Evaluation Question Four

4. How did you use new media technologise in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

With the increasing rate of new technology it was highly likely that we would be using new technology for each part of our coursework and not just the construction stage.
The construction part of the coursework was made up of the most technology as the construction part not only included the filming and the editing of the documnentary but both the ancillary tasks too. When filming we needed the camera equipment we used last year. Camera, battery, tripod, headphones and a tape. However as we were asked to create a documentary new camera equipment was introduced this year as we needed to film interviews and possibly at night. So equipment such as a clip microphone, a pad light, a boom and a boom pole. However most of the camera equipment was new to me as we worked more as a team this year. The camera equipment was easy to set up and to use, however what we found difficult was framing an interview correctly. It took us a few interview attempts to get the framing correct. All the equipment looks very complicated but its not once you know how.

For the voice over for oth the documentary and the radio trailer simple recording equipment was needed. Another type of microphone was used and a recording box. The recording equipment was very easy to set up. However it took a few attempts to find the right track- an empty one. Also for the ancillary task teh radio trailer. Final cut pro and sound track pro are needed. It is the first time I have used either programme and i was very lost at the start. As you start to introduce yourself to the programmes they become a lot eaiser to use. Fianl cut pro was also used for the documentary by the editor as much as i got used to final cut pro when doing my radio trailer i am still glad i was not the editor. Photoshop is used for the poster advertisment, this is also the first time i used photoshop and i found it much harder to pick up on than final cut. We had a small photoshop lesson to learn the basics of it, this helped me but i still did not find photoshop easy to use. Lastly for the construction part of the coursework a Macbook was needed for most of it. I have always found Mac computers confusing so even with the knowledge from last year I was still a little lost on these computers.

More computer based programmes were used within the research , planning and evaluation stages rather than practical equipment. Programmes such as Google, Youtube and Blogger were used last year or on a regular bases, so they were easy to use. Also programmes from last year such as Scribd and bubbl.us were used again, they are easy to use. Soundcloud and Photobucket were new proggrammes to me. Soundcloud was very easy to use it was clear and you understood what to do quickly. Photobucket took slightly more time for me to figure out but once you know what you have to do its quick to use. New websites were introduced to us this year for example Newsnight. News night is a news website that has a lot of documentries on it so this was helpfull when we were researching documentries for our coursework and final analysis.

The Evaluation stage of the coursework uses alot of the proggrammes used in the planning and research stage: Blogger, Youtube, Google and Microsoft Word. Also the evaluation stage uses equipment used in the construction part of the coursework - the camera equipment if we needed to film audience feedback. Youtube was used to upload our videos and google was used once again to research real media products. However Microsoft Excel was used to create graphs from the questionaires done on blogger that will also aid our audience feedback. A wider range of technology was used this year but once you know how to use a program they are quick and easy.

Evaluation Question Three

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Getting audience feedback is important as it gives a good insight to th product, how an outsider to the production sees the product and mostly how well the product will take off with the target audience.
We conducted audience feedback, asking six questions that we thought would give us full feedback asking one of each gender of our main target audience and one male slightly older than our main target audience but still falling into the catergory of our target audience.
Overall we got more positive feedback than what I was expecting. When we asked did you enjoy the documentary, all three participants answered yes and when asked why people claimed to like the set out of the documentary and the vaired amount of opipions. One girl said "I usually like to watch documentaries so i was looking forward to watching it, it's good." Also we got more positive feedback when we asked was the documentary interesting, factual and what you expected. Two of the three answered yes to this question saying it was both interesting and factual, that they got a lot of imformation abotu graffiti from the documentary. However we also got a 50/50 for this question but again the feedback was moslty positive as this person said "...all the right bits a documentary should have, it had." Did the documentary flow and stay on topic?, was the next question asked, we got a yes from all our questionees. Them saying that we protayed a balanced arguement with lots of peoples opioions. Lastly for positive feedback was when we asked has the documentary effected you in a good or a bad way? Two of the participants were asked this question and both said in a good way. "It was nice to listen to the graffiti artist and to get his views." One man said that he was interested in the graffiti topic and he was looking forward to watching the documentary. It is nice to get positive feedback about something that you have worked on.
However we got some negative feedback or suggestions if ou will which is also a good thing as positive critism only helps. We asked the people was there anything you did not like or found boring about the documentary? Two people said they did not find the documentary boring but one questionee said he didnt like the one of the music tracks as he felt like i didnt go with the documentary topic- graffiti. When asked can you suggest any improvements the people asked said we could have used more people interviews to get more points of view also they suggested that we could have used bigger names in graffiti such as Banksy more often.
We are glad we didnt just get positive feedback as if we was making the full documenatry we could now take this feedback and make the documentary can be as good as it can be. But overall the feedback was positive and that is nice, it was interesting to find out peoples different viewsa on the documentary.


