Evaluation - Ben Williams

8/14/2019 Evaluation - Ben Williams

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1

In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and

conventions of real media products

Thinspiration follows many different codes and convention

of documentaries, in particular the participatory style in the

different areas such as Narration and Background footage. We tookinfluences from documentaries of similar styles such as The Truth

about Online Anorexia and Super Size Me because they are aimed

at younger target audiences and use codes and conventions that we

were able to follow.

Like other documentaries, we

decided to use on screen narrators

(right). The reason we used this was to

increase our credibility and attract the

correct audience to watch the

documentary. Our narrators; Beth and

Emily are both teenage girls that can

relate to the target audience and also

inspire them, a common factor in

documentaries aimed at younger audiences. An example of a documentary which

features a teenage girl as an onscreen narrator is Stacy Dooley in Kids With Machetes

(left). When studying this documentary I found the age

of Dooley made it very easy to relate to her as I felt we

had common grounds, this effect would have been

strengthened if we had also been the same sex as Beth

and Emily are to Thinspirations female target audience.


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After watching on screen narrating featured in several different documentaries,

we came to realise that the narrators have very strong characters and use their speech

style to reach the audience. Stacey Dooley uses a young and undeveloped language

and style of speech to attract the younger audiences. (below)

Where as Morgan Spurlock uses a very

certain, slightly sarcastic style of language and

speech to attract a wider audience including both

sexes and different ages. (left)

In the same way, these documentaries

also use style of dress to attract the right

audience. We decided to follow the codes and

conventions in using our on screen narrators to

appeal to our target audience through simple but

definite language, to appeal to younger

audiences but sound creditable at the same time,

and by the girls dressing fashionably and looking

attractive during the filming of the documentary.

We also portrayed them as experienced in the

area of fashion and image. (below)

We developed the codes and

conventions of documentary

narration through employing two

narrators rather than one. The

topic of our documentary has a

lot to do with friendship, support

and peer pressure. Using two

narrators suggests that they are

others in similar situations and

other people to support girls whoare the victims of body dis-morphia. Having two narrators also has other benefits

including credibility because it is not just one persons views but two. Plus, it can be

Like, yeah! Its

really harsh

McDonalds is

sooo health !

Current

Fashion!


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beneficial to have two personalities attracting a larger audience and keeping them

interested through different ways of leading the audience through the exploration of

the effect of the media on young females.

Background footage is a vital factor in this style of documentary. We took

influence from Morgan Spurlocks Super Size

Me, a documentary which backs up everythingSpurlock says with background footage whether

its cartoons and maps to footage of people

eating. The introduction to Thinspiration is a

montage of footage of shops, posters and

internet sites that all affect our perception of

attractive women with a voice over the top. This

is frequently used in documentaries to give it

drive and energy, but most of all to show the

audience what is about to be discussed in the

documentary. We made sure we supported the

voice over with visual representation just as

Spurlock did. For example, as Beth talks about

the Apple Diet, visually, there is imagery of

disappearing food until there is just one apple

left in sight.

Shock is another technique that is frequently

used to attract the audience and keep them interested.

Spurlock uses many shocking facts to keep his audience

interested, just as we used images of underweight girls.

It is a simple way to keep the audience interested

however I felt it was important to keep it light hearted

and make sure the images were not offensive when

targeting a younger audience.

Thinspiration uses background footage

not only for visual representation of what

is heard from the voice over but for

fluidity in between sections of the

documentary. We developed the simple

cut transition with cutting between a shot

of magazines falling on a surface.

Another example of using background

footage for transitions is the montage of

shots of women showing their clothing


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sizes on a piece of paper. This appeals to the audience

through assuring them that they have nothing to be

ashamed of, going against the typical media

influence.

Documentaries such as Super Size me and

Bowling for Columbine reel off fact after fact,however, Thinspiration focuses more on opinions and

statements. After research we found that

documentaries such as Panorama aimed at older ages

and either both sexes or just males include many facts

and figures, whereas documentaries aimed at younger female audiences prefer to use

more opinionated statements. In our documentary we use quotes from the Pro-ana and

Pro mia websites and used the images also from these websites in the way facts

would be used. Another documentary that has also developed background footage in

this way is The Truth about Online Anorexia.

