Evaluation - Question 4 - How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research Planning And Evaluation Stages?

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages? 

To construct our documentary the main resource we used was Premiere Pro CS5 Adobe, it took us a while to get a hang of this software but after a few days of using it we began to understand it more.

We also organised the background mise en scene to
reflect the topic or personality of the subject – this was most successful in Holly’s interview. Blue screen/chroma key was used to put relevant images/footage behind the subject, for example – we had footage of various magazine front covers for the background of Gemma’s interview as she was talking about the general media’s influence on young people and we used images of Chris and his merchandise behind his own interview. All of the interviews worked nicely as they all had backgrounds reflecting what they were talking about.

We also placed relevant information at the bottom of the screen during the interviews to state the person’s name, age and who they were. We also created a few montages to resemble some of the characters, for example when introducing Holly we had the narrator talking about her whilst she was walking to her flashy car in front of her big house, we filmed this from lots of different angles and added up-beat music to make it fun. We also did a short montage of Chris holding different pieces of his merchandise to show the audience.

During the editing process we also used archive footage to illustrate past events and to show the audience who our interviewees were talking about, for example, the images of Kate Moss snorting cocaine and the image of Rihanna after the abuse by Chris Brown. Using different transitions for the images to bring them into the interview nicely. We had inserted lots of different cutaways throughout the interviews to illustrate what our interviewees were talking about.

The camera we used throughout the making of the documentary was a Sony HXR, MC2000E; Solid State Camera with inbuilt hard drive and USB device, these cameras had headphones so we could hear everything we were recording so we knew exactly how it would sound for somebody else watching.  The camera had a screen which showed how the frame would look on the computer which made it easy for us to get the right angles and positions, we interviewed people important to the subject using these cameras with a tripod to make the camera steady, we did not feature the interviewer and the questions asked by the interviewer were edited out, the interviewee always looked across the camera at the interviewer, not at the camera, this makes it an interview not a broadcast/statement. We lit the interviewee’s face from the front not from behind so we had a clear view of their face.

 All of our interviews were filmed using different shot sizes and framing, this provided variety, we used a wide shot for Holly’s interview, medium shots for Jen’s and Gemma’s interviews etc.

We used establishing shots to identify locations of where we were and where people lived for example during Holly’s montage of her walking to the car we used an establishing shot to show off her big house.

For the voiceover narration, we used the Sony HXR camera to record him reading a carefully written script of which anchors the meanings of the visual images and archive footage and guides the viewers understanding of the topic. Our narrator uses an authoritative voice. We used some non-diegetic musical soundtracks behind the voice over, raising the volume when there is no voice-over narration/talking.  
The computer we used was a Dell XPS machine with I7 processes.
We used Photoshop CS5 Adobe to create our poster.

Our main source we used from the internet for our media product and research planning were Google for general image/information searches and archive footage.

We also used YouTube for archive footage and to also see what other people thought about celebrity role models, we used videos such as ‘worst celebrity role model’ and ‘good celebrities gone bad’.

We also used the internet for Facebook to share our documentary with some friends and family to see what their views were.

Blogger was our main used source throughout the coursework as this is where we updated and kept all of our work. We created a blog and had different headings that made up the full coursework. The headings were; Documentary Analysis x6, Brainstorming- Ideas for Documentary, Initial Plans, Target Audience Research, Brainstorm Content for Documentary, Formal Proposal for Documentary, Research for Documentary, Running Order, Planning, Construction, Filming, Editing Decision List, Editing, Scripting Voiceover, Voiceover Recording, Codes and Conventions of Radio Trailers, Scripting Radio Trailer, Recording and Editing Radio Trailer, Codes and Conventions of Newspaper Advertisements, Drafting Newspaper Advertisements, Newspaper Advertisement Production, Audience Feedback and Evaluation.

Evaluation - Question 3 - What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

This is the first part of my audience feedback. 3 minutes 26 seconds.

This is the second part of my audience feedback. 1 minute 45 seconds.

This is the third part of my audience feedback. 1 minute 54 seconds.

Total time : 6 minutes 25 seconds

Evaluation - Question 2 - How Effective is the Combination of Your Media Product and Ancillary Texts (Poster and Radio Ad)? -

question 2 - this is the link for my powerpoint presentation.


<iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/15931415" width="427" height="356" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border:1px solid #CCC;border-width:1px 1px 0;margin-bottom:5px" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen> </iframe> <div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/kristina1995/media-question-2-powerpoint" title="Media question 2 powerpoint" target="_blank">Media question 2 powerpoint</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/kristina1995" target="_blank">kristina1995</a></strong> </div>

Evaluation - Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use/Develop/Challenge the Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

In what ways does your media product use/develop/challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I am firstly going to talk about the way our interviews were structured and portrayed within the documentary.  Throughout the documentary we filmed and used five different interviews, all of which had different settings, people and focuses.

