final media evaluation pdf - kieran barter

8/2/2019 Final Media Evaluation PDF - Kieran Barter

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A2 Media Studies: Coursework Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

For our A2 Media coursework task, as a group we had to create the opening 5 minutes

of a documentary for a subject of our choice, and to create both a listings page andradio trailer to go with the documentary. As a group and after much debate, we chose

to create our documentary on University Fees and if they are really worth it. I believe

the controversy we chose to create a documentary on worked perfectly, as it was

relevant in both the media and most peoples lives. Our finished product contains

interviews with teachers and students, some who agree and some who disagree with

the rise - this giving a broad perspective on the controversy and also giving it a sense

of realism, and various shots/imagery that are related to the controversy.

Our final documentary was named Higher Education Fees Is it worth it?

which was shown on Channel 4. We chose Channel 4 as it is associated with

various documentaries, many of which tying in with our very own target

audience our primary audience being teenagers going on to further education,

and our secondary audience being teachers, parents and other professionals

working in education; this including both genders, and covering a range of ages

and social classes.

Initially before we started to create the documentary, as part of the research and

planning process each member of our group was given individual tasks. As

Student B, my individual task was to complete a detailed analysis of 4

documentaries and to summarise my findings, mentioning what ideas have

influenced our product, and to lastly post it on the blog, which you can see here -

http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barter.

The four documentaries I chose to analyse were Educating Essex, Rap and Guns,An Inconvenient Truth and Panorama Are The Net Police Coming For You?,

Educating Essex being the most relatable, sharing the same target audience. I found

this task extremely useful in finding the structure and style most modern

documentaries use and how to apply them to my own product.

Codes and Conventions in our DocumentaryTo give our documentary a sense of realism, there are a vast array of codes and

conventions used, similarly to that of a real documentary. Codes and conventions

work greatly in creating a sense of realism and professionalism, so they were vital in

applying to our own documentary, to make it understandable and to make a lasting

impression on our target audience.

The first notable convention of most, if not alldocumentaries is the ident. We featured a

traditional channel 4 ident which has been used

before on various channel 4 documentaries in

the past, accompanied with the conventional

voice over. I did the voice-over myself, and

followed the conventions of a standard Channel

4 ident by introducing the documentary which

will be shown after ours, Extraordinary People

and the title of our very own documentary.

Idents work well in creating brand identity and

Kieran Barter A2 Media Studies Louise Walshe
http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barterhttp://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barter


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raise awareness to the viewer of what channel the programme is being

broadcast. I think the end result of the ident worked well in creating a realistic

and professional look to our documentary.

Another notable convention of documentaries noticed in the first 5 minuteswas the fast-paced image montage. This was

vital in recreating in our own documentary as it

catches audiences attention and keeps them

watching the first few minutes being the mostimportant. In our very own documentary we had

10 different shots before the ident of the

documentary is even introduced. This again is

similar to that of a real documentary, as a

documentary I analysed; Educating Essex has exactly 10 different shots

before the programmes ident similarly.

The ident for the documentary title is another convention we followed whencreating our product by introducing it not immediately at the start but after

the fast-paced introductory montage. All documentaries use this convention,

so I think it is very effective in again creating a sense of both realism andprofessionalism. We chose to use the ident over a moving image we filmed of

money, to tie in with the controversy and appeal to our audiences. The

simplicity of the shots and the text over the moving image share similarities

with both An Inconvenient Truths ident and Educating Essexs ident. The

fact that our ident shares similarities with Educating Essexs ident

demonstrates effectives in appealing to our target audience, as both have

extremely similar target audiences; those of who that are in education.

Our documentary Our documentary

Real documentary Real documentary



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Professional Interviews are another convention that most moderndocumentaries use that we tried to implement into our own product.

We firstly messaged various teachers and other professionals that work

at Solihull Sixth Form College, asking if they would take part in an

interview for our documentary. Gaining an interview with various

professionals was vital in creating our documentary, as most

documentaries share this convention. A professional viewpoint isextremely important in a topic of controversy, and viewers will take

their opinions seriously. For our professional interviews we eventually

interview Neil Attewell, the College Chaplain, and Paul Ashdown, the

Principal of The Sixth Form College, Solihull.

Similarly to most interviews in modern documentaries, we shot the

interviews with Neil and Paul in a medium close up, with the correct

mise-en-scene in the background (university posters, university

websites displayed on the monitor in the background). This worked

very well, as again, it was key in creating a sense of realism, and also

reiterates the importance of the interviewee. In the editing process

captions were also added, accompanied by a voice-over introducingthem once more displaying importance and clarification for the

audience.

