A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK EVALUATION

by JAMES CHRISTMAS
Theatrical poster for Super Size Me

THE BRIEF

For our A2 media coursework, we were told that in groups we would make a the opening five minutes to a fictional hour-long episode of a new fictional documentary, to be aired on a British television channel of our choice, as well as it being of a target audience of our choice, but predominantly a topic of our choice. To add to this, our ancillary tasks were to create an accompanying radio trail to advertise the documentary on, and a double page spread promoting and relating to the documentary (in an alreadyexisting TV magazine).

QUESTION ONE: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
THE DOCUMENTARY
To begin with, and to understand the various categories, we gained initial research from watching examples of existing documentaries, primarily Morgan Spurlocks Super Size Me. Through doing this, we discovered that documentaries fall into different categories such as investigative, social, educational, cultural and commemorative. Like Super Size Me, and a majority of existing television documentaries, we decided that ours would be an investigative documentary, to give the viewers an insight into current subtleties not covered into everyday life. Here we decided that the topic would be on CCTV and how our country is being watched by the authorities of Britain. I would say that the main purpose of the outcome of our documentary is to reflect on the opinions of society by having millions of these devices around the country. We later looked into other documentaries which relate to this topic of surveillance and CCTV such as Suspect Nation, The Conspiracy Theory, Modern Spies and the trailer for Every Step You Take, which led us more in
Title cards for Suspect Nation, Modern Spies and Every Step You Take

the direction of what type of documentary we would want. Likewise these documentaries are investigative. We also began by looking at the codes and conventions of documentaries and how they are conveyed in Bill Nichols theory of documentary modes from 2001 as we discovered our documentary was mainly expository mode as it investigates research into a specific element of our society and displays this knowledge. Where a poetic mode documentary would only focus on the mood of the research, primarily visually, rather than the content provided. Super Size Me however is an example of performative mode as filmmaker and presenter; Spurlock engages with the investigation by conducting an experiment on him to physically explore the side affects of what is being researched. Many documentary codes and conventions have been followed in our documentary by the use of camera as it is vital to visually capture the content of the investigation in out documentary. For example we have used a variety of framing or shot lengths such as; Long shots, to give the audience a full clear view of a person, place or object. In this case it was useful for shots of traffic passing by as the voice-over mentions about the use of cameras on public transport. Medium close-ups/close-ups, usually used for the head and shoulders of a persons face, or just the face alone, was used for CCTV cameras, in action, as they are the main focus of our documentary. Panning is used to give a full view of an environment, as if someone was stood in one position and rotates to observe their surrounding. In this case we used these transitions to observe the natural environment of the sixth form college, which is unaware of being watched on CCTV. However it was also used to observe the surroundings of a solicitors firm, where an expert is interviews, which leads into its establishing shot. Essentially establishing shots are long-shots of the outside or a faade of a building as they are used to state where the action is for a brief moment before a jump cut to indoors, where the action is. Most appropriately for our documentary, we used tilts which become low-angle shots, to capture someone or something that would be intimidating to the persons point of view, in our case for the CCTV cameras, they are both physically high above us, and act as a way to intimidate us, making us vulnerable.

For our three expert interviews, we positioned the camera and the interviewees at a midshot according the rule of thirds, meaning that their eye lines are roughly level at about a third of the screen down from the top. Interviewees are commonly positioned with their eye lines towards the interviewer, hence not looking directly at the camera but they appear to be facing them at approximately 45 degree angle. If the interviewee is facing towards the left of the screen, then horizontally, their eye lines are two thirds from the left of the screen, but if they are facing towards the right of the screen then they are only one third from the left of the screen. Ideally it is conventional for interviewees to be facing toward dead space or the two thirds where the interviewee does not take up any room, leaving it blank. This same principle also applies with our voxpops yet as we have little time to set up a mobile camera and ask pedestrians to remain in a single spot, this convention may sometimes be broken.

