media evaluation final maria

8/2/2019 Media Evaluation Final Maria

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Maria Phipps

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

of real media products?

The aim of this task was to produce the opening five minutes of a documentary of our

choice. The first stage of this process was brainstorming of ideas, followed by

research and planning, where we analysed different types of documentaries which

links to our chosen topic. Our documentary was called Fashion: Pushed to the

limits and targeted the issue of how fashion affects todays youth. Most of thefilming for our documentary was done in Touchwood, Solihull.

This is a still taken from our

documentary, introducing the

location.

Before brainstorming ideas for the documentary, we decided on a target audience. The

target audience for our documentary was primarily teenagers, both male and female

and of mixed ethnicities, but also had the secondary audience of parents. We decided

our documentary would be broadcasted on channel 4, as this was shown to be the

most popular channel for our chosen target audience, and it also has shown real

documentaries with a similar purpose to our own.

Our initial brainstorm consisted of our group each putting forwards ideas for topics,

then each of us eliminating the ones which we did not think would work as well. After

deciding to use the topic of fashion, we made another brainstorm of ideas of how to

pursue this topic. We decided that to make our documentary suit a wider target

audience, we would target both males and females, by including aspects of new

technologies being perceived as fashionable and desirable to males as well as clothes

for females.

We then analysed documentaries with a similar purpose to ours to get ideas on what

kinds of footage to get, and how to arrange the first five minutes effectively. This


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research enabled us to get appropriate footage that would make our documentary look

realistic.

Another way in which our documentary followed conventions used in real media

products was the use of professional interviews. The interview with Neil Attewell and

Jag Jagdev gave our documentary authenticity and made it more believable. We asked

questions such as why do you think teenagers find it so important to pursuefashion trends? and how do think this affects them? When filming for these

interviews we paid close attention to the shot framing, having our subjects in medium

close-up and slightly to the side of the shot, not directly facing the camera to give a

sense of realism. This is similar to real documentaries as the interviewees are always

placed slightly to one side. Another way these interviews followed conventions was

that the name of the interviewee

appeared on the screen to let the

audience know who was talking.

We also did vox pops short

interviews where we asked people

on the high street of Touchwoodfor their opinions on fashion.

These are often used in real

documentaries to give a feel for the

amount of people affected by the

issue.

Here is a screenshot of our interview with Neil Attewell. As you can see, he

is placed to the right hand side of the frame. His open laptop also adds to the

effect of the mise-en-scene, making his office look more professional.

Here is a still from Are the

net police coming for you?

showing a professional

interview. Interestingly, in this

documentary, professional

interviews were filmed using acamera steadied by a tripod,

whereas interviews with

normal people were filmed

with handheld camera. This is

a technique we did not use in

our documentary, as we chose

instead to use a tripod for all

footage.


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Another convention we followed was the use of a channel 4 ident, with our own

voiceover layered on top. This linked our documentary to the channel of broadcast

and made it more realistic.Here is a screenshot of the

channel 4 ident we used.

Here is the ident used before

the documentary Are the net

police coming for you.

In our documentary, we followed on the trend of using a voiceover, rather than using

a presenter. During our research into other documentaries similar to ours, we did not

see many with presenters so by just using a voiceover we were following this

convention. I think that using a voiceover rather than a presenter was effective as it

allows the audience to focus on what is happening on the screen as well as absorbing

information, as well as keeping their attention. However, presenters are sometimes

used in documentaries, as shown below:

In the Are the net police

coming for you documentary,

a presenter was used. This is

common for panorama

documentaries but not

completely necessary for all

documentaries.


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We used Are the net police coming for you? to help us with ideas for footage in ouropening montage. From watching the opening montage of the real documentary, we

were able to follow conventions in our product. This research helped us use

conventions of real media productsas we were able to make our documentary look

more professional.