In our documentary, we shot and used two formal interviews. One with a

media expert and one with a health expert. Interviews with experts are common indocumentaries of this style as it increases the documentaries viability. It means the

documentary is not just the narrators opinions, but also the experts who have studied

both sides of the argument. We used the two interviews with experts in the different

areas to cover all aspects of Body Dis-morphia. If we were to produce a full

documentary, we would film interviews to argue the other side to what our

interviewees argued however, using the typical codes and conventions of

documentaries, this generally comes later than the first five minutes.

+ =Reinforced Opinions


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After studying the camera angles of interviews in other documentaries, we

decided to follow the codes and conventions of this subject. We felt it was important

to focus on the face and the mind of the interviewees and a medium shot wouldcapture the interviewees face but also some body language too, plus, using medium

shots helped to capture the mise-en-scene of the shot.

The interviewees professions

were made obvious for the

audience to see with the aid

of the mise-en-scene in the

footage. The interview

featuring the

presenter/director was set in a

media suite at the MillenniumPoint in the heart of

Birmingham. In the

background were media Mac computers and artistic dcor, we felt this immediately

created a realistic environment for this interview. The interview with the hospital

psychologist was set in an office, we found that there was not much choice of scenery

or objects that would set the scene for a psychologist and therefore filmed in a

professional office environment instead.

We developed the codes and

conventions of formal interviews

through using background footage to

support statements that the interviewee

made. Hannah Yellowitz tells the

audience about the media calling people

Fat and criticising them with words

such as cellulite, as Yellowitz says

this, images appear to support her

statement. This is a technique generally

used to back up the narrator, not the

interviewee. However, the group and I felt that giving evidence of the intervieweesaccusations made her words even more viable and kept the pace of the documentary

up.

We aimed to capture vox pops of mainly our target audience, or the opinions

that generally matter to our target audience i.e. young males. We also captured males

to broaden the target audience and present anorexia and bulimia as not only problem

for teenage girls, but also for teenage boys too. Older women were captured because

we felt it was important to open the documentary to parents who should be aware of

the problems their children may face.

Vox pops are designed to capture what the public is actually thinking and

therefore are generally short, on the spot interviews with down-to-earth members ofthe public speaking off the top of their heads. We aimed to follow the codes and

conventions of vox pops entirely as it is the main aspect of a documentary that keeps


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the programme realistic. The vox pops in Thinspiration are short, easy to listen to, and

immediately give the honest views of the public.

Vox pops are a good way to explore people opinions and create a sense of

community within the documentary. For example in Thinspiration, several members

of the public had the same views when answering the question Who do you think in

the media influences young girls the most to become skinny? Many of theinterviewees answered Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole. This could inform the

audience that many people feel the same way as they do, and make them feel a sense

of belonging. The fact that several member of the public gave the same answers

shows the audience how prominent this issue is becoming. I feel this challenged the

way that vox pops were produced in Super Size Me, where the interviewees frequently

had different opinions to one another.

As the vox pops were featured in the introduction, we thought it was

appropriate to keep the theme superficial as we wanted to go into depth later in the

documentary. We chose to make the vox pops slightly humorous with some

interviewees laughing slightly.

In most documentaries such as Super Size Me, the vox pops are shot as amedium close-up frame with hand held cameras. We chose to capture some members

of the public using medium shots because our audience could see the diverse range of

fashion styles and opinions simultaneously.

Originally, the document featured the Sugar Babes song Girls song as its

main backing track. The song is up tempo, appeals to the female audience and gives a

sense of female community especially after it has recently featured in Boots make-up

advertising campaigns. However, after we discovered the copyright limitations we

decided to use this song as inspiration for our new backing track. Thinspiration

features an up tempo, rhythmic and catchy theme tune which is used in the

documentary introduction and in the radio trailer. The backing track does not feature

lyrics or singing as the codes and conventions of backing tracks, it doesnt interrupt

any important diegetic and non-diegitic speech and sound. We used appropriate

background music to develop the atmosphere. For example as the documentary gets

increasingly serious, so does the music.

