Kate Phipps

A2 Media Coursework Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? For our A2 Media Coursework, we had to produce the opening 5 minutes of a documentary, so prior to starting the production of this, we carried out a fair amount of research into the codes and conventions of documentary openings. (blog post) Our overall aim was to use techniques seen in other documentaries, to make it seem more professional. Our documentary was called Beauty: The Obsession. It includes lots of vox pops from the public, interviews with hairdressers, beauticians teachers and counsellors, and lots of relevant filler/cutaway footage. It was about young girls obsession with beauty, body image and the influence celebrities and the media have on this. It is a social documentary exploring a controversial topic that lots of people should find interesting. We concluded from our research that Channel 4 was the most appropriate channel for our documentary to be broadcasted on, and therefore this is where we have stated it would be shown. It also contained a lot of documentaries with similar topics to ours, reinforcing that the audience would be interested in our specific topic, and that their target audience was similar to ours! Our documentary included views from experts and to try and portray a realistic vibe. However, we varied this with interviews and vox pops from non-experts/students, to give the documentary a more friendly and laid back feel, as anything too serious/formal would not appeal to our target audience.

Target Audience: -Young British Females, -Range of ethnicities to represent British public, -Aged between 16-24. (Wide secondary audience: males and anyone else interested in Beauty or welfare of young girls, e.g. teachers and parents)

These are just a couple of the programmes broadcasted on Channel 4 about Beauty and body image, there are many, many more. Examples are: Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, Katie: My Beautiful Face, and Tears, Tiaras and Transsexuals. However, there was nothing COMPLETELY similar that made ours look like it was copying it/it had been done before.

A documentary quite similar to ours was Katie: My Beautiful Face, which focused on a woman called Katie who had been burned in a horrific attack, and shows how much she cares about her appearance and everything she has done in an attempt to get her looks back. This documentary was analysed on the blog, and uses a lot of codes and conventions that we have tried to apply to our own. Using Conventions In an attempt to make our documentary appear professional, genuine and realistic to the audience, we tried to follow a number of codes and conventions that can be seen in existing documentaries. We visited sites such as YouTube and 4oD to see examples used and we made lists of these to ensure that lots of these conventions were used in our own documentary opening. Our topic was controversial, which is a main theme of documentaries. It is controversial because people have varying opinions on the matter, and there are lots of extreme cases/harm caused to people because of it.

Ident We used a Channel 4 ident, as this is the channel our documentary would be on, and all documentary openings include this. We chose this ident because it was bright, funky and quite cool, so I felt it would appeal and be relevant to the young target audience. This helped to give the documentary credibility as a genuine Channel 4 product. It maintained brand identity by being of the same channel that the ancillary tasks

promoted. We also stuck to conventions by including a voice over during the ident, that introduced our documentary, and referenced a programme that would be appearing afterwards. This made our opening professional and realistic and looked great in my opinion!

Huge variety of footage: real documentaries use a diverse amount of

footage, which they have gathered from numerous sources/places. Our group excelled at this, and we had footage from three hair salons, one beauty college, one sixth form, vox pops of the public in and around a shopping centre, interviews with many different experts: barber, hairdressers, beauty teacher, counsellor, beauty students, etc. We got lots of footage for fillers and cutaways too, such as paintings, people doing their make up, people looking in mirrors, girls messing with their hair etc! I was incredibly pleased with this and it made our documentary seem extremely convincing and professional, due to no shots being repeated. It also provided us with a wide range of representative opinions of the British public, so we followed this convention the best.

Exposition/Opening Montage

We used a variety of different images and video clips all relevant to the theme of the documentary. This was a convention and is used in every documentary. We used small snippets of our vox pops which had the most extreme comment/view, as we thought this would help to capture the audiences attention and make them want to watch the rest of the documentary. Throughout the opening montage was a range of camera angles, shots and zooms to add variety. Loud background music also played through this to grab the audiences attention and appeal to their tastes.

Title

All documentaries have titles, so this was a common feature and convention. We tried to be quite creative with our title, and linked it into our theme make up, by writing on a mirror with lipstick. This looked really effective and is relevant. Titles are usually after the opening montage, so we also followed this convention. The title is relevant to the documentary and provides an insight to the themes that will be covered.

Expert Interviews In real documentaries, numerous expert interviews are used to provide information and interest the audience, who feel they can trust the person speaking and that what theyre saying is accurate, due to their position of authority. Usually documentaries portray both sides of the argument, so we followed this structure, using experts, students and vox pops who were both for and against young girls being obsessed with beauty. All of our expert views contained captions (WHICH IS A CONVENTION OF DOCUMENTARIES) to introduce the speaker, as we felt this showed their importance.

We used Julie Maitland, a Youth Counsellor. She is an expert on the welfare of young people, and works at a college so deals with them on a day to day basis. She showed an adults perspective on the issues raised, which helps to appeal to a broader target audience. We used a mid shot, similar to a real documentary. The mise-en-scene is of her office, with relevant counselling posters on the wall, to help set the scene and make her seem more credible.

We also used Jayne Brimm, a Beauty Therapy teacher at a local college. She is an expert but believes it is good for young girls to care about their appearance, so provided a contrasting opinion. She also had a mid shot, to make it seem more realistic, and like a real interview rather than just a vox pop. This improved the quality of the documentary and followed a convention of expert interviews.

