We then included what we thought were important snippets of various interviews which particularly promote the idea of social networking and related crimes, this was then reinforced through the use of cut aways within our

opening montage.

Other than just in our opening montage, we also included expert interviews throughout our documentary, another convention we choose to follow as it means we could get professional opinions on the topic we were exploring.

Detective inspector Neil Thompson. Police officer for the west midlands police was able to give us facts and statistics on the crime rate in Solihull and whether these crimes, are related

to social networking.

This is similar in regards of the professional interview taken from the documentary SuperSize me. The doctor is able to give professional viewpoints and explanations, something vox pops

are not able too do and a typical convention we expect within documentaries.

Another area in the documentary whereby we followed the conventions of real life media products was the framing of our interviews, after watching various other documentaries, it appears that a convention was framing the interviewee to one side and having an area of dead space whereby the interviewee is looking across to the side but not directly into the camera. As well as this appropriate mis-en-scene was essential in order to make the interview look as professional as possible, for example when interviewing detective inspector Neil Thompson we visited the police station and insured that it was made obvious that he worked for the police, through having the computer screen in his office on the west midland police site. The framing was an extremely important aspect of filming our footage in order to bring the viewers attention to the subject.In this professional interview you can see the framing and the dead space is similar to how we have framed our interviews with

experts.

In order to improve our documentary, the framing of our vox pops were not perfect, although this may not give a sense of professionalism, we gain a sense of realism as the vox pops were not set up. Students simply gave their honest opinions through the opportunity sample we took from the 6th form college.

Despite this, by looking at vox pops which were taken professional, there were only slight differences.

Appropriate mis-en-scene

Medium close up shot

Sat on one side of the camera

accompanied by dead space

Appropriate mis-en-scene

Framed to the side

Horizontal line, space above the interviewees head know as

headroom. Takes up most of frame to show the importance of

the subject.

Another convention we followed was including a caption of the name of the experts we interviewed. This is a typical convention we saw in every documentary we had watched and analysed, it serves the purpose of informing the viewer who is actually being interview, what their profession is so therefore we are able to understand more clearly what they are discussing during the interview. For example, Media expert Jayson Burns discusses in his opinion whether he feels the media and related technology has an effect on crime and the way it is presented and interpreted. If the name and profession was not given then the viewers may not understand the content of the interview. So essentially, this convention is used for practical reasons.

Here you can see, similarly with the professional interview taken from BBC news and the interview taken from our

documentary, both include captions to introduce the interviewee to the viewers.

We included a sound bed, which we kept loud during the opening montage however we dipped the sound levels during the interviews as we didn’t want the music to drown out the interviews itself so, keeping the volume low during these points allowed a professional finish. The music we decided on was up beat which fitted in with the fast paced opening montage and also fitted with the heated topic and emphasises the nature of technology in terms of how it moves quickly and provokes both positive and negative effects.

In terms of following conventions to produce a professional looking documentary sound levels were also important. We had to insure all sound, not just the voice over and music but the sound levels from the interviews and vox pops we had recorded were normalised so that they remained balanced throughout the documentary.

Following the conventions of a documentary, we included a voice over which was featured throughout the documentary; during the opening montage and in cut aways especially. It allowed us as film makers to speak directly to the viewers and offer further information about the content of the documentary. For example the facts and statistics to the left were read out through the use of a voice over. The voice over itself is clear and slow paced so it was easy to understand, however, in order to gain this clear voice over it meant that we had to record it on more than one occasion. We decided on a female voice for our documentary as we felt as though our documentary was mainly male dominated with all expert interviews being males. As well as this, due to the fact that within our group we were all female, using a group member to record our voice over seemed the most appropriate and convenient option to take.

Once we had the voice over recorded we had to crop sections and place them where appropriate on the timeline, for instances during the opening of the documentary or over cut aways.

Taken from Supersize me, facts and statistics are shown on screen which anchors the voiceover. You can see the similarities between the two. This shows how in this area we followed the conventions as opposed to challenging them.

In terms of our radio trailer, we used the software garage band on the apple macs. We did various research into the typical conventions of a radio trailer. We firstly researched what radio station we were actually going to broadcast our radio trailer on, and once this had been established we analysed exemplar radio trailers so we could get an idea of the conventions that arise in professional radio trailers. In particular, we analysed radio trailers taken from BBC radios as this is the radio station we planned to broadcast our documentary.

In terms of codes and conventions of a radio trailer, we thought it would be best to follow them as opposed to challenge them. We wanted to keep the radio trailer simple, clean cut and professional. We found that most radio trailers contain some kind of backing music, a voice over and clips that promote what is being advertised along with details of when

the product being advertised will be released/broadcasted.

We took snippets from our interviews and vox pops which we thought conveyed the most important points of the documentary. We thought it would be a good idea to use the same voice over in the radio trailer that we had used in our documentary as this highlights the idea of continuity. Again, our voiceover was clear and easy to understand. Recording the voice over involved a similar process to recording the voice over for the documentary, we firstly placed the voice over into final cut before transferring it to garage band.

Examples of radio trailer analysis which highlight the conventions of a radio trailer.

Examples of who we took the snippets from in terms of expert interviews for the us of our radio trailer.

Drive time would be an ideal time to broadcast our documentary, this includes the breakfast show and the actual radio show drive time as this is when our target audience would listen to the radio the most. The times are also appropriate as we would want the show to be advertised just before it is actually broadcasted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/

We knew backing music was a typical convention of radio trailers, we noticed the type and amount of backing music used depended on what was being promoted and also the radio station it is being broadcasted on. So essentially a typical convention was choosing appropriate music which linked with what was being promoted.

We used different music in our radio trailer to what we did in our documentary, this could therefore be an area in which we could improve on if we were to redo our radio trailer as using the same music as we did during our documentary would strengthen the idea of continuity.

Radio 2 does not have advertisements like some stations do so in terms of broadcasting our radio trailer, it would not feature during the advertisements, but instead be featured in a similar sort of way to newsbeat on radio 1.

A final convention of a radio trailer is their duration, you don’t tend to get radio trailers longer than 50-60 seconds. We faded our radio trailer out at approximately 40 seconds.

You can see from listening to these professional radio trailers that we picked the main conventions

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/

I researched various magazine articles from the magazine radio times as we wanted our article to look professional and follow the conventions of not just of a general magazine article but a radio times article. When researching the magazine articles we found they appeared to be mainly picture orientated, therefore planning and drafting was essential in producing an article which fitted the conventions.

I kept the house style simple and consistent which is similar to that of a radio times article, as you can see from the doctor who article taken from radio times the colour scheme isn’t loud and in your face, however due the fact that the

article is mainly picture orientated, it still catches the readers attention which is a convention I tried to apply to our article.

I made a brief draft of the magazine article in order to help me when coming to actually producing the magazine.

Mainly picture orientated, I made some images look like

snap shots, similar to the radio times article as this

makes it look less formal and more attractive to the reader.

Stand first, common convention in magazine

articles, gives a brief introduction to what the rest of

the article will be about.Drop cap, makes the article

stand out

Sub headings, give an indication to what that section

of the article is about.

Attractive title of article, anchors the rest of the article and immediately catches the audiences

attention

By line, another common convention in magazine

articles.

Page numbers used for practical reasons

Pull quote taken from article

Flashes, used to promote certain aspects of the article or include information.