For our expert interviews, we found it important that it was clear of what they represent and how they contribute to the topic of CCTV. Mis-en-scene allows us to use location to indicate what career the expert uses, for example a sociology teacher was filmed in a class room with a whiteboard behind her. The principle of the college shows in the dead space behind him a number of folders on a shelf to imply organization. The injury solicitor however shows himself in front of a sign which advertises his company, to remind the viewer of what he does with a number of folders of different clients on his desk. For the majority of camera shots, a tripod was used to keep the camera stable and avoid shaking, to remain the subject matter as

Super Size Me experts

Our documentary experts

serious and less difficult for the viewer to concentrate. It also remains to be formal; as if we used a hand-held camera it would be less formal to the audience. Sound also plays a huge part in the creation of this documentary, as a presenter is used to narrate a large portion of the investigation into CCTV; however they are not shown addressing audience via the camera. To keep the topic of the documentary serious and avoid distraction from the narration and interviews, we have not used hyperbolic sounds (such as cartoony noises) and lack non-diegetic noises. However is used in the opening of documentary, using the non-copyrighted music from Garage Band to add suspense and to immediately convey an intimidating theme for the topic of an invasive device such as CCTV. The main purposes of special effects in our documentary were used to consolidate the facts and hopefully the understanding of the audiences knowledge. An example of this is the use of a diagram of a British map as the narrator reads the statistic that there are 35,00 CCTV cameras in the UK and multiple number of cameras pop up in randomly places. This is used to emphasize the incredibly large number of CCTV cameras and give a visualization of that they are all over the UK, in the same way an illustration would accompany words in a book.

A screenshot showing a diagram of our documentary (left), like a diagram shows a statistic by various people popping appearing in various colours in Super Size Me (right)

Special effects and editing also allowed us to create captions on top of the camera, such as to accompany a quote from a source telling the audience a relevant fact about CCTV. The use of blurring however also became useful as it made the text appear clearer and the background would not distract the audience from the text.

Other text we included was the title card of the documentary, as inspired by the title card and transition of Suspect Nation. We used the same effect to imply a it was being typed out by somebody, in a style as if somebody was sitting at a computer operating a CCTV camera, on top of a static fuzz, to give the text a blank canvas and give the effect of a CCTV piece of footage is just about to start.

THE DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

The purpose of our double page spread was to provide a small amount of subsidiary information to promote our documentary, so apart from physically stating in the text what it is, aesthetically it had to look relatable to the documentary and to the topic of CCTV.

We decided that it would be placed in a copy of Radio Times; one of Britains most read TV listings magazines, so it would appeal to a large amount of readers and promote the documentary to more people. Radio Times also reaches out to a more formal audience, which would suit a serious topic like the arguments for and against CCTV, as we discovered many other, less formal TV guides tend to focus more on soaps, dramas and unserious programs.

Like previous Radio Times articles, their style was to keep colours quite minimal, chiefly having a white background with black main copy (article text). This also worked well in using the topic of CCTV as it is a serious topic, in which in some ways the black and white would reflect a colorless screen capturing CCTV footage, hence creating a dull yet an intriguing effect. In common with Radio Times articles, the formality is shown by using serif font. This is used as well in the masthead, on top of its photographs, using a shadow underneath to stand out. Or masthead we decided to use as Britains eyes in the skies as they are designed to be catchy, usually as alliteration, puns or in this case a little rhyme and a nickname given to CCTV cameras. The main article follows the rule of thirds in terms of the positioning of the main photographs and the text, but has been divided into three columns in order to make it easier to read short lines, rather then lengthy ones causing the reader to loose their place and get confused by the text. So that the reader would know where to start reading at significant parts of the article, drop caps have been places to properly indicate where an article would start. Common features in articles also include page numbers in the corners so it is easier for the reader to navigate, as well a reminder of the publication of the magazine, being the magazine logo and dates of publication. In articles that relate to TV programs, the scheduling details, including channel, date

and time are usually presented separately from the article, in this case, we use a box and change to a less formal font to stand out so the reader knows when and what channel to watch out for. The photographs were used to convey the theme and topic of CCTV, such one of the main images being a split screen, commonly overseen by people controlling CCTV which also features in the documentary. Two photo however are placed on the other side but in slanted positions to give a small bit of informality, one even looking like a poloraid which could relate to the idea of crime and whether or not CCTV controlling us could be seen as a crime or not. One photo is a panoramic view of a typical building, monitored by CCTV, so the panoramic effect could relate to a CCTV camera revolving and keeping its eye on the entire environment. Another photo shows examples of CCTV cameras, again from a low-angle shot to intimidate the public. Another photo shows a typical sign that you would find on a warning the passers-by that they are being monitored 24/7, again shot from a slightly low angle to intimidate them, on a typical brick wall that could be anywhere. A final photo is another photo of a CCTV camera, however this one has been edited so the text from the article can wrap around it, almost as if its sticking out of the page and in a sense, breaking the fourth wall, so the reader could be under the slight impression that CCTV camera could be watching them right as they read the article. Despite using these in our double page spread, I regret that we had missed out some things to enhance the double page spread which are commonly used such as the use of captions to describe what the photographs are and how they link to the article. Also the use of pull quotes would have especially enhanced our article as they would highlight key factors that our interviewees say in the article.

