Final Products

Documentary

Poster

Radio Advert

Question 4

Question 3

Question 2

Question 1

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

In the research stage of producing our documentary, We researched generic codes and conventions of documentary. In production and post production we conformed/subverted certain convention to produce a original and professional media text.

Documentary

Editing:
We used establishing shots and time lapses to link scenes together. Time lapse is a great way to capture the passage of time and is a generic narrative convention used in documentaries to illustrate a journey. Our media text is only 5 minutes of a documentary so we tried to position the audience to believe there is a lot more of the journey to come in the full documentary with the use of these techniques. Documentaries such as BBC Horizin almost always have establishing shot and sometimes use time lapses for a great authentic sense of progression. We intended to inmate that authenticity in our media work.

The use of inter-cutting  parallel edits were used to refer to what the interviewee is talking about. It is a common convention in documentaries that helps the audience understand the concept of the narrative. We believed that because our work has scientific jargon, it can potentially lose the viewers focus and make it harder for the audience to comprehend. so the use of the inter cuts allow easy understanding for the audience.
No matter the mode of the documentary, all documentary makers undergo selective editing in post production. This is a debatable concept with people arguing documentaries are unethically subjective due to it edits. We tried to represent the truth to its full potential but found ourselves conforming to this convention by chopping and screwing footage to our target audiences needs. The representation of the truth is somewhat skewered for entertainment purposes.    

If someone is being interviewed in a documentary, there will almost always be graphics that introduce the character to the audience. The graphics tend to be basic in BBC documentaries. Even documentaries that involve video games addiction (Game Overdose & Videogame Addiction Documentary) have simple graphics but our is creatively designed because I think it works well with our narrative.

Sound:

We used numerous sound bridges to help link scenes too. Sound bridges are one of the most common transitions in the continuity editing style, one that stresses the connection between both scenes since the mood might still be the same. But we used sound bridges quite creatively by using it to play with the audiences' expectations. we do this by having playful optimistic music at the start, then a melodramatic dark sound bridge in the scene on the left. We did this to enforce the equilibria stage of the documentary; a common narrative structure in all forms of media texts. 

Nintendo - Super Mario Coin

We experimented with different sound effects we could use to establish to the viewer, that technology is the key theme of our documentary. We came up with placing the Super Mario coin sound effect in sync with the name graphics that appear at the start of every interview. Generic documentaries tend to divert away from sound effect but we found it significantly useful in our documentary; therefore subverting sound effects conventions.

Throughout the documentary, I am a character as to a retrospective narrator, that almost all types of documentaries have (as shown in "Codes and conventions of a documentary" slide). We chose to use me for the voice over to help target our demographic reformer audience with my soothing voice. In advertising, there is a strong tendency to employ male voices more often than female voices in the belief that male voices sound more convincing. A study by Emma Rodero, Olatz Larrea and Marina Vázquez (Male and Female Voices in Commercials: Analysis of Effectiveness, Adequacy for the Product, Attention and Recall) found that male voices are more effective in targeting audiences than female voices.


Camera-work:
The use of conventional hand held cams when filming the vox pops was heavily subverted. We used a tripod for almost all shots in the documentary including the vox pops due to the fear of misinterpretation  professionalism. Handheld cams are normally used to represent reality in documentaries but we compensated with that by filming vox pops (witnesses). The audiences is suppose safely believe what they see by the use of the vox pops. Our documentary uses fiskes' (1988) intertextuality concepts to help integrate the idea in the audiences mind and help them understand it better.

Mode:
We conformed to Bill Nichols' (2001)  participatory mode of documentary in many ways. Me as a documentary makers was involved in the documentary itself, interacting with the subject. We ask a series of questions throughout and I share my experience to the audience. Participatory modes are usually heavily reliant on honesty and witnesses (vox pops).

Ancillary tasks

 My Kid Is Addicted

Our radio ad is within the 30 - 40 seconds duration a radio ad has. It also contains content from our documentary so the audience can get a feel of what to expect when they watch the documentary. The radio has a very enigmatic/bubbly soundtrack from the composer Paul Mottram. The soundtrack is to make the audience feel that there is a journey on the way with the gradual volume increase. the warm strings with shimmering harp, piano & glock is very similar to documentary radio ads on BBC iplayer. Again we have consistency with the Mario coin noise to remind the audience about technology and games.

Final Documentary

Final Radio Ad

First draft Radio Ad

Documentary second draft

Radio Ad Research

First documentary draft

With our first edit of our documentary, we can see a real narrative to our documentary. We can see a todorav structure and how the final documentary will end up looking. After receiving feedback from our class mates and teachers, we came up with things to change on our documentary:
-Voice-over changes
-sharper cuts
-ending
-fade outs
-change of doc mode (observatory to participatory)
-change to script (third and first)
You can clearly see the voice over and ending is poor. I did the voice over on Sony Vegas 11 on my own laptops that i had no clue was party damaged until I actually got recording, hence the poor recording.