Student Interviews

Documentaries have the purpose of providing information and opinions on controversial topics. As our documentary was aimed at, and needed to appeal to teenagers, we used teenagers/students to provide their views on the subject matter, to make the documentary more relatable to the audience. These two groups of students had contrasting views, which added interest and variety, and showed that not everybody has the same opinion. We also thought about the mise-en-scene in both shots, the first clip the students were holding work, to try and show that they were at college, and add a sense of realism. The second clip, we set them up around computers with images of Beauty on screen, to try and imply that they were aware of what they were talking about which seems more credible to the audience. The purpose was to provide a wider range of opinions. These interviews were quite structured to save time, and to keep the interviewees on track, however they were still honest to provide credibility and reassurance for the audience.

We also interviewed students who could be classed as experts, level 3 beauty therapy students, this was quite an uncommon thing for documentaries, but we felt our audience would be able to associate with them well, and the mise-onscene here was excellent!

Student Vox Pops Katie: My Beautiful Face did not contain any vox pops, however as mentioned later on, we had to. Megan (the student pictured) helped to make the documentary seem real, by acting as a real life student who isnt happy with her appearance. We didnt use captions here, as vox pops do not usually have captions, and we felt that Megan did not need an introduction. The mise-en-scene could have been better, but we did plan it out and do it in a toilet, and showed a shot of her looking at herself in the mirror, which portrays body image. Also, since the documentary wasnt based on Megan, she wasnt introduced, she simply just spoke about wishing to look like Amy Childs, which is something the audience would find fascinating.

Ending: We used conventions for the ending, which was the clip playing in slow motion, which eventually faded out. This signifies the end of the opening and would usually lead onto an interview or something else. This looked effective! We also added the background music back here, which got quieter and stopped completely as the image disappeared, to signal that it was the end of the opening, and in our case the end of the product. This looked better than it simply coming to an abrupt stop.

Camera Shots To add to the variety for the audience, and to keep their audience, we varied the camera shots and angles. We used different techniques to try and capture, and keep their attention. Establishing Shots:

These are a very important convention of documentaries and set the scene. They introduce the location, environment and setting of the documentary to the audience and are used when the documentary moves to another location/place. The audience can then connect the establishing shot to what is going on in the voice over. We have used establishing shots at different angles, to portray observation. This makes our documentary seem realistic and professional. The establishing shots we have used are good because they show different compositions of shots, such as local buses to portray the area, and hair salons, which relates to the Beauty theme of our documentary. This is also used in Katie: My Beautiful Face.

Mid Long Shot I wouldnt want my daughter to go around looking like a drag queen. This shot captures the surrounding area, and shows that the people doing the vox pop are in a busy city area. It portrays that they are just off the street, and that the interview hasnt been set up, so provides a sense of realism and makes the audience feel that their views are genuine.

Extreme Close up This provided variety for the audience, and helped them to feel more involved with what is going on. It gains interest and captivates their attention, so that they carry on watching the documentary.

Over the Shoulder

This was also used in Katie: My Beautiful Face, as you can see to the right. It provides a hint to the audience of what is going to happen next, and is more interesting than showing their face, and creates a sense of mystery. This helps to capture our audiences attention, as well as maintain it, due to the diverse shots. It makes you wonder the persons reaction, and looks professional as real documentaries use this.

Panning and Tilting

We panned across the college reception area, as this had a great mise-en-scene and provided suspense to the audience of what was coming next. It was also an interesting camera shot, and added variety to maintain the audiences attention/interest. We also tilted down the outside of a hair salon, as an establishing shot, as we felt this looked better than simply zooming in and out of the shot. This is a common convention of documentaries, and is used to set the scene usually, so this is where we used it too.

Editing: Transitions and Cutaways: These feature in every documentary opening, so we used a wide range and variety. We ensured all of our cutaways were relevant, to make them seem more professional and realistic. The transitions were used for the cutaways and when we moved to a new place, just like in documentaries, so that it was a cleaner shot and didnt jump about.

Sound:
Voice over: Lots of documentaries contain presenters but we decided against this, and simply used a voice over. They are common for the audience and lead the thought process/bring up ideas for the audience to think about. They also introduce people. They act as a voice of authority. We used a female voice, that the audience would be able to connect with, as they are mainly females. However, I feel that we could have used a male narrator so that males didnt feel excluded/like the programme wasnt suitable for them. Our voice over followed a script which ensured that everything said was relevant to what was on screen. Sound bridge: These are a common convention of documentaries, and link different shots together, this helped to vary the transitions too. Just before

the dramatic title is shown, sound starts to play which builds up suspense. This prepares the audience for what is coming up, and was very effective I feel. Diegetic sound: We used diegetic sound, for example when the group of girls are in the canteen and all talking/laughing. This portrays the canteen more realistically and helps the audience feel like they are actually there. This was included in lots of the documentaries we watched, so we felt it was important to include it. This added to the professionalism of the documentary and the realism, as it made the documentary seem uninfluenced/affected by us. Background music: We selected a loud, funky upbeat background music to use for the opening montage. This was very suitable for our target audience. However, I feel to improve this I would put it throughout the opening, not just for the montage, as this is a convention of documentaries and just having it during our montage challenged this convention.
Developing Conventions Usually, documentaries state facts and statistics, which come up as words on screen to allow the viewer to read them as they are spoken. However we decided to develop this, and simply spoke the facts/stats as part of the voice over and played these over relevant video clips, as we left this to the last minute, and did not have time to type out the facts/stats as captions. The facts said were Cheryl Cole was voted worlds most beautiful woman by the British public, (British, because audience are British relevant). Also 2/3 of British teenage girls would not go to school without make up. These statistics were meant to shock the audience and capture their attention so that they carry on watching.