Accompanied with professional interviews were also student interviews.These were used greatly in conjunction with the professional interviews, but

however give a different perspective, opinion and viewpoint. They also

worked well in appealing to our primary target audience of people in

education, bringing the audience in closer to the documentary. Similarly to

professional interviews, most documentaries also feature interviews with

people under different social classes and lifestyles, so using both professionals

and students in our documentary are great use of conventions and I think

worked extremely well. We shot the student interviews in medium close up

once again, and used mise-en-scene which was applicable to the subject. To

display the difference in importance and follow usual conventions, we decided

against using captions for our student interviews.



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A presenter is another convention we used in our documentary, to introducethe documentary and explain the controversy/topic. Unlike some

documentaries, we added a caption to our presenter to give a sign of

importance and challenge conventions, as it would be easier for the audience

to understand. We also used applicable mise-en-scene to display our

presenters whereabouts.

Another convention we followed was the useofvoice-over. We chose to use a male as our

voice-over, differently to our presenter being

female, as by doing it this way our

documentary would appeal to both genders.

Our voice-over worked similarly to the

presenter, giving over-views of the

controversy and givingexplanations/directions on what is happening

in the documentary. It was extremely

important in the script that the voice-over was

not biased, as this would confuse audiences

and not leave them to their own interpretations

and opinions on the subject but instead gave

an insight to both sides to the controversy.

You can see the script here -

http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/2012/01/script.html

Music is another convention we featured in our documentary, but due tocopyright laws we were only allowed to use samples of music. We chose

upbeat music to appeal to our audiences and keep the tempo of the first 5

minutes of the documentary.

http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/2012/01/script.htmlhttp://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/2012/01/script.htmlhttp://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/2012/01/script.html


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We also featured establishing shots in our documentary, to set the scene andgive the audience an insight of the location. Establishing shots are used often

in documentaries, so using them in our very own documentary was important

in giving a sense of realism. We accompanied our establishing shots with a

voice-over, who also set the scene and made it perfectly clear for the audience.

I think they worked perfectly in setting the scene.

Over-the-shoulder shots were also included in our documentary, anotherstyle of shot conventionally used in various documentaries. As you can see

from the images, our over-the-shoulder shot is different to that of the real

documentary, but still both shots work the same in displaying variety and to

keep the audience captivated. The mise-en-scene in our shot also works well,

tying in with the topic of controversy by displaying a university website.

Group-shots were also included as a convention in our documentary,similarly to over-the-shoulder shots, creating variety and audience appeal.

Group shots also display a variety of opinions and views, covering different

areas of the controversy.



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Codes and Conventions used in Ancillary TasksSimilarly to that of our main task (documentary), we also had to apply the codes and

conventions commonly used in listings page and radio trailers to our own products

again, to create a sense of realism and professionalism.

Listings Page

In our group we were assigned different tasks in the ancillary section, mine being to

research and develop a listings page. I firstly analysed 2 real listings page fromRadioTimes, notifying what conventions were successful and appealing. You can

see this here: http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barter

Due to becoming ill however, I was unable to upload the final listings page I created,

and another member of our group completed the task for me. I do however have both

the finished product and layout I created beforehand although they were never used:

Large title that grabs the

readers attention and makes the

page look appealing.

Main large imagetaken from

documentary which is

used to attractaudience attention and

make the page look

more appealing. It also

appeals directly to our

target audience as it

allows the page to

have minimal text.

Drop-caps to break

up the paragraphs

and give the page a

professional and

appealing look.

Images taken from the documentary, displaying

what is going to feature in the documentary and to

give audience a sense ofwho is in the documentary.

Strap line, introducing the

topic of the documentaryand giving the audience an

understanding of the

controversy. Also includes

Title, Date, Time and

Channel.

Magazine title and page numbers giving a professional look to the page.

Text in columns, following

conventional listings page

layouts, making it look

professional and easy to read.

Pull-quote, taken directly from the

documentary, again showcasing itsfeatures and giving the page a professional

look.

Caption on the image

displaying who is in the

image and its connection

to the documentary,

creating audience appeal.

http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barterhttp://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barterhttp://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/search/label/Kieran%20Barter


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Overall, I am very pleased with the final listings page, as it follows many conventions

to that of a real listings page. I believe it attracts our target audience perfectly with its

overall layout, colour pallet, amount of text and the information it portrays.

Radio Trailer

Similarly to the listings page, due to being ill I was unable to contribute

to the radio trailer, however luckily, unlike the listings page, I was not

assigned this task and it was due to another member of my group tocomplete.

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

ancillary tasks?

