1. EvaluationRebecca Hallissey

2. The BriefOur main task given in the beginning of the A2Media Studies course was to create the opening5 minutes for a television documentary. Wewere also told to construct a radio trailer and adouble page spread for a TV listings magazine tohelp advertise our documentary to the targetaudience. We started this task by researchingexisting television documentaries to see whatsort of things the target audience liked. 3. 1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop orchallenge forms and conventions of real media products? 4. What topic did we base our documentary on?For our documentary, we chose the theme of Teen Life, focusingon Healthy Eating and Exercise amongst teenagers and youngadults for the first episode in the series. This is the episode wecreated the starting 5 minutes to. We chose to focus on thissubject because we feel all teens will be able to relate to thisbecause it affects everyone, and so many teens may have interestin the topic .This is very good for our documentary because it means it is likelyto have large viewing figures and lots of interest from the targetaudience. Teenagers frequently talk amongst themselves andrecommend things they like to their friends, so hopefully theviewers of the pilot episode would discuss the documentary withtheir friends and possibly recommend the programme to others,increasing viewing figures for the series. 5. Supersize MeWe started looking at documentariesduring class time. We watched thetelevision documentary SupersizeMe and analysed the content.Supersize Me was directed by andstarring Morgan Spurlock, and focuseson the negative impact fast food hason the average Americans life. This isa similar topic to the one we focusedon in our own documentary so wewere able to get inspiration from this.However, we focused on a differentaudience (British teenagers rather thanAmerican adults.) 6. The Worlds Strictest ParentsFor individual research, Iwatched an episode of TheWorlds Strictest Parentsand analysed it. Thisdocumentary has a verysimilar target audience toour documentary, so I wasable to use it to get ideasfor our own construction. 7. Further ResearchAs well as watching existing documentaries to findout the codes and conventions of this area oftelevision programme, we also did research into ourtopic of Healthy Eating and Exercise amongstteenagers and young people. We found lots of factsand statistics which we could then use throughoutour documentary during cutaway shots. We usedthese to inform and shock our audience, forexample: In an official recent survey, doctors found17% of boys and 16% of girls between 12 and 15 areclassed as either overweight or obese. 8. Bill Nichols Theory Of DocumentaryModesThe Expository ModeThe Poetic ModeThe Observational ModeThe Participatory ModeThe Reflexive ModeThe Performative Mode 9. The Mode Of Our DocumentaryOur documentary has a voiceover throughoutThe narrator does not appear onscreenFormal interviews are structuredElements of fly on the wall (people eating)Background music used throughoutElements of Observational ModeElements of Expository Mode 10. Shot Types and Sound Levels 11. Formal InterviewFor this interview, we used a mediumshot. However, many documentariesuse more close up shots in expertinterviews, such as the one shownhere from Supersize Me. Wedecided to use a medium shot here toshow more of the background, andbecause of spacial issues whilefilming. Looking back on this, I do notthink a medium shot was a veryeffective shot to use, as thebackground looks very plain and thereis a lot of blank white space that wasdifficult to edit out. We filmed thisinterview in a silent room so you wereable to hear what she was sayingclearly without interference from anybackground noise. 12. Vox PopsFor our vox pops, we used amedium shot with the interviewee inthe centre of the frame. This is verysimilar to the shot type that MorganSpurlock used in his documentarySupersize Me, and I feel this shottype worked very effectively. Therewas some background noise ofpeople talking because we filmedthis vox pop in a crowded canteen,but because this is supposed to bean interview with a member of thegeneral public and not an expert,this gives the interview a sense ofrealism. This background noise isalso seen in vox pops in otherdocumentaries, including SupersizeMe. 13. MusicWe used minimalist, upbeat music in ourpiece. We set the sound level of the musiclow so the audience can still hear thevoiceover and interviews clearly over the topof the music. This is a common feature of alot of existing documentaries. Mostdocumentaries also use modern mainstreammusic to set the tone of the programme, butwe were unable to do this because ofcopyright reasons.