Challenging Conventions

I prefer the more natural look

I run my own spray tanning business

We challenged conventions of documentaries by using vox pops. These are not usually seen in documentaries, they are mainly used on the news. However, many of the interviews we would have liked to film were unavailable and additionally we did not have the time or budget of other broadcasters, so we had to use vox pops as ways of filling up the first 5 minutes, and of gaining opinions/footage.

Radio Trailer:

Press CTRL + click the YouTube screenshot to view the ident we used in our documentary opening

Alternatively, click here to watch it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUP4-lZXSHM We had a limited time to complete our radio trailer, of 45 seconds. The purpose of it was to preview the documentary content and promote our documentary. We recorded it using sound clips from our documentary. Conventions: -Upbeat background music, same as documentary: this holds and captures attention of our target audience, -Narrators voice: this introduces the documentary and key themes, to inform the audience of what it will be about and try to gain their interest, -The title and timing/channel: Channel 4, Thursday Beauty: The Obsession, this allows consistency, and helps with the brand image, -Content from the documentary: we used lots of clips from the documentary to verbally represent it. We used clips such as I wouldnt want my daughter to go around looking like a drag queen and the stuff stinks its just horrible. Really dramatic extracts, to try to appeal to the audience. We could have had less gaps throughout to improve this, and worked on the sound levels, as the quality wasnt that high which made it seem quite unprofessional. Magazine Listings Page Here is my analysis of a real magazine listings page:

Here is our own listings page:

Conventions of our listings page: -Rule of thirds layout, to make it look aesthetically pleasing and professional, -Timings and channel information, descriptive and informs the audience when the documentary will air on TV, -A drop cap is used in real magazines, and it helps ours to look professional and realistic, and breaks up the huge chunks of text which wont appeal to the target audience, -Page numbers and the information about the magazine i.e. title, are on the listings page, to allow a sense of realism as if it is a genuine article in a magazine. -Captions to anchor the images, -Large grab quote to capture attention, -Large, bold main headline in bright girlie colours, -A main image which takes up a large majority of the page, and is interesting to look at, which connects to the audience as Fiona is staring out, -2 other images, to provide more visual assistance, -Captions to anchor the images and give them a meaning/purpose so the reader is not confused.

Developing/Challenging conventions of a listings page: -The title has a black background, to make the pink font stand out on a pink page, this looks effective and catches your eye so is a good way to develop conventions, -The background is pink, usually backgrounds of listings pages are either white or an image, but I feel this looks good and will appeal to our target audience! -The grab quote has a shadow on it to make it stand out and look bolder. Overall I feel that we have used the conventions well in all three products, and that not many have been challenged/or developed, which allowed us to be quite creative, but still create consistent, realistic and professional products, which I am very pleased with and proud of.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks? Although our main coursework task was to produce a 5 minute opening to a documentary, generally, I feel that the combination of our final three products (a documentary opening, a listings page and a radio trailer) interconnect very well together to create an overall strong brand identity for our 3 texts. Our

main documentary was based around body image, appearance and the obsession young girls currently have with beauty and looking perfect which is influenced by celebrities and the media. The
audience watching our documentary can easily relate to the girls featured in it who say things like Id never leave the house without make up and Id love to look like Frankie from The Saturdays, as a staggering 80% of girls would consider themselves to be ugly! Our ancillary tasks including the listings page and the radio trailer both have the purpose to promote and advertise our documentary. Our main target audience was young British females aged between 16 and 24 years of age, however we felt that as it is a social documentary about a controversial topic, it could also appeal to some males, and older women such as teachers, parents etc as a secondary target audience.

Radio Trailer.mp3 (Command Line)

This is our radio trailer. (Double click it to play!)

Or listen to it here on Youtube, where I have uploaded it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW93g2N1qqs&feature=youtu.be

The purpose of our radio trailer was to promote the main task: the documentary opening. We did this by tying to connect the two products, by having a brand identity. We also used quotes from the documentary, and the same background music, to provide an insight for the audience and a preview and feel for what the documentary will be like/is about. As our documentary is aimed at female teens/young adults, we tried to make it appeal to a wider audience by including factors to attract male viewers and also an audience with an older age such as parents and teachers who see young girls on a daily basis and care for their wellbeing. We used clips from male voices, so that people wont assume that the programme is just about females. The male voice adds a sense of masculinity, however we kept some femininity by adding a female advertising the programme and saying what time it is on etc, but I do not feel this would put men/boys off from watching the programme as enough male voices are used.

Our radio trailer is linked through the use of quotes and clips from the documentary. The narrator used in the radio trailer also speaks in the radio trailer, saying facts about young girls and their appearance, to try and dramatise the

theme and attract the audiences attention! This really helps to give a brand image, and connects the documentary and radio trailer together. The title is also said in the radio trailer, to help promote the documentary, to entice the audience to watch the programme. On the actual radio trailer, we didnt state the name of the radio station, as we didnt have time to introduce this in a 45 second clip. If we did, we would have gone with Capital FM as lots of young people listen to this radio trailer, and it is popular with my peers, both female and male. A wide range of audience like this station, and so our documentary would be promoted and advertised to a big amount of people. Our radio trailer also had the same background music called PreGame off this website: http://freeplaymusic.com/ which had no copyright, so we were free to use it! We used this music because it was loud and had a good beat, so it would appeal to the target audience, and it connects the products to help with the brand identity, and it would help the programme be recognised as the same one from the radio trailer when it played!