Although the primary tasks of creating the documentary was our main product, the

combination and contribution of both the listings page and radio trailer were vital increating a successful documentary. It was extremely important that the products we

created coincided and featured elements from one another, all implementing

conventions used throughout the tasks.

Firstly, when creating the listings page, images were used straight from thedocumentary. This straight away showcases use of both products using an

image from the main task on the ancillary task, thus creating brand identity.

This works well in creating a bridge between products and appealing to our

target audience, using an image of a student in both products. Clarification for

our audience is also created, as you can see both images used are recognisable

as the same person. Tying in with conventions also used, many, if not alllistings pages use images straight from the documentary.



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The title of our listings page Fees Soar High also relates to our documentary,again creating a bridge between products. The title used is also similar to the

official title of our documentary and the one used, creating brand identity. The

only thing I would perhaps change is to use a similar colour or font style for

our listings page title as we did in our documentary. Both styles though

however appeal to the same audience, which I think works well.

The pull-quote used in the listings page also ties in with the documentary being a direct quote from Neil Attewell, one of the professional interviewees.

This gives a sense of importance to both Neil and the listings page grabbing

audience attention and showcasing professionalism, once more creating brand

identity.

The feature of the time, channel, date and title of the documentary was vitalin including in our listings page as the whole purpose of the page was to

advertise and promote our documentary and grab readers attention, thus this

possibly being the most important aspect. This evidently creates brand identity

by giving the audience clarification on where they can watch our product, the

documentary.



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The article itselfalso ties in with the other products, as it informs theaudience of the topic and controversy of our documentary, again

implementing promotion the main purpose of the page. The fact that

the text itself is minimal and scarce also showcases our target audience of

teenagers and people in education.

Similarly to the main image, the secondary images used in the listingspage were taken directly from the documentary, once more creating

brand identity and showcasing to our audience what features in our

product.

Similarly to the listings page, the radio trailer created also uses various aspectstaken straight from the documentary; such as sound-bites taken straight from

the documentary of the principal interview as he talks about the rise in theuniversity fees and his opinion,

immediately creating brand identity.

The fact that the radio trailer speakerwas a teenager in education also

links to our documentary, and

appeals directly to our audience.

However a big improvement thatcould be made, if made again, would

be to mention the title of the show,

time, date and channel more often



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this information being vital in creating brand identity and giving our

audience information. Due to this I feel the radio trailer was unsuccessful in

promoting our documentary.

With our target audience being teenagers or those who work in education, most would

not be interested in the radio or listings pages in the modern day. With the rise in

technology and more people using the internet, I feel a more appropriate way of

advertisement would be to use social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter,

with Facebook having over 845 million users and Twitter having over 300 million, I

feel these sites would have a much more substantial effect in advertising.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Once we completed our documentary, listings page and radio trailer,

questionnaires were created for the rest of the class to fill out to give

us feedback on our products. Although the questionnaire was only

handed out to a select few, due to our class being teenagers/in

education, this worked extremely well in tying in with our target

audience and allowed us a perfect insight on whether our products

were truly successful in their intention.

Below are images captured of fellow students, and our target

audience alike, completing the questionnaires.

Secondary Target Audience

Male/Female

25+

Social Class A-C

Teachers/Professionals in Education,Parents, Government

Primary Target Audience

Male/Female

15-20

Social Class C-E

Students going to university



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Here are the Overall results of the

questionnaires handed out. As you

can see the overall result was

Good, with Very Good coming

in second and OK third. I am

extremely pleased with these resultsas it showcases our products are

effective and created well. I also

believe due to the people who

completed the questionnaires being

our target audience, they could

relate to the controversy and topic

of choice.

Here are the Choice of Topic for

TV results from thequestionnaires. Again, the results

are extremely pleasing, as Very

Good being the highest, Good

being the second and Excellent

being the third highest. This

showcases that the topic we chose

to make our documentary on is

applicable and works well for TV.

Once more I feel the topic related

to the people questionned, leading

them to find it interesting and

deem it Very Good.

Here are the Appropriateness for

Target Audience results from the

questionnaires. With Very Goodbeing the highest, and Excellent and

Good being joint second. Again,

these results are extremely pleasing.

Appropriateness for T/A was

extremely important from the start,

with every piece of work created in a

way to appeal to our specific

audience.



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Here are the Professionalism/How

well does it compare with real TV

documentaries? results from the

questionnaires. With Good being

the highest and OK being second,

again, I am pleased with these results.

A lot of research and planning went

into our documentary, and giving it asense of realism and professional was

extremely important to us, so to see it

being successful is highly pleasing.

