1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Codes and Conventions in media:

The codes and conventions in media can be separated into 3
distinct groups -
- Technical (camera techniques & shots),
- Symbolic (ie clothing, colours)
- Written and audio (music etc).
These give the text meaning and determine the response of the
viewer. They can be used as a basis for simple text analysis. So
in order to compose any work related to media you should con

As a group we produced a documentary on what we thought

teenagers our age would want to learn about and would be
interested to watch a programme on. We gathered our thoughts
and ideas together and came up with a number of different topics
which we thought were a good idea. We then came to a final
decision and decided to base it on ‘how celebrities in the media
effect the teenage society today’. And then came up with the title
name ‘Me, Myself and the Media’. We then decided that screening our
documentary ‘Me, Myself and the Media’ on Channel 4 was the right move.
After researching we recognized that Channel 4 have shown roughly about
618 documentaries of all different topics, targeted to all different ages and
genders which is why we thought this was relevant.
(http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tags/documentaries)Like in a real
documentary we organised interviews; a makeup artist and professional
hairdresser, we used a variety of camera shots, used different sounds;
diagetic and non- diagetic.

After watching some previous documentaries I feel that channel 4

documentary ‘the modelling agency’ was one that we felt was similar and
based ours like. It reflects how young girls who are models act and how they
are under pressure to look a certain way and stay a certain size. This
programme is shown on Channel 4 at 9pm.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-model-agency/4od
Our group

As you can see, we are a group of teenage girls all

age 17 who wanted to have fun and enjoy creating
this documentary. We all have similar interests when
it comes to hair, makeup and celebrity icons we all
want to be like, but when it comes to hobbies we all
have different interests. We had to come about
making the documentary very carefully and really
think about the codes and conventions we could use,
develop or challenge.

One of the ‘Code and Conventions’ in media is ‘technical’ which is why we

had to think about different shot types and technical shots, this includes; close
ups, mid close ups, extreme close ups, long shots, low angle shots, high
angle shots, establishing shots, panning shots and more.

Thinking about all these different shot types is key in a documentary. After
analysing three documentaries I recognized the variety of shots which were
used and understand why you need to use them. With our target audience
being teenage girls, we know from experience that looking at the same thing
over and over again can be repetitive and make you want to switch off. By
mixing it up it becomes less boring and more interesting for the audience.

Close up shots; having a close up shot in

a documentary is important, it shows the
importance of the image you are showing
and you a stating a main idea to the
audience you are portraying your
documentary too. Within our documentary
we show it on a number of different
occasions, such as showing a girl typing
on a computer and a girl putting on her
makeup. We used a close up shot in a
documentary to show the main title of the film, we thought this was very
important so the audience could see the documentary title.

Mid- close up shots; within a documentary mid-close up

shots are shown frequently, they can be used within an
interview or just to show the audience an image. It is
usually an image of the head to the shoulders. It allows
the audience to see a small amount of mise-en-scene for
example seeing the outfit the person is wearing.
Establishing shot; establishing shots can be used
within a documentary for the audience to see the
location of where you are or a certain image related
to your topic. We used establishing shots before
going into our interviews at ‘Simon & Paul’ and ‘Space NK’.

Birds-eye view shot; we used this birds-eye view

shot to show the variety of magazines with
different celebrities in the media on. This type of
shot shows status and importance and we
wanted to show the status and important which
celebrities have on the front of magazines.

Long Shot; a long shot is useful to show people walking and give people a
sense of mise-en-scene, such as location
and outfit choices. We used a long shot
here of people walking inside one of UK’s
largest shopping centres ‘Bullring’.

Panning shot; I have converted this image into a still

image, it was taken as we were doing a ‘pan shot’ of
the makeup shop, ‘Space NK’.

Another ‘Code and Convention’ within media is symbolic, this includes; mise-
en-scene, the clothes your actors and actresses wear, the colours they
choose and how there hair is styled.