Being realistic, our target audience would be unlikely to be interested in radio adverts, as I personally change the radio channel when the adverts come on, as they are annoying and I would rather listen to the music (and as I am in our target audience, I feel they would do the same). Modern technology plays a big part in young peoples lives, so I feel that an advert on perhaps somewhere like Facebook or Twitter or even on TV would have been more appropriate if I was choosing this myself. These advertising platforms would be a lot more appealing and popular with the target audience!

Three main characters from the documentary, helps to involve the audience and make them feel linked to the documentary

Title of the documentary: brand image

Beautiful this shows the brand identity is about beauty and image, so creates links between all products

Quotes from the documentary link the listings page with the documentary

Images from the documentary: gives a feel for the audience of what the documentary will be about and makes them feel involved and connected.

Channel 4, the channel 4 ident is in the documentary so another link Pink theme, appeals to girls, instantly shows that target audience is female, brand identity, target audience

The purpose of the listing page article was also to promote and advertise the documentary. It was related to the theme of the documentary and made to appeal to the target audience. I myself fall into the target audience category, so I tried to make it appeal to myself and my classmates who also are in the target audience. I used my own ideas of what I like and what would catch my attention, which in particular was

the colour pink! The majority of the audience wouldnt really read the paper,
so perhaps if I was redoing this I would put it into a teenage girls magazine, so that they would be more likely to see it, this would also fit into the brand image as the radio trailer was on Capital FM a station they are likely to listen to. Perhaps it would be better suited in a magazine which contained lots of celebrities and gossip, not TV Times, as the documentary is partly about the media influence on young girls, so this would have helped with the brand identity. However a wide range of people will read the TV Times, so it could expand the audience our documentary reaches out to, and interest them too.

The article gives the audience an idea of what the documentary will be about, it has images taken directly from the documentary and introduces Fiona one of the main characters who although isnt the focus of the programme, she appears in all three products as one of her voice clips is used in the radio trailer. This starts to create a brand image, and people will recognise the documentary when they see pictures of her. The article gives a brief introduction about the documentary, and the expert opinions it includes. The article also includes quotes from the documentary and I put the same quotes into the radio trailer to link them all together so that they combine well! For example:

and

These are dramatic quotes that make the reader ask questions and want to find out more! The only way they will discover the answers are to watch Beauty: The Obsession. So this helps with brand identity because it helps attract people to watch the documentary. The documentary is about beauty, so the main title says What makes you feel beautiful, showing that everybody is affected in some way, and this makes it feel more personal through the word you. Girlie colours such as pale pink and hot pink were used, to really show that the programme is aimed at girls, and has themes associated with females such as make up, hair, fake tan, nails etc. The gender specific colours seriously help with the brand identity as it is related to the female targeted clips in the radio trailer, and the overall female audience of the documentary. In al three tasks the name of the brand Beauty: The Obsession was mentioned in some way, which shows that they are all based on a theme of beauty, appearance and the medias influence. The name reflects the serious nature of the young girls obsession, but is not a complex name that would be hard to remember. It links them together and allows a sense of consistency so the audience are aware that the three products are combined.

The timings and channel that the documentary would appear on are also mentioned in the ancillary products, combining them by depicting the fact that

they are all about the same documentary opening. This is effective because it is consistent, and if they all said a different time/channel, they wouldnt combine well, as they would appear to all be talking about something different. All three tasks were made based on the same target audience, and this definitely is clear through use of colour, images and quotes (both written and spoken). The radio trailer and magazine article may be relevant to my target audience, but a radio trailer/article itself would not appeal to them, but they were good ways to appeal and promote the documentary to a wide range of people. To promote the documentary more successfully I would advertise on Facebook or Twitter, or do a television advert during programmes such as The Only Way is Essex or Hollyoaks very popular programmes, not documentaries, that would appeal to the same type of target audience.

Overall, my media products combine well together, and I feel that it is clear they are promoting/about the same documentary opening. They share similar themes, colours and quotes, and the information provided in each really links them together to show that they are the same. They are effective because they are all really girlie and will appeal to a young female target audience, which is reinforced by our very positive audience feedback!

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback? After completing the documentary opening, a listings page and a radio trailer, we felt it was important to gain audience feedback on our work, including both positive features and negative features that could have been improved. To collect our audience feedback, we created quite a basic questionnaire, which asked our classmates to rate our three products both overall and based on numerous other factors such as: choice of topic for TV, filming of appropriate material and a few other things, which can be seen below. However, we acknowledge that as we only asked 10 members of our class, this feedback may not be totally accurate and representative of what our real audience think we would have needed to ask a far larger sample of people to gain more reliable views. Here is a copy of the questionnaire we used for the documentary opening feedback, whilst they watched it on screen, and members of the audience filling it in.

We played our documentary to our class during lesson time, and asked them to fill out the questionnaire. Here are some pictures of them completing the audience feedback, rating our documentary from excellent, very good, good, okay, and poor, on a variety of factors. Our class consists of very diverse individuals, in terms of gender and ethnicity, so our feedback is quite general and not specific of a certain demographic. Asked a range of ethnicities & both genders

Our documentary

Below are some graphs, where I have analysed our audience feedback responses: Overall: +70% -the majority- rated our documentary as very good, +30% agreed that our documentary was excellent I am very happy with this particular aspect of our feedback, and feel as though our hard work and effort has paid off to create a great standard of work!

