Question 1

Chloe Morley

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA

PRODUCTS?

The media product that I have created is a segment of a documentary called ‘JMA: An Insight Into Martial Arts’. The media product I have created uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products and this has allowed for a professional looking documentary to be made. There have been many factors to consider whilst putting together the documentary including the setting, props and also the characters involved in the documentary.

The title of the documentary is ‘JMA: An Insight Into Martial Arts’. The reasons behind choosing this as the title are because it provides the viewer with knowledge of the topic of the documentary, Martial Arts, so it isn’t misleading. Since the documentary is focusing on one club, JMA Academy, I thought that adding the club name to the title would provide more publicity for the club as it would be recognisable to viewers and could help the club to get more students and widen the Martial Arts community. The use of ‘An Insight Into’ will also attract the reader as they will wonder what is going to be revealed to them which they might not have known before. I think that the title used is conventional to other documentaries as it follows a similar format to them, examples being documentaries such as ‘Crazy About One Direction’ and ‘Stacey Dooley Investigates Magaluf’ and these were able to influence my own documentary title. Both of these use the topic being focussed on in their title to show the viewer what will be discussed so it isn’t misleading and the use of ‘Investigates’ in the Stacey Dooley documentary encodes to the viewer that topics not previously discussed may come up in this documentary and will be investigated, this influencing the use of it in my documentary title. I think that following this convention has enabled me to produce a successful documentary title.

The location for my documentary segment was where the club is based; this being a refurbished warehouse in Atherton and the main and only setting used was the room the club is held in. The use of only one setting challenges typical documentary conventions as the majority of documentaries researched such as ‘Stacey Dooley Investigates Magaluf’ and ‘Crazy About One Direction’ either stay in one location and change settings or move to a variety of locations where as my documentary just stays in the one place, this can be both a good and bad thing. It is good because it allows the audience to become familiar to the setting so they may feel more connected to what they are watching and have a better insight into the club; however it is also a bad thing as it could become boring to the viewer. Looking into the documentary ‘Educating Yorkshire’ did help to influence the decision to stay in one place as they also stay in just a few classrooms around the school, this making the viewer more familiar to the location and feel more involved.

Chloe Morley

There was a variety of costumes and props used in the documentary which also helped establish iconography within the documentary. Within the documentary the stereotypical black and white Martial Arts clothing was used by the students which would be familiar to the viewer as this is highly symbolised with Martial Arts through other media texts such as films and TV shows. Props used and placed around the room holding the club would include punch bags, punching gloves, belts, helmets, mats and hand held punching bags. All of these

props are iconic to the Martial Arts genre meaning they will be familiar to the viewer and help to establish the documentary topic even more. Doing this uses conventions typically found in documentaries, an example and influence being ‘Educating Yorkshire’ which is based in a school. Here the costumes and props used are iconic to schools such as the school uniforms, tables, and chairs and stationary. I think I have been successful in developing and encoding conventions as the conventions can be easily found during the

documentary and this is decoded by the viewer to reaffirm what the documentary is focussing on. This consistent use of costumes and props can also be found in both of my ancillary products.

Chloe Morley

The starting title screen shows the title of the documentary and it is in bold, white, block capitals in the font Franklin Gothic Heavy, this is against a black background meaning the text stands out even more and these colours work well together. Using this as the start establishes the documentary to the viewer and reaffirms the topic discussed. This follows conventions as many documentaries use the title of their documentaries at the start, it is good as it is the only thing you can focus on on a page so the viewer knows automatically what they are going to be watching about; an example and influence of this would be ‘Educating Yorkshire’ and ‘Crazy About One Direction’. I think that I have been successful at following this convention as I feel using the white text on the background stands out to the viewer and feels more professional which will make the viewer want to continue watching. I didn’t want to challenge or change this convention as I think it looks professional and would appeal to the audience. The use of this text style for the starting shot is also used throughout both of my ancillary products which creates synergy and can be recognisable to viewers.

