Your Story social action evaluation

I believe that our production was successful, as we delivered production before

the deadline, meeting the specifications required. The biggest legal issue in our
production was the use of minors in our production. When working with children
under the age of 18, there are rules and regulations put in place to protect their
identities If a programme contributor is under 16, in addition to obtaining their
consent to take part, you should also obtain consent from his/her parents or
guardians, or other person aged 18 or over with legal responsibility for the under
16. In order to meet these requirements, we gained parental consent from the
childrens parents before filming. Additionally,
in order to meet Lynch Hill Primary Schools
internet safe guarding policy, we will not
upload our production publicly to websites
such as YouTube, or publish them onto our
web-based portfolios. We had to blur out the
school logo and not mention the name in
order for it to protect the childrens identity.
We also could not film any other children from
the school, who did not have consent, unless we blurred out their faces. Due to
this, we did not film anyone who didnt have parental consent.
When looking at our research into whether people thought our social action video
was successful, we carried out a survey. People thought that the purpose of our
production was to inform the viewer about the local charity, ABC to Read as well
as the impact that reading has from a young age using statistics in a positive
light. This documentary fits a purpose, showing what the charity does in a
positive way. This was what we were trying to achieve so this is a positive. We
tried to communicate all information such as the importance of the charity and
the importance of reading from a young age. Our feedback stated that the use of
a whiteboard with numbers and letters onto communicate statistics to the viewer
was successful. That the viewer has learnt what parents can do to assist their
children with reading. Yes the voice overs are clearly explained so the
information is easy to understand. Our target audience was males and females
aged 25+, specifically targeting parents. Our feedback suggests that this was
met. People said that the use of rhetorical questions such as what can you do?
is effective because it makes the video more personal. The bright and colourful
tones of the yellow resonates with a young audience This suggests that the use
of a yellow tone helps imply that the video is based around a younger audience.
When looking into whether the video makes viewers want to make a change, it
may have been more appropriate to ask people within the target audience,
rather than people of a younger age, as they said no, because I do not fit into
the target audience. Although one person said yes, it made me want to
volunteer, although they did not have children of their own they wanted to make
a difference by helping other children to read the charity, ABC to Read. I believe
this is a positive because it shows that it can appeal to people who arent in the
intended target audience. Our social action video was to inform, out feedback
stated that it also changed their views on the targeted issue, Inform and change
views about the importance of reading. According to feedback, the content used
is effective, that the use of children adds an emotional feel to our video. Uses
emotive story with the children and the b-roll makes the content of the
interviews more sense and flow better, this further suggest that the use of b-roll
 makes our video more engaging. The
technical qualities we used are the use of
multi-camera, b-roll and enhanced colours.
Multi-camera looks good and adds variety.
This suggests that this was a successful
element
of our
social
action
video as it makes it more interesting. The
aesthetic qualities that we used is the use of
a yellow tone, which associates the video
with younger children, and the use of fridge
magnets to communicate statistics in a visual
way. I like the use of alphabet letter to communicate statistics in a more
interesting and visual way, I liked the enhanced colours to make the video
brighter. This shows that these elements of our social action video.
As a team, I believe we worked well as we even distributed jobs to do in the
production fairly. An example of this is when we were given the task of filling out
a planning booklet, which we all took part in completing to a high standard. All
team members attended to both of our filming sessions and we all worked well
together. I would recommend Charlotte Pooley and Charlotte Westall as team
members in the future to other students.
A similar social action video to ours is B is
for Books, a BBC documentary which
follows a group of primary school children
over the course of a year, documenting
them learning and how it has impact their
literacy skills. We can see how some
students struggle with things such as the
alphabets, and others pick it up quickly. We
see their personal home lives as well as
their school lives. We find out about the parents opinions on the topic of reading
from a young age. Interviews have been used in order to gain information from
teachers, parents and professionals, as well as the pupils from the primary
school. They are carried out in a formal way, with the subject talking to the
camera in a home or learning environment, being relevant to the documentary.
This is also something we featured in our social action, we interviewed
volunteers from ABC to Read about what they do as a charity, what they know
about the impacts of reading from a young age, advice and opinions. Cut-a-way
shots included in the documentary consists of relevant footage, for example
primary school classes and reading books. This is also something we included in
our own production, which we filmed in the local schools library. They have not
used any found footage in their production, which we can tell by them not
declaring this. Our production does feature found footage of children reading
with their parents as it would have been difficult for us to film this our self. The
style of the production is informative, it is to educate the public about the
importance of reading, how it can effect childrens literacy skills. Its highly
informative, by seeing childrens skills developing of the space of a year, it allows
the viewer to become attached to the pupils. Although our production was filmed
in the space of four weeks, I still believe that the use of children added an
emotional element to the video. Additionally, it becomes more believable when
you see evidence itself visually, rather than being told it by an expert. There is a
lead presenter but we cannot see them, they narrator the documentary from
start to finish. This is also what we have
included in our production as this is a way of
communicating things like statistics to the
viewer in a non-distract way. When comparing
our production to B is for Books, I believe that
the professional standards were the same. We
both used similar shots and got across the
idea in an effective way. We both had
interviews with experts to inform the public.
Ours differed because we used a lot more voice-overs to get across statistics. I
believe this makes our production stand out against B is for Books.
To conclude, I believe that our production was successful, we communicated the
information to the viewer in an effective way which we can back up from the use
of surveys to gain more knowledge on the success of our social action video.
When looking into what we could improve about our production, it lead me to
consider the use of letters over our voice overs, on camera they fall off of the
white board and some of the text is not in frame, you can also see the reflections
of us in the whiteboard. This could all have been improved in the location we
filmed, camera set up and using different magnets. We could also have included
a segment where we interview a parent with their child to make this part of the
video more interesting. Due to the law and the schools internet safe guarding
policy, it means that we were not able to upload our video onto social media or
our portfolio, so in order for it to be marked we had to hand it to our teachers
physically on a hard drive. The social action video was fit for purpose, we can tell
this through our feedback yes as the video is focused on different aspects of the
importance of reading and the charity ABC to Read. It was also appropriate to
the audience as it featured elements that targeted them specifically such as
what parents can do to help their children. I believe we have met our original
intentions, we created a social action video to inform the public on the charity
ABC to Read and the effects of reading from a young age.