Shafiqur Rahman – Evaluation (Q1)

7/29/2019 Shafiqur Rahman Evaluation (Q1)

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Shafiqur RahmanEvaluation

1)In what ways does your media product use, developor challenge forms and conventions of real mediaproducts?

The brief we were given in the beginning of ourA2 course, was to create an opening 5 minutesfor a television documentary; on a topic of ourchoice. We brainstormed possible ideas for thetopic of our documentary. Alongside this, wastwo ancillary tasks given; a radio trailer and adouble page spread for a listings magazine, togo alongside our documentary. We were asked

to research into the possible things that can beadded to the opening 5 minutes; we analysedsimilar documentaries and also did the samefor the two ancillary tasks.

DOCUMENTARY CATEGORIES:

Optimistic/Pessimistic Lighthearted Serious Resigned Uncritical Irony Condemnatory

After looking at other documentaries with these possible categories, werealized that we must have some sort of category for our documentary onCyber Bullying. Cyber Bullying is a very current issue and is quite a seriousone. Our aim was to create a documentary that was factual whilst keeping theserious tone that the issue is. We had a mixture of categories such as,Optimism; by showing there is help out there for victims. Factual; bypresenting official statistics (obtained through research).

Bill Nicholls Documentary Modes (2001) :

Different documentary modes are something that we initially looked into.Firstly we into different types/styles of documentaries that there are; poetic,participatory, reflexive, performative, observational and expositional.

POETIC MODE: a very subjective style of documentary.

EXPOSITORY MODE: addresses viewer directly to advance an argument orrecount history

OBSERVATIONAL MODE: events observed and recorded objectively with


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no intrusion of an author/narrator (leaves audience to make up their ownmind)

PARTICIPATORY MODE: film makers appear on their own work andexpress views on camera (contrasts expository mode)

REFLEXIVE MODE: this documentary type frequently reflects on its ownartificiality, drawing attention to this

PERFORMATIVE MODE: a much more personal approach thanparticipatory mode- individual film maker tells their own story

As part of our research we watched Morgan

Spurlocks Supersize Me. ThisDocumentary. The participatory andperformative modes are used in thisdocumentary, as it stars morgan spurlockaddressing viewers directly and this createsmuch more of a personal approach.

THE EXPOSITIONAL MODE IS THE MODE THATIS MOST SIMILAR TO OUR DOCUMENTARY IN

MANY WAYS. THIS MODE CONTAINS ANARRATIVE AND A VOICEOVER THROUGHOUTAND THIS IS HOW THE OPENING OF OURDOCUMENTARY IS AS WE FELT VIEWERSWOULD BE MORE INTERESTED IN WHAT

THEYRE WATCHING IF THERE IS SOMEONESPEAKING ABOUT WHAT IS BEING SHOWN,

DUE TO THE FACT WE HAD A LOT OFFACTS/STATISTICS.


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DOCUMENTARY:

We decided to call our documentary Banter or bullying?. The

Reason behind this name was because we felt that cyber bullyingcan sometimes be justified as banter and having a laugh. The mainaim of the name was to hopefully make viewers question what theysay and how it can be taken; one persons joke may be somethingthat can really hurt someone elses feelings.

I watched and analysed different documentaries to get an idea of the codesand conventions they use and hopefully adapt these into our documentary.The two that were looked at were Bully and Supersize Me (which was earliermentioned)

There are a few different things Iwas looking out for in both ofthese documentaries:

Camera Sound/Background Music

The conventions that I picked up from the two documentaries were theuse ofCamera. This included the shot types such as Closeups, Medium Close ups, Establishing Shots/Long shotsand Extreme Close ups. In Bully the most commonly used shot was themedium close up.The medium close up in this documentary engaged me asa viewer more as the expression and actions of those being filmed were seenmore clearly and the emotions used could be seen more clearly and this ineffect will emphasise the message/quote/fact further. After looking at thisdocumentary we decided we would use the same shot type for the majority of

our opening five minutes as we wanted the same effect.


