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

Documentary Throughout the whole process of making our documentary we followed many codes and conventions, we did this because we wanted our documentary to look professional and genuine just like documentaries you see on television. Another reason was so that our documentary was presented to the viewers effectively. During the planning process we looked at a range of different documentaries to understand the codes and conventions needed for our documentary to look as professional as it possibly could. Interviews The ways in which an interview is set out in a documentary is very important; throughout our documentary we recorded interviews with different teachers and students of the 6th form college Solihull. Here are two images one from an actual BBC documentary and the other of our documentary.

Camera Shots: The general shot for an interview is a Medium Close up (MCU) this is so you can see the persons head and shoulder. It is an important convention in interviews as you can see the emotion of the interviewee clearly and makes what the interviewee is talking about seem more important. Rule of thirds: The rule of thirds is when the person being interviewed is on one side of the camera and is looking across the space. It shows that the person being interviewed is concentrating towards the person who is asking the questions and it puts the interviewee at ease as it makes them feel as if they are having a normal conversation.

Mise-en-scene: Mise-en-scene is where the interviewee is located; you need to make sure the interview is interviewed in an environment in which he/she works in. It wouldnt make sense for a hair stylist to be getting interviewed at a hospital, so where the interview is interviewed is very important. The right picture is a screen shot from our documentary the interviewee is a student at the 6th form so he is located in a classroom with work on the back wall this is a very appropriate place for the interview to take place.

Between interview shots:

This shot is from the same documentary as the one just above it, as Dr.Rudy Leibel was talking the camera is moved of him and shows something else, however what the camera is showing relates to what Dr.Rudy Leibel is talking about sometimes this convention may be used in documentaries.

This shot is from the same documentary as the one just above it, as Hashim Sardar was talking the camera is moved of him and shows something else, however what the camera is showing relates exactly to what the student is talking about sometimes this convention may be used in documentaries.

Vox-pops: a Vox pop is getting quick footage from different people to put into your documentary. We used many Vox pops at the start of our documentary as they give you a sense of what the documentary is going to be about.

Above are some vox pops from our documentary.

Here is a vox pop from a documentary on BBC.

Establishing Shot:

Here is an establishing shot of our documentary. It is showing a sign of the sixth form college Solihull. This is where many of our interviews took place with different teachers and students and is a very important convention in documentaries.

Here is an establishing shot from a existing documentary. It shows a flag of Canada the person watching this will instantly know that this documentary will be something to do with this country.

Worms eye view shot:

Here is a worms eye view shot of our documentary it is showing students walking into the sixth form. Worms-eye view is a view of an object from below, as though the observer were a worm in this case the person who was recording this

Here is a worms eye view shot from a exiting documentary on the internet as you can see it makes the person look tall and important in the documentary.

Group Shots:This is a group shot which is a screen shot from our documentary. A group shot is when there is a crowd of people standing together. We wanted to show how people stick with in there own cultures in the sixth form college Solihull as you can see from this shot.

However from this group shot you can see that people are starting to integrate with different cultures. This was a screen shot taken from our documentary which was recorded in the touchwood centre of Solihull.

Manual Focus Shot:

This is a manual focus shot, as you can see the white man at the front is clearly shown and in the back you can see a group of Asians. This was a great effect we used to show the division between the different cultures.

Magazine

Before we started to make our article for our promotion method we first decided to make a plan on how it was going to be set out. We wanted to make sure we followed the codes and conventions needed for our documentary top look professional.

Paragraph crossheads.

Drop cap

Writing

Rule of thirds. Grab quote

Here is another draft we made for our article

Headline and by line, include details about documentary.

Paragraph crossheads

Drop cap

Rules of thirds

Image from documentary we are promoting.

Caption

For our article we used many conventions that you would find in an article. Our article was done in InDesign and includes many features of a real article. Such as the rule of thirds as you can see there is text on the left, images in the middle and then text again on the right. The double page spread is split into 3 equal sections all containing something different. The drop cap at the start of the article is also what you would find in an original documentary. Also the images used are promoting the documentary as the image is a screen shot directly from our documentary. All the paragraphs also have crosshead. Overall I think we did a very good job in following the codes and conventions of a magazine article as it looks very professional and well layed out.

Radio Trailer For our documentary another promotion method we used was our Radio trailer. To follow the codes and conventions for our radio trailer we listened to many different ones from real radio trails we found on the internet. After listening to all of these we decided to make a plan to organise the order in what everything was going to be said and set out.

