My Final Evaluation.

I believe I have created a production that successfully presented the theories on

homosexuality in a manner that is enjoyable and memorable to my audience. I also
believe I have presented the human side to being homosexual well with the
interviews I conducted. I know from my initial ideas survey that my idea was popular
amongst my audience.

Here in this survey I presented them with my three initial ideas, all of which were
centred on homosexuality as that is what I knew I wanted to explore with my
productions. Idea Three was my factual programme and it was the most popular
idea amongst my survey. Then I could continue with my ideas as I knew it would be
popular amongst people in my target audience. They were very interested in the
idea and it would be something they would watch and care about.

I have been given feedback on my ideas multiple times by my marking teachers,

they all said my idea was good but my quality of my production was needed work.
That was things like the audio for my interviews wasn’t good or it was shaky footage.
But the core value of educating people on homosexuality and introducing them to
real gay men I think I achieved.

During my research I found out according to a you-gov survey almost one in three
brits still think homosexuality is a choice.
So I start producing my documentary with the goal of educating others on
homosexuality, exposure is a good way to get people familiar with homosexual and
to promote tolerance. I originally wanted to create production that was unbiased, I
would be open about who I am and what my biases may be to my audience. Then I
could go forward trying to be as bipartisan as I could be, I thought this would be to
present the topic I was discussing. But when I presented my idea to my survey a
respondents suggested adding my own experiences.

This idea was also convergent to the specifications set by BBC who I was thinking
about commissioning my factual programme for.

Adding my personal experience would make the documentary more personal to

me and draw on the pathos of my audience, then my production might be more
memorable to my audience. However later when I did my target audience survey
where I presented my ideas to my survey and asked them to choose their favoured
and disfavoured ones. My survey responded saying the segment where I would’ve
talked about my own experience was a disliked idea.
So from this point I put less focus on my story and put more of the emotional value on
the interviews. I knew emotional value was important to the quality of my
production. My audience after watching my production said it had emotional value
and they felt emotion in the interviews and the ending.

So I can deduct that I was successful in creating a documentary that had emotional
value to my target audience. One critiques I received was that my pieces to
camera were static and could have varied in location.
Due to my poor planning skills I did fall behind schedule and I had to film my piece
to cameras hastily. While I did plan for my piece to camera to be set up this way, I
could’ve got this criticism a couple weeks age which would’ve given me time to
reshoot in different locations. This would’ve definitely made it less static feeling, this
would’ve made my audience more engaged with the factual programme. Despite
this my production has a high approval rating among my survey responders.

My survey all responded saying they enjoyed my documentary and one responded
saying the subject was interesting. So I deduce I have created a factual programme
that presented information on homosexuality in an engaging manner to my
audience and showcased the real human side of being homosexual. I was
successful at educating my audience despite the production short comings.
The client I decided to commission my production for was the BBC Three. Their target
audience is 16-25 which is perfect for me as I am in this age range and believe I
could create a production that would be enjoyable for this age range.

BBC Three likes to commission factual programmes that tackle issues of modern
relevance head on. They like to put focus on a perspective that draws on the
pathos of the audience and discusses frankly about the topic.

The issue needs to be prevalent amongst young people so that they can be
interested in it and enjoy the programme. I believe I have succeeded in thinking
about an idea that young people will care about and get others to care too. Here is
a survey that shows my idea is popular amongst people in my target audience.
(idea three is the factual programme)
Another aspect BBC Three want their documentaries to have a personal element to
them. I thought a way of including this was too include my own experience when I
do the piece to camera segments, this way I can make the factual programme
more personal to me and it would be correlate with the specifications set by BBC
Three. However when I presented this idea to my audience it was not well reived at
all, it was the least favoured idea amongst them.

These were the survey responses I received, after getting this feedback I have
decided to greatly reduce the amount of time I spend on my own personal
experiences as to create a more production more suited to my audience. I still
need to include a little bit so I’m still complying with the specifications set by BBC
Three but not loads so it bores my audience.
One of the first things I did in my genre research was conduct a survey that asked
people in my target audience to decide what genre of documentary-making would
best suit my production. I presented them with the six styles of documentary making
and asked them to decide which one they thought most suited my production.

You can see that overwhelmingly my audience choose the reflexive style of
documentary making for my production. Reflexive documentaries focus on more of
truth whether it be factual based or anecdotal. Reflexive documentaries have a

good structure for presenting factual information using voice of god techniques or
piece to camera segments. They also can draw on emotional responses of the
audience with the relaxed interview methods, as the audience feel the conversation
is natural. There is not a large production team with the presenter, so I believed to
make mine most like the reflexive styles I’ve seen I would film and edit my production
on my own. This is to make the documentary seem as natural and unedited as
possible. I feel like my documentary converges with the reflexive documentary
conventions. I have piece to camera segments which I think successfully get factual
information across to my audience and I have relaxed interviews where my
interviewees open up so my audience can draw an emotional response.