Clear high quality speech is very important in this style of documentary, for

the recording of the voice over I recorded Beth in a recording studio to make sure it

was as high quality as possible. For the diegetic speech we used a boom microphone

to capture sound. In the formal interviews we made sure all sound quality was

excellent and edited moments with sound problems out of the final production

however, we challenged the codes and conventions of vox pops. Our sound quality

was lowered due to wind issues; on the other hand, this could improve the realisticelement to the documentary.

Thinspiration challenges the codes and conventions of documentaries because

we used tripods for almost the entire project. We found the cameras did not have as

good anti-shock functions as professional cameras do and therefore we used tripods

during all interviews.

Although we aimed to follow the codes and conventions originally, we found

that developing and challenging the ways of other documentaries made Thinspiration

more professional in visual quality and more unique.


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7

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

Many Documentaries use ancillary texts such as magazines, television

advertising and radio trailers to promote the program. Although these ancillary textsare not the main product, they can however be the most important when it comes to

target audience and the number of views the documentary achieves. For our

documentary, Thinspiration, we used a Radio trailer, and a magazine article to

advertise.

We thought brand identity was very important when producing both the radio

trailer and the magazine article. The radio trailer features the same recognisable, up

tempo, rhythmic backing track as the actual documentary. We knew that if the

backing track was appropriate as the main music theme in the documentary then it

would be suitable for the radio trailer, again, creating an up tempo, light hearted and

young feel to the documentary.

A similar voice over was used in the radio trailer also. We originally wanted touse the original, however we felt that the timing needed to be tweaked authentically

and the quality could be even better with the use of some newer recording hardware in

the studio. Using the narrators voices in the voice over was a way of reinforcing the

brand identity, plus, if Beth and Emily were famous just as other narrators are, their

voice would be recognisable to the target audience and therefore attract them further

towards watching the documentary.

Using a male voice proved to be very effective in separating the radio trailer to

make it clearer. Without the male voice, I feel the trailer could have been slightly too

complicated, but the contrast in the voices was designed to keep the attention of the

listeners right up to the most important point Catch it Friday at nine, on BBC3.

There were some difficulties when creating the radio trailer. To target the right

age and sex of audience we originally wanted to record many young females, and

some males and older people to target our audience and also broaden it, however, time

was limited and we were unable to record as many people as we wanted and therefore

left the idea with just Beth speaking instead with an effect over her voice.

The magazine is written in a very professional way which appeals to young

females and focuses on the two presenters giving the readers a chance to warm to

them and get to know them before they watch the documentary. The text is very


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affective at creating attachments between the audience and the narrators because it

gives them an insight into their personalities she is back in perky, peppy mode and

We were really nervous about fully exploring this issue, Emily admitted meekly,

with and embarrassed smile

The layout achieves a scrapbook effect which appeals to younger audiences,

the text and the images are slanted creating a messy and modern feel. The images usea theme from the documentary to create brand identity again. The Images of the

narrators holding up their sizes on pieces of paper while posing with confidence. The

sizes let the audience know what the documentary and the article is about within a

quick glance.

The article uses contrasting colours including black and bright pink; these

colours give the article an edgy personality which again attracts a younger audience.

I think overall, the radio trailer was the more successful ancillary text because

it seemed more professional and used the features of the documentary well to create a

brand identity.


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9

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

It is only after we had received audience feedback, and watched the

documentary amongst others that we realised the true strengths and weaknesses of our

documentary and that we had been focussing our attention to other things that wereactually fine. The main improvement for our documentary was the pace, and the speed

on the narration, and after watching the documentary on a large screen we also

realised how unnecessarily fast the narration was.

The audience feedback that we received

from women aged 12 to 53 answering the

question does Thinspiration appeal toyou proved that our focus on the female

target audience was successful. As the

ages increase, the appeal seems to

decrease, however the appeal to older

women was successful.

One of our focuses regarding target audience was the broaden the ages and

increase the appeal to men. However, after receiving the audience feedback of males,

it is obvious that this may have not been as successful as we had originally hoped.Only two out of seventeen males felt that the documentary appealed to them. In this

12-16

0

0.51

1.5

2

2.5

Yes No Yes No

Males Females

17-21

0

1

23

4

5

6

7

8

Yes No Yes No

Males Females

22-30

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Yes No Yes No

Males Females

31-40

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Yes No Yes No

Males Females

41+

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

Yes No Yes No

Males Females


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case we could have used properties that typically appeal to males such as a more

serious approach, with more focus on facts and figures rather than opinions.