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Overall, I think the combination of our main product and ancillary texts linked quite well. The radio trailer features the same background music used in the documentary it also includes extracts used in the documentary, which people would instantly recognise if they were to hear both radio trailer and documentary. The article contains an image of Jag Jagdev who we interviewed during our documentary the image is a screen shot taken directly from the documentary, which we placed onto the article. This screen shot of Jags interview is very important to our topic as he himself was employed by the college to deal with conflicts between different ethnic groups; All these 3 products together link up to create a clear Brand Identity.

After researching many channels to broadcast our documentary we had found BBC2 to be the most appropriate and BBC2 radio for our radio trailer. However BBC2 usually targets an up market, Educational and affluent audience and our documentary was looking to get the attention of 16-30 year olds and older of all different ethnic groups. We concluded this might have been a problem to get young viewers to watch the show. Therefore promotion was important, we used BBC2 Radio to attract older viewers and to attract the younger audience we promoted our article in radio times, which is a teenage magazine. Our documentary contains information that caters for all different age ranges, from our parents who grew up in a different society to the present now where only the few still have a problem with ethnic minorities living in Britain.

I think the promoting of our documentary was actually very successful as stated above we wanted the target audience to be from 16-30 year olds and older. The radio trailer contained an extract from the documentary that older listeners would find very interesting and the documentary contains footage of many different people from a range of ages and ethnic backgrounds. The article will appear to teenagers, as it is an article from radio times, which is a teenage magazine. The article really stands out and has images mainly of college students integrating with each other the magazine promotes our documentary really well as it shows images of different ethnic backgrounds along side each other and all appear to be happy. The article however may be a little text heavy which may distract the attention of teenagers.

Overall I think the main product and ancillary texts link with each other very well and look as if they belong with each other then the article being a little text heavy it promotes the idea of multiculturalism very well and would stand out to teenagers. The radio trailer and Documentary link together very well as the radio trailer uses extract from the documentary which people listening to would recognise instantly. The combination of our main product and ancillary Tasks is very effective the main reason for this being is that our documentary will be aired on BBC2 and the radio trail will be aired on all the BBC 2 radio and our magazine article will be in the radio times which is also part of the BBC so the documentary and ancillary tasks are very effective as they are all with the BBC so therefore will be well promoted.

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To see if our documentary was successful in its purpose we designed a questionnaire to get audience feedback, we asked people from different age and ethnic groups so we had a different range of answers. We then calculated our results and created graphs on them as shown below.Do you feel that our documentary has fulfilled its purpose?10 9 8 Number of people asked 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

The purpose of our documentary was to put across different opinions on multiculturalism, the documentary contained many different opinions from different age ranges and different ethnic backgrounds. From the response we got I think our documentary was very successful in fulfilling its purpose.

Did the first minute of the documentary hold your focus and interest you enough to want to watch the rest of the remaining minutes of the documentary?10 9Number of people asked

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 YesResponse

No

From our results it shows our documentary was of significance to everyone who watched it, the response we received from this question was very positive from the audience and shows that they found our documentary interesting.

How pleased were you with the edit of our documentary?

Poor

Response

Satisfactory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2

3 4 5 Number of people asked

6

7

8

Front the feedback received from the editing I think we did a really good job as everyone we asked said it was above satisfactory as if you can see from the graph above

Do you think our documentary was coherent?10 9 8 7 Number of people asked 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes No

Response

From the feedback received I think the consistency of our documentary was extremely good everyone we asked said yes and this means we accomplished to keep it relevant and consistent throughout.

Do you think the voice over and background music levelled correctly?

No Response Yes

0

1

2

3 4 Number of people asked

5

6

Looking at the results from this question I think maybe the background levels could have been better although more people said yes than no it is still a disappointment that 4 out of the 9 people asked said no it was a mixture of people who had said no both teenagers and adults so it does not have anything to do with different age hearing levels.

How do you feel about the effects and transitions used in the documentary?8 7 Number of people asked 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Excellent Good Response Satisfactory Poor

From looking at the results I feel that the transitions we used were a little more than average no one asked had said the transitions were poor so this shows we did a pretty good job.

The target audience was for people aged 19-35. Do you feel that our documentary appropriately appeal to this target audience?10 9 Number of people asked 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

I think our documentary was very well presented for the target audience we wanted it to appeal to it had many different opinions from a range of age groups and was very successful in getting their attention as shown from our results.

How well does the documentary compare with the real television documentries?