We interviewed Chris, an 18 year old student who is a Rihanna super fan. He talks about how he relates to her and her goals and also tells use about his merchandise. To emphasis Chris’ points and explanations, during the editing process we decided to place archive footage of Rihanna in the background, to show to the audience who Rihanna is in case they did not already know.

We also decided to include footage of Chris’ drawings of Rihanna to show how much of a fan he really is. We did this by using a tracking shot showing all of the pictures Chris had drawn.
In this part of the interview we decided to put multiple flashing images of Chris with his merchandise in the background as this is what he is talking about. This shows the audience the merchandise he has as well as Chris talking about the merchandise.

In Chris’ interview we put a full image to the screen whilst Chris was still talking to show to the audience the full extent of Chris’ possessions.  

Overall I think Chris’ interview went well, we spent the most time on this interview as it took a lot to edit, put in the background on the blue screen and alternating different images to support what Chris was talking about. After we had finished we thought we had structured the interview well including the conventions of real media products such as the rule of thirds and having different images using a variation of transitions to emphasis and support what the interviewee is talking about.

For holly’s interview, rather than using the blue screen, we set up the room to cater for who her role model was and the types of things she was talking about, so because Holly was talking about the rich and glamorous Sarah Jessica Parker, we filmed her interview in a posh, clean and glamorous room. Therefore there was not as much editing to do on this interview as there was to do on the others.




We also have an image to support what holly is talking about whilst she is still speaking, this image dissolves in and out over 2 seconds.

During Holly’s interview when she talks about her merchandise, she says she has the Sarah Jessica Parker perfume, in which we thought it was a good idea to show to the audience an image of the perfume itself to see what it looked like.

Holly’s interview, in my opinion was the best in terms of the set up, the mise en scene and the style of the interview itself as it matched who she is and what she was talking about, therefore it is easier for the audience to grasp the kind of person she is and also helps them understand the way she lives her life.

For the psychologist’s (Gemma’s) interview, of which we filmed in the blue screen room, we thought this was not the best decision as we were unsure as to what to use as the background because she focuses on generic points to do with young people having role models, and doesn’t have a definitive subject view, like the other interviews had.

So we decided to use the general media for the background, filming lots of different magazines to put behind Gemma, once we had done this, we realised it didn’t look to bad and actually suited with what Gemma was talking about.

Gemma talks about how young people need somebody to look up to, to guide them, and how we live in a competitive society in terms of things being shown in magazines and on the television of which is influencing children.

For Jen’s interview we wanted to set up the mise en scene in a way that made it look formal and sophisticated as she is a concerned parent. Therefore we had her sit on an armchair, using rule of thirds, talking to the left of the camera, making sure she was eye-level with the camera but looking at the interviewer. This worked very well as it turned out to be a very formal interview. Here, are the images we used to support Jen’s views.
Jen talks about how Kate Moss is a bad role model for young people, we took this opportunity to include some footage of Kate Moss and the bad things that she actually did, as Jen does not go into full detail.

This is another image we used as Jen talks about how after Kate’s behaviour she just gets re-branded as the face of Rimmel, which is not a good message for children.
Jen also talks about Chris Brown, and how he is a bad role model for abusing his girlfriend, Rihanna. We put in a picture to give the ‘shock factor’ to the audience, to make the documentary more interesting.

Overall, Jen’s interview went really well, and we got across the view of Jen being a concerned parent with the combined efforts of setting up the mise en scene in a professional, sophisticated way and Jen’s opinion.

Finally, we interviewed Genevieve, also known as Vivi, this interview was possibly not as well set up as the other interviews, although the structure and camera angle worked, the general mise en scene didn’t represent Vivi as a person, it just showed her role model, therefore it might be harder for the audience to understand what type of person Vivi is.

All of our interviews follow the forms and conventions of real media products. We used rule of thirds and use of b-roll footage. We also included a montage during Chris’ interview as he speaks.

For our documentary we also had a voice over of which we recorded and embedded over the visual documentary, the voice-over talked about some of the role models, introduced the interviewees in a variety of ways and helped the documentary flow nicely. This voice acts as the ‘voice of god’.

