By: Karen Pang

Evaluation

Quote: Documentary Film (D. F. book)

“Anyone who believes that every individual film must represent a ‘balanced’ pictures knows nothing about either balance or pictures.” Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow

This quote is very interesting as no documentaries truly represents both sides of the argument equally, as most documentaries wants the viewer to come to a conclusion of whether they understand the serious message, after all that is the purpose of documentaries.

1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our documentary: During our research into fast food

and healthy food options, we came across a product called Quorn, the following weeks we were able to get an interview with them.

Furthermore, in following the conventions in making an documentary necessarily mean having expert interviews, for example: the interview with a Quorn employee represents a person with higher knowledge then the general public, as they’re hired to advertise the product due to it’s positive health care as quote, ‘great meat free alternative’. We decided to interview her at the canteen and in front of the already set

up stand to give a suitable mise-en-scene background with the posters on the wall and the huge poster next to the table, but also a nice mid-shot of the apron that has the brand/company logo.

When we were first introduced to our task of making a five minutes opening to a documentary and to create a radio trailer plus a double page article to advertise our documentary, we had to do some research.

In the frame works of the Rule of Third she was positioned on the left as we normally read from left to right, so our eyes would look on that side first. Just like that internet photograph.

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The Student Development Team members gave expert interviews, as their career and purpose is to take care of the student’s well-being at The Sixth Form College, Solihull.

Within their interviews we had gathered important information of what the college provide for students, such as the kind of sports and events currently happening, it had been highlighted for the viewers attention. This is a convention seen in real documentaries where the experts presents their views across to the audience based on what they know and what they think is worth knowing. This makes the documentary balance out the facts and arguments for the viewers to judge the conclusion of this issue.

Noting: all non diegetic sounds which allows the viewers to locate the sound on screen.The only non-diegetic sound is the music and voice over in this documentary.

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Vox pops were also included in revealing just how much the general public knows about the topic of fast food and healthy lifestyle.

Asking the students at the college allows us to understand how much they know about this topic and if they seemingly lack information, then hopefully this documentary would highlight some worth knowable facts.

Vox pops are used to get the genuine reaction and response to direct questions being asked, their replies contain their level of concern about health issues.

Another commonly used technique in real documentary.

Developed conventionsAfter looking at Super Size Me (2004) documentary, we took note that they had use many graphic generated images, so we also decided to use this technique in our documentary.

We had said in our voice over that there are 9,000 deaths per year therefore, we need an image that could express that. So using Photoshop I had created a poster that warns people of the ever increasing rate of deaths due to obesity. The use of shocking images are commonly used to get a messages across to viewers.

This image is used in the introduction of the Vox pops, in asking students at college about the choice between having chips or a healthy meal for lunch. This Photoshop render image shows people making decision on the spot. I find it looks very effective and interesting.

After looking at this chart in the documentary we choose not to use it, as it’s too different and doesn’t fit in and it wasn’t enough to keep the viewers entranced; this chart was done on Excel.

Introduction of our documentary:We have started off by stating facts but the beginning statement remands the best in our documentary, ‘one in every three people in the UK are obese’. Afterwards we collected some internet images of obese people and the effect of obesity has on their lifestyle, with music and effect it was enough to let the viewers know what this documentary is on about.

As Berry Hampe said, ‘no speech- as the documentary shows us that the pictures can speak for themselves,’ and we had used this technique at the beginning but showing images of obese people and how they had become obese, these are all negative images however, we had two pictures of obese men exercising.

Different types of shots that were used in the documentary:

Zoom in and establish shot:

This shot is a combine of an establish shot which inform viewers where this location is, whist we were recording it we zoom in closer to the title for it to be more clear.

This shot is taken slightly slighted to make it into a sort of frame.

We used this shot during the voice over which talks about the weight loss option. We show a company that provides health care, as a solution to a better lifestyle.

Pan shot:

Whist we were introducing the college we did a pan shot where the camera is in the same place, except we are moving the camera from left to right very slowly.

We used this shot as there were students and you can clearly recognize the entrance to the main Hampton building.

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Over the shoulder and high angle shot:

The main focus of this shot is the image in the newspaper advertising their cheaply priced food. The camera was located beside the shoulder and it’s pointing downwards. Which allows the viewer to feel like they’re the ones reading the newspaper.

We look at the mid shot of her typing into the computer, which then becomes a zoom in shot developing into an over the shoulder shot. So that the viewer can see what she’s typing into the website.