Poor

Response

Satisfactory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2

3 4 5 Number of people asked

6

7

8

I think our documentary was very similar to documentaries shown on television as it followed the same codes and conventions of real documentaries and looking at the results I think the audience felt the same.

What do you like most about the documentary?6

5 Number of people asked 4 3

2 1

0 Variety of shots Informative Images used Response Interviews

From the feedback most people liked that the documentary had a lot of information in it and 2 people liked the interviews so this shows the documentary was very relevant to the target audience and they learnt a lot from it.

What changes would you suggest in order to improve this documentary?4.5 4 Number of poeple asked 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 Titles too slow Opening sound levels Too many interviews Response More interviews

I think sound levels were a big problem throughout the documentary as you can see from the results most people suggested that sound levels could be improved and another thing was the speed of the titles this was through an editing error so this also could have been improved.

Do you feel our radio trailer fulfilled its purpose?10 9 8 Number of people asked 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

The purpose of the radio trailer was to promote the documentary and everyone we asked felt as if it did fulfil this purpose as they were interested in listening to it.

Did the radio trailer hold your focus and interest you enough to want to watch the documentary later?

No Response Yes

0

1

2

3

4 5 Number of people

6

7

8

9

From the results the radio trailer was a very effective use of promotion. Most people found it interesting and said that it would make them want to watch the documentary this shows it was a very successful piece of promotion.

How pleased were you with the sound levels of the radio trailer?4.5 4 Numner of people asked 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 Excellent Good Satisfactory Response Poor

The sound levels of the radio trailer were a lot more successful then the sound levels of the documentary as only one person thought it was satisfactory and the rest thought it was either good or excellent no one thought it was poor so the sound levels turned out to be very well edited

Do you think the voice over was levelled correctly?9 8 Number of people asked 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

According to the results from the audience it shows the voice over was very well levelled and I think overall the sound levels of the radio trailer were a lot better than those of the documentary.

How do you feel about the information used in the radio trail?

Poor

Response

Satisfactory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2

3 4 Number of people asked

5

6

7

From the feedback we got from the audience I think the radio trailer was very informative and did a very good job for the promotion of our documentary.

The target audience was for people aged 16-35. Do you feel that our radio trail appropriately appeal to this target audience?10 9 Number of people asked 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

From the audience feedback it is clear that we hit the nail on the head with the target audience. All the people we asked from different age ranges had positive feedback to give us therefore I think the radio trail was very appropriate for our initial target audience.

How well does the radio trail compare with real radio channels?

Poor

Response

Satisfactory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2 3 Number of people asked

4

5

Most people thought it was over average and just one person thought it was satisfactory, therefore I think we was very successful in constructing our documentary to be like one from a real radio station.

What do you like most about the radio trailer?3.5 3 Number of people asked 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 Music Range of voices Good script Response Excellent interviews Informative

Most people liked the script most out of the radio trailer after that it was the script and 1 person said it was informative and 1 person liked the range of voices therefore I think we covered all areas that we had wanted in the radio trailer to be successful.

What changes would you suggest in order to improve this radio trailer?7 6 Number of people asked 5 4 3 2 1 0 More beats Response Louder sound levels

From the audience feedback I think the changes to be made were for the radio trailer to have different types of beats and some people suggested louder sound levels.

Do you feel that our double page spread fulfilled its purpose?

10 9 Number of people asked 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

The purpose of our double page spread was to attract a younger audience, everyone who was asked about this thought that our double page spread was very successful in doing so therefore I think we accomplished our goal in attracting the right audience for the magazine.

How well do you think the layout of the double page spread is?

Poor

Response

Satisfactory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2 3 Number of people asked

4

5

From the feedback received I think the layout of our article was successful only one person thought it was satisfactory most people thought it was good and then three people thought it was excellent this is very positive feedback therefore I feel as if our double page spread was successful.

Do you think the double page spread includes everything it should?8 7 Number of people asked 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Excellent Good Response Satisfactory Poor

The audience felt that the double page spread included everything that it needed therefore I think we were very successful in adding all the right things to our article as no one thought it was poor or satisfactory most people thought it was good and one said it was excellent

How do you feel about the information used in the double page article?

Poor

Response

Satisf actory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Num be r of pe ople as ke d

From the audience feedback it shows that everyone thinks that the article was informative, 6 people said it was good and 3 people said it was excellent this is very positive feedback and is very successful in the promotion of our documentary.

How are the titles and images used in the double page spread?