Ratings for choice of topic: +10% said it was good, +70% agreed that it was very good, +20% said it was excellent. This is pleasing, and I feel that our choice of topic got such a good response because it is so relevant and appropriate/important for awareness to be raised. As there are quite a lot of similar documentaries currently on TV, it is obviously popular with the British public too.

Evaluation of relevant and appropriate footage: +10% - a tiny minority said it was just good, +70% really were impressed and stated that it was very good, +20% loved our huge amount of footage and rated it excellent. This shows we managed our time efficiently, and used it well to gain a vast amount & variety of high quality footage - all of which was related in some way to our topic.

Ratings on the editing we performed: +30% thought our editing was good, +60% said our editing was very good, +10% of the audience stated that our editing to add meaning was excellent. This was clearly successful, as we received the top 3 ratings for this. We spent loads of time trying to anchor footage etc. to add meaning, so I am satisfied that we did this well, and consequently improved our documentary opening.

Rating on our use of sound & music: +10% rated our sound as okay, +40% stated that our use of sound and music appropriately was good, +Our use of sound and music was rated as very good by 50% of people the majority! We tried hard to sort out our sound levels, but struggled a lot due to the background noise in some footage, so this is probably why it got a lower rating than other categories, I am still happy with this though.

Rating of our use of effects including transitions and captions etc.: +50% of the audience agreed that our use of effects was good, +30 of the audience said it was very good, +30% stated that we had excellent use of transitions and captions. We used a variety of captions, transitions and cutaways in order to try to make our documentary flow more and look professional and spent lots of time doing this! Clearly this worked as the audience rated our effects in the top 3 categories, which is really great, and shows that our usage was appropriate.

Ratings for the appropriateness of our documentary opening for the target audience: +10% stated our appropriateness as good, +40% rated our documentary as very good in terms of appropriateness for the target audience, +50% said the appropriateness was excellent. Again, the majority of people thought the appropriateness was either very good or excellent, which is fab as it was a main target of ours when we first set out making it.

Rating on how well our documentary compares with real television documentaries: +30% of the audience said our professionalism was good, +50% stated that our documentary compared with real TV documentaries as very good, +20% of the audience rated our professionalism as excellent. We carried out a fair amount of research into the codes and conventions of genuine documentary openings, and tried to apply these to our own work, to make it look professional and give it a sense of realism, this obviously paid off!

Overall, I am incredibly happy and content with the feedback that we have received on our documentary. In most cases, apart from a few exceptions, the ratings we received were either excellent, very good, or good, the top 3 available! However, a couple of ratings got okay but none were either satisfactory or poor, which represents the high standard , quality and amount of effort put into our work. These ratings will be analysed and investigated in more depth further on in my evaluation.

What did you like most about this documentary?

The choice of topic and variety of interviews, The large amount of relevant interviews and the range of opinions/voices, The impressive amount of interviews you got, A good topic, and it follows conventions of a real documentary, The conventions of real documentaries were added/edited well, Wide variety of conventions added to the effectiveness, Range of different ethnicities included, Large range of camera shots and the interviews/footage, Its a popular topic and will appeal to people, A good topic: controversial and relevant. Good use of filming, variety of shots and interviews etc. I am happy with our positive feedback, especially how the audience was impressed with our large amount of interviews/footage, as our hard work paid off and put us at a massive advantage to some other groups as we could pick and choose exactly what we wanted to include! Also, we used lots of realistic conventions, and I was pleased that a large majority of the audience acknowledged this. However, there were also some negative comments/points for improvements raised

What changes would you suggest in order to improve this documentary?

Cleaner changes between shots, Cutaways were not always relevant, None! The sound was a bit off due to background noise and lighting was a bit off, Sound and lighting in some places needed changing, Put background music throughout, The amount of sexual bias, A bit too much going on at a time, Slow down the pace of editing, avoid repeating interviews, cut offs at the end of sounds/clips is too prompt, There was one blurry image. *The first negative bit of feedback was about the changes between shots, which needed to be cleaner. I definitely agree with this, as sometimes the shots cut off extremely abruptly and this looks unprofessional. However, due to time constraints, it was not possible to polish all this up completely. Also, some of our clips, had to be cut off so suddenly as they were in the middle of somebody speaking, and otherwise that would have been included too. With more time and practise, this would be improved. *Our audience also said that cutaways were not always relevant, I dont fully agree with this, as due to our huge amount of footage, all of the cutaways are related to the theme of our documentary in some way, if not completely relevant to what the interviewee is speaking about. However, some could be more relevant, and if we had planned this out originally, we could have ensured that all our cutaways were relevant, and that we had enough footage with relevant clips to add in.

*We got quite a lot of negative feedback on our sound levels and lighting. As a group, we spent a large amount of time working on sound levels, using headphones to try and get them as perfect as possible. When listening to our documentary on a big screen we were quite shocked ourselves to hear how much the levels varied, so if we had time to fix this after audience feedback I would have edited sound levels using just the speakers not headphones, as it plays out differently through speakers than headphones. Also, the lighting was perfect on our Mac screens, but in a few shots was quite dark on the projector. If we had realised this previously, we perhaps would have re-filmed our footage to correct this.