Mid shot with zoom in and over the shoulder:

Continue… on shots

360 degree shot:

We had filming the entire gym room with all the equipment, we settled the camera in the center of the room and left two people with the camera filming and the other went outside the room. As it’s was easier with less people dodging the camera’s lens.

We had made sure the lighting was bright even though it was indoors, this section of filming was a very interesting experience over all.

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Mid shot:High Angle shot:

We have filmed Jamie speed walking down the stairs to represent using energy as the voice over mentioned.This was filmed free handed without a tripod as it would have been difficult to set the camera tripod on the steps and from that angle from the flight of stair above it had look better. And it has looked bright due to the use of natural lighting.

During the interviews with people we had to do it professionally, so all the interviews were done on tripod so it wouldn’t be slighted or shaky, done in natural lighting. This is a commonly used technique because if we had used a free hand camera it would have looked unprofessional. The shaky free hand style are commonly used in horror movie to give a sense of fear.

Continue… on shotsStill image framed and close up:

This was definitely fun to do, as they’re still images of each bite I had taken of the burger, it’s like a point of view shot as if your consuming the burger yourself.

All of these shots are framed as it’s taken on top of the brown McDonald’s bag as though it’s were a stage and the whole meal is presented neatly. Then there are a sequence of close up shots of the burger bite by bite being consumed, the stills were all taken within the burger cardboard box used as a frame. And finally ended with the crushed box of the big mac with the title still clearly visual, for an effective look.

Archive Footage

We had to used some archive footage in our documentary as these were impossible to film in such a short period of time so we had to use the internet for this, because it was necessary to express the huge influence of the media has on our lifestyle. Including filming advertisements from the computer screen, we filmed the McDonalds, Quorn, Burger King and Special K advertisements that normally comes on the televisions screen.

Contradiction of what is being said…

This may be a strange part of the documentary as the voice over is discussing about malnutrition however the image is talking about an opposite story of a man developing into an obese person.

This was deliberately used to explain that not everything is true and some of the things we learn are lies. The result can be quite fatal due to the lies we hear, as we’re always being influenced by the media in what is currently the best for people. However I strongly believe that the audience should always be given a equal amount of information on healthy food for example the list of pros and cons of being healthy and not healthy.

Therefore, using this method of portraying evidence allows the viewers to think about the two types of importance in a healthy lifestyle.

All documentary has an a goal…

A documentary is ‘a theatrical movie that isn’t fun – a serious movie something that tries to teach you something,’ (D. F. Book Patrica Aufderheide) the aim in all docs.

Our documentary ‘Your Health Is No Joke’ tries to get the message across to viewers of the increasing health issues in relation to fast food, then later on after explaining about the influence the media has on us, we provide a solution to a better lifestyle. And that is explained through the use of the interview with Neil who’s part of the Student Development team, in his interview he says by doing sports and eating healthy is a way to a healthy lifestyle to a good life. And not only does he provide a strong argument of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, he had also reveals he use to work in McDonalds and knows how “unhealthy” it is. This may clear any misunderstanding of people who are manipulated into thinking that the food is ok. This documentary tries to highlight that we DO have a CHOICE in how we eat and live and those who says there is no choice they’re only giving excuses to themselves.

The ‘role’ of using a voice over…

Stan Brakhage considers himself as a documentarian and a scientist as he tries to get viewers to return to an “innocent eye” in his creation of documentaries they were made mostly in “silence and executed” forcing the viewers to look at character’s actual body action instead of focusing on what they say. (D. F. Book by Aufderheide)

In our research we had looked at the Rolling Stone (1969's Altamont Festival) documentary where they have challenged convention such as there were no voice overs in their documentary, they were just recording what’s there at the concert in a style of a fly on the wall.They had used one of the six theory by Bill Nichols of Observation and they had kept to it, to reveal the reality of what happens at a concert.

However, we decided a voice over is better as it’s more understandable for there to be a guiding voice that presents the facts and questions that makes viewers reflect on their own lifestyle choices.

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

Challenged the conventions:• This article is called ‘Your Health Is No

Joke’ the title is place on the top and is positioned across both pages, this had challenged the convention as it’s normally on the left hand side.

• The A4 photograph is placed underneath the article’s text, when it could have been on the right hand page on it’s own. The photograph is a suitable one as it’s related to food so it’s a effective image plus it gets the message across directly to the readers what’s the topic is about.

Followed the conventions:• Of having more than one photograph.• Use of similar theme colours red, yellow

and black which is similar to the McDonald’s theme colour.