I asked my survey if they thought my production was comparable to other reflexive

documentary makers like Nick Bromfield and Louis Theroux.
My survey responded that my production was in the likeness of these documentary
makers, I have only sent my survey to fellow media students, and they said I have
included techniques like deconstructive nature of reflexive factual programmes. The
purpose of these techniques is to convey naturalism, like the cameras have caught
the natural conversation or story. Reflexive documentaries put focus in-between the
real truth and the personal truth experienced by the interviewee. Albeit we are
doing very different documentaries in Nick Broomfield’s Aileen Wuornoss he uses
those deconstructive techniques. While in his he uses the footage to show the scope
of Aileen’s psychopathy, I am using mine to show case the human and real side of
being homosexual. We had similar set ups, Nick only used one camera posed on
Aileen throughout the documentary. It works for his programme as she is very
expressive with her face and you feel like she is sat right in front of you, this is too
make you feel uncomfortable. Where as in my production I have used close
proxemics to make the audience feel closer to my interviewee as I want them to
feel empathy and a connection to them. We have used similar techniques but the
different content makes for a different effect.

Out of the two productions that studied for genre research I would say mine bares its
closest resemblance to Stephen fry’s Out There. We both created our productions
with the goal of changing attitudes in regards to homosexuality. Whereas with Louis’s
documentary, he doesn’t try and persuade the viewer to agree with him, as he
remains a relatively neutral; he simply shows the truth from the perspective of the
interviewee or the subject and lets the audience make their own mind. This is not
what I wanted for mine, while I wouldn’t be militant in getting my point across I
wouldn’t a true neutral presenter. I also based the structure of my production loosely
on Stephen Fry’s factual programme, he goes back and forth between him
speaking to these proponents of homophobia and speaking to gay men or family
members of gay men who have been affected by homophobia. So in my
production I thought going back and forth in-between my piece to camera
segments and the interviews would be the most effective way to structure it. My
audience would get a balance of factual information and anecdotal stories, both
of which are important to the effectiveness of my productions goal to educate.
Stephen Fry’s demeanour as a presenter is also what I wanted to replicate, he puts
focus equally on factual information and human experience of himself and the
people he interviews.

I believe I have presented the factual information I acquired during my topic

research stage successfully in my factual programme. I think I wrote a script that I
took feedback on and improved upon that ended up being concise and cohesive
as I could. I could not get a lot of primary research on things like demographics as
homosexuality is a personal subject to people. So I have had to rely on secondary
research for my topic research.

This was bit of information that gave me a talking to start my documentary with, this
was an interesting point to start with as many people would’ve have even realised
that this sentiment is detrimental towards gay. This also give my documentary the
incentive to educate and inform.
This is a question I asked my survey after I showed them the most recent edit of my
documentary. I wanted to know if they actual thought the documentary was
engaging and if they remembered anything they learned. This was the most
important part of the documentary as my main goal was to inform and educate.
According to my survey I had achieved that with my production, it was well written
and easily understandable by my audience. Regardless of technical element faults
the main objectives of educating was reached.

The interviews were the part of my documentary that I wanted to draw on pathos
from my audience. I wanted to have two gay men that were in my target audience
age range as it would be easier for my audience to relate to those interviewees as
they were similar in age. I couldn’t get interviews with older gay men, these
would’ve been important to my documentary as they could’ve given a personal
account of living in the times of section 28 and greater hostility towards LGBT people.
However I believe that the interviews I did conduct were successful at presenting the
stories of the men I interviewed and giving an element of humanity to the topic I’m
discussing. My piece to camera segments are main structure of my production but it
can be phlegmatic and I’m not talking about feelings or experiences so it can feel
quite stale. The interviews give a break for the audience to be reminded these are
humans I’m talking about. I believe my interviews show the human side of being
homosexual well and can draw on the pathos of my audience.
These are responses from my audience after I showed them the most recent edit of
my factual programme. I had asked them where my production had emotional
value all the respondents that left comments said the interviews were where all the
emotional value laid. So I can deduce my interviewees made my documentary
more engaging with my audience and they also made the point of my
documentary stronger to my audience.

During my target audience research I found that my audience had different ideas
about what my production should be. I wanted my documentary to present both
sides of the argument on homosexuality, even if one side of the arguments are
discriminatory. I presented this segment amongst the others I planned to put into my
documentary to a survey and asked them to choose their most favoured and
disfavoured ones.

Here I have shown my survey the ideas I planned to include in my documentary.