*The audience said that there was one blurry image. I am not completely sure which image this is, but if we had noticed this during our editing process, we obviously would have removed it and changed it for a clearer/higher quality image to make our documentary look more professional. *The audience also recommended that we put background music throughout. We only didnt do this, due to the trouble we had with our sound levels anyway, which were not very good quality. So we did not wish to compromise this further by having to edit background music constantly to play quieter for interviews etc. Again, with more time this could have been added ,and we agree it is a typical convention for documentary openings. *The final point is too much sexual bias I definitely do not agree with this! Our documentary focus was meant to be about girls and body image, so of course it was mainly about girls, as boys do not tend to wear lots of make-up etc, it is quite rare. We even asked a male hairdresser as a way to try and add males opinions, so I feel this point was quite unfair and I would not change anything in this regard.

Overall, I am really happy with all of the feedback we received on our documentary opening! Our negative feedback was nothing major, and was all things that could easily be improved simply with more time, so the feedback would be much happier had we had more time to create the opening. As the feedback was from a very small amount of people (10), it is not completely reliable, it is merely a small selection of opinions from our classmates. To gain accurate and reliable feedback, we would have needed to ask a large amount of our target audience. Also, the questions were mainly multiple choice closed questions, so the audience didnt have much of a chance to state their own answers in detail.

This is the questionnaire we handed out and created to gain audience feedback on our radio trailer (which can be listened to further up):

The audience had to comment on strengths of the radio trailer, and also provide suggestions regarding areas for improvement. Finally, they were asked to rate it out of 10. I have summarised the results in this table: Strengths Many good clips, Lots of variety in terms of whats said, A good script, Good content, Improvements Could have used different music to the one used in the documentary, The music was too loud, quieten it, Lots of gaps use more clips, Excess background noise could

have been edited out. Detailed, Appropriate music.

Marks out of 10: 6, 6, 7 & 8 Overall: 7

Overall, the feedback we received on our radio trailer was fairly mixed. We had quite a few comments related to the content and appropriateness of it, and how it linked well to the documentary. However, there was quite a lot of negative feedback on it, but I am not surprised by this, as it was very rushed and created in one day without being taught how to use GarageBand or the preparation of a script this makes the good feedback even more pleasing. To make it more realistic, we could have added Capital FMs radio station name, and different effects/sounds to reduce the time when nothing was playing except background music.

This is the questionnaire we handed out and created to gain audience feedback on our listings page (which can be seen further up):

Similarly to the questionnaire for the radio trailer feedback, the audience had to comment on strengths of the listings page, and also provide suggestions regarding areas for improvement. Finally, they were asked to rate it out of 10. I have summarised the results in this table:

Strengths Good images, Nice layout, Very professional, Follows codes and conventions, Appropriate use of images.

Improvements Pixelated final export, Text alignment, Too much writing.

Marks out of 10: 7, 7, 7, 6, 7 Overall: 7

The feedback we got on our listings page was very positive! I do not agree that there is too much text, as it is meant to be an article, so there is meant to be text, there is not an excessive amount either it is fine. Also, the image wasnt pixelated on our final listings page, a member of the group showed the wrong listings page, so this feedback does not apply. I am glad they feel it follows the codes and conventions as I analysed these and put them on the blog. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Throughout the whole production process of our coursework, I used a variety of technologies, including programs and equipment I was familiar with and had utilised before, as well as technology that I hadnt come across before, and that I didnt know how to use until this process.

RESEARCH AND PLANNING: The Internet Whilst carrying out research for our documentary opening and planning what it would contain/the topic, the internet was a huge help and provided lots of guidance and inspiration for us as well as assistance with decision making. We had mind mapped and created lists of potential topics that we could base our work on, but were struggling to decide on a final theme, so we used search engines such as Google to help us to choose a concept! We searched for articles and images about our topics, to try to ascertain which one was the most popular, controversial

and interesting to us (as obviously this meant we were more motivated to make a high quality product, if its content appealed to us). After this research, we came to a decision and chose beauty, appearance, body image and the obsession they and the media cause for young girls. Here are some of the articles that led us to the final decision on our theme: -Living Dolls, -Media Influence, We also used the internet to research into relevant contacts e.g. hairdressers and beauticians, and to find out their contact details to arrange interviews. YouTube YouTube was also a very useful tool in the research of other documentaries to see codes and conventions of documentaries, which we applied to our own to make it look more realistic and professional. Additionally we used YouTube to find out more information about our topic; all we had to do was enter a search term relevant to our topic such as beauty or body image and thousands of videos would appear for us to watch. These videos provided ideas of footage that we ourselves could gather to include within our documentary opening, for example clips of people having their hair done, or their nails painted etc. 4od Channel 4oD (channel 4 on demand) is another website that was very useful during our research and planning stages. Lots of channels have websites that allow you to watch their programmes at a later date, however we used 4od as our own documentary would be broadcasted on Channel 4 (decided through research on our target audience), so clearly this was the most relevant to use for research. We used it to help decide our topic for the documentary, as this website allows you to select criteria, so we were able to get a list of all the documentaries on Channel 4, and many were related to our shortlist of themes, but Beauty was

the most popular, so we chose this. Also, it had a 4Beauty section of the website, which was final confirmation for us, that Channel 4 viewers are interested in Beauty. We watched a couple of documentaries on there, which were both related to our topic and also aimed at our target audience. On this website, I also gained information relating to scheduling of programmes, which allowed us to decide what time and day to suggest our own documentary would be shown on. Finally, it showed us codes and conventions of documentaries, most of which we decided to include such as an ident, and a title screen that was relevant to the topic (we wrote our title in lipstick on a mirror, which links to beauty and body image).