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We used a handheld camera a lot in our documentary for the vox pops tomake the viewer feel as though they are there, and get a feel for what isgoing on. We decided that this would be the best way to capture the answersfor ourvox pop questions as the vox pops are quick, unplanned and quiteinformal questions. This was used a lot in Supersize Meand we found that it

was very effective for our documentary.

The other type of shots in our documentary with the use of the camera, is byusing a Tripod.We used this on various occasions such asestablishing/Panning shots of the college and inside the canteen, for showingcollege equipment such as computers, classrooms, and of students walking upand down the stairs. The tripod meant that we could and use skills that weknow such as Pan, Tracking and Zooming in a professional way. The mainuse of the tripod was for expert interviews, which enabled us to set up thecamera in a professional manner.

SUPERSIZE ME BANTER OR BULLYING?

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF A VOX POP FROM SUPERSIZE ME AND A VOX POP FROM OUR DOCUMENTARY. BOTH

SHARE THE SAME SHOT TYPE FROM UNDERNEATH AND THE RULE OF THIRDS IS MAINTAINED IN BOTH ALSO.

THE SUPER SIZE ME ONE POSITIONS THE WOMAN ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE WHILST OUR ONE POSITIONS HER

IN THE MIDDLE.

HERE WE HAVE THE FORMAL INTERVIEW FROM SUPERSIZE ME AND THE FORMAL INTERVIEW FROM OUR DOCUMENTARY. BOTH USE THE

RULE OF THIRD AND THE BACKGROUND IS THE USUAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE INTERVIEWEE. ALSO THERE IS A BY LINE TO INTRODUCE THEM AS THIS SETS MORE OF AN AUTHORATIVE ASPECT TO THE INTERVIEW AND SHOWS THESE ARE PROFFESIONAL PEOPLE.

SUPERSIZE ME BANTER OR BULLYING

RULE OF THIRD


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I REALLY LIKED HOW OUR USE OF SHOTS WERE SIMILAR TO THOSEWE ANALYSED DURING OUR RESEARCH AND PLANNING. THE SHOTSWE USED LOOKED PROFFESIONAL AND EACH ONE WAS USED TOCREATE MORE PROFFESIONALISM AND SENSE OF REALISM WHICHSETS INTEREST TO OUR VIEWERS

MORE SHOTS USING TRIPOD:

HERE ARE SOME OF THE VARIOUS SHOTS

THAT WERE USED DURING OUR

DOCUMENTARY. WE DECIDED TO USE

SHOTS APPROPRIATE TO THENARRATIVE AND WHAT WAS BEING

SPOKEN ABOUT AT THE TIME OF THE

DOCUMENTARY.


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SOUND IS ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT CONVENTION OFDOCUMENTARIES. IT INCLUDES: DIAGETIC SOUND, NON

DIAGETIC, BACKGROUND MUSIC AND VOICEOVER. INSUPERSIZE ME THERE WAS A PRESENTER (MORGAN

SPURLOCK) AS HE STARRED IN HIS OWN MOVIE. ALSO THEREWAS A LOT OF DIEGETIC SOUND SUCH AS THE VOX POPS AND

FORMAL INTERVIEWS, AND ALSO NON DIAGETIC; THEVOICEOVER WHEN STATISTICS WERE BEING SHOWN.

SUPERSIZE ME BANTER OR BULLYING

In Supersize Me Morgan spurlock has a lot of factual information and statistics about Mcdonalds, suchas how many mcdonalds there are in the world etc. When he presents these facts he uses the non

diagetic sound of his voice as a narrative to what is being shown. Similarly we have aimed to do this in

our documentary by presenting facts that have been found during the research & planning stage of our

task and we have added a voiceover going through it. The reason behind this is because we appreciate

that a lot of people do not want to sit and read throughout a documentary, therefore we have ensured

all was done to make sure the documentary we created was accomadating to a range of viewers.

