In what ways does your media product use

develop or challenge codes and conventions of real media products?

How our documentary followed codes and conventions of real media products:

When we began to create our media documentary, we knew that we did not want to stick to all codes and conventions, however use develop and challenge certain elements of real documentaries. One of the first things we decided on was the titles we were going to use for our expert interviews and for our on screen facts and figures. This is something I noticed a lot in not just channel 4 documentaries which is what ours will be featured on, but also documentaries created by other channels. We followed these codes and conventions of real documentaries by putting them on screen as they would feature in others. This meant that we kept the font the same throughout to show our consistency and we made sure to place all titles in the same place for each of our expert interviews to give it a more real finish.

Below are some screenshots from our finished documentary to show the font that we used and how we were consistent from the opening title to our title for our interviews. This was similar to real documentaries and the example I chose to use was ‘Supersize me’, shown by the screenshot from the actual documentary. We positioned it the same as other documentaries and used a similar colour scheme which I feel added to giving it a more professional look. As well as this, I think that our documentary followed codes and conventions because we filmed all our formal interviews with a mid-shot. This was something I looked into with a number of documentary and each one of these used this technique so we filmed with this camera technique for each one our expert interviews.

Another way our documentary followed the codes and conventions of real products is by using background music throughout the documentary using non-diegetic sound. This is something else that featured in a lot of documentaries and a particular one which I focused on was ‘supersize me’. ‘Supersize me’ featured scenes where it had a lot of non-diegetic sound, which was mainly music, and this broke up some of the scenes to make it easier for viewers to watch. I felt like this was a good technique which the documentary used as it made it seem less formal and took some of the seriousness away from it which would hopefully make it appeal more to our primary audience of teenagers.

Furthermore, we used props for the majority of our formal interviews to give it a sense of realism and more of a professional touch. An example of this is for our police interview, and our counsellor interview we asked them interviewee to sit in front of a computer as we felt that it would differentiate between an expert interview and a voxpop. As well as this, for the bar tender interviews we asked them to stand behind the bar where the alcoholic drinks were which would make it clearer to the viewers what their role was in our documentary if they didn’t see our titles. I have taken some screenshots as evidence to show our interviews and the way that our props worked to show who each of our formal interviews were with.

This is a screenshot of one of our bar tender interviews which shows Amy standing behind the bar. This makes the alcohol stand out more and make it clear what her job role is.

This is a screenshot of our documentary showing our interview with the college counsellor. This shows Julie sitting in front of a laptop and previous to this shot we filmed her typing on her laptop to introduce the scene.

How our magazine listing followed codes and conventions of real media products?Firstly, I looked into a lot of Radio Times magazines to see what kinds of techniques they used in order to make it clearer what to follow and what to avoid when making our double page spread. I chose to analyse a double page spread from one issue of this magazine which I have put below. As well as this, we decided to analyse our finished double page spread to make it easier to see what codes and conventions we have used and what we had challenged.

We tried to follow the codes and conventions of real Radio Times issues for example we noticed that many of their double page spreads feature a main image which is usually large and takes up a lot of the page, which is something we decided to do. As well as this, we included smaller things like making sure that our page numbers were the right way around and that the left was even and the right was odd which is how the pages go in a real magazine. Furthermore, from the doctor who issue on the previous page it is clear to see that Radio Times uses a large image as their main image but includes smaller images as features within this. This is something we noticed in the majority of their issues so is something we chose to do also as it we felt that it would look more like a real feature of the magazine.

We chose to include 3 columns of writing on each page which not only followed the codes and conventions of other media products, but also flowed better for the reader. Our original idea was to have the writing in a block going along the bottom of the page but when comparing this to other magazines as well as Radio Times, we noticed that this was uncommon and may have made it look unprofessional. Finally, we included grab quotes from the article which would make it more eye catching and stand out more to the reader, as well as including the date and time of this particular issue of the magazine as well as when our documentary would be aired. Overall, I feel that we followed the right codes and conventions for this media product which in turn gave it more of a professional look and as though it would be a real feature within Radio Times.

How our radio trailer followed codes and conventions of real media products?

From analysing real capital FM radio trailer, it was clear to me that they are better to be kept short and that this is the pattern they usually follow. With this in mind, we decided to aim to make ours last for around 30 seconds, which we achieved. As well as this, each one of the radio trailers I had listened to, had background music running throughout it which is another convention we chose to follow. Below, is a screenshot of the finished radio trailer which we made on premiere pro, showing the layout we chose to follow and our timings of each clip.

This shows the change in music from the beginning of the radio trailer to introduce it compared to the rest of the trailer where we use more of a background music piece to not distract the listeners from the narration.

This shows the length of our radio trailer lasting at around 35 seconds, which is the average length of the radio trailers I analysed.

Furthermore, we used an authoritative tone for our radio advert which was clear but also a teenage voice which we hoped would appeal to our primary target audience. As well as this we tried to keep it informal which is the tone of a lot of other capital FM adverts as we thought that this would get the necessary information across to the listeners without putting them off watching the documentary.