Blogger Blogger is a blogging website, on which each group had their own blog set up, in order to record and track everything we were doing, every step of the way. It also ensured that we individually met all of the deadlines set for us due to each post having a time and date, and helped us to keep up-to-date! All of our research, planning and evaluation work in regard to the documentary opening, radio trailer and listings page has been included on our blog, and every member of our group had access to the blog at both home and college through the use of a username and password. I had never blogged/used a blogging website before my media coursework, so this took quite a bit of getting used to before I was competent at using it. The blog is very interactive and uses lots of technology, which is relevant with the current way in which people do things, as everything is done online. Due to all three of us having access, it allowed me to see what tasks had been completed and what still needed to be done, so my time management definitely improved through using the blog. You can also add labels, which we used to show who did the post, so posts I did I added the label Kate Phipps, this is useful to show who did what. Here is a hyperlink that takes you to our blog: http://e06documentary11.blogspot.com/

After logging into the blog, using our colleges username and password, and locating our individual blog (E06) we would then have a few different options:

Features of the blog: Adding text, Adding images, Adding sound, Adding videos, Adding hyperlinks, Format font, Spell check, Preview a post before uploading, Edit posts in case an error has been made, Delete posts if they are no longer required, Save a post as a draft, to come back to later.
These features allowed us to give evidence of all of the work we had done, and research we had carried out. Additionally, we could make it more interesting for readers as huge chunks of text are quite bland and sometimes boring, so I wanted to capture the readers attention and hold it! The spell check features also ensured that our work is accurate.

Video added from YouTube

Images uploaded from folders on your computer

Text typed into the Blog post

Search bar, so posts can be searched for using keywords or using labels.

Label of post this can be used to filter through posts to find past entries.

Title of post Date of post

Apple Macs We used the Apple Macs a great amount, not just for research and planning, they also had a huge role in the construction of all three tasks. In our research and planning we used them for comic life. We also used them for the internet, and consequently, 4oD, blogger, and search engines.

Comic Life Comic Life is a programme on the Apple Macs that allows you to create storyboards containing images and captions. We used this for planning as we used it to plan out the first three minutes of our documentary, using still images we had taken. The images we used in it were mainly the ones we had taken with a Kodak Digital Camera during class time for our opening montage. We could arrange these in chronological

order to create a comic strip representative of what our actual documentary would include. Comic Life allows you to do lots of different things to your storyboard:

Exported as a JPEG to put on blog. Add more pages to the storyboard here

Can change the colours & fonts

Different types of storyboard/layout

Variety of auto shapes available to annotate the images

Images imported through File/Deskto p

I had to create minute 3 of the storyboard it contains images, a description and timings. Here it is:

Alternatively, click here to view it on the blog. CONSTRUCTION: Apple Macs We used the Apple Macs a great amount, not just for research and planning, they also had a huge role in the construction of all three tasks. In our construction we used them for: Photoshop, InDesign, Final cut express and Garage Band. I had never used one until my media coursework, and found them quite tricky to use, however I now feel I am capable of using them well and I am aware of all the good features they have.

Filming When filming footage for our documentary opening we used five main pieces of equipment to obtain the clips we needed: Kodak Easy Share camera: This was used to take still images for our opening montage and storyboard. I also used it as part of my evaluation, to take the photos for audience feedback! We took a huge variety of images and then chose the ones we felt were most relevant for our audience and would appeal to them the most. We had to be careful to consider the mise-en-scene as well to ensure it was relevant. We also used different shots and angles such as close-ups so that the audience could really see peoples expressions.

Canon HD Video camera: All of the original footage used in our documentary was filmed using this. The video camera also allowed us to playback the footage immediately after recording it, so that we could ensure it was high quality, and then we could refilm it easily at the same time, instead of having to rearrange interviews. Not all of the clips we filmed were used, we uploaded them from the video camera, and then selected them using Log and Transfer in Final Cut Express. We chose the clips depending on how relevant they were. During our filming, we considered the mise-en-scene, for example in hair salons we got hair products

in the background. We also used a variety of shots, such as establishing shots and panning and zooming. We also learnt that sometimes footage has to be refilmed as it does not always work out right first time!

Tripod: We used a tripod to make our video clips more steady and consequently of higher quality and more professional. The tripod prevented video footage from being shaky, and helped us to focus better. We didnt use this on every clip but perhaps we should have, as some of our footage is a little wonky, I feel that this doesnt compromise the overall quality of our documentary though.

Headphones: To listen to the sound quality whilst filming footage, and again helped us to determine whether anything needed to be re-filmed. We also used these during editing, as you could hear the sound levels more clearly than through the speakers in the Macs.

Microphone: This was used to gain sound from the interviews, but it also picked up sound from footage which was unnecessary and got deleted. It made the sound clearer and also louder than if we just used the microphone on the video camera. We had to be very careful to ensure the microphone could not be seen in the shot, or this would have made our documentary look very unprofessional. We also had to make sure that the sound corresponded with the clip on screen, as otherwise this would have compromised the quality of our documentary and confused the audience. Overall, I feel that all the equipment we used to create our documentary was very useful.

Final Cut Express We created our documentary using a programme called Final Cut Express which is part of the software on the Apple Macs. This allowed us to carry out all of our editing, and to select the footage we wanted to include. It was incredibly useful, and even though I had not used it before I found it quite intuitive and picked it up reasonably quickly. We also added captions, transitions and sound here.
This box is where all the files we imported ended up. We could view them easily, and see their length here, which allowed us to arrange them accordingly. Music, footage, images and the voiceover were all added here. We could put clips into bins which were like folders for each minute. This is where you preview your footage before dragging it into the timeline. You can also edit sound levels here e.g. music & voiceover.