<iframe frameborder="0" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/iDC71InmCgQ?fs=1" width="480"></iframe> (our audience feedback video)

Evaluation Question Two

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Advertising is something the world generates around, without advertising we would not know about anything from new jobs to prices of things and to know when programmes are on television.
Advertising is very important when new programmes come on television it helps the public know when programmes are being shown and gives them a taster of the programme. Its the same with documentaries. There are different ways to advertise products such as poster advertisiments, billboards, television adverts or radio trailers.
For our coursework our ancillary tasks were to create a newspaper advertisment and a radio trailer these in my opipion would aid the documentary well. The poster is a visual aid to the documentary. It can be featured anywhere from magazines to newspapers and bus shelters to buses. So a wide audience would be able to see the poster. But it does relate to our target audience more as we decided to show our poster in magazines etc. So we would ensure our documentary could be seen. However putting the poster up on buses or bus stops will also ensure a wider audience. The radio trailer on the other hand is much more aimed at our target audience. Our target audience probably drive and are likely to listen to music whilst they are getting ready.
This is all advertising. Because of these advertising technqiues our ancillary tasks aid the documentaries take off. We hoped that with the ancillary tasks more of our target audience and a wider audience will learn about the documentary so they can make the time to watch it. I think the ancillary tasks work will with the documentary. Also it shows more creativety than just a documentary. Alon with different platforms.
The three most common forms of advertising are radio adverts, television adverts and poster adverts. Every media product in the world is advertised in one way or another so to make our main product as realistic as possible we used two of the three most common ways to advertise, to advertise our product.
As said before the poster and the radio aid the documentary well, the different platforms are similaer but stand apart from each other. The poster advertisment is a visual aid to the documentary. With a picture we took as a cutaway actually used in the documentary so the target audience will be able to identify the indivdual poster pictures when they watch the documentary. In that case the radio trailer is a spoken aid to the documentary but again footage such as interview snip it's are used in the radio trailer from the orginal documentary so again the audience will recongnise certain parts of the documentary before they have even watched it once, which creates a positive impact on people from the start.
In conclusion I feel that the combination between my main product and my ancillary tasks would be very effective if this as to be a real media product.

Evaluation Question One

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

Certain products in the media world have codes and conventions that should be followed to make a successful media product. However these codes and conventions that should be followed to make a succesful media product. However these codes and conventions may be challenged or developed by the producer to make the best media product they can with their ability.
The most common codes and conventions featured in documentaries are music, cutaways, interviews and a clear standard English speaking voice over, these are the conventions we would base our documentary around. We thought these would give us a good bases to start forming our documentary.

(image 1- screen shot from textual anaylsis-text)

Our documentary is on graffiti as we decided to keep the basic form of documentaries we discussed what people we would like to interview. We decided to go for the obvious interviewees and a few unobvious choices such as a caretaker or an art manager. This is a developmental technique from the conventions of a real media product. We decided to keep our cutaways and voice over very contentional. Having cutaways that spesfically relate to the topic and of what is being said. Also decided to use a clear, standard english voice over with recieved pronounication as in our textual analysis we found this a dominate convention. The music for our documentary both develops and sticks to the conventions. We have two strings of music one is more formal introducing the documentary but an upbeat tune is also played to keep to the theme and the topic of the documentary. That of real media products music is very important in keeping the audience entertained.

