Critical Evaluation

In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms or conventions of real media products?

Our media product uses many conventions of real media products. At a technical level, it includes many different conventions of continuity editing and other types of edit style. During the interview with the local councilor, it was very important that we stuck to the 180 degree rule to establish each character's position in the room and to maintain a smooth and professional atmosphere to the product. When we used pan shots, we would usually pan left to right, as it makes a smoother and easier shot because we read left to right. As most of our product involves shots with a narrative voice over, it was very crucial that we ensured that the narration elaborated on what could be seen in the shot and to not just point out the obvious. We also needed to do this to make sure we could all the information across which could not be portrayed by visual camera shots. Each time we moved to a different location, we usually began with an extreme long shot of the location to establish the scene. It was important that we did this otherwise the viewer wouldn't be aware of location changes and become confused with the whole documentary.

As we decided that our product would be in the style of a Channel 4 documentary, we needed to reflect the conventions of the genre. If we challenged the conventions too much, it would not suit the Channel 4 style and wouldn't reflect our initial aims. The content of the product needed to reflect the conventions of a Channel 4 documentary as much as the editing does. We used a variety of different shots and edits to fit the conventions, but the most obvious ways we reflect the conventions of the genre is through the use of an interview and the use of a presenter. Although the presenter provides a narrative throughout the production, she only actually appears in the interview and a small number of shots. We decided to do this because it meant we could fulfil the convention of having a presenter on location for some shots and give a character for the viewer to relate to, whilst also being able to have a huge range of shots without the presenter blocking part of the view. The fact that most of the shots were accompanied by a voice over meant that it was easier to film buildings and landscapes without worrying about positioning the presenter, but still being able to provide information to the viewer.

The main aim of our product was to provide the audience with information on the regarded topic, whilst also providing entertainment, which would generally come from the information put across as people's interest in a topic entertains them. It was a simple task to do this. All the information we needed could be acquired from research and we managed to provide the audience with a range of facts, figures, details and even explanations on the topic our product covered. Also, the use of an interview with an expert on the topic meant that more detailed and elaborate information that we couldn't find through research could be provided. 

Our production follows many of the conventions of documentaries that I found when researching and analysing real media texts.  Firstly, the use of extreme long shots as establishing shots is a common convention and very important for the genre of documentary we produced.

Another way in which our production shares conventions with real media texts is through the use of different types of narration. Like many documentaries including The Building Inspector Is Coming, our production uses a mixture of an on screen presenter and voice over narration. However, there is a slight difference in use of presenter, as The Building Inspector Is Coming follows a presenter round as he performs his job at the same time, whereas our production has fewer shots with the presenter, who is just documenting on the topic and not actually performing a job at the same time.

 

A third way in which our production shares conventions with other documentaries is through the use of interviews. Interviews are extremely important in providing an expert or professional to provide more information for the viewer. Almost every documentary will include an interview, making it a very  important convention for our production.

How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?

We wanted our production to be an informative documentary about regeneration, with the episode being specifically about Barnsley. We also wanted it to fit the Channel 4 conventions. Our poster and radio trailer had to fit both of these as well.

We decided that our poster should have to include photos of some of the buildings documented in our production, as it would blatantly display the topic of the production. The simple design of four modern buildings next to the title "Boom or Bust: Regeneration in a world of crisis and austerity" quickly informs the viewer on the content of the product. The simple design also let us apply the conventions of a Channel 4 production poster, most notably the C4 font, the colour scheme, text boxes and Channel 4 logo. I think that the poster is very representative of the content of the documentary, the style of documentary and the message we are trying to portray. The poster shows that the film is about the regeneration of towns and cities, it shows that it is a Channel 4 production and shows the date and time it starts - which is everything the poster needed to do.
(Left: our poster. Below: our radio advert.)


Just like the poster needed to fit the conventions of a Channel 4 documentary about regeneration, so did the radio trailer. We used a short trailer that got to the point, similarly to the simple design of our poster. The quiet electronic music gives an urban feel to the advert, whilst the voice over starts to describe the content of the product. The trailer uses a simple format to give the listeners the crucial information as quickly and easily as possible. The use of tense yet calming music with the seriousness of the narration builds up atmosphere and portrays the product as exciting and entertaining, making it more likely for listeners to watch the documentary.
The two ancillary texts very effective in selling the production. They both show exactly what the production is about and give it a serious and exciting atmosphere. If the radio advert was a voice over with no music, explaining the construction of a building in great detail, it would be unclear to the listener and sound boring and unappealing. However, we carefully picked our words to make the script give the production some more excitement. Our target audience was people specifically interested in the topic, living in an area covered in the series or generally a fan of Channel 4 productions. Our poster and radio advert clearly show the content of the production and that it's a Channel 4 production, so we are clearly targeting our audience properly.