THE RADIO TRAILER

For the radio trailer of the documentary, we needed to use a channel that would reach a large audience as it would be broadcasted on Channel 4. As the BBC is publicly funded and does not advertise, it would not have been able to be broadcast on there, so we decided that commercial radio stations such as Capital FM and Free Radio would be more ideal. After listening to previous existing trailers, we noticed that they commonly use many significant voice clips from the documentary, with little amount of voiceover, apart from the scheduling details at the end of the trailer. For our radio trailer we decided to use the same music from Garage Band used in the documentary to add suspense and create a build-up to hook the

listeners attention. As our documentary investigates the arguments for and against CCTV, we used included many of the voxpops from the public who give their opinion and edited those opinions create an over-lapping effect. By doing this it give a mysterious technique to imply that there are many opinions surrounding the topic, more perhaps than the listener can handle so can only catch glimpses of what theyre saying, hence creating suspense and wanting to watch the documentary to fully understand the opinions of CCTV. The trail ends with a male voice over which contrasts to the female voice over in the documentary, to create a dominant and intimidating tone supporting the topic of CCTV, quoting the name of the documentary as well as weekday, time and channel.

QUESTION TWO: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
The main purposes of our ancillary tasks, the double page spread and the radio trailer were to promote our television documentary (through an article on the double page spread) and advertise it (through the radio trailer). Because these had important roles to the documentary it was important that these ancillary tasks would work well together and related to the main product, the documentary.

TARGET AUDIENCE
We set out for our documentary to be aimed for an adult audience, with the age range being from 24 to 50. The reason for this was because people at this age would begin to develop an opinion about the state of the country that they live and work in which would be needed to surround a controversial topic like CCTV and the argument whether it is right or wrong. It also allows room for debate so they can share or oppose their thoughts on the topic. 24 we considered to be the start of adulthood as many people are usually just starting work after leaving University, or already spent a good few years in work. We chose 50 to be the age range as the programme would still investigate crime which would be more impressive to the views younger than 50, but not older. Also 50 means that the documentary and its debates would be more mature than if they were completely aimed for younger viewers. Demographically we chose that religion; race, gender or disability would not be an issue to the viewers so everyone in this age range would be able to watch it without confusion about the topic or how it is presented on television. The age range itself is not a strict finite guideline which could possibly be extended to teenagers who

prematurely have opinions and feelings about the CCTV debate and care about the state of the country. Likewise it can be extended towards pensioners who still have feelings for the state of the country, but may feel slightly alien to the idea of technology devices, something they may have lacked in their day. In terms of social class, we decided that it would be aimed for B, C1 and C2 area as they would be working citizens who would be more likely to be more outgoing and walking down the street, so would have a more valuable opinion regarding CCTV monitoring them in public areas. In terms of scheduling to suit our target audience, we decided that Channel 4 would be a better channel as the content which they air is usually deemed as formal, with some elements relatable to younger audiences. For example we didnt think that the BBC would suit the documentary as the content in which they air is formal, but would only appeal to a mature audience, while ITV airs less formal programs such as soaps, game shows, and talent competitions to appeal for the whole family and the less mature audiences. Hence Channel 4 would remain the documentary to stay on a mainstream channel where everyone would watch it, but would remain formal enough to explore a serious topic, while in some areas the younger viewers would still feel comfortable to watch.

THE DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

For the double page spread, we had to make the visual images relatable to what is seen on the documentary and to the topic, while the text also had to be relatable. In terms of why we picked Radio Times, is because it is usually aimed for a more mature audience as if focuses on a larger variety of television programmes while the less formal guides such as TV Listings highly focus on soaps and fictional programs. The buyers of Radio Times are usually people from the B or C1 social class as they can afford to purchase them more, roughly the same social class as the target audience for the documentary. The double page spread includes photographs of various things that relate to CCTV such as cameras, and things that are seen on the documentary such as panoramic views of the college which is also featured in the documentary and mentioned about in the article. The article consist of research into the use of CCTV and includes small quotes from the documentary, such as with Paul Ashdown, mentioning how CCTV is operated in his college, and also consist of quotes which would have been from the full hour of the documentary, such as extended discoveries from policemen, lawyers and sociologists.

