Evaluation

QUESTION 1

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I do not believe that the documentary i created with my group either develops or challenges any form or conventions of a real media product. However we have tried throughout to follow these, in order to make our documentary look professional. In relation to the narrative structure of my documentary we have attempted to follow the codes and conventions we talked about earlier on in the course. We decided on our programme to be mixed; containing interviews, a voice over and actuality footage. We also created an open narrative, this meaning we open and question and never actually gave a definitive answer. We did however give varying opinions, keeping our own separate from the making of the programme. Below are images taken from our own documentary, compared with that of professionally produced programmes.


CUT AWAY SHOTS

































-Above are images showing the cut away shots we used. It follows the conventions of an actual documentary in that it cuts from the interviewee to a subject he was talking about, and then cuts back to him again. This is typical throughout our programme, in all three interviews.



CHROMA KEY INTERVIEW


















PUT IMAGE OF MALLY!

-In both of the interviews the chroma key effect is used; this means that the background images behind each interviewee are moving whilst the person stays in the same position.


CAMERA WORK

-We followed the conventional filming of using either close up or medium close up with the person positioned to the right hand side of the camera.
- Both our own interview and the professional one have the persons eye line in the top third of the screen.


GRAPHICS





































-We have used a fairly pain white coloured font as to not draw the audiences attraction from the actually information being given.
- The typography of both texts are bold and clear.
- The information on each is similar; the first information displayed is each is the subjects name, this is also the biggest font that appears.
- It is common for the graphics to appear in the side opposite from where the subject is sitting. This is true for both our own documentary and the professional one seen above.



MISE-EN-SCENE































-We tried to used the mise-en-scene in our interviews to anchor the subjects relevance to the topic. In on interview we have used an office to reinforce the deputy head teachers position and also to highlight his importance in the programme.
- Again the subjects are filmed between close up or medium close up.



VOICE OVER
We knew that voice over must relate to or reflect our target audience and so therefore used a male over thirty years of age. This meant we could be confident in relating to our specific group as we knew that he was one of them. - Both our own documentary and the other use standard English, this avoid confusion that would perhaps arise if our voice over had a fairly strong regional accent. - The voice over acted as the link, holding our whole programme together and keeping the audience constantly entertained.



ARCHIVE MATERIAL

As it is conventional to have archive material in documentaries we followed this, how the main part of our archive material consisted of photographic images. For example the images of historical graffiti used in first minute of our programme we thought not only helped to reinforce the time period graffiti has existed for but also created variety. I did use you tube to research footage of graffiti taking place, however as we were able to collect the footage for ourselves in Liverpool we did not feel the need to include the you tube footage in our first five minutes. Below are examples of images we took of the internet to use in the opening five minuites.

























MUSIC
We used music a lot in the first five minutes of our programme. There was not one singular theme of music that consisted throughout our programme, we had a variety of different genres. For example we used quite sinister classic music when the graffiti artists were spaying the wall, but sort of African tribal music for the history section. Again this followed the conventions as it is common for mixed documentary to display varying music genre's. Below are short extracts of all the music tracks we used either under the voice over, or alone as sound to link two segments together.



Question 2 - How effective is the combination of main product and ancillary?

The title that is displayed throughout our documentary programme, radio advert and newspaper advert is consistent. Displayed below are images of the titles from the beginning five minutes and the newspaper advert. The name of our programme is also made clear in our radio advert.


PIC OF OPENING TITLES

















PIC OF NEWSPAPER AD



















USE OF SLOGAN
Another factor that gives our three products coherence is the slogan used throughout; 'Art or Vandalism?' The slogan is the dominating feature in our newspaper advert, however is maybe slightly less noticeable in our radio advert and documentary as it is spoken in both of them instead of written on paper for the audience to read. In the newspaper advert i have attempted to draw the audience's eyes to this slogan with the use of the spay can however we have not particularly attempted to draw attention to the slogan in the other two. Nevertheless the slogan is a repeated statement carried throughout all three products. Below is an image of the designed slogan before we photo shopped this over a brick background.




















REPEATED IMAGES
The image of a graffiti artist has become almost iconic to us as a group, we again have if featured in both our visible products. Both the brick wall images used in the newspaper advert and the opening titles have a drawn image scanned in over the top. This helps to not only anchor the meaning of our programme but also to gain attention as the colours used are eyed catching and the font unique. Below is a image showing the images of walls we have used throughout.



