When you play footage from the timeline it plays here, so it acted as a preview for our documentary. If we werent happy with something we could then change it and preview it again, so this was useful.

These green clips are sound and show any music or sound added, that play alongside the footage. We added a catchy and upbeat song. We could overlap sound and video clips to create sound bridges.

Images, transitions, text and captions were all added to the timeline here (which is where our final project was saved).

This toolbar allowed us to lock & unlock layers, and also monitored sound levels, if it was too high or loud a red bar would appear, so we knew to change it, and it would be green if it was ok, so this monitored sound levels for us.

Sound Levels: We could edit the sound levels on certain clips, either increasing or decreasing the volume, to make it better quality and fit in with the rest of the documentary. For example, during the montage if someone spoke, we lowered the volume of the background music.

Adding Text: Final Cut Express allowed us to add text to our documentary. You could change the font, colour, alignment, animations and format of the text using Controls. We used this for captions when people were on screen to introduce them. You just clicked the footage where you wanted it, clicked Add text, and drag the text where you want it to appear.

Log and Transfer: We could select our best footage that we wanted to include, and trim it to the appropriate length/section of the clip. Then, any extra footage could be added and used in our documentary. When logging and transferring, all of our clips were added to this folder for us to look through.

iTunes: We put our background music into iTunes first, to check through it and play it, and to decide which bits should feature in our documentary.

Folders: We organised and arranged all of our work into folders. We had a folder for the final radio trailer, final listings page, final documentary opening and a folder for any spare sounds, video clips and images we hadnt yet used, in case we needed them later on. This helped us, and prevented us from wasting time with muddled up folders.

GarageBand Radio Trailer

We used a programme called GarageBand to create our radio trailer. This came as part of the software on the Apple Macs. We extracted sound from clips in our documentary in Final Cut Express. It was very easy to use, even though I had not used it before. All we did was created a new project, then imported the voice over that we recorded using the microphone, and the background music (which was the same as our documentary for consistency). Once it was in GarageBand, we could arrange the clips into a suitable order, and alter the sound levels/volume. Again, we did this to lower the background music when somebody was speaking. On GarageBand, it also shows you the timings, which originally we had confused with the beats and our radio trailer was too long, so we had to cut this down to 45 seconds, not 45 beats! This was the only confusing/difficult thing to pick up about GarageBand.

Photoshop & InDesign Listings Page For the listings page, we used Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. We wanted to use images from our documentary, as we did not have the time to take new photos, so we had to use screen grabs from Final Cut Express (by pressing command, shift and 3 down simultaneously). To improve the quality of these images, we used Photoshop: curves, levels and colour balance, to make the photos look more professional and brighter, so they stood out more on the page.

Photoshop: I also used photoshop to add shadows and coloured backgrounds to the text. I also used it to create a drop cap, so that the paragraphs were broken up, as large chunks of text would not appeal to my target audience. I also used Photoshop to add pull quotes with shadows, and change some font to italic. I was quite used to working with Photoshop as I had used it for my AS coursework last year, so after using it for a little while I had remembered exactly how to use it and picked up my skills from last year.

InDesign I used InDesign for the layout of my listings page, with boxes and texts. This then progressed as the images and headings created/edited in Photoshop were added. The text was divided into 3 columns, and the whole article was in columns this is a magazine convention called the rule of thirds, so helped it to look more realistic! The images help to attract our audience, as they are relevant and appropriate for beauty. It also had an even amount of text on each side of the page, so that it would fold properly like it would have to in a real

magazine. I also used InDesign for my AS coursework, so had no problem using it for the listings page.

iDVD We used iDVD to burn our completed documentary opening onto a CD-ROM, so that we could play it to our class for the audience feedback. This was quite complex, we had to convert it to a .mov file, and then we used iDVD to burn it onto the disc. iDVD allowed us to create a professional and realistic menu for the documentary opening.

The menu had our documentary title, a play button, and the documentary played in the background as a small preview, as you can see.

EVALUATION: Microsoft Word 2010 I decided to present my evaluation in Microsoft Word, version 2010 (as this version is what was on my computer), this is because it has loads of great features that I have used throughout, in order to maximise my use of technology, and to make it as interactive as possible, such as images, shapes, sound clips, clipart, tables, and hyperlinks. I have also varied my use of colours and text formatting in terms of size, font and its alignment, to add diversity and interest. I have used lots of print screens to show different webpages I have used, and also shots from my documentary and ancillary tasks, to add visual aid of what I am talking about. I have used Word many times before, so this was quite simple for me to use and I didnt have to learn how to do things in it.

Microsoft Excel 2010 In my evaluation are lots of graphs, which I created in Microsoft Excel to analyse the results of my audience feedback. I did these in Excel because it is far easier to make graphs with, and then you can easily copy and paste them into Microsoft Word. I had also used Excel many times before, so I could create the graphs with ease which saved me time from learning how to use it. Excel has the option for loads of different types of graph such as pie graphs, charts and scatter graphs, but I chose to use simple bar charts as I felt these looked the best.

Scribd Finally, once I have finished my evaluation I am going to convert it to an adobe pdf file, which will then allow me to upload it onto a file sharing website called Scribd. This will let me post it onto the blog, so that all the features I have used throughout it still work when it is uploaded.

Overall, my use of technology has grown immensely, and I now feel a lot more comfortable using a larger range of technologies!