of different angles to create an artistic motif and to make it look more interesting. This is one way which I have developed the conventions my documentary.

Extract of different angled shots from my documentary

EDITING In my documentary I used editing to make it flow and look professional, I use effects such as ‘dip to black’ to end a shot and move the footage forward, I also used ‘cross fade’ to make certain shots look more smooth.

An example from my documentary of a scene using ‘fade to black’

PHOTOGRAPHS AND STILLSPhotographs help illustrate to the audience what is being spoken about.In my documentary I took images of Chris with his Rihanna merchandise using a digital camera. Whilst the images were being shown I put a voiceover stating who Rihanna was.

Extract from my documentary

TITLE SEQUENCEInstead of using the ‘Title’ option on Adobe Premiere pro CS5, we shot footage of someone writing the name of our title, this makes it look a bit more creative and interesting compared to using a pre-made title. This is another way in which we have developed our media product