THE RADIO TRAILER

For the radio trailer, we decided to broadcast it on stations such as Capital FM. The main reasons being that it would reach to a large portion of the country, as they are regional stations, but are covered all over the UK. They also have large numbers of listeners as they play contemporary music, meaning they would attract a large portion of younger audience members in the early twenties range. The radio trail consists of many audio clips taken directly from the documentary as one of the main purposes of it is to show the general feelings from normal public members of CCTV and surveillance. The reason why we use a large number of them and creating them to overlap gives a sinister surrounding feeling as if the voices are appearing from many various places to show a huge variety of peoples voices. BY having this, it would attract the listener and grab their attention for if they would like to investigate within a controversial debate.

QUESTION THREE: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
To gain research and planning for our documentary we decided to hand out questionnaires to a small sample of people to observe what they would expect from a conventional television documentary to members of the public within range of our target audience. So to gain audience feedback for all three of our products, our documentary, radio trailer and double page spread, we handed out more questionannnaires to a sample group who had seen them.

THE DOCUMENTARTY
In terms of sound in our documentary we asked our sample group, how consistent the sound levels are. On an scale of one (being the least consistent) to ten (being the most consistent) we were awarded an average of 6.5, proving to be not as successful as wed have hoped, as while viewing there may have

been a need to turn the volume of the device playing the documentary up and down at various points of the documentary. However we discovered that 100% of the participants believed that the music we used suited the genre of the topic, yet 53% had felt that the music had drowned out the voiceover, again meaning a sound levels would had to have been adjusted to understand the voiceover as it is crucial to the information in the documentary.
Does the voiceover drown the music out?

47% 53%

Yes No

However our final question on the questionnaire shows us that on a scale of one to ten, we were awarded an average of 7.6 which I find a great result, but clearly shows that there could have been room for improvement, and as precisely discovered, the adjustment of sound levels needed to be fixed.

THE RADIO TRAILER

For our radio trailer we asked our group of peers their opinion on the radio trailer and questions such as Does the Radio Trailer make you want to watch the documentary? which excellently was awarded 11 yess with only 3 nos and 2 maybes, which implied that many of them thought the radio trailer worked in attracting them to the documentary, however the 2 maybes would imply that they could possibly show an interest in the documentary being the minority of the group. However one disappointing result was when we asked if the voices in the radio trail are easy enough to hear and understand. As it shows in the pie chart below it was a mixed reaction as more people had said no instead of Does the Radio Trailer make you want to watch yes, implying that sound levels would have had to be adjusted to be made the documentary? more clearly.
12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Yes No Maybe
Yes No Both in different areas Are the voices easy enough to hear and understand?

THE DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

Surprisingly we were extremely delighted with the feedback on our double page spread as we received 100% when asked questions such as would it be similar to an existing Radio Times article?, are the pictures relevant to the topic of CCTV? and would the article grab your attention when flicking through? To our delight and surprise all surveys had left the box in which improvements could be suggested blank, which made us feel completely satisfied with the double page spread, awarding us an outstanding average of 9 out of 10 when asked do you feel that the double page spread lists the information from the documentary successful?.
On a scale of 1 to 10 do you feel that the double page spread lists the information fromthe documentart successfully?

Awarded 10 Awarded 9 Awarded 8 Awarded 7

So overall I think we have had quite a mixed reaction to our three products, with most disappointing results coming from the sound levels in both the documentary and the radio trailer which would have needed to be adjusted. However in terms of actual content and how well we show the impact of CCTV in the three products received impressive results, and especially the double page spread gained many great responses.