When thinking about the ‘symbolic’ part of your media documentary you want
people to believe the actors and actresses within your documentary are
comfortable and believable.
Symbolic; this image which has been taken from our
documentary shows ‘Jessica’ sitting on her bed
reading a magazine. She is dressed trendy in just a
plain white t-shirt and grey leggings with a big flower in her hair, this shows
her ‘girly’ side and she is not wearing anything that no one else can not buy.

The last main ‘Code and Convention’ within media is written and audio. This
includes the music you use, the diagetic and non diagetic sound and the voice
over within your documentary. It is also about the text you use in your
documentary.

Thinking about all this for your documentary is key. You have to allow your
music to fit in with your documentary, for example you cant have ‘heavy metal’
music unless it links in with your documentary. It was a difficult task finding
the write music to fit in with our documentary as we were limited in choice as it
had to be ‘copy write free’. Writing the script for the voice over was also
challenging. We had to make it interesting for our target audience, say
relevant things and make sure our facts and statistics we state are correct.

Creating our Voice Over; on the majority of the

documentaries I have analysed having a voice
over has been vital. The voice over helps create a
story, it can also share facts and statistics which
are key, however you have to make it short to the
point so young teenagers watching it do not get
bored.

Background music; having background

music playing quietly within a documentary
is a necessity, it give the documentary the
right mood. You can have a number of
different music choices in the background.
You have to make sure the music fits into
your documentary and is relevant to yours.

Text; this is a convention within the meida. After analysing the documentary I
found that when they are interviewing someone text in the corner appears
stating; who they are and what their profession is. I thought this was key when
making a documentary because whether you are using a famous person who
everyone knows or someone in their profession who no-one knows it shows
the importance of that person by putting their name.
 Statistics; having statistics in a documentary is
also a convention. You need to supply your
audience with true facts and figures so they can be
surprised and pleased with the information you
have given them. Giving false statistics can lead to
big problems within the media today. For example
within our documentary we stated that
‘Supermodel, Kate Moss was reportedly given
three million pound just to make a new range for Topshop’.

Ident; it does not matter what channel you are

showing a documentary on, whether its ‘E!’, ‘ITV’ or
‘Channel 4’ an ident is always shown before the
documentary is about to start. As well as showing
the professional side to the documentary, it lets the
audience know what channel they are watching and
usually a voice over appears to introduce the
audience to the specific documentary they are about to watch.

Codes and Conventions for the Radio Trailer;

The radio trailer has its own code and conventions which are slightly different
to the documentaries. You have to take into account; the radio station you
choose to put your radio trailer on, who you are targeting your documentary
too and what you are going to include in your radio trailer.

As a group we took into account the different local radio stations that there are
which we could put our radio trailer on; ‘Galaxy’, ‘BRMB’ and ‘Heart FM’ with
the three main radio stations teenagers our age listen to. We decided that
BRMB is the type of station that would our radio trailer as it fits in to their type
of music. We had to remember we were focusing on young teenagers and
wanted to make sure that came across.
(http://www.brmb.co.uk/)
Music for our trailer; after listening to a number of different radio trailers we
found that they all had an upbeat beat of music behind the voices in their
trailers. This is a radio trailer convention. It has to be appropriate to your
documentary. You need to make sure the music does not over shadow the
voice over though. The same beat is used throughout.

Who Speaks; on the different radio trailers we heard as a group we noticed

that either two women spoke or a man and a women, it was never to men. As
an all female group we decided to use to women. We had the voice over from
the documentary and the presenter. This is a key convention within the radio
trailer media. By using two different people it breaks up the tone of the radio
trailer so it is not monotone by the same voice throughout.

Length; It is a key convention that radio trailers need to be short and to the
point. Our lasted 26 seconds, the ones we listened to ranged between 25-35
seconds.

Addiontional clips; in all radio trailers there is a small clip from the
documentary. This gives the audience you are targeting your documentary at
a ‘sneak peak’ of what kind of thing will be in your documentary. It needs to be
picked carefully as you do not want to give too much away but want to make it
very interesting and appealing to watch.

