Comparing our documentary to codes and conventions of

documentaries.

Use of CameraWe looked at various other documentaries to see how they used the the camera and understood that we needed to film certain shots using different shot types in order to follow the conventions of the use of camera in documentaries.

We also looked at how documentaries used the camera free-hand when filming vox-pops whereas when filming formal interviews they used a tripod to keep the camera at a steady angle. For example when watching Super-Size me, Morgan Spurlock would occasionally hold the camera himself while asking passers by questions which made it look more formal and relatable to the audience, but when he was talking to doctors and health specialists he would have the camera in one position during the whole interview. During vox-pops he would also use close up shots of the interviewee whereas during the formal interviews it would generally be a medium shot in which you were able to see office work/computers in the background.

After looking at Super-Size Me and other documentaries such as Super-Size vs. Super-Skinny I came to realise that the use of camera was generally the same so when we were filming our own formal and informal interviews we followed the conventions such as free hand camera and close up shots during vox-pops and a medium shot for interviews where the person being interviewed tended to have a computer behind them with office work laid out.

SoundDuring my research I watched documentaries about similar serious issues that had the same target audience, to get a feel of what the audience would be interested in. I watched a few documentaries from channel 4 and YouTube about anorexia as they are as serious as cyber bullying and when watching them I looked for the background music that was used in different parts of the documentary. For example, the whole way through the documentary there would be a constant sound in the background fading in an out when appropriate and during certain serious moments the sound would dramatically change, suggesting the shot was significant. We used these documentaries to help us follow the codes and conventions by finding a track that would suit our serious style of music. We chose a slow track that would fade in and out constantly during the five minutes and we choose a more upbeat track to occasionally come in during vox-pops and interviews.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a common term in media which shows that in most documentaries, certain things are placed to make the shot look more professional. A still image from Super-Size me next to one from our documentary shows how we have followed the codes and conventions of the rule of thirds, with the captions both in the bottom left corner and the interviewee edging towards the right with the office in the background to the left. After watching various documentaries I noticed how all of them used the rule of thirds, hence why we decided to use it in our documentary to make it look more formal and professional.

Editing

When looking at other documentaries it is clear that a lot of editing is done in order for the documentary to flow properly and a lot of transitions are made when going from one shot to another. We used fading throughout or documentary to make ours also flow properly. When watching Embarrassing Bodies I seen that they blurred some shots out of focus as they were coming in and out of different shots to make it smoother, however we did not use this method when editing our documentary.

Magazine Article

By lines

Big bold headlines

The articles both contain four columns

Selection of images to break

up the page

Same font used throughout

Captions in the corner of the pictures

Radio TrailerWhen making our radio trailer we listened to radio trailers to see how they were laid out in order to get ideas for how we could make our own. After listening to different genres of radio trailers we noted that all of them lasted from around 30 seconds - 50 seconds, they all had a background track, and majority had a main voiceover and a separate, more formal one at the end which gave the relevant information such as what channel it would be shown on. They also used short clips from the documentaries/programmes they were advertising. When making our radio trailer we also had two people speaking with one at the end saying it would be on BBC £ and saying the title of our documentary, we also used the background music that we used within our documentary to link the two pieces together, and our documentary also lasted 30 seconds, within the conventions of radio trailers. We included short clips of some of the informal interviews in our radio trailer.

Conclusion

Overall, I think we used all of the conventions of a documentary, radio trailer and magazine articles and tried to follow them as much as possible in order to make our forms of media seem as professional as they could. We did not go against any of the codes and conventions and did not challenge any either.