Final Piece - The documentary

Here is the final edit of our documentary, enjoy.

The documentaries advertising pack - Final Pieces

Magazine Advert

____________________________________________________________________

Bus stop advert

____________________________________________________________________


Billboard advert

____________________________________________________________________


Radio advert (Please click to view)

Advert alone

Advert in radio example

The Evaluation

The evaluation can also be viewed in powerpoint presentation, here is the the quick view option of its powerpoint form:

Evaluation final

View more presentations from heathside.

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

Our documentary very much follows the typical conventions and forms of an expository documentary. It uses many of the techniques which you will see in documentaries such as those produced by Michael Moore. We have further developed this by using these conventions and forms in different ways.

For example here is a list of some of the typical conventions which we have covered in our documentary in the same way as what we are following:

- Interviews
- Continuity
- Fill shots ' cutaways'
- Voice overs
- Archive footage
- Text

- Heading

VOICE OVERS:

Voiceovers otherwise known as 'the voice of god' are used in almost every expository documentaries. There are several voiceovers in our documentary, therefore following these conventions. Voiceovers are used to narrate the story being told, almost ‘guiding’ the footage.

Zoe, our group member, using the Yeti to Voice over

Michael Moore is known for his capitalist left wing documentaries. He uses voice overs, while also appearing on camera in some cases, confronting controversial topics. An example of his work:

Michael Moore

INTERVIEWS:

The images from the left are taken from documentaries by Nick Broomfield and Louis Theroux. On the right they are frames from our documentary. As you can see, in comparison both a very similar due to the position of the camera, the interviewee and the mise en scene. For example the mise en scene is important to keep the relevance of the storyline apparent in the documentary. Our documentary uses these typical conventions.

FILL SHOTS - 'CUTAWAYS':

Cutaway shots are used to establish, split and keep a flow of footage running in a documentary. They will be used in relevance to a voice over or audio that is playing at the same time. They are often used in all genres of documentary.

This is a cutaway shot which has been used in Panorama. A expository series which is on every week, is a common example of this technique.

One of our cutaway shots seen here was used to establish the location of where our interviews were taken place. It is effective for the use of voice overs and establishing the scene.

CONTINUITY:

In a documentary it is key to keep smooth flow of video and audio. To do this, you must think about how you use your shots, how they blend together and be able to merge audio together, staying with mood which is being portrayed.

Through the use of transitions, we have been able to link our footage and sustain a good quality of continuity.

The use of sound has continuity by the voiceovers, dimming, fading out and fading in of our audio.

Here you can see the use of one transition between two different shots. We have used a ‘soft flash’ transition which splits these shots as it zooms in.
This forms good continuity.

ARCHIVE FOOTAGE:

Archive footage is clips that have been used previously before. It is used in the context of proving evidence or showing a point/story. They are an effective way of portraying an incident, which is how we have used them in our documentary.

The archive footage in our documentary we have used news headlines to show the significance of the Wikileaks story as a mainstream topic.

Archive footage is a typical convention in documentaries. Here you can see it in use in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 where he uses it to tell the story of the time present of the 9/11 attacks.

TEXT:

The display name is a common feature in documentary. It is usually used to give the identity of a character or place. Text is used to do this, and it is important to think about the colour and size of the text. This is so it matches with the mise en scene and the theme of your shot/documentary.

Panorama, also expository, here use an example of a simple but smart text similar to ours. It looks professional and fits in with the situation of the topic.

As a politician we have kept our text here simple and smart. The colour and slight fading border also looks better graphically and works with the scene in this shot.

HEADING:

Most documentaries will have an opening sequence. In that sequence they will have the title/heading of their documentary. There are a variety of styles of headings in documentaries, depending on its form or type. Expository documentaries keep to a uncomplicated design.

Dispatches which is also an expository documentary, has a straightforward heading. We therefore took the idea of also having a plain look, adding in a slight shine effect to create more of an eye catching title. It works well in this genre and uses these typical conventions.

FRAMING:

The rule of thirds is a common theme which occurs in documentary. It adds tension, energy and interest in the shot. Many presentation frames use the rule of thirds as a way of achieving a more detailed shot.

As you can see, our documentary uses the rule of thirds in this frame as the computers on the other two thirds gives more depth and interest in the shot. The information on the computers act as this detail. Louis Theroux’s documentary on the Phelp’s family uses these frames often. The example to the right, shows protesters to his left as he is framed to the one third of screen. A very typical convention which is used regularly in documentaries.