Our final script;

 Codes and Conventions for the Listings Page

For a listings page there are many key code and conventions to be aware of.
You need to make sure your listings page is clear, you need clear font for your
audience to be able to read easily. You need images which make it fun to look
at and not too serious and you need to state what the documentary is about.

As a group we enjoyed creating our listings page. We took into account

everything which the code and conventions said we had to include. We
included page numbers and stated which newspaper it was in.

Each stage of our listings page.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At  each stage of our listings page we did something different to make it look more
like a real listings page. At stage one, we already included a large bold fun title to
 
make it stand out. At stage two, we have a large quotation in bold to make it stand
 
out, we had seen this in previous listings pages before and in stage three we set up
 
columns and added our images and page numbers in t make it completely like a
 
real documentary.
 
 
 
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary task?
We created 5 minutes documentary opening and two ancillary
products (a listings page and radio trailer) in order to advertise the
documentary. Throughout we were aware of the need to create a
‘brand identity’- that is all three products must be clearly connected, we
insured we did this in a range of ways which included, the same title, same
content from the programme, same target audience, same title and same
purpose; our purpose primarily was to explore the influence of the media on
teenage girls.
Immediate brand identity is clearly shown below:
The radio trailer and the listings page were both made by the group the sell
the documentary, ‘Me, Myself and the Media’ to our target audience; teenage
girls.

The radio trailer, was produced by the group on the programme ‘garage
band’. Here we had to promote our documentary in 30 seconds, where we
had to include the channel, time, a small snip it from our documentary and
where else they could watch this. By doing this we were promoting our
documentary and feeding the audience information which they should know
about our documentary.

The listings page, was produced by the group on the programme ‘In Design’.
Like the radio trailer we were promoting our documentary in a visual way. As
teenagers we know that it is better to have less words and more images,
which is what we made sure we had. We had to be certain we had the same
information as the radio trailer, describing the time, channel and title other
wise it would not work.

Both our radio trailer and our listings page 
show that our documentary is on at the 
same time and same channel. This is part of 
‘code and conventions’. 

Before we started creating our radio trailer we listened to professional ones,

we found that they were a vital part of advertising for our documentary. We
know that young teenagers are constantly listening to the radio to listen to see
if any ‘good programmes’ are going to be on. We
did not want to make it too long as we did not want
to put people off.
With the listings page, I was not entirely sure on what to include as personally
I had not seen a professional listings page which advertises documentaries. I
then learnt that like the radio trailer it was also a big part of the documentary.
It lets our target audience what they are going to be seeing and what the
documentary is going to be about. .

If I was to pick how we would advertise our documentary I would have

definatly chosen a social network, such as facebook, as there are over 500
million active facebook users. It would be a great
way to advertise our documentary on a high
professional level.
 
 
 
 
 
 
3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The aim of our documentary was to explore how

‘the celebrities in the media are effecting teen
society’. With our target audience being mainly
female dominant with ages 14-18 we wanted to
make sure it was fun an interesting for our
audience to watch. We took into account where
we would be streaming our documentary, which
we decided channel 4 we knew we have to make
it in a similar ways to how other channel 4
documentaries had been streamed. Both of
these images, the image of our group (above)
and the image of this teenage group (right) show
the type of audience we are aiming our
documentary to.

To allow a solid and truthful audience feedback we got the rest of our media
group who are all teenagers between 17-18, male and female and all different
ethnicity to analyse our documentary. We knew this feedback would be vital
for us, whether it was critical or positive as it gave us an indication to what
kind of feedback we would be getting from everyone.
These images show our target audience viewing our documentary. By doing
this we are gaining key feedback from our documentary and is a valid part of
our audience research. After viewing the documentary we asked our target
audience who viewed our documentary to answer a small questionnaire about
it. With it being filled out annominasley it gave our audience an opportunity to
be honest about what they thought.

how w ould you rate this doucm entary?

