In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

By Ellie Barter

Introduction

For our advanced media portfolio we had to crate the opening 5 minutes of a documentary, a double page spread for a TV listing of the documentary and a radio advert advertising the documentary. Me and my group decided to do a documentary about the relationship between teenagers and sport as we all had links with sport so we could easily get expert opinions, for example my uncle is a boxing coach and we used him as one of our experts. As a group we had to get our own footage and edit it then record the audio for the radio advert and create the double page spread. All of our products had the same target audience (parents of teenagers – specifically white middle aged mothers) and secondary audience (teenagers – specifically between 15 and 19).

As we have now completed these products we need to evaluate not only the products themselves but how we created them and think of nay improvements. To begin, I’m going to evaluate how well my media products use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of actual documentaries, double page spreads for documentaries and radio adverts for documentaries.

Documentary

In our documentary we relied heavily on archival footage because it was difficult to get live action sports clips as we could only film when there was a match of a lesson. We used archival footage of Tom Daley in the Olympics and a boxing match at Hall Green Boxing Club. Similarly the documentary Blackfish also relied heavily on archival footage as most of the footage that they wanted to use was from the past, for example they used footage from a news article a few years before of the trainer that was killed. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of using archival footage.

In our documentary we used a song named ‘willy wallbanger’ for our background music. Background music is important in a documentary as it keeps the audience interested and keeps up the pace as without it, the documentary would be very boring. Blackfish also use background music however the music they use is far more serious as the topic is far more serious. We did follow the convention of background music matching the theme of the documentary as our topic wasn’t completely serious and due to the many montages of sports clip we needed music that was fast and upbeat. Therefore this shows how we developed the conventions as we still used music however we decided to use more upbeat music.

Documentary

In our documentary, we used many montages of sports clips and archival footage as we didn’t have a presenter, Blackfish did a similar thing as they did not use a presenter either as it would distract from the main issue. Blackfish also use montages (for example montages of the trainers with the orca’s) as it was also difficult for them to get original footage, therefore we used this convention.

For our documentary we decided to use a narrator instead of a presenter as we felt that it was more suited to our theme and if we didn’t have presenter we could have more sport montages and archival – like Blackfish. Blackfish didn’t have a presenter either however they didn’t have a typical narrator as they used a typewriter to introduce the next scenes which was very creative however we did not feel that this was suited for our documentary. However Blackfish also used a voiceover from their interviews, for example when interviewing some of the previous trainers they would show archival over their voices, we did the same thing for our documentary. For example while interviewing our expert Thomas Chaney we showed footage of the boxing gym that we filmed at. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of a voiceover and developed the convention of a narrator as we used a voice rather than text on a screen.

Documentary

In Blackfish they used expert interviews to reinforce the point that they were making, for example they were interviewing the previous trainers of the orcas and the old whale capturers to give both sides of the story (people who experienced the whales in and out of captivity). We decided to follow this idea by giving expert opinions from those who work inside and outside of the educational system in terms of physical education (we interviewed a boxing coach who never worked in the school system and then we interviewed a p.e teacher). Therefore this shows how we used the convention of having expert opinions.

Blackfish followed a linear narrative as their plot is in chronological order from when the orca’s were captured leading up to the death of the trainer and the aftermath of her death. This narrative makes the documentary easier to follow as it appears more like a story. We decided to conform to this convention and follow a linear narrative in our documentary, we start out with question of whether education is more important than sport which then led through the expert opinions and voxpops however unlike Blackfish we decided to have an open narrative and leave an open conclusion as we felt it was better to let the audience make their own decision whereas Blackfish made the audience agree that orca’s should be freed and that keeping them in captivity was wrong, therefore this shows how we developed the conventions from this real product.

Documentary

After watching Blackfish we decided to follow their subtle use of mis en scene, when interviewing their experts the use the background to reinforce an idea. For example one of their experts (Lori Marino, a neuroscientist) has what appears to be a library behind her, this has been done to make her appear smarter and therefore make her opinion more valid and reliable. We decided to follow this convention in our documentary, when we interviewed our boxing coach we made sure that the boxing ring could be seen behind him. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of mis en scene when interviewing subjects.

The mode of Blackfish is expositional due to its logical arrangement and its use of the preferred reading however we decided that we did not want to use this mode and therefore challenged this convention. We decided to follow the informative mode as we felt that this was more suited as we weren’t trying to persuade the audience, we wanted to inform them of the issue and let them make their own decision on the matter. Therefore this shows how we challenged conventions as we didn’t use an expositional mode.

Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread

After seeing this double page spread for The Vampire Diaries we decided that the placing of the heading was very effective in the top left corner and therefore we decided to follow this and use it in our own documentary. We decided that this was best as it is more visually pleasing to the audience to have the article and the heading on the same page. We also followed the idea of having the words to appear different but still a similar font, for example for our documentary we keep the handwriting font but change the colours of words whereas the real DPS had the word ‘Blood’ in bold but the word ‘brothers’ in a regular font to make the words stand out as they contrast each other. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of having the heading in the top left of the page.

Another convention that we used from this DPS is having the article on one side of the page rather than spanning over the two pages, this makes the article appear smaller so therefore the audience is more likely to read it and there is more spaces for images which makes the whole DPS more visually appealing. Therefore we decided to use this convention in our own DPS. This therefore shows how we used the convention of having the article on one page.

Double Page Spread

For our double page spread we decided to use actual quotes from the documentary in the article (‘it helps to stimulate the mind and keep the body in good shape’ said by our expert Brenda Yeates). The real DPS of ‘The Vampire Diaries’ does a similar thing however instead of using actual quotes from the show they use quotes from actors and critics so that the audience get an understanding of how well rated the show is before they invest their time into watching it. Therefore this shows how we developed conventions as instead of using quotes from critics we used quotes from the documentary as we thought that this would give the audience a better idea of what the documentary is all about.

After looking at this real DPS and various other, I thought that it was a good idea to follow the convention is displaying the article in columns. This way the page follows the rule of thirds and therefore looks more visually appealing to the audience which makes them want to read it more as it looks as if there is less writing. The real DPS only used two columns whereas we used three due to the length of our article and the fact that we wanted the article to stay on one page. Therefore this shows how we developed the convention of using columns as we still used columns however we used three instead of two.

Double Page Spread

For our DPS we decided to use screen stills from the actual documentary as our images for the page, we did this because we thought that it would give the audience a better idea of the what the documentary would include if they saw some images from it. The real DPS for ‘The Vampire Diaries’ also uses images from the actual show to entice the reader into watching the show. Therefore we used the convention of using images from the documentary/show.

The real DPS and many others all display the time, date and channel that the documentary/show will be shown so that the reader knows when to watch it. We decided to follow this convention as we wanted to give the reader as much information about the documentary as possible so that they would go away and watch it. Therefore this shows how we followed the convention of displaying when and where to find the documentary.

Radio Advert

After listening to various radio adverts for documentaries we noticed that they all use soundbites from the actual documentary, therefore we decided to follow this convention and use 2 soundbites from our documentary. We did have more sound bites originally but we decided that a shorter advert would be more effective so we cut down the amount of sound bites we used. We decided to use a quote from our experts Gavin (P.E teacher) and Brenda (Dance teacher) as both of their quotes were clear and easy to understand and they explained the theme quite well. Gavin talks about a ‘post 16 gap’ and Brenda talks about the workload therefore it can be easily denoted that they are talking about age. Therefore this shows how we followed the convention of using soundbites.

Also, we found that background music is always used and typically only one track is used throughout the advert so we decided to use only use one track and the track we decided to use was the same one that we used for our documentary. This was because we wanted to clearly link the products together as we weren’t going to use the same narrator as the documentary so therefore this track would easily link them together. Therefore we developed this convention as we only used one track but we used the same track as from the documentary.

Radio Advert

After listening to various radio adverts we decided that it would be best if our radio advert was short as this way it would have a faster pace and therefore the audience would not become bored and lose interest. Most of the short radio adverts were around 30 seconds so we decided to follow this convention and make our advert 30 seconds longs, this was difficult at first as we had to cut some out otherwise it would have been over 30 seconds but as a team we decided that 30 seconds was the best length. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of having a short advert.

Some of the radio adverts that we listened to didn’t have any obvious sound effects and we decided to follow this convention as we thought that it would be easier for us in terms of our topic as it would be difficult to find sound effects for sport that people would instantly recognise. Therefore we followed the convention of not having any obvious sound effects.

Radio Advert

In every radio advert that we listened to each one clearly states when and where the audience could find the documentary (time, date, channel). So we decided to follow this convention and state clearly when and where our audience could find the documentary at the end of our radio advert, this way the last thing the audience hear (and most likely the thing they are going to remember most) is the information about where and when to find the documentary so they are more likely to go and watch it. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of stating when and where to find the documentary.

After listening to various radio adverts we learnt that it was unusual to have only one narrator so we decided to follow this convention and use two narrators. We also noticed that it was not the same narrator as the documentary so we used different voices to advertise our radio advert as we did not want to use the same person that narrated the documentary as even though this would clearly link the products together we thought that it may come across as odd if the same person did the radio advert. Therefore this shows how we followed the convention of having more than one narrator.