Poor

Response

Satisfactory

Good

Excellent

0

1

2

3 4 Number of people asked

5

6

From the feedback received I think we was very successful with using titles and images in the article 5 people thought the images and titles were used excellently and 4 people thought they were used good.

The target audience was for people aged 16-35. Do you feel that our double page spread appropriately appealed to this target audience?10 9 Number of people asked 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yes Response No

From the graph above we received from the audience I think they all felt as the article was targeted correctly at the audience, although we wanted the original audience to be teenagers from the graph it shows an older audience were also interested.How well does the double page spread compare with real double page articles?6 5 Number of people asked 4 3 2 1 0 Excellent Good Response Satisfactory Poor

The graph above shows that everyone asked thinks that we did a very good job in making our article look like a real magazine article. 1 person thought it was excellent 5 people thought it was good and 3 people thought it was satisfactory therefore I think we did a good job of making it look like a real magazine double page spread.

What do you like most about the double page spread?6

5 Number of people asked

4

3

2

1

0 Good use of images Good layout Response Nice colors

From the graph above 5 out of the 9 people asked this question felt that the layout was the strongest point of our article, 2 people thought there was good use of images and 2 people thought nice colours were used.What changes would you suggest in order to improve this double page article?

Add page numbers Response Different colours

0

1

2 3 4 Number of people asked

5

6

From the graph above it shows that we were carless in not adding page numbers to the article, 5 people thought we should off added page numbers and 4 people thought different colours would make the magazine look appealing

Positive Feedback Overall I think from the audience feedback received we were very successful in constructing our pieces to attract the correct target audience, all our pieces were also very informative and were very relevant. We were also successful in achieving the correct purpose of our documentary as you will see from the graphs above. With the documentary I think we were very consistent in keeping it flowing and we managed to edit it very well. From the graphs you will also realize that the audience felt we made all our pieces very realistic and we were very successful in making them look like original pieces you would see on TV, hear on a radio or see in a magazine. The audience also liked the layout of the magazine and felt we used images and titles very well, they also felt as if we maintained a good use of colours so I think we had a lot of good feedback from the audience. Negative Feedback From the graphs shown above it the audience werent too keen on the sound levels I think this was one improvement that could have been made for both documentary and radio trailer. From the audience feedback from the double page spread the improvements people thought could be made were that page numbers could be added, a few people also thought a few more colours could be used.

4) How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? Construction of DocumentaryApple ComputersMany different types of technologies were used during the production of our Documentary, Radio Trail and Double page spread, this is due to the fact that there is a lot to do and every technology has its speciality. The piece of technology that bought the whole project to life was the Apple Mac Computer it has all the softwares you need. The Apple Macs were used in all areas of the production of both documentary and ancillary tasks. The Apple Mac allowed us to get footage from the camera onto the computer and allowed us to edit it all on the computer it not only helped us with the documentary but also with the radio trail and our double page spread.

Cannon HD Video RecorderThe camera was essential in the production of the documentary, it allowed us to record all the footage needed for out documentary to be of significance to the viewer. We were able to carry the camera around as it was hand held so we could get a variety of different shots. The Camera could also provide different effects , it connected to the Apple Macs so we could transfer the footage from the camera on to the Mac so we could start editing the documentary.

TripodThe tripod was a support frame for the Camera, although handheld shots were required a lot we also needed some still footage of signs of schools, roads etc. The tripod was very essential for these moments as this would not be doable handheld due to the fact it is very difficult to stay still especially in windy conditions. The Camera is hooked onto the top of the tripod securely so it will not all off and footage is recorded. The tripod was very helpful for pan shots so we could cover one whole area we were recording.

MicrophoneThe microphone was very important in the production of our documentary it was plugged into the camera so we were able to record voices of interviewees; the Mic was placed in a position a few inches away from the interviewees mouth so that the interviewee was heard clearly.

HeadphonesHeadphones were also plugged into the camera and helped us to hear what the interviewee was saying during the recording, they helped to hear clearly what was being said and helped to adjust sound levels if needed.

Final Cut ExpressOnce we had all the footage we needed to make our documentary complete we uploaded it on to the Macs and began to edit it on a programme called Final Cut Express. We first uploaded the footage onto the Mac then transferred it into the programme. We then had to decide what clips we wanted to keep and deleted the ones we didnt need. We also chose how long we wanted to keep the clips on the screen for. Then we were able to adjust the documentary, applying different sounds and different effects, we were able to add voice over to the documentary through final cut express. The left side of the screen on Final cut express was occupied by all the footage we needed for the documentary where as the right side showed the footage of the edited documentary

Screen shot of Jag Jagdev a youth worker at the 6th form college Solihull whilst being edited on Final Cut Express.