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Excellent Very Good Good Satisfactory Poor

This bar chart shows how our media group, who we would aim our
documentary at rated the overall documentary. We are very pleased with what
our results show.
 Excellent Very Good Satisfactory Poor
Good
The choice of topic IIII IIIII II I
for TV

Shoot/Filming of III IIIII I II I

appropriate material

Editing so viewer II III IIIII II

can understand what
is happening
Using sound and I IIIII IIIII I
music appropriately

Using effects such I IIIII IIIII I

as
transitions/captions
Appropriateness for IIIII I IIIII I
target audience

Professionalism/how IIIII III III I

well does it compare
with real TV
documentaries

STREGNTHS

9 Varied frames- interviews

9 The use of different facilities
9 Professional shots used
9 Good used of transitions
9 Many teenage girls can relate to it
9 The background music was very relevant to the
documentary
9 The content made the documentary interesting
9 It was fast paced and very fluent
9 Voice over was very clear with what she was saying
9 The statistics were key

WEAKNESSES

X Improve the sound editing with music

X Making sure the camera is not shown in the video
X Better use of font colours when shown on screen to be clearer
X Make sure sound levels are all the same
X Used a voice over as well as facts on screen
X Not have music all the way through
After getting our feedback we took into account everything our target
audience who viewed our documentary said. I agree with what they all said. I
believe that we should have used clearer writing at the end of our
documentary when showing our facts and have the voice over to be saying
them as well as them being shown on screen. If we were to re-do it again I
would include what the target audience suggested as it is very valid.

If we were to re-do our target audience and repeat it I would use a larger
sample of our target audience. This way we could have a broader feedback
and more ideas to help develop our documentary. I would also pick another
audience group because the group that watched our documentary are all A2
media students, if we asked non A2 media students to watch our
documentary they may have different opinions on our documentary.
 
 
 
4) How did you use media technologies in the research and planning,
construction and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning;

Blog- For part of our research and planning we had to use a blog
(www.blogger.com). (user name; mediastudentc10@gmail.com, password;
camelc10, group C02) This blog allowed us to upload every bit of research
and planning we carried out before we started our documentary. The blog had
to be clear, with still images and moving images. The blog also allowed us to
show off our ITC and media skills off. Having never used a blog before, I
learnt a lot from it. I liked the fact you did not have to write essays and just
show your work visually.

This is how simple it was to upload an

image onto our blog. We could pick the
size, the position and angle it was at.

This shows what the blog

looks like after uploading
an image.
Google- We used Google on a number of occasions,
whether it was to find out some facts and figures to be in
our documentary or whether it was to get an image to
use for our blog itself.

Channel 4- Before knowing that we would choose to display our documentary

on channel 4, we used channel 4 to explore different documentaries, we had
to do this to get the right documentary code and conventions for our own.

On the channel 4 website there is a

clear direction showing a page for all
the documentaries which made it a
lot easier for our group.

Once knowing that we were going to be showing our

documentary on channel 4 we had to use the
website to get the channel 4 ident.

You Tube- You tube is a well known site across the

world so everyone in our group knew had to use
this. We used you tube a few different times, we
used it to explore different documentaries and to get
a few different clips to add into our documentary
such as a clip of Rihanna and a brief ‘make-up
tutorial’ to show that teenagers have no excuse not
to wear makeup nowadays.
Moodle- With moodle being our ‘college intranet’ we knew we were going to
be able to use this. On moodle we found students previous works, different
radio trailers and listings pages so it could help with our own. We also knew
we could find useful information, such as information about code and
conventions.

This shows each

stage of ‘moodle’ to
get onto the main
section of previous A2
documentary blogs.
This helped us as a
group get ideas for
our own

Comic Life- We used comic life to put on

our blog. We took 9 still images form our
documentary that we thought would sum
our documentary up. Having never used
comic life before we found it easy to use
and very simple. We were able to upload
an image and write a small clip about what that image shows. This helps
people who are just reading our blog and not watching our documentary to get
an idea of what our documentary is about.

This allowed us to pick the format

we want before starting to create
our 9 images.