Our opening montage was a series of short video clips relating to our topic to open

our documentary. The clips used in ours included shop windows and names, and a

range of shot distances including close-ups of peoples eyes which combined with

clips of typing and a computer screen, gave the representation of someone searching

for fashion online. This idea came from watching the net police documentary. Wealso used short clips of a teenage boy talking on his phone, and a close-up of him

using the phone to text.

Here are 2 examples of stills

from our opening montage.

Here are 2 examples from a real documentary. We

have used similar ideas, however the mise-en-

scene of our documentary is much lighter,reflecting the lighter topic. Are the net police

coming for you is more about legal issues, so the

clips of people using computers were much darker.


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One way in which our documentary does not follow

conventions is that it did not include a title sequence. If we

had been given more time and had a better knowledge of

software, we could have created a title sequence which

would have made our documentary more authentic. This

title sequence is used for all panorama documentaries.

Overall our documentary mostly follows conventions rather than challenges or

develops them. This means it is realistic and more professional, as challenging too

many conventions can make it unrealistic and unbelievable to the audience.


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This is an example of a real listings page. Here I have compared and contrasted the

conventions used in this listings page with our own.

Smaller images are often used

to give added interest to the

page and to show other aspects

of the program being

promoted.

Pull quote we have used 2 of

these in our listings page as

they add interest and are

almost always used in real

listings pages.

Main image

splaying the

ubject of the

rogram. This

similar to

ur listings

age as the

ain images

late to the

ocumentary.

Small column promoting

another program this shows

that listings pages do not have

to be a whole double page

spread, and that programs can

be advertised just using a

small column.

Name of

magazine is

displayed here.

We also

displayed the

name of the

magazine in our

listings page,

but at the top of

the page.

Main heading here also doubles as a pull

quote a technique often used in listings

pages. However, we did not choose to

follow this convention, instead using a

rhetorical question.


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

The idea of the ancillary tasks was to promote our main product by giving people a

taster of what would be shown in the documentary. To do this, we had to connect all 3

products throughout, and to have a brand identity. This gives the audience, readers

and listeners a chance to connect with our products and to gain interest to make them

want to watch the documentary. For all of our products to make an effective

combination, we had to keep them consistent to each other.

Our main product and ancillary tasks are kept consistent in many ways. For example,the listings page uses images taken from the documentary, anchored by captions

which relate to our documentary.

This photo here was

taken as a still from

our documentary.

Script for our radio trailer:

Presenter: On channel 4, an investigation into peer pressures of an ever changing

society.

Quote from source 1: I think this is a serious issue

Presenter: To seek out the cause of controversy in teenage lives today: fashion trends.

Quote from source 1: Fashion is an enormous issue in todays society, I think

particularly for young people the pressures on them to look good and have the latestgadgets, it is a real problem.


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Quote from source 2: Ive had to resort to stealing; I cant afford not to fit in

Even if they cant afford it, theyll steal it.

Presenter: Fashion: Pushing it to the limit. Catch it on channel 4, at 8 oclock.

The quotes highlighted in blue are sound bites taken from our documentary, by our

main professional interview. This anchors the documentary to our radio trailer so they

fit together. The channel and time are also the same as displayed in the listings page.

The ident at the start of our documentary also links it to the ancillary tasks as it shows

that it is being shown on channel 4, as both ancillary tasks state.


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3.What have you learned from your audiencefeedback?

When we had finished the construction stages, we showed our documentary and

ancillary tasks to a group of teenagers of mixed gender and ethnicity to get audiencefeedback. We used sheets with questions and space to rate our documentary in

accordance to those questions: excellent, very good, good, ok and poor.

Here are the total numbers of each rating:

Excellent: 9 Very good: 20 Good: 26 Ok: 7 Poor: 0

This graph shows

the total amount of

boxes ticked for

each rating. It

clearly shows that

the most common

rating was good,

and that many more

people ticked the

higher rating boxes

than the lower ones.

From these results we can conclude that our documentary had both strengths and

weaknesses, which were shown in the comments at the bottom of each feedback

sheet.