MUSIC:

Music varies throughout most documentaries depending on the topic and genre. After researching conspiracy-like and expository documentaries, I found that a lot of the music was upbeat and quite dark. After researching further, we found a good genre of music. We used a type of electronic music which worked really well with the technology theme which the story brought to the documentary. It is common for documentaries to have a matching track which goes with the story.

In comparison to Foundation...

In the making of this documentary at A2, we have taking into account a lot more issues which had occurred at AS and improved them by developing the techniques used. Continuity was a big factor and we improved this by using better and more achievable programmes for the editing stage, for example the transitions and effects.

The use of Archive footage, relevant text, voiceovers and a cutaways we have been able to use these typical conventions to improve the documentaries final finish. By studying the conventions in more detail, we have learnt the best ways to use them at appropriate stages.

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

It is important to portray a correct image of our documentary in the advertising campaign. This is because it will attract the right audience, create suspense in the public eye and build hype. To make sure this works, I linked our themes from the documentary into the adverts in the finest way possible.

• As a group: we created a radio advert

• Individually: I created three posters to be advertised on a bus stop, billboard and on a page in a magazine


RADIO ADVERT:

The radio advert is made widen the audience we are trying to seek. When creating this ancillary piece it is important to link the similarities of the documentary to the advert. By doing this we use similar sound / clips from the key areas which may cause some controversy, leading the listener to then watching the documentary.

As a radio advert it is key to be clever with the use of sound. We added in the same music to link the advert and documentary style together and give a taster.

We changed the pitch of voices to create and eerie feel which also portrays secrecy

The use of Ken Clarke’s voice will highlight the fact that the documentary has valid opinions. The points made in the advert were strongly opinionated which may cause controversy, further promoting the documentary into more views on Television.

The advert would be played over a range of radio stations which offer commercial breaks. The timing it would be played would be morning and evening rush hours and around midday when people are on lunch breaks. This is the most active time for radio viewings as people are moving to and from work and when they arrive at home, since DAB (digital audio broadcasting) was introduced. Radio’s such as LBC, Capital, Smooth will all range our target audience from mature members to the younger political generation.

Posters:

Comparisons

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?



Media Class - Focus group

For our first set of feedback we approached our Media class and asked their opinion of the documentary. The feedback they gave was right after the viewing and it consisted of eight people. As all internet users, they were linked into our target audience, giving us reliable feedback which we could gather. The point of getting feedback is so that we can learn what areas of the documentary need changing or what worked well. Therefore in the future these mistakes can be worked upon or what went well can be used and developed even further.

:) The general positive comments:

•Editing matching sound

•Computer screen reflecting facts

•Split up interviews using cutaway shots

:( To be improved:

•Lighting in interview with Kenneth Clarke

•Sound in public interviews

Individual Feedback:

Individual feedback is also important to collect. This is due to the interview effect which can happen, when some people may act different in front of a group of members. Therefore to further strengthen our feedback, we interviewed certain members of our sixth form, on an individual basis.

:) The general positive comments:

•Interview with politician impressed

•Sharp, summarised points

•Engaging

•Interesting and current topic

•Good information helped understanding

•Music added to theme

•Transitions worked well

:( To be improved:

•sound (echo)

•shaky shots in areas

•camera quality differs

•Ending, abrupt

•Volume

I have also uploaded the video to the public on Youtube. On here anyone from around the world can watch the documentary. By Youtube’s comment feature, a collection of comments and opinions have been left on the page. This is a great way of extending the audience feedback.

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

image board summarising some technology used in the process of this documentary

The technology gap has increased quite dramatically since AS level. I have learnt to use a higher standard of equipment and have become more skilled at using different programmes and accessing areas in more detail. The transition from Foundation taught me a lot and I was able to progress in the usage of my technology.

Audience Feedback

The audience feedback of our documentary which I will be looking into more detail in my evaluation. Here is the initial video:

Creating the adverts - Radio Advert

As a radio advert, it is key to use sound and words which may attract the viewer. This is exactly what we did in the making of this advert. The whole advert was made in Garage band on the Macbook pro. We have gone ahead with the ideas which we originally thought of as we believe that they will work well in the way we want to portray our documentary, in it's 'dark and gloomy' theme.