We selected this format to

use for our 9 images as it
was an easy layout for us to
put our pictures in and write
a short description about
them.
Digital Technology;

Digital Cameras- Being able to use a digital camera helped us in

our documentary and for our blog. It allowed us to take images of
anything we felt was relevant to our documentary. It was the easy
to upload our images to the computer after we had taken them.

Video Cameras- Using a video camera enabled us to film our

whole documentary. We were able to hand hold it to use different
effects such as a pan shot, or use a tri-pod to make it still whilst
recording an interview. We found it challeneging as a group putting
the tri-pod up, but did manage! It was simple to upload our
recordings to the computer after.

Apple Macs- Apple Macs allowed us to complete our whole

documentary. With all the new software on it; Comic Life, Final Cut
Express and Photoshop we were able to produce our documentary.
Whilst using the apple macs I was able to improve my ICT skills
and learn new things which I hadn’t learnt before but I will need in
later life.

Programmes;

Final Cut Express- This allowed us to produce and create our documentary.
We were able to do different things to help us finish it;

Log And Transfer; By using ‘log and transfer’ we were able to upload all our
filming from that day onto final cut express and watch the bits we wanted to
watch, we were then able to ‘add it to cue’ by this we were selecting the
appropriate filming which we were going to use in our documentary. We were
able to write a small description about what that clip included to remind us.
 After uploading our filming we
click ‘log and transfer’ and all our
clips appear like this on final cut
express.

This ‘add to cue’ button

allowed us to select the
appropriate filming to
our main sequence.

This allowed us to write a

brief description about
the clip we had just
added to our cue to
remind us what was in
that clip so we did not
have to keep re-watching
it.

In and Out; After selecting what clip we wanted to use and edit for our
documentary we were able to use and ‘in and out’ button, this allowed us to
just use a small clip from our documentary incase we did not want the whole
clip.

This shows an image of

us selecting where we
want to show the start of
this clip and the end. This
way we do not need to use
bits of the clip we don’t
need or want to use.
Transitions; We were able to use different transitions to show one clip to the
next. We know from previous documentaries that we have analysed that the
transitions aren’t used loads and are not too different.

This shows where we have used

transitions in our documentary to
go from one clip to the next to try
and make it flow more.

Cutaways; This allowed us to show moving images but cut a bit of the sound
away. We used this when Jessica was putting on her makeup. We did not
want talking in the background or sound that was not needed. All we had to
do was upload the sound and clip together and delete the sound.

This shows where

we have used a
cutaway. We deleted
the sound which was
not needed.

As well as being able to do all of that on final cut express, we were also able
to do things such as, add text to show who we were interviewing or to show
facts and figures on screen, we were able to add sound and we were able to
convert moving images into stills if we wanted. I found this programme
challenging but after persevering I was able to get along with using final cut
express on my own and can now use it if needed.
 Garage Band- We used this programme to produce our radio trailer. To start
with I found it challenging to use but finally got the hang of it. Being in charge
of the radio trailer let me learn new skills when using this programme. After
recording the scrip to the radio trailer I was able to upload it all to garage band
and pick which clips I wanted to use.

This is the clip we

recorded and added
to our radio trailer.

This allowed us to
change the sound This was sound we selected
levels of the radio from i-tunes to be played
trailer. We may have throughout our radio trailer.
wanted some parts to We had to pick sound that
be louder then others fitted into our documentary
for emphasis. and would not be louder then
the voice over.

Photoshop and In Design- Having already used Photoshop and In

Design before we were able to produce our listings page in a short space
of time. By using In Design we were able to set our page up in colomons to
make it look like a real listings page. We could change the colour of our
writing and font by using ‘swatches’. We used Photoshop to edit our
images we took for our radio trailer. We had to cut out the background so it
was just plain white to make it look more professional.
 We were able to change the
font of our title to make it
more fun and fit in with our
documentary theme.

We set our listings page up

with colomns by using In
Design to allow our listings
page to look professional.
We had to use Photoshop to
delete the background off from
our original picture. This makes
it look more professional. On
our pictures we also added a
drop shadow to add some

Scribd- I am now going to use the programme ‘scribd’ to upload my final

evaluation onto my blog.