To identify the people we interviewed, we included name bars with their name, age and who they were:

In terms of filming, we created an introduction to Holly and her lifestyle. We did this by having Holly walk to her car outside her big house to show the kind of life she lived. We did this in an effective way to keep the audience wanting to watch. We filmed using plenty of different angles including establishing shot, over the shoulder shot, point of view shot and over head shot.

In conclusion, I think we did well in using, developing and challenging the forms and conventions of real media products to make our documentary look as professional as possible.

Audience Feedback

I have managed to get two people to give audio audience responses. I chose to use a parent, and a teenager as these are the two types of people that feature within the documentary.

This is some feedback I got from Clio, a family friend, aged 30 who seemed to enjoy the documentary.

Here is the second audio audience feedback I got from Ellie, aged 15.






Here is one more audience feedback :
Audience Feedback - Maeve, aged 17

Drafting Newspaper Advertisement

 

For the newspaper advertisement we did a draft first to get an idea as to what it would look like and to decide the things we could change.

Codes and Conventions of Newspaper Advertisements

CODES AND CONVENTIONS
OF NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS

All of these advertisements have been taken from newspapers, magazines and leaflets, having a full page in a magazine is a massive opportunity for broadcasters to show off their documentary, in aim of reaching a mass target audience. Advertising in newspapers and magazines such as the Sun, the Daily Mirror, OK magazine, HEAT, HELLO, TV Guides.





Daily Star, Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mirror.







Advertisement for 'Seven Days', new reality programme on channel 4.





Advertisement for 'This Is England '86', new drama on channel 4.



Advertisement for 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding', ongoing series on channel 4.

Advertisement for 'Insomnia: The Girl Who Cannot Sleep', new story a part of the mind detectives on channel 4.



Advertisement for 'China's Stolen Children', a dispatches special on channel 4.



CODES AND CONVENTIONS
OF NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS

All of these advertisements have been taken from newspapers, magazines and leaflets, having a full page in a magazine is a massive opportunity for broadcasters to show off their documentary, in aim of reaching a mass target audience. Advertising in newspapers and magazines such as the Sun, the Daily Mirror, OK magazine, HEAT, HELLO, TV Guides, and on websites.

Some more conventions included in print adverts
- Always a channel logo
- One main image
- Programme title in a box including the scheduling-
- Slogan and description of the programme
- Words kept to a minimum

Scripting Radio Trailer

Codes and Conventions of Radio Trailers

After listening to a few different radio trailer adverts we can clearly see the conventions within them... these are ;-

• short clips of the voices from the interviewee's regarding the subject of the documentary, primarily sharing their views and/or opinions.
• the narrator from the documentary talking a little bit about what the documentary is mainly about.
• the narrator sometimes asking rhetorical questions about the subject.
• music that is either used within the documentary to act as a 'theme tune'- when people hear it they will link the two media products (the documentary and the radio trailer) or music that relates to the subject of the documentary.
• the narrator stating the title, the tagline and the date and time at the end of the documentary so people know what it is, when it is and the time its on.

Scripting Voiceover

This is our original (very) rough draft of our script for the voice over. We improved this over time as the documentary progressed. We originally recorded our voice over on an Iphone due to technical problems with the camera. So the sound quality wasn't great, however when we recorded it we were able to make some good adjustments to improve our documentary.

Here is the new voice over script:

Introduction: Why are children, teenagers and young adults so obsessed with celebrities and why do they look up to them as Role models?

Role model definition to inform audience: The term role model is defined as an individual who is looked up to by someone else. A role model is someone other individuals aspire to be like.

Introduction to Chris: Rihanna was just 16 when she was signed to DefJam since then, she has achieved phenomenal success.

Holly introduction: 17 year old Holly wants to live the glamorous life, just like her role model. From her car to her wardrobe, Holly is well on her way.

Jen introduction: As a mother, Jen sees how young people are influenced by Celebrities even if they behave poorly.

Kate moss scandal information: In 2005, the daily mirror ran front page and inside photos that seemed to show Kate moss snorting several lines of a white powder that was presumed to be cocaine at a Babyshambles recording session.  

End of part one summery: of course not all celebrities are poor role models, many are talented, hard working and honest who support good causes across the globe.

Editing

Edit Decision List

Here are all the images of the final clips we decided to use for editing, we used the majority of these clips to change volume, change backgrounds, add images/videos to the blue screen interviews, added the voice-over in the correct parts, organise the clips into order, cut down the clips and add name tags. all of this was done through Premiere Pro CS5 Adobe.

Interview Questions

This is a picture we took of our interview questions we used for the 5 different interviews we used.

Single Frames

Mise en scene within Documentary Interviews

Mise en scene is the frame and camerawork also constitute the mise-en-scène of a documentary.
Mise en scene is made up of 6 different elements...