From our feedback, we established that too many fadeout made our documentary slightly boring, however, when I was editing I found that having too many sharp cuts made the documentary seem rushed. This was a bit of a  dilemma for smooth continuity. This is something to consider when we make changes.
Our teacher also expressed his criticism to the sound levels when we interview rand people on the street about dopamine. he thinks we can play with the sound a bit more, lowering the ambience. When I was editing, I already noticed it but found it hard to change it but I'll consider this when I get back to editing. Additionally, after careful consideration, we decided to change the mode of the documentary from observatory to participatory, essentially altering the script from third person to first.

voice over script 1

This is a 5 year old called kyreece. with ever-changing technology in modern society, individuals such as kyreece spend excessive amount of hours consuming technology. His uncle, Ali, goes on a journey to discover why his nephew consumes so much technology on a daily basis, and if it linked to the way everyone in society consume so much.

With Alis groing concern of kyreeces' behaviour,  he decides to seek out professional assistance. he initially wants to know what could cause kyreeces' obsession  so, He first goes to see professor Laura lewis, a neuroscience lecturer at UCL university.

professor Laura lewis mentioned Dopamine being released in the brain, Ali wanted to know if the people of London know what it is

Ali was interested in what she had to say and did more research into dopamine.  he found that there are links betweens dopamine and addiction. he wanted to know more and went to Dr Macally, about the word addiction

After visiting two specialists, Ali concluded that kyreece cannot be diagnosed with addiction, as he's only an infant. But what about a mature being. what about you watching now? how do you know if you are addicted or not. if so, i leave you with 1 question, what is your level of addiction.

Changes to poster from focus group feedback

After conducting two focus groups, we received numerous feedback from every individual. We They all agreed that the pills advert was most topic related and would be the most successful ad for our campaign. Only a few suggested changes to the ad but some suggested using the Dimitri font and slogan from the other 2 ads we presented. They thought it would be more effective in targeting our audience, rather than using the Game Over font. So we experimented with Dimitri font on our add and concluded the game over font would have more purpose in targeting our audience instead of Dimitri as is can be easily identified by any user of games.

Focus group for posters

We conducted two focus groups for our posters to get feedback on all 3 poster designs. The response to their feedback on a separate post.

Different poster types

So my group and I decided to make different posters individually and discuss which poster we would choose for a final. Below are posters made from victoria and Dokata respectively.

Call Sheet 2

CALLSHEETT2

Term and conditions of youtube

This rule is the one we had to be careful about when downloading the clip of youtube and using it in our documentary. We asked for permission for the owner of the video to make sure there is no confusion about copyright material.

Making the poster

This is a screen recording with a voicwe over of me showing you how i made my poster Ad for my documentary in Adbe Photoshop.

Audience personality research

During our mission to target to the right audience for our documentary we established that our primary research restricts us significantly in terms of discovers our audiences personality. we knew that not everyone in the world has the same personality but there must be some way to group a audiences together other than age race and location. We thought, how would we find a system that groups our audience without being discriminating or offencive. Surely we cant go and ask everyone in the world about themselves because quite frankly that's almost impossible and very time consuming. So we thought we don't have to come up with a system because 'Young & Rubicam' have come up with it using 'Maslow's Hierarchy of needs'.

They came up with the conclusion that there are 7 different types of people in the world:

The Explorer -  Their core need in life is for discovery

The Aspirer - Their core need in life is for status

The Succeeder - Their core need in life is for control

The Reformer - Their core need in life is for enlightenment

The Mainstream -Their core need in life is for security

The Struggler - In essence, the seek escape

The Resigned - In life, their aim is basic, survive

Our documentary will target a primary audience of the explorer and a secondary audience of the reformer. we came to this conclusion due to the fact are documentary is informative and it teach our audience something that occurs in all of us. This research helped us to profile our audience in more depth (something our initial audiecne research couldn't do). Our initial research tells us where to advertise our product.

In summary, our target audience is, someone that takes pleasure in learning new thing, roughly, 16+, and needs a sense of enlightenment.

adverts

Who is the target audience of both forms?

Both adverts target a mass audience as the TV advert was premiered during the Champions League game betwee Liverpool and  Olympique Lyonnais match at 8.45pm. It will also play out on ITV1 during the Champions League match between Arsenal v AZ Alkmaar around the same time; whereas the billboard was place on a very densly populated strip. The both are different media texts but the video advert targets a cult followers of Guiness that understand the 'Good Things Come To Those Who Wait' campaign. The Tv ad introduces the end to the good things comes to thoes that wait era to a brand new 'bring it to life' era. The TV ad uses constant CGI and dramatic music to empathise the patiently waiting theme where as the billboard is located on the side of a potentially traffic jammed motorway to help get the patiently waiting theme across to the audience. 

What devices/techniques, and technical and symbolic codes have been used to engage audiences?