(image 2 screen shot from textual analysis-interviewing)

Our documentary develops the codes and conventions further with extra pictures added in that are not classed as cutaways. We wanted to develop the conventions of a real media product as much as possible to make it stand out. Making our documentary stand out was the main basis for choosing our topic in the first place. Text is also used in the documentary to develop it. The text is not used in place of the voice over it is purly a visual aid to the voice over which hopefully adds some indviduality to the documentary. In real media products we found that moslty the only use of text is when the name of the person being interviewed is shown. Along with text our documentary icludes quotes from other people we have interviewed or spoken to. The voice over staes these quotes so they are not spoken by the orginal speaker as it makes it different from an interview.

(image 3-screen shot from textual analysis-interview and name)

Our documentary uses the codes and conventions and develops them much more than challenging them. We wanted to base our documentary as much as possible on codes and conventions so that the documentary could look like a real media product however we used a slightly different set up to make it as indivdual as possible. Also due to the way we protayed the topic and part of the music chosen it makes the documentary less formal than what may have been expected.
We tried to make our documentary as unqiue as possible form the way we its set out to the topic chosen nut we also didnt want to drift away from real media products as the aim of our coursework was to make our documentary as realistic as possible.

Lauren's radio trailer 2010 by peterotus

Lauren's radio trailer 2010 by peterotus
This my radio trailer, i tried to include everything that wouold be recongniseable yo our target audience like an upbeat piece of music for example, also i used interviews from the documentary so that when our target audience watch the documentary they think back to pieces of my radio trailer that they remember. I tried to keep the voice over short and sweet just getting the main points down so that the readio trailer didnt drag on for a long time and it just captures what it needs to, to make it as real as possible.

Radio trailer script

Graffiti; is it art, vandalism or political free speech. HCTV investigates.

12th March 2011. Graffiti is seen as vandalism, it is now illegal to sell spray paint to anyone under the age of 16. 7pm. Many graffiti artists are paid to spray walls for private events, bedrooms or even shop shutters. So surly it is a form of expression? HCTV produces a graffiti documentary explaining the controversial topic in a non-biased way.

You decide... Art, vandalism or political free speech. 12th March 2011 7pm on HCTV. 
www.graffitiart.com

Newspaper advertisment

This is the final draft of my newspaper advertisment, i completely changed my idea after we had been out filming our cutaways for the first time. We came across a graffiti artist graffiting on a wall at south bank. I took a picture of this and decided to use to for my newspaper advertisment as it is a more realistic picture and makes more of a clear statement to what our documentary is about. I masked half of the picture so that the word graffiti would stand out. Putting a shadow behind the word to create a bigger impact. The rest of the title is on the floor of the picture in white so it stands out. The red writing is to colour coordinate with the logo and the website address. The date and time is bigger so that is can be seen and i hope that the main picture makes an impact on the target audience so they understand what our documentary is about. 

First draft of radio trailer script

Graffiti: Is it art, vandalism or politcal free speech. HCTV investigates this topic.
Graffiti is often seen as vandalism. (take apart out of the script.)
However graffiti can be seen as art. (take apart out of script.)
(include the last bit of samatha magmey's interview.)
Watch the full documentary on HCTV on the 12th March 2011 7pm.

First draft of newspaper advertisment

Above is my idea for my newspaper article, i thought it had incorporated all the various aspects in the title of our documentary. The shops and the people along side the graffiti being keeping it in touch with reality, but being the people who believe it is vandalism and the people trying to cross over the graffiti are the ones trying make a statement believing that graffiti is art and they are standing up for what they believe in which includes the poltical free speech part. I decided to keep the writing plain and small so that no attention is drawn away from the main image and i thought the deep blue worked well against the lighter, water shade of blue in the image.

Codes and conventions of a newspaper adevertisment

      Images

Clear connotations

A logo

The date and time of the realse

The name of the documentary

Consistency

Typography (font)

Images should be simple and represt the content of the documentary, they should be engaging and presetenting a controdiction. Typography of newspaper advertisments is usually upper case. The writing needs to be clear and easy to read. The name and the date and time of the realse should be very visable. The logo should also be easily seen so that the company is well recognised and this will all create consistency throughout the newspaper advertisement.