Here are the Filming/Shooting of

Appropriate Material results fromthe questionnaires. With Good

being the highest, Very Good

being the second highest and OK

being third, the results are again

pleasing. Obtaining appropriate

material was another vital aspect of

producing our product, having to

travel to various locations and sort

out interviews, so to see it worked

from our audiences is a good result.

Here are the Using

Sound/Music Appropriately

results from the questionnaires.

Once more, Good was the

highest result, and Very Good

and OK being joint second.

Due to copyright laws we wererestricted when choosing our

music and sound, so to see the

final result still being Good is

pleasing.



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Here are the Editing So Viewer Can

Understand Meaning results from

the questionnaires. Again, the highest

result is Good, Very Good being

second and OK being last. The

importance of creating clarity in our

product was extremely important, as

we didnt want our audience to notunderstand or find our documentary

unappealing, so these results are

pleasing.

Here are the Using Effects such as

Transitions, Captions etc.

Appropriately results from the

questionnaires. Good is thehighest, Very Good second and

OK last. Similarly to the music,

we were restricted when using

transitions, however the ones used

seem to appeal to our audiences and

worked appropriately and

effectively. Adding captions to

those of importance was also used

to create a sense of

realism/professionalism, and our

audience deems them appropriate.

Overall, I am extremely happy with these results, as all questions were deemed no less

than OK and were even deemed Excellent at times. With the main result being

Good I feel we have created an effective documentary as our target audience deem it

successful.

What our Target Audience liked about our documentary:

Choice of topic Range of footage Topic reaches target audience Successful interviews Range of opinions

What our Target Audience thought could be improved:

Improvement on sound levels More of an enthusiastic voice-over Lighting on some of the clips



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Comparing what our T/A liked to what they thought could be improved, I am

extremely pleased with these results, as the positives completely outweigh the

negatives, and if we were to re-create the documentary the negatives could easily be

changed.

What our Target Audience liked about our Listings Page:

Successful layout Successful use of large image and text Follows conventions Good use of subheadings Successful use of snapshots from doc.

What our Target audience thought could be improved:

Main image is blurry More text needed More creative with the text

Similarly to the documentary, the positives outweigh the negatives on our listings

page, so again overall I am pleased with the results. Again, if we were to re-create the

listings page the improvements could be easily made.

What our Target Audience liked about our Radio Trailer:

Consistent sound levels Good variety of sound-bites Present is informative Voice-over and overall sound is clear

What our Target Audience thought could be improved:

Not enough target audience in sound-bite It does not say the title of the show until the end

Once again, the positives outweigh the improvements for our Radio Trailer, so I am

pleased with the final results. Similarly to both the documentary and listings page, if

we were to re-create the radio trailer the improvements could easily be made.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction andresearch, planning and evaluation stages?

In the initial stages of the construction, research and planning, as a

group we had to decide what our topic of controversy would be to

create the documentary on. The Internet and the news sites such as

BBC News were a great aid in investigating the largest stories in the

media, ranging from fashion to drug/alcohol abuse. As it was

relatable, a recent change in law and all over the news we chose the

rise of university fees as our topic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/


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Also in the initial stages of construction, research and planning stages, as

mentioned earlier, my personal task was to produce a detailed analyse of 4

documentaries. The website Youtube was a very useful tool when analysing

the documentaries, as it has its very own on demand feature; 4OD. 4OD

enables you to watch a variety of shows broadcast on Channel 4 this

applying to our own product perfectly as Channel 4 was our chosen

broadcaster. The variety of documentaries featured are endless (featured

below), so Youtube was a very successful tool in enabling me to find

documentaries to analyse. This analyse process was a huge aid in helping me createthe documentary, as it give a clear insight to the way documentaries are made and the

common codes and conventions that are used, allowing me to apply them to my own

product and appeal to my own specific audience.

4OD also aided in

helping me choose the

topic, as there were very

few on the rise inuniversity fees, allowing

me to create my own

ideas on the subject and

apply them in a method

used in documentaries on

other topics.

Throughout the course of planning, research,

constructing and finishing our products, all of

our work was to be uploaded to the site

Blogger, and in particular, our very own blog

designated to our group. Blogger is extremely

useful in keeping a track on the work you have

done and allows you to save work with no fear of it being lost. Although I had never

used blogger before it was fairly easy to pick up and I found it extremely useful in

keeping a record of not just my own work, but the work of my group and who was

doing what. Due to it being a website, blogger was also accessible from any computer,

therefore making work at both college and home easier.

http://www.youtube.com/http://www.blogger.com/http://www.blogger.com/http://www.youtube.com/


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Blogger also has many features to use when creating your work, allowing you to add

text, images, videos and links this being a great tool in using variety in my work.

