Evaluation

Rebecca Flynn

(1) My documentary is designed to inform the general public of the issues

concerning gay rights, more specifically how laws have been amended over the last
fifty years and how this has affected stigma and discrimination towards the
homosexual community in the UK. I decided to analyze documentaries that were
discussing other serious sociological issues such as homophobia in the black
community. I also looked at issues that the show Panorama thought important such
as the ‘joint- enterprise law’ and ‘affects of outer- court punishment’ as Panorama is
considered a prestigious documentary series and has covered a wide range of
issues.
Analysing these documentaries allowed me to have a clear understanding of the
codes and conventions that were expected in my documentary, for example it can be
seen here(Figure 1 )that Panorama uses a symbol, when this symbol is seen the
audience will make connections with the issues discussed on the show, I thought this
idea worked and decided to create my own logo, I decided to use the BBC logo
(Figure 2) as a frame but add an extra box as we said our documentary would be
showing on ‘Havering College TV’. We shortened it to HCTV.

Figure 1 Figure 2

The documentaries I analysed also had good examples of conventions that needed
to be included to cover all areas of a documentary, such as cutaways and interviews
that were relevant to the subject that was being discussed. For example it can be
seen here (Figure 3) that this cutaway was chosen specifically to indicate the culture
in which the documentary is trying to explain.

Figure 3

Here is an example of using an influential member of society in context; (Figure 4)

Elephant man may not be influential in all areas of society but is a popular reggae
artist thus has influence over the young black youths. It is important to make sure all
interviewees have an in-depth understanding of the topic and each one has an
individual opinion that will bring a different perspective from the last. The most
relevant interviewee to out topic was David Allison. (Figure 5) He is a member of the
active campaign ‘outrage’. He was very articulate and was able to explain how
changes in Gay rights have affected the homosexual community and what still needs
to be amended to allow further equality.

Figure 4

Figure 5

It is important to take
into account the mode of
address when looking at
a documentary. Media
theorists Kress and Van
Leeuween distinguish
between ‘intimate’,
‘personal’, ‘social’ and ‘public’ modes of address. In camerawork this is reflected in
shot size. Usually documentaries are social and public but also personal. We kept to
the usual codes and conventions of a documentary so a lot of our shots used were
close- ups signifying intimate or personal modes.

(2) It was important to make both my ancillary tasks interlink with my main
documentary, as both are using different mediums to advertise my documentary. My
radio trailer would be played on the radio so it was important to explain what the
documentary would entail in a clear precise way as radio trailers are only short. In
this time it is essential to tell the viewer the time and channel the documentary will be
shown as well as the topic that the documentary will be discussing, (Gay rights).
 A short clip was heard from one of the interviewees in the radio trailer, this allows
the viewer to have a preview of the perspectives and opinions they are likely to find
within the documentary.
During the radio trailer there is funky, fast, jazz type music playing, the reason for
choosing this music was to emphasise that the topic is modern and upbeat and to
maintain the theme we used throughout our documentary which is bold, bright and
colourful.
The newspaper advertisement as well as the radio trailer presents the title
‘Coming out of the dark ages’. It is then seen on the documentary itself in the
opening credits. Repeating the title on both the ancillary and main task allows the
viewer to make the connection between the radio trailer, the advertisement and then
finally the documentary.

Figure 6

Figure 7

The newspaper advertisement (Figure 7) uses a symbol to connote homosexual

relationships. Using a very simple, clear picture gives a strong inclination as to what
will be included in the documentary without overloading the advertisement with
information and giving everything away, this will leave the viewer intrigued and likely
to want to find out more on the topic.
 On the other hand, although I feel I was successful in making a clear link between
my three tasks it needs to be taken into consideration that the newspaper article and
the documentary are trying to put across different messages. The documentary is
based around the codes and conventions of a BBC programme. Meaning it is aiming
to be as impartial as possible. Whereas newspaper articles and radio trailers need to
grab the audience’s attention in a matter of seconds. The documentary
advertisement especially needs to grab the general public’s attention instantly, it has
to sum up the whole documentary instantly with one picture and one title, this is not
necessarily an easy task but if done properly can be a successful way to capture
peoples imagination and curiosity.

(3) I created a questionnaire allowing me to gather audience feedback about how

they felt my documentary went. I purposely asked the same amount of women as
men making the total number of participants twenty. This questionnaire was very
useful as I found that all participants felt the documentary covered all of the issues
that they expected it to cover as can be seen in figure 8.
Did our documentary cover all of the
issues that you expected to be
covered?

20

15
frequency 10 yes
5 no

0
yes no
choices
(Figure 8)

I also wanted to find out how relevant they found the documentary. Overall the
participants found the documentary relevant to their age group and found the
interviewees chosen relevant to the topic. This information supported the pre
documentary findings that stated that a majority of people thought the topic
was both a relevant and interesting topic. This information was also useful as
it allowed me to see that I have fulfilled my original plan and have not gone off
track but have kept with my original idea and have kept it relevant to today’s
society. It can be seen in figure 9 the results to the question ‘Do you feel that
the issues raised were relevant to your age group’

Do you feel that the issues raised were

relevant to your age group?

20

15
(figure 9)
frequency 10 yes
no
5

0
yes no
choices

I decided it would be a good idea to elaborate on my audience review by

asking a select few who had watched my documentary to give a further more
in-depth opinion on how they felt my documentary went:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_iSi2nA9q4.

Looking at my feedback the audience had dominant reading. Media theorist

Stuart Hall suggests three positions for the reader of a media text; dominant,
negotiated and oppositional. In this case the reader fully shares the text’s
code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading as the documentary
we created was designed to give perspectives from a variety of angles and
was aiming to be non- bias.
The audience agree that we were successful in producing a non-bias
documentary, although it must taken into account that although we purposely
tried to make the documentary non-bias it is difficult to be impartial as it is the
director’s job to cut out any footage that is dull, useless or long-winded and to
choose interviewee’s that have will put across a certain view point. This in
itself may create a bias view as it then becomes one persons view on what
does and doesn’t need to be included in the documentary.

(4) My understanding of technology and specific software packages has

grown a great deal during this project due to the fact that I have been
expected to use packages that I was not necessarily familiar with.
For example to create the ancillary task I decided to use the software “gimp”
(Figure 10) although I would of liked to use Photoshop it was not accessible
at college which is where I completed this task. Designing any type of
advertisement was a completely new concept and I found it hard to use skills
needed to create an advertisement that would give an insight into what the
documentary topic is about. I was already able to use blogspot due to
completing a similar project last year that required the use of this webpage.
This year I expanded on my knowledge and used freewebs (Figure 11) which
was another website used to represent my work; also this website was used
to link all the work that was completed together, such as the group and the
individual blogs.

Figure 10 Figure 11

I also took an active role in

uploading the interviews on to
final cut pro (Figure 12).
Figure 12

As the editor relied on me to cut down each interview so only relevant

information was put onto the timeline. I was asked to Jpeg any long pieces of
work before they were put on the blog. I encountered a problem as work could
not be opened through Google without a password; this meant that another
website needed to be found that allowed pieces of work to be uploaded to it
so it could be linked to the blog. “Scribed” (Figure 13) was the easiest website
to use as it was quick and efficient. Due to the project requiring a use of a variety
of different programmes and packages I now feel far more comfortable with handling
unknown aspects of technology that I may have avoided before. I was never
particularly comfortable with using any package that may have been above and
beyond the basics on a PC, but can now feel comfortable enough to work individually
on a project that may require the use of technological initiative.

Figure 13