To apply the text for the name of the interviewee you click onto the parameters box under the control link. This text was very useful for writing the name and occupation of the person we were interviewing.

The print screen on the right shows the sound levels of the documentary. The sound levels are shown at the bottom. We added a beat to the documentary for background music to make the documentary more exciting and so it would keep the focus of the people who are watching it.

Once we had added all the footage we needed to the documentary we then used a voice recorder to record the voice over, after we had recorded it and placed it into out documentary we used Final cut express to edit the sound levels so the voice over could be heard clearer over the background music.

Voice RecorderVoice recorder which was used to record voice over.

Construction of Radio Trailer Garage bandGarage band was used for the production of our radio trail; we felt garage band was the most appropriate software to use.

Garage band was a very efficient way of editing out radio trailer it gave us a list of different instruments we could use to create our own background music and we were able to change the track volume if we felt it needed changing.

As the screen shot on the left shows we were able to find many different types of sounds to edit our own background music.

Voice Recorder

Voice recorder which was used to record the voice over for the radio trailer.

Construction of Magazine Adobe PhotoshopTo edit the quality of the images we used Adobe Photoshop, Some of the images from the camera didn t come out too clear. We used Photoshop to make the images look more professional and to come out clearly.

Below are 2 images to show how Photoshop edited the image to make it clear.

Adobe IndesignIndesign was the best software to use to create our double page spread, it helped us to produce a article which has codes and conventions of real magazine. It was also the simplest software to use and the most appropriate. We arranged the pages in a double page spread, so our article would resemble a real magazine; this is one of the conventions of a magazine you would find in a store.

The screen shot on the right with the T highlighted is the box tool this was placed where ever we wanted text to go on the article.

We then needed to add the Photoshop images to the article. To do this we had to go to File, Place and click on the image. This was a very efficient way of adding images as it didn t ruin the layout of the double page article when we added the images.

There are many more features on InDesign such as the drop shadows effect below, and the image positioning on the left. On the right side there are many different effects you could use to make the article look a lot more professional.

Research & Planning BlogBlog was a very important feature we used throughout the making of our entire documentary. We were able to share information and get ideas from each other which were really helpful. We were able to access blog when we wanted and look at different ideas people had posted. Blog had many features we were able to post images, videos and even scanned items straight onto the blog to show the research we had been doing in our own time. Blog allowed us to add video straight from YouTube which related to our documentary. It was very effective as we were able to go back and see what we posted whenever we liked which was very efficient. Below is a screen shot of things we posted on blog for our research

Internet; YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Wikipedia, BBC Radio Times, GoogleThe internet was one of the main sources we used for research; first we needed to watch different documentaries to get an idea of how we should make ours and what techniques to use and different camera shots to use. We used YouTube for some of these documentaries below is a screen shot of a real documentary which is on YouTube called Supersize Me.

We also needed BBC iPlayer and BBC 2 to look at a documentary which was similar to the one we made. It gave us an idea of what codes and conventions to use and how to set out our documentary which was a very helpful source.

Radio times was also used as a resource.

We also used Google to find statistics of immigration which was another very reliable source on the internet. On the left is a graph of the statistics of immigration from 1991-2008.

Google also helped us to look at different articles so we could understand some of the codes and conventions we would need to construct our own. Below is a screen shot of a magazine article with the codes and conventions needed for an article.

We also needed the internet to help us give us an idea of what channel we should air our documentary on, we searched through many different BBC Channels such as BBC1, BBC2, BB3 and many others. At the end we found it best to choose BBC2 as this was the channel Mixed Britannia was shown on which was another documentary about ethnicity.

ILPWe used ILP for planning, we messages teachers from the college to see if they were able to book an interview with us. Below is a screen shot to show a teacher involved in Media messaging us.

MoodleMoodle helped us a lot with my work, Moodle had many different resources on their which helped contribute to the making of our documentary. It showed examples of documentaries and gave us ideas of how we could make our own below is a screen shot of Moodle giving me many different options to click on for help if needed.

ScannerScanner was a very efficient piece of hardware to use, I was able to scan things straight to my computer then upload it onto blogger such as questionnaires, script for our documentaries and many other things. Below is a screen shot of a Radio Trail analysis this was research we done to give us an idea of how to plan out our own radio trail.