Codes and conventions of a radio trailer

One minute in duration

Name  of the radio

Date, time and what radio channel

Featuring

Sample interviews from documentary

A clear voice over

Music

Catchy and exciting

A radio trailer needs to engage the audience in the same way a newspaper advertisement does. It is important to give the right amount of information without giving to much.  The music within the radio trailer should identify with the genre and the topic being discussed within the full documentary. Sample interviews are a good way to get the audience to be more enuthasic about the documentary and it is always a good idea to say about any guest speakers. A clear voice over is essential as the audience need to be able to hear things such as the date and times being said within the radio trailer. All these things help to make the the radio trailer catchy and exciting.

A radio trailer

A documentary

Subject matter research

Everyone has an opipion about graffiti its costs the council thousands of pounds every year to remove it but also in todays society it is modern art. Graffiti is a form of vandalism but people see it as street art that keeps youths away from harder crime. Kieran Dunn, a teenager says 'graffiti is more art than crime. If someone has put that much effort into their piece they can't be doing it just to get somone angry.' Young graffiti artists see graffiti as a form of expression. Due to the anti-social behaviour act in 2003, people can now be punished for graffiting and it is now illegal to sell spray paint to under 16's. However new laws are trying to get the council to build places for young teens to go to, to work on their talent and learn more instead of spraying walls. Graffiti has been around for many years even the Romans wrote on walls. Graffiti started when people first started to put their names on posts however it has fully advanced from then and is now considered a form of art and expression. Graffiti is images or lettering that is scratched, scrawled, painted or sprayed in any piece of property some see it as art but most see it as unwanted damage. When researching graffiti online you can hire out graffiti artists. They spray for live art events, TV shows, video shoots, bedrooms, private functions and much more. There are different sections within graffiti, such as traditional graffiti, photorealism, wildlife/nature graffiti, stencil art, organic graffiti, marker pen art, scences and abstract graffiti. Many big companies such as microsoft, diesel, BBC, paramount, red bull, virign, and kiss sponser there graffiti artists. The ED Hardy store paid a graffiti company to graffiti the walls in its store creating the right atmosphere, 'their ability to take ED Hardy's orginal designs and replicate it flawlessly was astounding! We could be more happy with the outocme.' - Says John V- ED Hardy founder.

Second documentary analysis

A cutaway of a fingerprint is used cleverly here as the documentary is about serial killers. This a good technique as the audience have an idea about the documentary before it have even started.  

What was interesting about this documentary was that the interviewees pictures came up with there names next to them before their interview was played. This breaking common documentary codes but it works well for the documentary.

This cutaway is fantastic it is a recording of someone getting kidnapped, it fits in completely to the documentaries topic and is very captivating for the audience. 

Although with this interview the name is featured at the side of the interviewee whilst the interview is playing. This is the common set up of a documentary and what we will be basing our documentary on. 

Texted is used in the documentary it makes a statement as the reader is expecting to see more cutaways and further interviewees it makes a change in the documentary.

Old photographs of serial killers and reinactments are used within the documentary they work well as they aim to show the audience what it was like for the victims and to give them a further insight into what went on. 

A fade is used in the documentary it is a transition that is probably the most common. It signifies that something new is about to be spoken about, it add an entertaining factor.

A pan is used when focusing on the house in the print screen above the music changes to an eery tone and the pan goes slowly from the left side to the right side of the house at this part of the documentary, hey are talking about a serial killer and this was where they were said to have lived.  

First documentary analysis

This documentary is on fashion show plus sizes. The style of the documentary is formal, with a narrator and interviews.

This transition was used right at the start of the documentary. The blur is used just before me meet the main speaker of the documentary, it blurs from a young women dressed smarlty to the speaker. It sets the tone for the start of the documentary.

