1) In what ways do you use develop or

challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

Documentary

Bill Nichols documentary modes

Within our documentary we featured aspects of Bill Nichols’ documentary modes, a strong convention of real media products. The documentary modes we used involved; the participatory mode, in which we used by incorporating ‘makeover’ footage. This footage encouraged a personal approach to our documentary and enhanced our argument. A technique/mode used in Morgan Spurlocks ‘Super size me’ documentary, following his own weight gain and health deterioration over the period of a month while carrying out a Mcdonald’s challenge. The use of the participatory mode in this case helped in presenting a severely polemical product. However, it is arguable, that in our documentary we also featured aspects of the expository mode by our creation of an evidently polemical piece as we, almost consistently, referred to society as negative in the relation of this particular topic, especially through the exploration of our Vox pops and expert interviews.

Interviews

Vox Pops- In our documentary we followed the conventions of placing our Vox pops in areas of publicity and natural diegetic noise such as voices of students and weather. Within our editing we did not eliminate the presence of diegetic sounds. We also followed the convention of having the interviewee’s eye line to the side of the camera instead of them speaking directly to the camera. This is also a form we followed during our expert interviews, however, are expert interviews were secluded, work environment and featured little to no diegetic background noise. However, we did not choose to place our expert interviewees on opposing sides of the screen in order to enhance difference in opinion and contrasting arguments as both interviewees shared the same argument and view on the topic. Also, when edited in our documentary we added captions to the expert interviews in order to introduce them and their title to the audience. For our expert interviews we also followed the conventions, regarding shot type, as both shots were a medium shot, allowing the audience to see the speakers environment but also expression and body language, in order to enhance the argument. This was also used in ‘Super size me’ by Morgan Spurlock, through scenes of him talking to doctors or nutritionists.

Voiceover/Background music

In our documentary we decided to use an off screen narrator in order to not distract the audiences attention away from the imagery and footage we featured in the documentary that helped to engage the audience and objectify the topic and argument we were trying to establish. This convention isn’t always used, for example in ‘Super size me’ Morgan Spurlock, chose to use both on screen and off screen narration, but when off screen he featured statistics in the form of imagery or animation to help enforce his argument. We developed on this convention by layering our statistic over a footage still shot. This worked efficiently to intensify and sharpen the point we were making.For our background music we used ‘Jam 1’, non-copyright music featuring a fast beat and quiet underlying rhythmic. This music linked well with our fast edited cut away shots but was not too much to over power the main voice over. We made sure the music would jot over power the voice over by adjusting the sound levels on premiere. The use of an ongoing distinctive background music throughout the course of a documentary was also used in a documentary we researched during the exploration of existing products. The documentary played on channel 4, the same channel in which we chose to air our documentary. The documentary was known as ‘Sexting teacher’, which followed the cases of real crimes involving relationships with students. We also followed this documentary’s model by using new music in our documentary during the main ‘makeover’ footage. This would in the long run, lean our documentary towards the possibility of cross- media convergence as the audience may search and listen to the song, which again relates and heavily targets are chosen young adult audience.

‘Sexting Teacher’ Channel 4

Shot TypesOur shot types followed the conventions of a typical TV documentary as, we used an establishing shot of the Sixth Form in order to present our setting. This was used in ‘Super Size Me’ whenever Spurlock went to a new destination. The shot usually involves a pan shot and a zoom in of the sign or name of the location stated anywhere within the shot. We also used a medium shot in all our interviews, this allowed the audience to be aware of body language and facial expression which helped to project the opinion of the interviewees. We also used a zoom, close up during the footage of the ‘makeovers’ to enhance and show that we were the ones changing our own appearance which helped with the factual side of the documentary and helped in regards to making our point clear. The shot helped to show the simplicity and ease of changing your appearance.

Magazine

LayoutDuring the production of our magazine double page spread, we followed the layout of a ‘Radio Times’ double page spread as we wanted to use this magazine to show our documentary due to popularity and our audience. Our magazine follows the layout of a ‘Radio Times’ magazine as it features the stand first in a different font to the rest of the text in order for it to stand out on the page as the title. Our magazine also replicated the 3 columns, which are commonly used in ‘Radio Times’ double page spreads.

ImagesIn our documentary we followed the conventions of using screenshots and images from our documentary in order to successfully link the magazine to the documentary and develop a ‘House Style’. We followed conventions of having the main image as the largest on the page surrounded by secondary, smaller images, which helped to support the article. We followed these conventions as we felt it was the only way to successfully represent a typical ‘Radio Times’ article and the use of the bold imagery would help in attracting the attention of potential readers.

Drop Cap

In the creation of our magazine copy, we used a drop cap and highlighted this by changing its colour to fit the colour scheme and make the drop cap stand out against the rest of the article. This is a typical convention used by almost all magazine publishers and we felt it was effective in making the beginning of the article stand out to the reader and helping to incorporate our chosen colour scheme.

Our article Radio Times article

Background image and Colour Scheme

We challenged the conventions of a ‘Radio Times’ magazine spread in the production of our magazine by using colour and a background image. Although we only used a small amount of colour, it was still more than that of the typical ‘Radio Times’. We featured the colour scheme through out our standfirst, pull quote and drop cap. However, we felt that this was effective in terms of attracting our target audience of young adults as it is more likely that they would be attracted to colour rather than something of black and white as it makes the article appear more fun and interesting. We also featured a background image that we screenshot from our documentary of the ‘Mean Girls’ cafeteria map that we featured in our archive footage relating to the effect of the media on young minds. We decided that this was needed as it is a film very well known to our chosen and audience and though this would attract them further to the article.

Our Article

Radio Times Article

Radio Trailor

StationIn the creation of our radio trailer we decided to air the trailer on ‘Capital FM’, as we felt their audience averages were very relatable to the audience we had chosen for our documentary. We followed the forms of using speech from our documentary within the radio trailer in order to best represent and link our documentary to the radio trailer. This also helped to provide all the information about the documentary such as air time, date of release and channel all in a short period of time.