NEWSPAPERS ADVERTISEMENT
Below are the four main newspapers that i would want my advert in. We wanted to aim our advert at a mature, fairly intelligent audience, and therefore i feel that the below would be suitable.


















RADIO ADVERTISEMENT
This is a visual representation of the type of radio station i would attempt to have my programme advertised on. The stations such as Classic Fm and Radio 2 have been purposefully chosen in order to gain our correct age in our target audience, meaning that generally they are intended for a more mature audience.
















Question 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?


We gathered a small audience of class members to watch our documentary, listen to our radio advert and look at our newspaper advert. Below are the questions we asked the group collectively and the answers that individuals gave us.

Questions For Feedback

1) In your opinion did the camera shots and music suit the style and genre of the programme?
PROS
a) Yes, because low angle shots were used on buildings which made it look professional.
b) I think that the slow camera pans went well with the slow paced music.
c) A lot of your camera shots were very creative, that was interesting to watch.

CONS
a) I don't really think that the Beethoven worked when the graffiti artists where spraying the wall. If it was me i think i would of used a more modern, updated piece of music


2) If you had to choose a favourite part of the programme, what would it be and why?
a) Mallys interview because i liked the moving background
b) The way the police officer and headteacher had an opposition of views
c) The Vox-Pop because there was some good, interesting answers.



3) Is there any weaknesses to the programme, if so what are they?
a)I don't really think that the music went well in the black and white part of the programme.
b)The voice over was a bit low at the end during the Banksey section



4) What did you think of the content, would you watch the whole programme? Around 95% of the audience watching would continue to watch whole programme
a) The history part grabbed me, it was interesting because i learnt about a subject i never thought i was interested in.
b) The content was good, my favourite part was the interview with the graffiti artist. He put across points i had never considered before.
c) I think that the cut away in the police man and headteacher interview were good. They went well with what the interviewee was saying.



5) Do you think our programme suits our target audience of 30 + year old's and why? a) No i think that you could have a younger target audience because you interviewed a young graffiti artist. Maybe if you interviewed an older one it would have been different.
b) Your voice over sounded as if he may have been around a similar age to your target audience so yes, he would help the audience relate to the matter.



6) How do you think our programme compares to real TV documentaries?
a)The names that came up in the white font made the interview's look very real.
b)You made it so we could not hear the questions being asked in the interviews so that made it seem like an actual programme.
c)Creative camera angles where used well with good editing.



7) Do you think our radio trailer effectively advertises our programme, why?
a)Yes because the way the scheduling information was at the end.
b)The little clips taken from the vox pop made it sound like an actual radio trailer.
90% of class say yes, our advert effectively advertises our programme.



8) Do you think our newspaper advert effectively advertises our programme, why?
a) It stands out a lot because of the background being a bright brick wall, which links well with your topic.
b)Yes i think so because it really looks like a channel four print advert. It follows the same conventions of most that i have seen.


Below is a short audio video of a audience feedback i gathered after we had finished our focus group. i decided to get feedback from both a member of my over 30 target audience, and aslo from a younger person in order to compared the two in relation to there likes and dislikes.



Below is another video. This one shows quotes that were given to me when i showed my documentray to a group of over thirtys outside of school.




CONCLUSION
One point we have realised from our audience feedback that there is mixed feelings on the target audience we set ourselfs. Half of the focus group believed that our target audience was suitable was reinforced with techniquies such as using an over 30 years old male as our voice-over. How the other half believed that our programme was much more suited to a younger audience, exspecially because interviewed a teenage graffiti artist. Another thing we have learnt from our audience feedback is that whilst the filming may have been more time consuming, in terms of taking days out to film in different locations, it has actually been the editing that has grabbed the audiences attention. The chroma key background for example was commented on a lot through out. The audience research also taught me that although people will have conflicting oppinions on our programme, this does not make one more important than another. All must be took into consdiration in order for our documentary to reach its full potention. For example the video above shows conflicting oppinions between generalions, an older member of our video showing was interested in the wording of the documentary, and believed the Beethovan music gave our documenraty a more seious tone. However when the video was show in the focus group to people our own age we found that the music was not liked as much. This leads me to believe that for our target audience we have chosing the right angle to look at graffiti from, however if our audience changed the documentary would have to change a lot to.



Question 4 How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


This is a visual representation of the technologies and devices that I used throughout the production of our ‘Write On’ Documentary. Below that is a audio video, explaining the technologies i have used.