There is only one character introduced to us in the segment of documentary produced, this being the Sensei and owner of the club, Russ. He is first introduced before his interview through a montage of clips put together showing him performing some Martial Art moves with other students and this allows the audience to know he is the one in charge and this also shows the audience some of what happens at the club. Introducing a character in this way through a montage is conventional to many documentaries I

researched such as ‘Crazy About One Direction’ and ‘Educating Yorkshire’ as it is a good way to show how this character is and what they are like in their normal environments and how the interact with others, I think following this conventions has allowed me to produce a successful introduction to the main character of the documentary. I do think that using only one character does challenge conventions also as many documentaries use more than one character to provide a more varied range of opinions on the topic discussed; if we were producing a full length documentary more characters would definitely be introduced to achieve this. The montage of Mr Mitchell in ‘Educating Yorkshire’ was the main influence to do this for our documentary.

Chloe Morley

There have been a wide variety of both camerawork and editing techniques used throughout the documentary to try and achieve a professional looking documentary. Having interviews during the documentary is a convention followed and this is also emphasised with the use of cutaways to shots relating to the questions discussed. The way the interview is set up is conventional as Russ is situated to the right of the shot, we were influenced to do this by ‘Educating Yorkshire’ who also did this and we thought it looked professional. The starting establishing shot of the documentary which is a wide shot of the outside of the refurbished warehouse is conventional to other documentaries such as ‘Educating Yorkshire’ as it helps establish the setting to the viewer. After watching the documentary ‘Stacy Dooley Instigates Magaluf’ I was influenced by the montage at the start of the documentary which showed various activities going on around Magaluf and also showing the scenery

there as this was a very easy way to establish both the setting and features of the documentary whilst she also used voiceover to talk about what will be discussed throughout the documentary. I thought this was very professional and decided with Jack to do something similar at the start of our documentary whilst he narrated over it to introduce the audience to what will be discussed. Throughout this we also used many transitional slides such as ‘Dip to Black’ to provide smooth transitions between slides to make the whole documentary flow better and look more professional, this following conventions from other documentaries that do the same thing. I think that following these conventions have been successful for our documentary and have enabled us to produce a documentary which is of a high standard and looks of a familiar style of documentary to viewers meaning that they will

want to watch as they think it is of a professional standard. I think that using cutaways to shots such as the CCTV clip challenges conventions as it is not seen much in real media documentaries, this providing a unique edge to out documentary which could make it stand out to viewers.

Our documentary is hard to put into one mode of address as many can be applied to it and there isn’t a definitive main mode of address used. The expository mode (voice of god) can be applied to it as Jack can be heard over the footage introducing the documentary and Russ and talking a bit about Martial Arts. The observational mode (fly on the wall) can also be applied as the documentary is showing clips of the students during their classes and what they get up to.

The participatory mode of address can also be applied due to the use of the interview between Jack and Russ. The use of using many different modes of address is conventional to modern day documentaries and can be found in examples such as ‘Crazy About One Direction’, ‘Educating Yorkshire’ and ‘Stacey Dooley Investigates Magaluf’ where the same 3 modes of address are all used, these being an influence to why we used them in our documentary. Having the expository mode of

Chloe Morley

address at the opening of the documentary sets the documentary up to be conventional and would make the viewer want to carry on watching as it feels familiar to them after to seeing it be used before. I didn’t want to challenge this convention as I thought it was good and set the documentary up well. I think that I have been successful at using this in my documentary as it is following stereotypical conventions and modes of address which work well together which encodes to the viewer that the documentary is serious and professional.

The genre of the documentary is sport and this was decided through a survey which had 50% of participants choosing sport as their favourite documentary type. The sport discussed is Martial Arts which is confirmed through the documentary title, ‘JMA: An Insight Into Martial Arts’. The theorist Stuart Hall wrote about the encoding/decoding model in the 1970’s and stated that audiences interpret the meanings of media texts based on individual backgrounds and life experiences. For our documentary we wanted to encode it as a preferred reading towards the audience. We wanted to show that Martial Arts is just as good as other sports such as Football and Rugby and that it should be rooted into local communities more as a way to stay healthy and also a way to stay safe throughout life, this providing peace of mind to parents for he future. Depending on a viewer’s background or experiences towards Martial Arts a preferred, negotiated or oppositional reading will be made. I think that encoding the documentary in this way is conventional to other documentaries which are also trying to get their view point across, examples being ‘Crazy About One Direction’ and ‘Stacey Dooley Investigates Magaluf’. I think that we have been successful in developing these conventions and have provided insight to the audience about why Martial Arts is a good and enjoyable sport to participate in.