A prop is used early on in the documentary. The prop is a microphone it suggests to the audience that they are watching a documentary and that perhaps there will be interviews later on in the documentary however i do think i would have looked better if the main speaker was wearing a microphone rather than holding one. 

Three shots are placed side by side here, it backs up what is being said in the documentary at the time by the narrator. It is empahzing the point that plus woman can be models too.

A zoom is used in the documentary to add and create effect, also later we find out that the woman who had been zoomed in on is the woman being interviewed so this was done to start a building point in the viewers mind just before the interview. 

In the picture above you can clearly see the differences in costume between the model and the narrotor of the documentary. The model is wearing a nice dress and she looks like she just stepped off the catwalk and the narrator is just in smart/casual clothing. 

Lighting is used here jsut behind the models to emphasis them as they first step out on to the catwalk looking lovely.

The main speaker, talks in a formal tone with a light hearted warm feel. She uses standard English and precieved pronunciation. Also this is the perfect way to frame an interview and the interviewee is also talking in a formal tone.

The logo for the documentary comes up at the end of it, the colour scheme is blue and white. There are pulsing graffics behind the logo (BBC radio) and the font is big and bold with capital letters for the words 'newsbeat.'

Documentary Proposal

“ Is graffiti an expression of art or just another form of vandalism?”

 In this topic, we plan to explore the very controversial idea of graffiti, and whether it seen as an artist portraying a message through the expression of art or just seen as vandalism of the streets in London today.

We will look at both, for positive arguments of graffiti and the negative argument as well. And look at both perspectives of the too sides.

A source shows that it’s a common view that graffiti is frowned upon in society. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/club/your_reports/newsid_1637000/1637333.stm)

“Graffiti is disgusting and gets people into bad habits, wherever people find a blank space they scribble all over it.”

Although there are many schemes and project that have been set up to remove graffiti. People still show hostility towards it.

Project’s like ‘orange rock corps’ have been set up to remove graffiti, and because it nation wide it covers a wide regional area and these projects have been strongly backed by the government.

In order to finding conclusion to the debate that is graffiti, we will be interviewing people that support graffiti and people that don’t mind it, as well as people who are strongly against graffiti. We also believe that there no better way to see how the artist themselves feel about it so will we also interviewing them and finding there perspectives on what they do. We also intend to interview some public figures to show what they feel about the graffiti. Additionally, we will speak to other general members of the public that hold their own and find out whether they feel the media influences these ideas.

We plan to have cut-always of piece of art that have been produced as well as people doing graffiti. As well as these we plan to show the length that people go through just to “get up” (graffiti) photo’s of black books (Were people design there pieces of work before they put paint to wall)

For a list of speakers I would like to interview 2 graffiti artist’s (one that’s big, and a up and coming one). I would also like to interview people that work on the projects at orange rock corps. As well interviewing companies that remove graffiti them selves, some people that are the general public and authority figures that deal with graffiti.

For this our group roles are:

Philip – Editor

Sustika – Sound

Anju – Camera works
Lauren - Director 

Group role and production brief

My group and i decided on our roles easily and quickly. I asked if anyone would mind if i was the director as i did that last year and felt that that is where i could work to my best abililty. The group did not have a problem with that so for my A2 media coursework this year i will be the director. I understand that my role is to make sure everything is working well, the filming, editing and research and to make sure that everyone is happy and getting along as a group. I will be a big part of the decision making and the paper work side of the courseowrk. Sustika decided to be the sound person. Anju decided to be the camera person and Phillip was happy to be the editor. We have been asked to work in a group to create a documentary on any chosen topic. Within the documentary interviews are expected so we will be conducting interviews throughout the coursework that are relevant to our topic. Also we have been asked to create a blog which contains a number of things that will help with the planning and research into the documentary and our topic. Along with a personal blog that will contain our ancillary tasks and evaluation of the coursework. The ancillary tasks are a newspaper advertisement and a radio trailer that will both promote our documentary. We came up with a lot of different topics before coming to an untied decision within the group.  We chose to do graffiti as our topic as we felt it was a controversial topic that we could take to many different directions also it is a topic that not many others have explored so it was not an obvious subject and was something new for us to do.