These previous results were reinforced by the answers to the question Who do

you think the target audience is for Thinspiration? Select as many as appropriate.

Clearly, according to the respondents, the target audience appears to be

teenage females, which is the age and gender that we aimed for. Another success in

terms of targeting audience groups is that some respondents thought that Thinspiration

could appeal to preteen, young adult and adult audiences, this does however,

contradict the other results where towards the higher ages, more viewers felt that the

documentary did not appeal to them compared to those who did Perhaps this could

mean that Thinspiration does aim at adult audiences but we did not ask adults who felt

it targeted them, or simply that the viewers have different opinions to classifications

of age groups and that we should have asked the two questions with the same age

classifications i.e. 31-40.

Although documentaries main objectives are to explore and inform issues

there are also elements of entertainment and argument especially in similar

documentaries to our own such as The Truth about Online Anorexia and Super Size

Me, when the audience can predict what the conclusion will be to the documentary.

We chose to include these other objectives because it aims at younger audiences, and

we felt they would not be as interested in the information alone, so we aimed coated it

in a blend of argument and entertainment. When the viewers were asked What do

you think the purpose ofThinspiration is? we received the following figures:

Target Audience

05

1015202530354045

Males

Female

s

Preteen

s

Teen

agers

YoungAdult

s

Adults

Elderly

Purpose of Thinspiration

0

5

10

15

20

25

To Entertain To Inform To argue A Mixture


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These figures show that we achieved our purpose ofThinspiration goal.

However, the feedback from the question How well did Thinspiration explore the

issue gives us more of an insight into whether the mixture contains the appropriate

amount of information.

Although the majority of the answers were Well, the results from this section

of the questionnaire are the most disappointing, this could suggest that the audience

would be prefer the mixture of objectives to contain more information such as facts

and figures.

The answers to What did you think of the interviews? told us that our interviewswere a success, however, if we had asked for more detail such as sound, camera angle

etc, we could have improved even further.

How well did thinspiration explore the issue?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Very Well Well Not Very Well Poorly

Interviews

0

5

10

15

20

25

Very good Good Okay Poor


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This feedback shows that the background music and the levelling was a

success, although this was an aspect of the documentary I criticised.

Overall the audience feedback showed that our documentary was a success in

terms of targeting specific audience groups and exploring and informing. However,

had we produced some more in-depth questions for example focussing on camera

angles, and the quality of the voice over we could have gained extra information onimprovements that could have been made.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning

and evaluation stages?

Throughout the production of the Thinspiration documentary and the ancillary

texts, I have used an extensive amount of technologies including both software and

hardware. Although I take interest in media technologies already, I found the different

software programs and types of formats challenging, and I took on the more technical

role within the group.

Within the research process, we found the internet came in use frequently

searching for sites with content that was informative such as

http://www.prettythin.com/ and sites that helped us create the documentary in a

professional way such ashttp://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-

documentoryWatching other documentaries such as The Truth about Online Anorexia

gave us both content and advice, we watched many documentaries using Youtube, a

site where users can stream, comment on and upload videos. We also used the internet

to listen to radio trailers on sites such ashttp://listen.galaxybirmingham.co.uk/.

Google was used to find images of double page

magazine articles to inspire us in making our ownmagazine article, plus sites such as

http://www.ok.co.uk/home/gave us an opportunity to

look into other articles in similar magazines to the one

we wished to feature our article in.

Another method of watching other documentaries

for research was using DVD players, I used several DVD

players including a computers internal DVD drive to

analyse Super Size Me. I found watching the

documentaries on my computer screen was useful

because I was able to type notes in the Microsoft Notepadprogram whilst being able to see and hear the

documentary in the background.