Our poster fits most of the conventions for a Channel 4 documentary poster, such as the logo, text and layout. However, when it comes to imagery, most Channel 4 posters use one powerful image, which makes up the whole poster. We deviated from this convention slightly, using four smaller images down the left hand side. We did this for a number of reasons. Firstly, one image powerful enough to show the topic of the product was not available to us, so we used a variety of smaller and less powerful images to show a variety of different buildings. Secondly, we wanted to play on the black/white contrast and show the C4 logo boldly on the right and using a larger image would decrease the contrast between the colours of the logo and background. Finally, a photo relevant to the topic of the production would be difficult to take because it would generally be a building or a cityscape, which would not fit a simple portrait A4 poster. For all these reasons, we found it more appropriate to deviate a little and use four images.

As you can see when comparing our poster with the Channel 4 poster to the right, apart from the slight imagery layout difference, our poster followed the important conventions that define the identity of a Channel 4 poster. Similar things can be said about our radio trailer. Most of the radio adverts I researched, like the one below, included a voice over narration with some relevant music in the background. We produced our radio advert to be more or less the same thing but relevant to the topic of our film.



What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience research was an important step for us during the planning stage. We needed to find out whether our chosen topic was thought to be interesting enough and whether our decided target audience was the right one. We made a short questionnaire which we asked to a range of people.


We discovered that most people watch documentaries in the evening, which was what we had planned anyway. We also discovered that people prefer an individual episode to a series, however, we decided that creating a series would spread our target audience if we were to cover different towns and cities in different episodes, as the most likely people to watch the show would be people from in or around the area, so the more areas we do, the more potential viewers we have. We also thought that an individual episode about regeneration in Barnsley was an unlikely topic for a Channel 4 show and decided that regeneration of a larger area would be a more likely and appealing topic.

As the aim of our production was to provide information and entertainment, we thought the best thing to do would be to keep it informative but not in such a heavy context. The information needed to be understandable to the viewers, and if it was too complex, no-one would understand the production. To ensure this, throughout the whole production we constantly made sure that when we were documenting the regeneration of a building, we would provide enough information for the viewer to gain a good knowledge and understanding of the topic, but not be overwhelmed by complex information. We made sure the script contained things like building size, purpose, cost, time etc rather than more complex issues such as physics or complex information about the structure. To go with the moderate information, we had to make sure we had a variety of creative and innovative shots, which is why the use of both an on screen presenter and voice over narration worked well, as we could use a mixture of extreme long shots, close ups, zooms and pans. We also used interviews to make sure accurate information was included, and the use of a professional gives people a more positive and trusting attitude towards the production.

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

During the process of researching, planning and producing our documentary, we used a wide variety of different media technologies to ensure the best outcome. Throughout the whole process the use of the internet was extremely important. First, we created the blog, where we would post all work towards creating our documentary. We used the internet – Youtube in particular – to research different styles documentaries to help us decide what style use for our project. We then researched similar documentaries and analysed one. This helped us quickly and easily discover the conventions of a documentary and what we would need to include in ours. It helped us understand what kind of shots we would need, what content and how it would be presented. We also used the internet to research the chosen topic of our production, where we found a range of different construction plans for Barnsley which we then used in our interview with a councillor. Similarly to when we researched similar documentaries, we also used the internet to research posters and discovered several websites and PDF files with lots of information on the conventions of Channel 4 posters which helped as we needed our poster design to be in the Channel 4 style. The final thing we used the internet for was researching radio adverts. Youtube allowed me to quickly and easily learn the main conventions of radio trailers within minutes. Without the internet, this research would have been a lot harder as we would have had to go through several books and watch the documentaries on TV or DVD.

 

During the planning stage, we took a large range of location photos with a digital camera and then uploaded them onto an Apple Mac to then upload onto the blog. The use of the camera allowed us to present the different buildings and locations we had looked at to include in our film. The use of the Apple Mac was very important, as it's the machine we've used throughout the media course to use the internet, edit footage and audio, create posters etc. Every stage of this production has used the Apple Mac and so it played a very crucial role in making this production possible.

We used a Sony HDV1000 to film. It produced good quality footage that was easy to set up and capture. We recorded onto tape and then used a device to upload footage onto the Apple Mac. The HDV1000 was very useful as the sound recording quality and the image quality were much higher than on the smaller hand held camera we were required to use during our AS media production.

 shot from AS production with handheld camera

shot from Boom or Bust with HDV1000

To edit our footage, we used software called Final Cut Pro. The software was relatively easy to learn how to use and has made edited and producing our documentary a whole lot easier. We've been able to put all the shots in the right order, accompany narration when needed and even put in effects between certain shots for a smoother transition. Without this software or software like this, our production would just be different unedited shots on a camera tape. Another piece of software we used was Adobe Photoshop. We used this to create our poster ideas and then eventually design our final poster. It was very simple and easy to use, allowing us to make a presentable poster that truly represents our documentary. Without this software, we would have to either hand draw posters or use inefficient software like Paint, which isn't supposed to be used for professional designing. 

 

These technologies allowed me to maximise the potential of creativity within the whole production and without them the whole process of producing our documentary would have been a lot harder if even possible. They allowed us to find out what we needed to do and how we would do it, then actually produce the documentary.