IntroductionFor my A2 media course work project me and my group were asked to create a five minute documentary, TV listings magazine and a radio trailer. We began by brain storming our ideas on what our documentary will be based on and how we will approach it. We came to an agreement that we will base our documentary on video games and how it is the source of violence for young people. We chose to create a documentary on videogames, as it was something that we had knowledge on as we were consumers and knew many people who were affected or play video games. We decided to call our documentary out of controller as it was a play on word, which is short and can be easily remembered. The title of our documentary has both of the topics that our documentary is based on such as controller, which is used to play video games, and out of control which links in with, how young people have no control when they paly violent video games.We decided that our documentary would be an expository mode documentary as this style of documentary speaks directly to the viewer. We thought that this was an appropriate mode to use as our documentary was serious and we wanted to put forward a strong biased argument against violent video games. Before creating our documentary we had researched into different documentaries although they were not expository mode. This gave me an insight into how to create a documentary. What I learnt from documentaries is that structure was one of the key elements of a documentary the start must be just as effective as the ending. We chose to air our documentary on chanel 4 as this is a suitable channel for our documentary. This is because there are many documentaries that have been aired on channel for such as educating essex.

Analysis of documentaries Voiceover and sound- The documentaries I watched either had a male presenter or a male voice over. This was form of a convention as male characters are seen as a dominant and leading characters (voice of a god). When creating our documentary we also used a male voice over as our documentary was serious and informative. The voice over was clear and spoke at a natural pace so that the audience can clearly understand what was being said. Also the background music is turned down whenever the voiceover speaking so that the audience do not get distracted by the music. However the is an important convention illustrated by super-size me as the music sets the tone of the documentary. The music used in super-size me varied depending on the scene for example the documentary was filmed in America and so they used country music to set the tone of a scene to portray American lifestyle. In our documentary we used the same music throughout the documentary as it set the tone well. The music we used was drum and bass which was fast paced. We used this type of music as it sounded like typical video gaming background music which sets the video gaming theme.

In the image at the bottom we interviewed julie waitland the student development officer. In this shot we applied all the conventions, the key was to get the perfect camera angle so that all the conventions I have spoke about can get get into the scene. For example we can clearly see that the interview is taken in her office as we can see the laptop and she has personalised the room such as the star stuck on the blinds. Although this an expert interview julie is dressed up in causual clothing, however this reflect her job as she is workin in a college enviroment with teenagers. Expert interviews were usually one on interviews were the interviewee is directly talking with the interviewer. This was illustrated by super size me. What we learnt was that the key element to an expert interview is that the background and the camera angle. The camera is usually placed on a tripod and has very little or no movement at all. This makes the interview look professional as expert interviews are usually factual or knowledgeable. The interviewee will never look into the camera lens but they will look at the interviewer. The expert interviews are taken as if the camera is not there. The camera angle is usually taken from a medium close up, this camera angle is appropriate to use as it shows the facial expressions in more detail as well as the background. At the start of a professional interview we see the name and the profession of the interviewee. This is used so that the auidence can establish who the person is and what their occupation is. InterviewsExpert interviews and editing-

In contrast to the scene with Julie Maitland, Nick Waring who is a teacher is more smartly dressed (shirt) and looks more intelligent as he is wearing glasses. The apple mac links in with the fact that he is a media teacher and the image of the video game poster links in with the topic he is talking about as well as the fact that in his occupation he is around computing technology making him an expert.

Whereas compared to the professional documentary we can see a contrast in the codes and conventions used such as the medium close up as well as the background showing the book shelf shows that the interviewee is knowledgeable. Also we have used the convention of the name and occupation of the interviewee, but we have not used the banner, which we should have used as it makes the text stand out. We chose not to use this convention as our documentary was aimed at younger people and we wanted the audience to focus on what she is saying. In this interview the expert is a man and is wearing a suit, which shows that he is a professional and has authority. Compared to our documentary which shows a female interviewee who is wearing casual clothes shows that she does not have as much authority whereas nick the media teacher does. We used this stereotype as men are seen as being good a technical computing subjects, also men are seen as being interested in video games and scientific things related to violent video games.

Vox pop interviews- Comparing our documentary with super-size me, the vox pop interviews in super size me looked unprofessional. For example they used hand held cameras, as the shots taken were shaky and were usually taken outdoors asking the members of the public for quick and unplanned interviews. These conventions were used so that there is a clear differentiation between expert interviews and vox pop interviews. In our documentary we applied some of these conventions but we used a different approach in our vox pop interviews. We wanted our documentary to look professional and so instead of using hand held camera we used a tri pod in our interviews. We used a tripod, as it was easier to film our interviews as well as we found that we could get a better camera angle and show the characteristics of a vox pop interview. Such as we filmed our vox pop interviews in a canteen whereas super-size me had outdoor interviews. However the different approach we used was that we filmed it in a college cafeteria with students in the background as well the sound conversations and chairs moving against the floor. This helped differentiate the expert interviews from our vox pop interviews. By using a tripod we could get the interviewee in our shot as well as the background showing the environment of a typical college canteen which links back to our topic of young people. Also I think that it makes our documentary look more professional as the camera is still which gives the audience a chance to analyse the scene.

Background and archive footage- Super-size me use background and archive footage during their interviews. In our documentary we also used background and archive footage as it breaks up interview, also it acts as evidence from what the interviewee is talking about, it makes the interviews more interesting and less boring. We used an essential fading out tool when the scenes switched from the interview scenes to archive or background footage which worked really well as the audience can establish the link between the both scenes.

Title top left of the first pageDifferent images

Quotes in large fonts

Here I have compared our documentary with a PMS3 magazine article. Before we created our magazine we researched into existing products by analysing them a picking out all of the coded and convention for a TV listings magazine. A convention that we thought was important was the main image must attract the reader and must be symbolic and have an importance towards the article. Here we have used our main image as the background as we thought that this image links in with the title of our documentary controller. Also we thought that it worked well as we had seen many magazines which all looked the same as the others such as having an image on one page and the article on the other. But we found a magazine which looked different, and we have used the same layout as this magazine and applied it to our own. We also used other small images taken from our documentary which breaks up the text and gives the page a bit more life to it. Another convention we used was having quoted from the documentary. We placed our quote at the bottom of the double page spread in a large red font to catch the readers attention. We decided to place it at the bottom going onto both pages as it went with the layout as there was enough space for it.

Radio trailer-We carried out research into other existing radio trailer which gave an insight into how the layout of our radio trailer should be. We noticed that most of the radio trailers used short quotes and clips from the actual documentary which gets the listeners attention.The music in the radio trailer is the similar music used in the documentary. We thought that this would be a good idea as many existing products also did the same. It gives the documentary as professional look as there is consistency with conventions. We also noticed that most of the voiceovers were the same person as in the documentary. We also applied this as the listener can easily recognise what documentary they are watching and makes it feel the audience feel like they know who the person is. We also noticed that most of the voiceovers were male voices. We also used a male voice as we thought that we would use the stereotype of men being leading and help guide the audience. Our documentary was 30 seconds long as other documentaries we researched were around 30 seconds. We thought that 30 second was appropriate as we wanted it to be short which gets the message across quick. We didnt want to overwhelm the listener with information as we wanted them to take in and remember the main part of the radio trailer which was the date, time and the channel the documentary will come on. So we say all of that towards the end which would be the last thing they remember.