• It has the page numbers at the top with the magazine name ‘Radio Times’ to inform readers which magazine they’re reading.

• The most effective is the second biggest font at the bottom is the date, time, and place in bold black font style. ‘THIS Friday, BBC 3, 7pm’.

It does advertise the documentary well, the content is very topic related but doesn’t give too much away about the documentary.

Double Page Article

Continue… Radio Trailer done in

Garage Band

The radio trailer had been a successful piece in my own opinion, it was created on Garage Band program as it had included voice over (narrator) and the best extracts with good sound level from the documentary that is most direct in getting the message across about what the documentary is advertising about. The music used in the radio trailer was the same as the ones used in the documentary, so it shares an common feature for a direct connection.

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1} On that track it was all the radio voice over that had been split apart to fit the extract in.2} We had exported three good sound extracts that is direct and clear on the topic it’s discussing and placed it after the voice over gaps.3} I had selected to use these three music tracks that were made early for the documentary and now for the radio trailer.

When forming the radio script…At first I was creating scripts that weren’t good enough, as it lacks some good extracts from the documentary.But later on after talking to my teacher, he advise us to carefully listen to our documentary and pick out good extracts that has a good sound level and contain a direct message in relation to our topic.

We choose three extracts, here are the quotes:“Used to work in McDonalds and I know how unhealthy it is” this was from Neil’s interview and it would definitely get people interested in hearing what a pervious McDonald employee has to say for himself. As I find it’s important for a person who had first hand experience in creating unhealthy food for people, he as an insider can observe the causes and effects of fast food. This gives a balance argument on behalf of the fast food and health care.

‘’So it’s a great meat free alternative” this was from the interview with the employee from Quorn, we come to understand exactly what alternative solution there are for people who doesn’t want to cook or enjoys cooking but still manage creating high calories within the food. “How unhealthy they are and the amount of salt” from Julie’s interview, aren’t all people curious about what other people know on certain topics, it good to listen to other people’s opinion based on the same topic.

Documentary was effective but need improvements:

“Generally we learn how to operate our technology long before we really have any clear idea of what we want to do with it” (Making documentary films and reality videos by Barry Hampe)

I guess this is partly true when we were told about the three tasks of making an 5 minutes opening to a documentary, and a 30- 40 seconds radio trailer and double page article. We focused on too much on how we’re going to film instead of planning exactly what we wanted to show through the filming.

We only focused on it more during the editing of the clips, if I could re do it again, as Hampe said the important part that needs working on is the “selecting and organizing what has been recorded to present a visual argument to your audience.” As I found the argument in our documentary provides a lot of facts however it doesn’t get right to the point therefore lacks a strong tone, which I find is important.

Therefore…

The combination of those three products were very effective and I find it supports the documentary well, in explaining terms and advertising it.

The documentary itself needs improvements in the editing section, however the radio trailer I find really advertise the documentary with the music and the expert interviews, which clearly indicates what this documentary is about.

The double page spread magazine helped highlight a more detailed description of what the documentary’s purpose is and what is to be expected from this documentary.

DocumentaryArticle Radio Trailer

3.) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

It’s on the blog clearly labeled as part of this evaluation. So please go to the blog and find the Prezi presentation I have created.

4.) How did you use new media technologies in the construction

and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During this evaluation research I have watched a DVD called: Britain Through a Lens: The Documentary Film Mob that lasted 60 minutes on BBC 4) that was based on how the existence of documentary style was developed.

When John Grierson first talked his idea to one of the Government’s man about funding towards his project in making a documentary based on reality filming, he talked with utter confidence and passion. He believes and ‘want to use films to change Britain for the better.’

The man he had discussed it with had agreed to his request and lead some funding from the marketing department, which was enough for him to start off in getting equipment for this project.

After creating a documentary movie without a plot or handsome main characters that follows the script, it turned out to be a very “honestly made” documentary as it didn’t have many editing, which is commonly used for picking out the important statements people make to highlight certain phrase but without that we’re left to come to a conclusion by ourselves. Unlike movies where things are all planned out and are full of action.

Not only people at the cinema are able to understand different class lifestyle and culture differences, they were able to feel connect to those people and see the life they have to live in order to live.

Research…

We had done a majority of different types of method to gather information such as making questionnaire about the knowledge on fast food. This helped us understand what the target audience knew about fast food and what areas that they didn’t understand as much, as it gives a goal for our documentary to provide more information to the audience.

When creating the documentary I had looked at documentaries and program in related to fast food eating and see what we could use similarly in following conventions.