We started off importing the music we wanted to use. We chose to use the opening track to what we used in the documentary. We cut the audio down, in the right time frame, our advert being roughly 30-40 seconds long, the usual for this type of advertisement.

zooming in on audio timeline, and carefully cutting

We then asked a collection of girls and boys in our sixth form to say wikileaks into the yet microphone. We recorded around 10 voices and used about half of that, playing with the pitch, making some deeper than others. This low pitch voice created a hidden, secret feel as this technique is used frequently for covering up and protecting peoples voice. We then imported a few key lines which Kenneth Clarke mentioned in our interview and by this, it touches on our topic, engaging the listener to some of the key points we are answering.

deepening the pitch

We also added in a few echo effects and further played with the voice to try and give the listener the darkest possibly approach which was sensible for our documentary. We were pleased with the advert and produced it in two different formats, one used in an example of the radio and just the advert itself. Here was the final look at our timeline in garage band:

Creating the adverts - Posters

To create these posters I have used Adobe Photoshop and simply tweeked any necessary areas using Paint on a windows PC.

First of all when making these, it is important to get the basics in place. In this case, the height and width ratio's where the first steps I took. All posters varied in ratio.

For my Bus stop and Billboard posters, I coloured the background in full black, to match the theme and genre of our documentary. I then important my image of Julian Assange which I will be using for the posters.

My magazine article was slightly different, where I first added in a picture of a tap (to show signs on leaking) and then had to play around with the gradients. I used a dark grey which merged into white.

an example of my gradient

The image I chose for the bus stop and billboard ads, is Julian Assange under going an interview. The general picture is dark, however had a blue background, therefore this needed to be tweaked to fit in with the black background. By simply zooming in, I was able to use a black brush and carefully fill in these blue areas and change them into black.

The picture also had a sharp edge in the right corner. By changing this sharp corner to make it blend with the poster, I feathered the black brush into merging with the background which gave it a much finer look and looked a lot better. Here is an example:

As a bus stop and billboard designs had to be relatively simple and to the point it was pretty much adding in text and a few extra inputs from there.

My layout was already planned. For the bus stop I wanted the image of Julian Assange to be quite powerful, therefore it being reasonably big on the poster. On the billboard the image holds on the right of the side, with the name of the documentary Wikileaks: What's Next? and the date of screening. This was simple and effective enough to attract the viewer.

Text and colours of my billboard. Simple, big and eye catching.

The bus stop was the next step up in terms of detail compared to the billboard so a few extra designs were implemented. Although it still had to be straight to the point, I added in three rounded up, relevant words to the poster. These were, Internet, Control and Government. This gives an idea of what the documentary covers in terms of topic. These words also act in a powerful manner also, as they are all big important products of society, and being blunt adds even more punch to the poster.

In the text of these three words, I have used a 'highlight' effect over the words to join in with the 'computer' theme. This white block which covers underneath the text represents that of when you highlight words on any type of text on your computer.

The magazine was a different design to the billboard and bus stop, mainly due to its placement. As being in magazine, the audience has time to look at the page and view it in a lot more detail, therefore the addition of mainly more text. I wanted to also create a different type of design, changing up the iconic picture of Assange to something different. I chose to use a dripping tap (symbolising wikileaks) as the only picture coming from the top of the advert. This doesn't give too much away and leaves a mysterious element to the documentary. I've added in a catchy phrase which will hopefully again round up the general topic of our documentary, with a little paragraph summarising the areas the documentary covers.

All designs laid out in photoshop, almost completed

Advertising campaign

To promote the documentary, it is essential that we have some form of advertising to go with its release. As a group we have decided on how we will be arranging our advertising campaign.


-Together, we will be creating a radio advert
-Individually, we will be creating our own advertisement packs, which will be poster-based work.

As preparation for the radio advert we just wrote down a few rough ideas, and how we will create it.

These were:

- Bit of Speech from Ken Clarke
- A repetition of the word wikileaks
- Upbeat music (possibly from doc)
- Use of deep pitch and possibly echo
- Range of people in our sixth form to possibly 'voice act'

Equipment needed:
- Macbook pro for Garage band
- Yeti Microphone

For my own task, I have decided to create 3 different posters to go into my advertising pack.

- One of the posters will be situated on a billboard, one which you would see on a motorway/main road


This poster will need to be very simple and easy to look at. Those who will see it will be driving, so given the circumstances won't have a lot of time to look at it in detail/for a long period of time. Very wide and not so big in height.


- Another will be in the size for a bus stop to go on its advertising board


Again, this will also need to be fairly simple, with an simple message to give out. Will carry a little bit more text than a billboard as some people may walk past it, stop next to, due to it obviously being a bus stop! Higher than wider.

- The final poster will be one which fits into a whole page of a magazine



This would contain more text and detail as the viewer will have time to read it. This would need fairly more planning and will suit the size of around an A4 piece of paper.

By creating these posters I have covered three important ratios in width and height. It will also be appropriate to create these as they will all differ in detail and picture due to the circumstances in where they will be applied. I will now move onto the design of both advertising pieces!