• Costume
• Lighting & Colour
• Acting or Facial Expression
• Make-up and Hair
• Props
• Setting and Position of Person in frame

We have planned our documentary out and the interviews we will be using;-

Interview with Holly- we are interviewing Holly, aged 17, as she has a celebrity role model - Sarah Jessica Parker.

• Costume - For this interview Holly will be wearing nice posh clothes and heels (just how she usually dresses).
• Lighting and Colour - For this interview we want to use the natural light as the room has large windows to let enough natural light in to make Holly's face clear enough to see.
• Acting or Facial Expression and Body Language - As we don't want the interviews to be staged or acted we need Holly to act just as she would in everyday life.
• Make-up and Hair - We will just let Holly dress how she would normally and do her hair and make-up how she usually does it.
• Props - The only main prop we will use will be a large fancy couch of which Holly will be sat on, other than that there are no other props.
• Setting and Position of Person in frame - We will have Holly in a large room within her own house, this room has large windows for good light and all has the same contrasting colours of greys and silvers, we will position Holly using rule of thirds but viewing her whole body sat on the couch.

Interview with Chris - we are interviewing Chris, aged 18, as he is obsessed with Rihanna and talks about her as his celebrity role model.

• Costume - For this interview we have just asked Chris to wear what he would normally wear.
• Lighting and Colour - This interview is going to be filmed in the blue screen room as in the editing process we will use this to our advantage in putting pictures of Rihanna and other knids of Rihanna-related footage to place behind Chris.
• Acting or Facial Expression and Body Language - The interview will not be staged or acted so we will just have Chris act the way he normally does.
• Make-up and Hair - We will let Chris just dress the way he normally does as the interview is not acted or staged.
• Props - We will not use props within this interview as we do not want anything else in the frame and in the way of the blue screen other than Chris.
• Setting and Position of Person in frame - We will have a medium shot of Chris from his waist up but also using rule of thirds so he will be on the right hand side of the frame.

Interview with Vivi - we are interviewing Vivi, aged 12, as she has a celebrity role model - Rihanna.

• Costume - For this interview we have asked Vivi to wear what she normally would.
• Lighting and Colour - For this interview we will use a main light as the interview will be set in her bedroom where there isn't much natural light.
• Acting or Facial Expression and Body Language - We have asked Vivi to just act as she normally would.
• Make-up and Hair - We have asked Vivi to have her make-up and hair as she normally would.
• Props - For Vivi's interview we will only use the posters she has in her room which would normally be there but we will class this as props.
• Setting and Position of Person in frame - We will have Vivi in her bedroom as she has all of her Beyonce pictures and posters up in her bedroom. 

Interview with Jen - we are interviewing Jen as she is a concerned parent regarding bad celebrity role models.

• Costume - For this interview we have asked Jen to wear what she normally would.
• Lighting and Colour - We filmed Jen's interview in a room with large windows that lets in lots of natural light and therefore didnt need to use any other light.
• Acting or Facial Expression and Body Language - We asked Jen to behave and express her views how she normally would.
• Make-up and Hair - We asked Jen to do her hair and make-up how she normally would.
• Props - We didnt use any props for this interview as we didnt think we would need any and it would be more ideal to just focus on what Jen was saying.
• Setting and Position of Person in frame - For Jen's interview we decided not to use a blue screen room as we were unsure as to what to put as the background as she talks about various bad role models, and two of our interviewee's already have been filmed in the blue screen room and therefore we thought it would be too much. So we filmed Jen's interview in a room with large windows for natural lighting. We have also decided to have Jen looking across the camera from the right of the frame, using rule of thirds.

Interview with Gemma (psychologist) - We are interviewing Gemma for a professional view on celebrity role models today, so we could get a psychological perspective on the subject.

• Costume - We asked Gemma to wear what she normally would wear, which is smart and formal clothing as she is a psychologist.
• Lighting and Colour - We filmed Gemma's interview in the blue screen room so we used a high lamp shining down on Gemma from afar so we would see her clearly as there is no natural light.
• Acting or Facial Expression and Body Language - We asked Gemma to speak and express her views as she normally would when explaining to anybody.
• Make-up and Hair - We asked Gemma to keep her hair and make-up as she would any other day.
• Props - we have used no props for Gemma's interview as we filmed in front of a blue screen and therefore didnt need any props, this is so there is nothing standing out from the background apart from Gemma. We also decided to have Gemma looking across the camera from the right of the frame, using rule of thirds.
• Setting and Position of Person in frame - For Gemmas