Final Production

Documentary



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1.In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge codes and conventions of real media products?

2.How effective is the combination of your main product and both ancillary texts?

Final 2

View more presentations from tillywhale.

3. What have I learnt from the audience feedback?

The overall feedback we got was that they liked the fact we got in touch with the right kind of people "seek ed medical advice from a credited NHS nurse" "manager of a coffee shop". The documentary was "quite easy to watch" because of the narrative structure and the voice over "sounded like he was excited about talking about coffee" and that he also sounded like he himself had drank plenty of coffee!. From our audience feedback it was obvious that the overall sound quality wasn't too good and that this area could have been improved. I was fed back that when using the blue screen the tape had a blip so to watch it was a bit distracting to concentrate on the content. The title montage of the girl making a cup of coffee, this footage appears to be a bit shaky and made the whole sequence low in quality, this could have been overcome by making sure the tripod was fully secure before starting to film. Some of the constructive criticism was that in the nurse's interview and the coffee worker the framing wasn't the best it could have been and the mis en scene wasn't entirely relevant.

I further posted my documentary on facebook to gain some more feedback. Below is a picture of the comments I received.

The majority of people said that it looked very professional. A few people said we actually taught and informed them of something they did not know before, which is a role that documentaries should fulfill. The feedback included the fact that the sound was too quite, again this is something that we could improve and make better. One of the people commented on the use of voice over script and said that he asked a rhetorical question which he was actually wondering at the time. On a whole I have learnt that we should have sorted out the sound quality and quality of blue screen footage.

Here are a few graphs conducted from the rating questions and what I learnt from these;

4.How I used media tecnologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages.

How I used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. on Prezi

Documentary As Task

We watched two documentaries "Teeth of jaws" and "The Simpson's 20th anniversary...on ice". From watching these documentaries I learnt some of the main codes and conventions.

We then proceeded to film an interview about mobile phones for a documentary.

Planning

First we had to figure out the general aim of the interview. Which we decided on how teenagers rely heavily on their mobile phones. We planned out 10 questions for the interview and where it would take place. We did not plan where to do the cutaways as it is hard to make the cutaways relevant before if you film them before the actual interview.

Filming

We were issued with the equipment we needed and then went to film the interview outside. We decided to change the initial location to inside in front of the blue screen due to the weather conditions. We had to make sure that when the interviewee was answering the questions that he answered in full sentences so when the questions are edited out the answer still makes sense. We then filmed a few relevant cutaways of people texting, playing games and generally using their phones.

Editing

When editing we dealt with the questions by editing them out and leaving the answers using simple cuts. We used fades on the audio to avoid jumps and used a few cutaways over some of the jumps. We hadn't filmed enough cutaways so in the end we used some still images from the Internet.

Evaluation

If we were to do this task again we would have to think more carefully about the appropriate location of filming and filmed more relevant cutaways. We could use a background which contains mis en scene related to mobile phones instead of leaving the blue screen in.

Documentary Notes

What is a documentary?

John Grierson first used the description "documentary" in 1926 to describe his film about South Sea Island. The definition used by him "The creative treatment of actuality".

Documentaries can be objective and present unbiased facts in a creative way of capturing the reality: or subjective like many modern documentaries that present individual stories much like current affairs programs.

Documentaries are used to: inform people of what they have the right to know, change their opinions on subjects and they can even be powerful enough to change laws and businesses.

The five central elements of documentaries
1. Observation -When the camera is ignored, it intends the audience to believe they are eye witness to the portrayal of realities.
2. Interview -Documentaries rely on interviews, they can either be uncut; where the interview is allowed to be uninterrupted or inter cut; where bits of the interview are selected and edited with cut aways.
3. Dramatisation -This gives the documentary sense of drama through observation. Everything is to occur naturally in front of a camera, this increases the audiences’ involvement. Re enactments are used which are 'based on fact'
4. Mis en scene -The documentary maker uses what already is present and creates the shot so it contains relevant scenery.
5. Exposition -This is the line of the argument the documentary engages with. The exposition is what the documentary is attempting to get across to the audience.
Types of Documentaries
• Fully narrated - Voice overs are used throughout to make sense of visuals.
• Fly on the wall -The camera is hidden and films real events as they happen.
• Mixed documentary - Combination of interviews, observations, archive material and a narrator.
• Self reflective -The subjects are aware of the camera. Subjects usually talk directly to the camera crew.
• Docudrama -Staged re enactments as they are supposed to have happened due to facts of an event.
• Docusoaps -Combination of documentary and soap opera.
Structure of Documentaries
• Open -Not concluded at the end, leaving questions open.
• Closed -All answers are concluded by the end.
• Linear- Follows a chronological order.
• Non Linear -Features things such as flash backs and flash forwards.
• Circular- The documentary ends with the same idea as it started with.
Planning a Documentary
Voxpops
Street interviews edited so the answers from same question are strung together.
Construction of reality
A documentary is made with a conclusion known from the beginning, before filming. The interviews and answers are edited to give a sense of realism.
Visuals
Things such as: mis en scene and types of shots (mid/close) all add different meanings and give the documentary ability to interpretation. Shots are kept short to keep interest.
Interviews
Have related mis en scene usually an authorial figure to kept audience interested.