How our documentary developed codes and conventions of real media products:One documentary we analysed in detail was ‘supersize me’ and this was one where we found it to have more of a biased opinion to some documentaries. We chose to develop this idea and rather than having a set opinion throughout the film, which may put viewers off, we decided to gets facts and opinions from both sides of our argument. This meant that we got voxpops from students who were in favour of drinking and spoke of the positives but we also included interviews for example with a policeman who spoke of the downsides to alcohol. This meant that we switched between biased and unbiased and tried to remain as objective as we could throughout it. Furthermore, in the ‘supersize me’ documentary, Spurlock chose to open with a child singing the pizza hut song which was related to the topic that he was focusing on. I thought this was an effective idea and we chose to develop this idea further for our documentary. Instead of opening with a title which is often how documentaries start, we chose to make a montage of video clips showing drunken actions with a voice over on the top of this of a man speaking about his daughter getting into difficulties because of alcohol. We thought this was an effective idea also, because we tried to give both sides of the argument in one clip, the voice over giving the bad side and the montage showing the fun side of alcohol.

This is a screenshot from our finished documentary showing a still image of part of the montage. This is clear to see that the images show people clubbing and at parties having fun, and in the background of some shots we can see alcohol.

How our documentary challenged codes and conventions of real media products:One way we decided to challenge the codes and conventions of real media products was by including clips from reality shows within our film. We thought that this idea would make our documentary stand out more, because out of all of the documentaries I analysed, I didn’t see this kind of technique being used in a real media product. We therefore thought this would be effective as it would be eye catching to our viewers for them to watch something that they are already aware of and recognise. One program we know is very popular to our primary target audience is ‘Geordie shore’ and so we decided to include clips from their reality show in our documentary to make mention of shows that promote alcohol and binge drinking.

Below I have included a screenshot from the documentary where we decided to import these clips. Although this only lasted for a few seconds we thought it would get the attention of viewers as they would be seeing something familiar and make them more likely to want to continue watching it. The clip we chose to use shows the effects of alcohol as it shows that someone has fallen down the stairs because of excessive drinking.

I have also included still from the shows which we did not feature in our documentary. This shows how much the program is based around drinking and the way in which the characters promote it to appeal to teenagers

Another way in which we challenged the forms and conventions of real media products was the fact that we chose to use an off screen voice over for our documentary. We thought that this would portray more of an overall opinion which is the message that we wanted to get across, rather than filming one person talking to a camera. By doing it this way, it also meant that we could put up facts and images on screen while having our voice over introducing the next scene. This is a contrast to the ‘supersize me’ documentary as this film used a participatory mode and Spurlock have his own views and opinions.

This is a still taken form the ‘supersize me’ documentary which shows Spurlock talking to the camera. This is something we wanted to avoid and challenge by having an off screen presenter.

In a similar way to how we used Geordie shore clips to help us get our point across to the viewers and make it sink in more, Spurlock used a similar approach. A large proportion of his documentary contained graphics and advertisements to talk about his topics, for example the still from the documentary below. This show a graphic explaining how many McDonald’s there are worldwide, and by using this image it will make it more likely for the image to stick in the viewers head. This is the approach we took and by including reality shows in our documentary, this will hopefully make it more memorable to viewers.

How our magazine listing challenged the codes and conventions of real media products:As we were featuring our double page spread in Radio Times, this meant that we analysed and looked into this magazine to see what their typical layout was and the types of things they included in a double page spread. One thing we noticed was that a lot of time, the images in the feature are of behind the scenes clips from the making of their film or program. I have found 3 features from Radio Times and for each one they have chosen to include behind the scenes images and actually used ‘behind the scenes’ as their title. Although we did want our magazine listing to look as though it fitted in with a real double page spread, we thought that if we added in behind the scenes images it would take away the attention and space for necessary information. Instead of this we chose to have a main image of one of the bar tenders we interviewed which was taken from the documentary itself. We thought this was eye catching as it was a bright image and had lots of alcohol present in the picture so it brought attention to the topic we were talking about. We followed the codes and conventions however, of the image layout as we positioned our main image across the top half the page horizontally and our smaller images in midst of the text.

These images show that Radio Times follow a clear layout for each of their articles and when looking at our magazine listing ‘tipsy teens’ it is clear to see we have followed this layout as best we could

How our radio trailer developed codes and conventions of real media products:One thing that we chose to do, was rather than having a voice over running through the whole of radio trailer, we wanted to break this up with the public talking. We did this by getting short voxpops from our documentary and including this in our radio trailer to entice the listener to watch the film. We stuck with 2-3 second clips with students sounded shocked or telling part of a funny story which we hoped would interest our listeners to want to find out what they are talking about.When I had been analysing other radio trailers, I noticed that a lot of the time they broke up their voice overs with other clips, and this was often celebrities talking which would interest the listeners if they were a fan of that celebrity. We chose to develop this idea with the voxpops as we thought that sounded effective by having lots of voices within the 30 seconds, rather than having one voice talking throughout the advert which may be boring.

Overall…

Overall, I feel that we followed the right amount of codes and conventions for each of our media products but in some parts developed and challenged these where necessary to make it a more sucessful media product. We also tried to compare our documentary to Spurlock’s ‘supersize me’ which was useful as in some aspects we followed the same conventions as him but other times we developed these to fit our film how we wanted to, for example with his graphics to advertise and our clips of Geordie shore.