I looked through these feedback sheets and wrote down the comments which appeared

the most times. The most commonly occurring positive feedback point was the rangeof footage, and how the documentary met the target audience and the fact that it was

interesting also appeared a few times.

The most commonly occurring negative point was the consistency of the sound

levels. This was because not enough care was taken to ensure that all of the sound

levels were equal, resulting in some parts being louder than others. If we were able to

spend more time on our documentary, we would spend more time ensuring these

sound levels were even. This problem was likely caused by the original sound levels

while recording, so they had to be rectified in final cut moving the sound bar higher

or lower accordingly.


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The 7 questions asked in the questionnaire were to rate:

1. Choice of topic2. Appropriate filming3. Appropriateness for target audience4. Use of sound/music5. Editing for audience to understand meaning6. Effects & Transitions7. Professionalism

Here I have tallied up the results for each question and put them in their own graph.

Question 1: Choice of topic.

For this question,2 people rated our documentary as excellent, 3 rated it as very

good, 4rated it as good, and no-onerated it lower. This result was encouraging as itshowed us that our choice of topic was appealing to our target audience.


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Question 2: Appropriate filming

For this question, 2 people rated it excellent, 5 rated it very good, 3rated it good and

no-one rated it any lower. These results showed us that our target audience thoughtour filming was appropriate for our subject, and we were pleased that nobody rated it

any lower than good.

Question 3: Appropriateness for target audience

For this question, 1person rated it excellent, 3 rated it very good, 4 rated it good, 1

rated it ok and no-onerated it poor. While these results were good, they were not ashigh as the previous questions so we can conclude that there was some room for

improvement with the target audience.


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Question 4: Use of sound/music.

For this question, no-onerated it excellent, 2 rated it very good, 4 rated it good, 3

rated it ok and no-onerated it poor. This category held the lowest overall ratings,and was also brought up in the comments that our sound levels and quality were

inconsistent. Given this audience feedback, if we had time to improve our

documentary we would fix this.

Question 5: Editing for audience to understand meaning.

For this question, 1 person rated it excellent, 1 rated it very good, 5 rated it good, 1

rated it ok and no-one rated it poor. The general feedback for this section was good,however again, there was room for improvement.


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Question 6: Effects and transitions

For this question, 3 people rated it excellent, 2 rated it very good, 3 rated it good and

no-onerated it lower. These results were positive as no-one rated below good, so thiwas a successful category.

Question 7: Professionalism.

For this question, no-onerated it excellent, 4 rated it very good, 3 rated it good, 2

rated it ok and no-onerated it poor. These results were not bad, but also showed

room for improvement. I think that part of the reason was did not get any excellentratings was because of the sound quality.


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LISTINGS PAGE AUDIENCE FEEDBACK:

This pie chart shows the overall

ratings for our listings page.We asked 10 people to give it a

rating out of 10, and the results

were as follows:

1 person rated it 10/10

3 people rated it 9/10



Nobody rated it any lower than 7.

These results were encouraging

because they show us that ourlistings page was good.

One of the positive comments we got on our listings page said:

10% said

10/10 40% said

8/10

30% said

9/10

20% said

7/10

It was a good use of colours and the layout

was simple yet effective.

Another positive comment said:

Follows common conventions well

One negative comment which appeared more than once said:

Too much white background

Using these comments we could improve our listings page by makingthe background coloured or filling the page up more. The positive

comments and the high ratings show us that people like our listings

page and that it is a strong product.


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Radio trailer audience feedback:

This pie chart shows the

overall ratings for our

radio trailer.We asked 6 people for a

rating out of 10, and the

results were as follows:

1 person rated it 10/10


2 people rated it 7/10Nobody rated it lower

than 7, and nobody rated

it 9.

These results were

encouraging and showed

that people liked our

radio trailer.

Like the listings page,

we also asked for some

feedback comments.

The positive comments included:

Good voiceover

Appropriate for target audience

The negative comments were all about the sound levels. One example was:

Sound levels were a bit inconsistent

Using these comments we could improve our radio trailer by

ensuring that all sound levels were consistently equal. This was the

same problem we had with our documentary.