Blogger also allows you to save and edit

your posts, making deadlines easier tomeet as you can save work and edit it from

home. This feature also allows you to

change any mistakes made or simply make

changes to your work, another feature that

I found extremely useful.

You can see my groups blog here.

The Solihull Sixth Form College, Solihulls ILP was also extremely useful in

planning as a group we were able to contact various professionals who work there,

using the Messages feature. This was useful when planning our interviews for our

documentary, and enabled us to get a quick response.

http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/https://ilp.solihullsfc.ac.uk/https://ilp.solihullsfc.ac.uk/http://c05documentary11.blogspot.com/


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The main computer used in the research,

planning and construction stages was an Apple

Mac. The Apple Macs contained a wide range

of software to be used in creating our products

which I found extremely useful, such as Safari,

Comic Life, Final Cut Express, InDesign,

Photoshop, Garage band and lastly IDVD. Dueto not having used most of the software

beforehand I originally wasnt so confident,

however, the programmes were easy to pick

up and use to their full extent in the end.

When creating our documentary, we used a

Canon HG20 camera to film the footage, a

directional microphone to record sound,

accompanied by a pair of headphones tocheck the sound level and a tripod to place

the camera on. I had never used any of this

equipment before so, similarly to the Apple

Macs, I was originally unconfident in using

them, but with the help of teachers and help

sheets soon picked it up. I found this

equipment extremely useful and

professionally when creating our documentary, allowing us to get the

perfect framing on every shot and the correct

sound to accompany it. The camera also allowed

us to take still images, which was extremelyhelpful in obtaining images for our storyboards

and other planning. We could also replay any

footage we captured to see if it was correct or if

anything needed to be changed, again an

extremely useful technique. The tripod aided

greatly in the framing of the shots we were

shooting, however the only problem we had with

it was carrying it from location to location when

filming. Lastly the directional microphone and

headphones allowed us to check the sound of the footage whilst and

after shooting, again useful in helping us to see if there are any changes to be made.

Comic Life was also a useful piece of software to use in

our planning stages, allowing us to create storyboards

for our documentary, giving ourselves clarity and to

understand what goes where when creating

our product. We could also add labels to the

images showcasing what the shot contains

and what happens. This was an extremely

useful tool in planning and constructing ourfinal documentary.



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InDesign was another useful tool when constructing our products, as it was the

main software used to create the Listings Page. As shown on both the left and

right, the software includes an immense array of tools to use when creating your

work. Although I didnt use a lot of the tools when creating my listings page, I

still found the programme to be extremely useful as I could create the page

exactly how I wanted it with no restriction. I could easily add images and text,

and modify both of these elements to create a professional look; adding strokes

to text and images, creating columns, modifying the layout and create a double

page. Admittedly I found it hard to use initially, but similarly to the otherprocesses mentioned earlier, I soon picked it up.

Final Cut Express was the main programmed used when constructing and

editing our final documentary. Along with many of the other programmes, I

had never used Final Cut Express before, but soon learnt how to use it and

create a product.

Once all the footage had been extracted, we carefully placed each piece of footage in

a Bin for that minute, allowing us to organise our footage and have knowledge of

what is where, to save us losing or misplacing footage. We then renamed the bins to

the designated minute, again to create clarification and make the construction/editing

process easier. I found this tool very useful in enabling use to create the documentarythe easiest and simplest way.



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When constructing our documentary using Final Cut Express, next to the various

Bins we created for the footage was the viewer, and below was the footage andsound. A simple drag-and-drop method with the footage and sound made the

programmed extremely easy to use and helped us avoid complication. It also helped

when creating transitions and sound-bridges amongst the footage and allowed us to

align the sound with the footage. We could also crop the footage here to keep the

timings correct. The viewer helped us see what

we was editing and what it would look like,

letting us edit and view the footage at the same

time, again this being extremely helpful in

avoiding confusion.

As seen in the image to the right, we could also

create layers with the footage, makingtransitions and captions a lot easier to add and

divide between what is what (e.g. top layer for

text, middle layer for cut-aways and bottom

layer for main documentary.) Overall I found

Final Cut Express extremely useful and very

helpful to use.

Lastly, once the documentary was completed we burned the

final product onto a blank disc using iDVD. Although I had

never used this software before it was extremely easy to use

as it was a simple click of the mouse on Burn DVD.

Finally, I used Microsoft Word when creating my evaluation, as I simply

thought it was the most appropriate and easiest programme to display my work.

It allowed me to add images simply, add links to certain websites and hyperlinktext allowing me to have an interactive feel and variety in my work.

final media evaluation pdf - kieran barter

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