In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In our product we used many conventions used in real media products, we also tried to challenge these conventions to create a familier but unique product. In the tec
In our product we used many conventions used in real media products, we also tried to challenge these conventions to create a familier but unique product. In the tec
hnical and editing stages we researched the conventions of continuity to apply them in our product; we looked at things such as 180 degree rule
and match on actions etc, and then applied them to our documentary, things such as the 180 degree rule especially is a very important convention that a
ll similar products to ours use as it looks more professional and all in all better.
The content of our product does reflect similar products that aim to do the same thing entertain and inform. Within the content of our documentary we followed similar products in the sense that we wanted to feature many different locations in our documentary to keep it exciting and fresh and make our documentary more accurate and more entertaining. One major content aspect that many similar products feature is a host and a voice over artist, a host helps smoothly link the subject matter together and add extra detail and is featured in most documentaries. Although we do not challenge the conventions of the genre often there are examples of it happening, for example in the content we tried to vary what is been shown on screen, things such as the images of the places we feature and various interviews. We tried to fulfil the nature of the genre as much as possible, this way people would know what they are getting and would be able to enjoy it. Through the nature of our project we felt that comedy aspects such as parody should be left out as it would not work in context and would look silly. The main outright audience pleasure we were gunning for is to inform and entertain; we had to strike the right balance between these two aspects. To keep it inform
The content of our product does reflect similar products that aim to do the same thing entertain and inform. Within the content of our documentary we followed similar products in the sense that we wanted to feature many different locations in our documentary to keep it exciting and fresh and make our documentary more accurate and more entertaining. One major content aspect that many similar products feature is a host and a voice over artist, a host helps smoothly link the subject matter together and add extra detail and is featured in most documentaries. Although we do not challenge the conventions of the genre often there are examples of it happening, for example in the content we tried to vary what is been shown on screen, things such as the images of the places we feature and various interviews. We tried to fulfil the nature of the genre as much as possible, this way people would know what they are getting and would be able to enjoy it. Through the nature of our project we felt that comedy aspects such as parody should be left out as it would not work in context and would look silly. The main outright audience pleasure we were gunning for is to inform and entertain; we had to strike the right balance between these two aspects. To keep it inform
ative we focused on fact based information but to keep it entertaining we sampled many different places. One real documentary that our product can be compared to is “The Story of India”. This documentary resembles ours in the sense that it is looking at a place (in this case a country) that has many problems and negative aspects but is ignoring that to highlight the best bits of the country and how beautiful it can be, in ours we are looking at Barnsley which has several negative connotations but we are looking at how it has changed and looking at how modernised it is compared to the past.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APn07PS-5qc
How effective is the combination of your main prod
How effective is the combination of your main prod
uct and the ancillary texts?
There were several things that we wanted to achieve in our main production but the main one was to create an interesting factual documentary about our local area. I think our overlying message was portrayed in our advertising products, for example the poster featured shots of Barnsley from the past and from the present and
There were several things that we wanted to achieve in our main production but the main one was to create an interesting factual documentary about our local area. I think our overlying message was portrayed in our advertising products, for example the poster featured shots of Barnsley from the past and from the present and
were placed side by side to show a good effect of progression which we wanted to interest the audience to wonder what other differences there are between Barnsley of the past and the regenerated Barnsley of the present. We also wanted to entertain the audience so in the poster we tried to make it visually easy on the eye and appealing. I felt that my poster would make the reader want to know more and want to watch the documentary. One good thing about my post
er was the simplicity and the inform
ation given on the poster, it just gave out important information that would entice the viewer, things such as the title of the documentary and when it is to be premiered.
There are many things that our advertisement had in common with established and successful advertising products and shared some key features. When we researched similar posters we took note that literal 95% of posters we looked at had a common them and simplicity and relativity, each was quite basic and only featured the important information. Most posters we analysed featured either one large picture or several small pictures and where always used to excite the reader and preview the program.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
There are many things that our advertisement had in common with established and successful advertising products and shared some key features. When we researched similar posters we took note that literal 95% of posters we looked at had a common them and simplicity and relativity, each was quite basic and only featured the important information. Most posters we analysed featured either one large picture or several small pictures and where always used to excite the reader and preview the program.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback was an important part of our product becuase essentially it gave us an impartial look at what we could improve on and also helped us identify what sort of people would be interested in our documentary. At the very start of our planning we had a discussion to try and get a basic outline of what our audience would be, considering: Gender, Age, Sex and Location. Originally we thought that our product would appeal to a local audience aged between 18 and 40.
At the start of our planning we produced a very brief questionaire and gave it to many of our friends via print offs and also online on Facebook, a questionaire worked well for us because we wanted a sample of different people who each had different opinions that we could compare to get an idea of what people would find interesting. We also did several interviews with different people and asked them a variety of questions to find out what kind of aspects they enjoyed and if our documentary would interest them.
At the start of our planning we produced a very brief questionaire and gave it to many of our friends via print offs and also online on Facebook, a questionaire worked well for us because we wanted a sample of different people who each had different opinions that we could compare to get an idea of what people would find interesting. We also did several interviews with different people and asked them a variety of questions to find out what kind of aspects they enjoyed and if our documentary would interest them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfgizvOUt-o&feature=player_embedded
When we were editing we had to be careful not to ignore the audience research and instead take it on board. At the time of filming and editing we knew that we were making a documentary to inform and enteretain so we took steps to make sure our project fitted them two aspects, we tried to incorperate a lot of fact based information into our film to help it be both interesting and accurate, yet we had to balance this with trying to keep it entertaining and easy to watch, to help with the entertainment we tried to create a light hearted informal tone, we didn’t want it to be too aggressive in giving out facts as to not become tedious.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used new media technologies throughout our project from the research at the start to the planning and then to the construction of our documentary. The main media technology that we used for every part of our project was the internet, we used the internet first to research several different things that would help us create our documentary, we looked at videos of several similar documentaries “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APn07PS-5qc” This meant that we could get information about several different documentaries and look at the key features that different type of documentaries used, without the internet this would have been a lengthy progress but instead was done very quickly which is a large advantage of using the internet in general.
At the start of the project when we knew we were doing a documentary it was important that we used a media technology to edit what we had captured, the editing software we used was final cut pro. We were using final cup pro to edit our video together using some of the features of the software such as fades between shots, and effects on the shots themselves, this media technology was simple to use and with a little bit of practise we created something to be proud of.
New media technology helped us a great deal when we were capturing our documentary. One aspect of media technology was what we captured the video with a “Sony Hdv 1000” digital camera, using this camera made it easy to capture video in good quality and then transfer onto a computer to be edited. The actually recording was recorded onto tape before being transferred onto a MAC to be edited.
Photoshop is a media technology that we used to create our poster for our documentary, it is a hard piece of software to get used to but offers good results if you can master it, I used it for my poster because if all the expansive customisation it offers.
When planning our documentary we used a smaller digital camera to take planning shots of the areas we planned on basing our documentary on, being able to access a different range of camera that differed in size helped our group because we could easily pick up a small camera and quickly establish what shots we wanted and then practise doing them. The main advantage of using the smaller cameras was just practising before using the bigger cameras.
Many modern day media technologies helped us get feedback and responses for documentary, for example I downloaded our documentary onto my iPod so I could portably show it to people in college along with my family. This media technology made it very easy for us to get accurate detailed feedback very quickly and then act on whatever people said was wrong or needed to improve. Along with this we uploaded our documentary to Facebook and YouTube, again to get feedback from it.