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4.How did you use media technologies in yourplanning, research, construction and

evaluation stages?

The first bit of technology we had to use for our documentary was cameras. We used

both stills cameras and video cameras to create our documentary, using the stills

cameras for the listings page and some of the opening montage, and the video camera

to film footage. We also had to use voice recorders for the radio trailer and voiceover.

Stills camera:

We used the stills camera to take

photographs for the story board (for use in

planning) and for images used in the

listings page. When taking photographs,

we had to carefully consider the framing,as well as the quality of the photograph.

We took a lot of photographs and only

used the best ones to ensure the highest

quality possible. Where necessary,

photographs could be edited in Photoshop

to enhance brightness and contrast, or to

crop.

Video camera:

When filming footage for our

documentary, we used a HD video

camera with a tripod to ensure steady

footage. In all video clips no matter

what they were, we were very careful

with the mise-en-scene to ensure

everything was relevant to our

documentary. We also carefully

considered the framing of each shot

so our footage could look as

professional as possible. We also

plugged in headphones and amicrophone to our video camera

when recording interviews to ensure

sound quality was as good as possible to match the voiceover which was recorded on

sound recorders. When recording interviews we had one person operate the camera,

and another hold the microphone and wear the headphones so they could check sound

levels were all in order. We also had to be careful that the microphone stayed out of

the shot, which was difficult in some places where there was a lot of background

noise as we needed the microphone to be as close to the speaker as possible to keep

the background noise from being heard.

During filming we used a range of settings on the video cameras, including adjusting

the lighting and manually focussing the footage. The manual focus was particularly


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useful when I did some extra recording at home using my own video camera, as I did

some interesting shots where I pulled an out of focus shot into focus.

Here is an example of a piece of footage

where I pulled it into focus. This technique

is commonly used in documentaries.

The computers we used throughout the production process were apple macs. Prior to

this project I had never used one before as I generally use regular PCs, so I learnt a lot

about the use of the apple macs during this process. We used the macs for everything

to do with editing our main and ancillary tasks the programs we used included final

cut express for the documentary, garage band for the radio trailer, and indesignfor the listings page.


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We also used the internet a lot during the research and planning stages, using Google

and YouTube to gather information.

I also used YouTube when making the graph for our documentary, so I could upload

the moving image and put it on the blog. This is a link to the video I uploaded of the

moving graph:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1p2dUoKXC0

I also had to embed the video onto the blog, which I did by clicking share, then

copying the embed code onto the blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1p2dUoKXC0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1p2dUoKXC0


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To make the graph, I initially used Photoshop elements 5.0. I created a simple graph

with just one bar at the end, exported that as a JPEG file, then added another bar on,

exported that, and kept doing this until I had a completed graph. This print screen

shows all of the exported JPEG files open in Photoshop.

This is the first stage of the

graph I made.

This is the final stage the

completed graph.


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I then put the graph together using Sony Vegas, a video editing software similar tofinal cut. This process could also have been achieved using final cut, but since I was

making it at home where I did not have final cut installed, I used Sony Vegas.

This shows the layout of Sony Vegas. Similarly to final cut, it has a timeline and

several layers. To put the graph together and make it move, I just put each stage of the

graph into the timeline and faded them together, then on the final stage showing the

full graph I made it zoom in. I then clicked project, then render as to save it. I saved it

in an AVI format so it would be compatible with final cut.

Then to add the graph to final cut, I just had to import it and place it where I wanted it

on the timeline.


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Final cut express was the main program we used to create the documentary. Tostart off with, we created bins to put footage to be used in each minute in so we knew

where to find the right clips easily. We then used log and transfer to go through our

footage and pick out which bits to use, renaming them and placing them in the

appropriate bin. While doing this, we followed our story board.

When we had imported all of the footage to be used in our documentary, we started toplace it on the time line in the order we wanted it.