The TV as begins with an establishing track shot that shows absolutely nothing to the audience at the time. The significance to this shot becomes clear later on where is shows a man standing on a moon-like planet preparing a rocket. That establishing shot positions the audience to have some sort of expectation. This reinforces the good things come to those that wait theme. Both adverts have a sense of enlighment; as the Tv advert only shows the product at the end of the advert and the billboard having underlighing, almost bringing it to life. The characters in the Tv ad are playing the role of God as they manually make rivers and shape the earth. The idea being that this world-creation is a metaphor for the famous surge and settle motion of a pint of Guinness and the way it comes alive in front  of your eyes when poured. This is done by the constant cloe up tilt shots of each of them to show power in each and every one of them. The ad is trying to stress that Guinness is more than just alcohol and nevertheless a living experience. It comes to life in when poured and liquid hits the bottom of the glass. There’s an explosion of energy. Clouds form - churning, swirling and surging. They defy gravity, moving downwards and then upwards, leaving behind perfect Guinness. At the same time, almost by magic, a creamy white head forms on the drink. When the process finishes something amazing has been created. However The Billboard has a God-like nature with the lighting from behind like you would as if its emerging from the heavens itself.

Analyse Genre and Narrative

 Tv ad a more meaningful narrative compared to the billboard Ad. To someone that doesnt even like guniess or drink it, could apperciate the wonderful cinematography of CGI. They both help in telling the story of man creating the big bang and shaping the earth in their eyes. The piano symphony help tell the ongoing story connecting the next shot to the previous one, giving this 90 second ad a movie feel. To cult followers of guinnes, this ad would be a mystery to them as its the start of a new era and slogan. With that being said, the ad uses its cinematography to target a contempry audience with the start of something new.The billboard Ad shows no direct narrative at the time but may subconcieiously target the audience by the words 'eventually you'll see the light' suggesting unless you try it, you're missing out and would always be in dark. 

What institutional factors are relevant?

Guinness extended their ‘Bring It To Life’ campaign through the launch of a Bring It To Life partnership with Google Earth. Visitors can use customised Google Earth technology to create their own planet, then ‘Bring It To Life’ by selecting terrains and designs for the planets’ landscape. They used facebook integration to allow creations to be shared with Facebook friends and Facebook friends can be invited to co-create and participate in the development of Bring It To Life planets. Also, prizes were unlocked as the game progresses and players could of won crates of Guinness, with the ultimate winner getting a years supply.

The Ad ran as 90, 60, 30 and 20 seconds ads on TV as well as in cinema, online and print targeting a wide range of audiences. The manchester born director ahad assistance from the recruitment of Grant Major, the production designer from The Lord of the Rings, and Wally Pfister, the cinematographer on the Batman movie The Dark Knight.

Top Boy Poster analysis

The reason for choosing the Top Boy poster instead of a documentary poster, is that their were not many youthful documentary posters and elements from this Top boy poster such as the still disequilibria shot that we intend to use in our documentary poster.

Audience Questionnaire

16-21 (Primary audience):

1. Would you watch this documentary? If so, why?
2. Do you think you are effected by this subject?
3. Were you interested within the first minute?
4. Have you learnt anything from this?
5. Do you understand what is going on?
6. Do you have anything that may help us to improve?

22-27:

1. How did you find the editing of the documentary?
2. Has your opinion changed, in terms of addiction?
3. Do you think it relates to you, in any way?
4. Can you see a possible change in yourself?
5. Are you still interested in technology?
6. Do you think we could improve our editing?

28-35 (Secondary audience):

1. Can you see this affecting your children? If you have any
2. After watching this, do you think it does indeed affect all of us?
3. Can you notice a possible change in yourself or perhaps in your children?
4. Do you use different types of technology?
5. How well do you cope with new technology?
6. Do you think we could improve anything

Interview research

Interviewing people is something new for me and my team. We have never interviewed someone before and needed to know common conventions of interviewing people. The video above form expert village imposed generic conventions of interviews that we found useful. We all understand that people are not completely oblivious to the camera when you first film them; they're nervous but will get use to it later on in the interview. So asking them the same question again at the end of the interview will generally produce more confident responses.

Conventional BBC Font

After thorough research into fonts that we might use in our poster, I came across the font Gill Sans, that BBC use for their poster.  BBC adopted the typeface as its corporate typeface in 1997. The corporation used the font in all its media output.

 As our Fantasy audience is viewers on BBC, I decided to use this conventional font for professionalism uses only.  

A focus group on our documentary idea

I conducted a focus group to a small group of students that gave us feedback on some of our documentary ideas. I Presented the concept and editing tips and filmed their responses:

We took into account their feedback and discussed it among ourselves. They liked our documentary concept in particular which is always a good thing. We never told them which documentary was ours to get honest opinions. If they never liked something, we would encourage them to talk about why they don't like it and make changes. They seemed to like our documentary concept so we did no have to make changes to it. We also showed them an intro to Jewish mum of the year and the Bokeh lens concept and asked for their opinion. They seemed to like both of them but some did not feel like the jewish mum of the year opening is a documentary. The reason of not like or for some people, liking it, was due to the concept and not the editing. We showed them the jewish mum of the year for the editing feedback and there was no criticism to it, so we are still going go with editing that the jewis mum has.