The most disfavoured idea was the discussing whether homosexuality was
predisposed or a choice, It got the highest amount of dislikes amongst my ideas. I
wanted to include both sides to appear unbiased but I had rethink how I was going
to present the other side of the argument without upsetting my audience. I had to
cut back on how much time I would be spent on the topic and put more focus on
the more favoured ideas. I still have included arguments from the other side as the
talking points for my documentary.

Another issue I had was my interviewees; the two older gay men that I was supposed
to interview (one interview, one contingency) eventually just stopped
communicating with me.

I couldn’t even send emails to one of the potential interviewees email account
anymore, so I had to give up on the interviewing the older gay men and put more
focus on the interviews with the younger gay men.

This would’ve have been such an issue as If I had stuck to my production schedule I
would’ve had more time to organise a gay man to interview. But as I had fallen
behind schedule I had to make a decision to stop wasting energy trying to find
someone new and focus on the gay men I did have interviews with. If I had done
better to stick to my production schedule I would’ve had more time to sort out an
interview.

After my the first edited draft of my production I was told my teacher James that the
images and visuals I overlaid on my productions felt out of place and looked more
like a news reel than a factual programme. The static images also I felt made the
production staler and boring to my audience. Because my audience is a younger
demographic I have too constantly be visually engaging them.

These are screen shots from my second draft of my production when I had added
the visuals, I have just simply put the images on the time line while I am speaking on
the subject so my audience have a visual representation of what I’m discussing so
they follow easier. They were completely still and just my teacher said I need to
make them full screen to almost use them like b-roll. So in my next draft of my
production I when back onto the timeline to change the size of the image son the
screen and used the key framing to give the images motion. I feel like this bettered
my production as it made it more visually engaging and didn’t feel as static and
mundane.
These are the screen grabs of my editing timeline, here I have made the image
which was originally just in the corner of the frame to a massive full screen shot. This
makes it obvious to my audience this is what I am talking about and also breaks up
the visuals with this image and the motion I gave it using the key framing feature. This
will benefit my production as my audience will follow the narrative better and won’t
be as bored.

When I had started this course I had no prior knowledge of how to work a dslr
camera or how to work video and photo editing software. Over the last two years I
have worked to improve my skills not just in my chosen specialism but across all the
disciplines. My research and presentation skills have developed and improved over
the last two factual programmes I helped to make. More efficiently I can source
reputable and relevant information on my topic and condense it into readable
information that can be understood by my target audience of 16-24, and I can
construct the information into a cohesive script using the information I sourced. After
getting feedback from my teacher James he said my script was a good standard
and only needed minor adjustments. This will help in the profession I want to go into, I
want to study journalism at university. So I believe that creating a factual
programme was the best type of production to make as I could clearly show the
skills that I’ve learned on this course to the university and how they are applicable to
my higher education. I believe my practical skills have improved I went from not
knowing anything to being able to set up an interview or editing a whole music
video.
This is an excerpt from my documentary, I believe this a good typical standard
interview set up. I have my interviewee in the middle of the shot in focus, and I have
a corresponding background for him.

For my research I looked into two different productions, Louis Theroux’s The Most
Hated Family in America and Stephen Fry’s Out There! Both of these documentary
cover homosexuality; Louis’s covers the Westboro Baptist Church, the family that are
famous for picketing veterans funerals saying “God Hates Fags” and Stephen’s he
goes around the world tackling people who say homosexuality is wrong. In both
documentaries the presenters challenged the prejudices held by these people. They
both had very small camera teams mostly having one or two cameras, which is a
convention I have taken on. The aim of a small crew is to cause the least intrusion in
the subject’s lives. I feel like I was more able to have a conversion with my
interviewees and that resulted in more natural answers that I was happy with as it
was only me and the interviewee.

Another techniques is too have longer cuts for interviews and too see footage that
would’ve been cut out of a traditional documentary, which I have included in my
documentary. I have shown footage to of me starting the interview and laughing
with the subjects, the aim of this technique to present realism of the interviewee by
show the “imperfect” side of them. This helps the audience relate more strongly to
the interviews and better the emotional value of my production.

The major issue I have had throughout this course is my timekeeping and planning. I
went into this project with the mind-set that I will be better on timing. To combat this
and help me stick to schedule. I made a detailed production schedule that I had
planned to stick too.

However multiple issues with my topic, target audience and genre research set me
back, as well as issues getting interviewees for my documentary. I would make an
even more detailed production schedule and set out what I had to do for every
week so I would’ve know what I had to accomplish that week and get it finished. I
would’ve dedicated more time outside of lessons to work on my research to make
sure I finished before I was meant to begin filming. I would’ve put more attention on
my interviews as they are the most important part of my production in terms of
emotional value, so they would’ve been better set up and conducted. I still believe I
have created a documentary that successfully presents the information I gained in
my topic research in a manner that is easily understood by my target audience and
I managed to get emotional value on my production with my interviews with real
gay men.