This part of the timeline shows

the actual video footage.

This part of the timeline shows the sound that goes with each

video clip. There are two lines, one each for left and right

speaker.

After adding all of the footage, we added in our voiceover, music and text.

These files are the

voiceover files.

This is text

overlaid to

introduce our

interviews.

Files beginning with pop are

music files, as we used pop

tracks which would appeal to

our target audience.


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This is the general layout of final cut express, here showing our finished

documentary.

This is the preview screen,

where we could watch back

footage placed on our timeline.

This box here allowed us to preview clips

before placing them into the timeline aswell as editing them once they had been

placed in. Here, I had selected the

motion tab which allowed us to make

footage zoom in/out, crop it etc.

This box is

where allfootage, sound

etc was

imported to.

This is also

where we

created the bins.

This is the timeline, as I explained in more detail above.

This is where transitions were added. To place a transition in the

timeline, we overlapped two clips then dragged the desired transitionin. The transition we used throughout was random edge wipe.


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To record sound for our

voiceover for both our

documentary and our radio

trailer, we used a soundrecording device called

Maudio linked up to

headphones and a

microphone. This gave us

clear sound with no

background noise as long as

the sound levels were

adjusted properly. In some

cases, we had to re-do our

sound recording as if the

levels were not correctlyadjusted, there could be

background noise or a quiet

buzzing sound in the

background.

This could have been partly to blame for the sound levels in our documentary

and radio trailer not being quite as good as they could have been, so if we had

more time we could have enhanced our skills using this device to ensure even

sound quality throughout.


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We also used a website called www.blogger.com to upload our work to. Having never

used this website before, it took some getting used to, but proved useful as a method

of keeping track of our work.

This is our group.

To create a new post, we clicked new post underneath our own group. We were able

to add pictures or embed YouTube videos

to add variety to our work.

Here is a print screen of part of our blog

including an embedded YouTube video

and a picture.
http://www.blogger.com/http://www.blogger.com/


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The program we used to edit out radio trailer was garage band. I used this brieflyat the end of my AS year to produce a radio news report for radio 1, so this software

was not entirely new to me. However, we were still able to enhance our skills using it.

In our radio trailer we used sound bites taken from our documentary. To do this we

just had to import the same sound files we used in the documentary into garage band.

To adjust sound levels, we clicked on the bars and dragged the level up or down

accordingly.

These little circles show where we

had clicked on the audio level bar.

To adjust the level, we clicked on

the circle and dragged it.


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We used comic lifeto make storyboards for our documentary. Thesestory boards enabled us to plan effectively how our documentary was

going to play out. I had never used comic life before so I gained a

number of skills while using it for this project.

There was a number

of different layouts

to choose from

when using comic

life. We used layout

J, so we could add

in pictures, then

used the callouts to

annotate.


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The program we used to create the

listings page was InDesign.

While making the listings page, it was

important to make lots of boxes to

place everything in whether it was

text or images. This enabled us to

move everything around freely, so

there was no limit to where we could

place objects. To place an image in a

box, we right clicked and clickedplace, then found the correct image

file.

Here is a print screen of our listings page in InDesign.

In our listings page, we used an image taken directly from our documentary so

the two linked together. To do this, we saved a video still in final cut as a JPEG

format and imported it to InDesign.


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We chose to use columns to lay out our text as it looks more professional than simply

having full length paragraphs. The columns are conventional of listings page

conventions.

After finishing our documentary in final cut, we then exported it as a QuickTimemovie, then burnt it to a DVD using iDVD. I had never used this program before but

it was really simple to use.

This shows the process of exporting the

documentary as a QuickTime movie.

`

This shows the opening iDVD screen.We clicked create a new project and

followed steps from there.

Overall, I have learnt a lot about using different media technologies

throughout this process. I have used several pieces of software I had

previously never used before, and have been pleased with the results.

I have also found it rewarding working in a group throughout this

process as we have been able to share knowledge to help develop our

skills further.

Maria Phipps


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