Here we have

the sound we

recorded for

parts of ourdocumentary


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Many parts of the documentary sound were either too loud or too

quiet, therefore where appropriate we adjusted the sound levels so

that the documentary flowed without too much/too less noise.

THIS IS THE MAGAZINE DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD WE CREATED FOR TV TIMES. WE

ANALYSED AND LOOKED AT VARIOUS MAGAZINES AND THEIR LISTINGS TO GET A

GENERAL IDEA OF WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR A DOCUMENTARY AND THE

CONVENTIONS OF A MAGAZINE ARTICLE. THE LAYOUT AND LOOK OF OUR SPREAD

WAS KEPT MINIMALISTIC AND GENERALLY QUITE SIMPLE. THE REASON FOR THIS

CHOICE OF SIMPLICITY WAS BECAUSE THE GENRE OF OUR DOCUMENTARY IS

QUITE SERIOUS AND WE WANTED TO CONNOTATE THIS THROUGH THE LOOK.

Tv times is the magazine we chose to place our article in. It is a very populartelevision listings magazine published in the UK by IPC media. It is well known

for its access to television actors and tv programmes, therefore we felt this would

be the listings magazine that we would like to publish our article on, as this wouldgive our documentary the most exposure.


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Here are three

conventions that I picked

up straight away that we

included in our article. It

is the DROP CAPITAL,

TITLEAND SNAP FROM

DOCUMENTARY

Mastheadis the headline/title of the page, and is alwaysused in magazines/newspapers. Articles for tv listings articlesare sometimes headlinesbased on a story line or character.The masthead can also be the name of the program and wedecided to do this with our masthead.

Drop Caps are used

most of the time in

magazine articles at

the start of the text

and we decided to

add this to make

things look

rofessional.

Date/ time/

channel are

often added inarticles for

television. This

gives readers a

clear indication

of when the show

is on. Also we

liked how this

looked on the

articles analysed

and decided to

add this too.

Pull Quotes are used in

magazines to grab the

readers attention. They arenormally a snippet from the

article and should draw

people to read the article. In

this case we used

something that could have

an emotional thinkingeffect.

Page number with

tv listing logo tocreate a flow

throughout

Magazines usually

have a captioned

picture of part of theshow/documentary;

included in the

article. We have also

done this to give

readers a visual

insight.


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After analyzing other radio trailers we decided to create one ofour own to promote our documentary. At the start of thecourse when we were doing the research and planning; I

decided to look at the codes and conventions of radio trailersand these were the things:

-The average length is 30 seconds -It gives the scheduling information at the end of the trailer. The sequence is: title - date andtime - channel -For the voiceover, the narrator briefly outlines the content of the documentary , wherebythey may pose questions that will be answered in the programme -Direct address is used as it uses personal pronouns like 'you' to intrigue the audience -Extracts from the documentary are used so that the audience can get an insight into thedocumentary which will result in them wanting to watch thedocumentary -Sound effects are appropriate -Music bed is appropriate to the documentary and is always an instrumental so that theaudience isnt distracted

We tried to follow the codes and conventions of radio trailers.Our trailer was 30 seconds long and we also included thescheduling information at the end, we made sure the narratoroutlines some elements of the documentary and made surewe added extracts from the documentary so that listenerscould get a feel for what the documentary is about. The themeof the trailer is of a victim speaking in the beginning, using

the same background music as the documentary so that thereis an instant connection with both. I felt the trailer wasnt toolong therefore gave a very small feeling of what thedocumentary is about and I think this is important to attractviewers as theyre left on a cliff hanger.

CONCLUSIONOverall I feel that the media products created do mostly use and conform to

the forms and conventions of real media products. I think that thedocumentary itself is very professional, concise and interesting and none of

this couldve been done without initial research and planning which we all didat the beginning of the course


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Shafiqur Rahman – Evaluation (Q1)