QUESTION FOUR: How did you use media technologies in the construction, and research, planning and evaluation stages?
RESEARCH

Media technologies were used in great amounts as we researched into the topic, particularly to gain content and knowledge ourselves on CCTV. We initially used a search engine to find the relevant information, which was Google. By searching relevant words relating to CCTV this then lead us to various websites on the World Wide Web to provide us with facts, statistics and helped play a massive part in us understanding CCTV. The websites we found included related articles on news websites such as the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Telegraph and BBC News. Not just to research information, but these websites gave us examples of where CCTV has or has not been useful and stories relating to surveillance. Also to research into other existing documentaries, and to gain inspiration from, websites featuring a wide variety of videos such as YouTube, BBCiPlayer, ITV Player, and 4oD all came extremely useful to us as it allowed us to be able to watch a documentary at any given time, and watch only certain parts that were relevant. The information we had researched was then converted onto Microsoft Word documents to preserve them and keep them neat, which then we put onto our blog as it is a vital part of presenting our progress. To make these documents visible and presentable on the blog however, we used Scribd to convert them into blog-friendly links. Word documents which helped for the research included convention grids of existing documentaries to identify the codes and conventions, viewed from video websites, as previously mentioned. However, when we had pieces of work which could not be converted into word documents, we used the scanner at college to scan in documents which were hand-written or drawn, such as our marked versions of our Super Size Me essays, completed for research.

PLANNING
One of the first things we did when started planning was deciding what ideas we had for documentary topic, which eventually became the topic of CCTV. To preserve these ideas we used Microsoft Power point to create a brainstorm which was converted into a JPEG to put on the blog as it only had one slide. We also created another PowerPoint which went into further detail about what we intended to make in the documentary, i.e. target audience, documentary modes and style, but as this PowerPoint used more than one slide, we used Slideshare in order to make it blog-friendly.

We had also immediately decided which experts we had to interview, who could relate to the topic of CCTV, so we needed ways of communication. As they were local and easier to contact, we used our colleges own messaging service, Tyber, to communicate to some of the members of staff who we thought would be helpful to us, such as the principle, sociology teachers, front gate security and caretakers. We print screened their replies as JPEGs which featured on the blog.

For ways of contacting experts outside of college however, we used the internet email service, Hotmail to communicate professionals such lawyers or policemen.

Not only did we use Hotmail to ask professionals to arrange interview times, but we used it to send each other work in the absence of USB sticks, some of these being the story board plans and filming schedules which were initially hand drawn and once again scanned in as JPEGs to be put on the blog.

A new media technology in which we were introduced to was Prezi, another way in embedding presentations, but made them more aesthetic and easier to zoom into and jump from one page to another. We used this for our Risk Assessment, a document filled into to consolidate our understanding of using the equipment safely.

CONSTRUCTION
To record our documentary, we used the colleges own cameras, the Canon HG20. It was light and very easy to carry and functioning it to record and zoom we extremely simple to master. As this alone only captured visual footage, we needed a microphone to connect it record audio, as well as a pair of headphones to listen to as footage was recorded. These were easy to connect to the camera and straight forward but required more than one person to carry.

To position the cam recorders we were also given tripods to place them on top of, by securely fixing them in by using a screw and a spirit level to make sure that the camera would not be slanted when shot. These tripods were heavy to carry so it would have been impossible for one person just to carry it with any other equipment, but were simple enough to extract onto virtually any form of ground, whether it was indoors or outdoors. They were also extremely light and easy to move to make the camera pan around by pushing a rod around.

When we had completed filming we carefully brought the equipment back and connected the camera to the Apple Mac computers so we could store them in our folders and work on to edit.

We edited both the documentary and the radio trail on Final Cut Express. This programmes allowed us to see the audio and visual clip on a timeline, where we could add more clips or cut down the existing ones. We were also able to move them around in different positions as well as add in special effects such as text captions, fades and the use of images to crop up as we used in our map of Great Britain with various CCTV cameras appearing.

We used Garage Band to add in sound effects and bring them into our Final Cut Express file so we could add in repetitive music and sound effects, as Final Cut Express did not provide these. We also used Final Cut Express for our Radio Trailer, in which we used the same music as the music featured in the documentary, while various sound clips of Voxpops giving their opinions on CCTV were made to be overlapped to give a surrounding sound effect, with multiple voices.

Our double page spread was made by using InDesign, a document where we could position and edit texts and images to create the article. We were able to add effects such as drop shadows and drop captions; however we used Adobe Photoshop to be able to cut around the image of the camera which would allow us to wrap the text around it.

The final media technologies we had used were the use of uploading our final pieces. YouTube helped massively to upload our documentary and was made public to view on any computer with internet as a professional final video. Once again this was made able to view on the blog using and embedded code link.

Sound Cloud was also used in the same way as YouTube but for our Radio Trail. Again it made it easily accessible for different various computers as well being embedded as a link on the blog.