Background music

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Too noticable Suitable Did not notice it
http://www.prettythin.com/http://www.prettythin.com/http://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-documentoryhttp://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-documentoryhttp://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-documentoryhttp://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-documentoryhttp://listen.galaxybirmingham.co.uk/http://listen.galaxybirmingham.co.uk/http://listen.galaxybirmingham.co.uk/http://www.ok.co.uk/home/http://www.ok.co.uk/home/http://www.ok.co.uk/home/http://listen.galaxybirmingham.co.uk/http://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-documentoryhttp://www.slideshare.net/crosswaysfederation/types-of-documentoryhttp://www.prettythin.com/


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Whilst researching radio trailers I chose

to listen to BBC Radio 1, this is because the

group and I knew that this would be the most

appropriate channel for our radio trailer to

feature upon and therefore it informed me of the

codes and conventions of radio trailers and whatwas required to make a successful radio trailer.

I also listened to Spotify

advertisements. Spotify is a program that

enables users to stream music legally for free

providing that the listeners hear the occasional

advertisement. These advertisements are

chosen to suit the listeners music taste; I

found I had an insight into advertising aimedat younger audiences because I listen to music

which is listened to by teenagers. However, I

rarely heard any trailers that advertised television programs other than a dating

program advertisment, however this was clearly aimed at females and helped slightly.

For most of the research, we used Windows

XP computers because we are more familiar with

the system and because we felt that the Apple

Macintosh computers werent as easy to use when

surfing the internet and using the copy and paste

functions.

For the construction of our documentary,

the group and I used a variety of hardware and

software technologies that developed our skills. For

the capturing of moving image we used a Canon

HG10 hard drive video camera on a tripod.

Although the camera is meant for home use, I found operating functions such as

manual focus and optical zoom difficult in situations where we had to work quickly

and under pressure for example when shooting vox pops. This was due to very smalldials, triggers and buttons. Another difficulty we had when using this hardware was

the format of the videos it made upon its hard drive, converting these AVCHD files

for use in Final Cut Express, video editing software, proved to be a slightly complex

task.

For sound capture, we used an Audio

Technicha mono directional microphone

designed to be used on a boom stick or hand

held. I would have preferred to use a powered

microphone as they offer higher sound quality

in terms of sound-to-noise ratio however we

found the microphone easy to connect to thevideo cameras audio input through an

unbalanced mono XLR to 3.5mm Jack lead.


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Unfortunately, we made the fatal error of capturing the microphone in some shots, a

problem a boom stick may have helped with.

To edit all our video and sound we used

an iMac computer, these systems are commonly

used in professional editing suites. The high

processing speed and large hard drive enabledus to work on high quality video and audio

without fear of processing problems, or any

long latency delays.

We used Final Cut Express to edit our

documentary; we used the log and transfer

tool to import the videos and audio into the

project. We had problems with the version of

the program initially; however, after it was

upgraded to the latest version we found the

program was reliable and simple. I have used

other video editing software such as Ulead 8.0however; Final Cut Express is definitely a much

more capable program.


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During the editing of our documentary, we dealt with incorrect video ratios

through cropping and rescaling.

We used transitions such as crossdisolve.

As I have a background in sound engineering I produced the majority of

the backing tracks and voice overs in a recording studio. For this we

used Cubase, a professional recording program. There was a lot of

hardware involved in the recording of the voice over but the main aspect

was the Behringer B1 condenser microphone that I chose to use for itsexcellent balance between tones. There were some problems with

transferring these files onto different Apple Macs but it was fine in the

end.


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I used Garage Band,

an Apple program to

arrange loops, samples and

recording to arrange our

radio trailer. It is a simple

and easy to use programand the exported mixdown

was successful once we

converted the file to a

.WAV format.

For the evaluation,

we used PCs for ease of use

with printing and typing. The programs Word and Excel were used to tally the

feedback and put into graphs and charts.

After reviewing the feedback, the overall product and the use of technologies,

I think my group and I followed the codes and conventions off all the media texts very

well, mainly focussing on the target audience and the style of documentary helped uspredict what our final product would be. However, the feedback could have been

more accurate if the questions used more detail. Other minor errors including the

microphone in shot, wind noise and using different video qualities could have been

prevented with more organisation and time spent on setting up the hardware.

Ben Williams

Documents

Evaluation - Ben Williams