When researching the article I have looked at existing T.V. choices (2012) magazine’s double page spread to look at their layout and try to refer to some of the conventions later on in designing the article.

In creating the music for the documentary and radio radio trailer I looked at this website http://www.ibaudio.com/?Page=BrowseCategories&CategoryID=32 for inspirations.

For the actual radio trailer research we, as a group, had listened to some real radio trailers, hearing how they made it attractive for the audience to want to watch the documentary it’s advertising.

Target Audience

Research was to listen to radio trailers on the internet and on a radio.

Our target audience is unisex as health problems affects everyone not only minority of people so it’s only right to inform everyone of the dangers of being obese. The age rangers from 16 till 25 because young people and young adults are always wanting a more convenient method of having a quick fix meal, which could be the reason of there being an increase over the years of the illness of obesity.

That is why we choose during our research of the channel we were going to broadcast our documentary on BBC3 at 7pm, as all the films and reality TV. shows like Junior Doctors comes on around 6-7 o’clock which makes it an ideal time for our documentary to follow behind it as the general target audience is still viewing that channel and for something to be so similar in topic on health would surely capture their attention. I’m sure the audience would find the documentary easy to accept. Note: BBC 3 had younger viewers in mind and so is our target audience for our documentary.

This kind of research was done on the internet from looking at BBC 1 to 4’s target audience, as all channels have to entertain, inform and educate and we consider our documentary has the key elements of informing and educating plus we try and make it as entertaining as possible whilst the topic is a serious one.

Introduction to interviews

We introduced the Qourn interview with their own archive footage of a Quorn’s product commercial.

Text on imageImage of the interviewThis is her voice on audio.

Pan establish shot of the college.

Still pictures of sports activity that is available in college.

Interview with Neil the Student Development Team member.

It gives a nice introduction to interviews you get an understanding of who they are and what they like, which makes you feel closer to the person. Therefore, you may listen to what they have to say with additional attention.

All the main article text for this topic is on the left hand side, it’s in a black serif font with a white stroke to make it more readable.

Masthead: ‘Your Health Is No Joke’ is positioned across two of the double page. This challenges the conventions of an article’s layout, however because it’s at the top area it follows convention as well.

We had used this title because it’s has a direct point of what the topic is focused on.

Following conventions the page number and magazine name are in the corners. This follows the convention of all magazines, to be organize and informative of which magazine readers have brought.

It challenges the conventions by placing the illustration underneath the text instead of placing it by itself on the right hand page.

Pull Quote which stands out and must be highlighted to the readers. Again have used a black stroke around white font text.

Have some interesting facts of health risk due to obesity and of hunger so it kind of represent both sides of the argument. The used of different font styles, challenge conventions as normally magazine stick to two font styles within one article. However it does look very eye catching, plus it a short sentences it makes the facts easy to understand.

Using space, by adding another illustration, clearly seen as a photograph of Quorn Company.

Clearly states the time of when this documentary is on, in large font labeled.

Double page article done in InDesign

Comparison with our documentary…

When first hearing about making a documentary as a group we had to think of interesting topics to base it on and we have choose fast food and healthy lifestyle. I completely understand that many people have done similar ones like ours however, I find even though the topic is exactly the same and the health risks are all the same. It doesn’t lessen the dangers of being unhealthy, nor do people think about it concerning enough. Because each documentary are made with a different tone, the people involved in the making, desperately, wants to voice their opinions, in getting the message across to the audience.

At first we we just doing light surface research, but when watching other current programs such as Supersize VS Super skinny (2012/13), we understand in a more knowledgeable way just how much it had effect people’s lives. The harmless look of food and advertisements has easily fool us into thinking those illnesses won’t happen to us, but whose to guarantee it wouldn’t happen after all those people who are obese didn’t do it to themselves single handedly. Our message of this documentary is to highlight that there are CHOICES that we can make for a better health for our selves.

In our documentaryWell we followed a structure when we first wrote the script for the documentary, it started off with some shocking facts, then we talked about the influence the media has on our life decision making in advertisements related to fast food or processed food. We give Vox pop opinions they represent the general public, as for professional interviews we had arranged to talk to the Student Development Team. I find this as very important for people who wonder exactly what the college is doing to support their children’s health. So exploring this through our documentary we come to an understanding the college effects and students are encourage to be more active. We also spoke to a employee who works for Quorn which is a brand/company that provide a meat free alternative as a healthy meal choice. Then we had highlighted how fast food chains try to deceive with the harmless looking food and the shots of people walking in and out of food food stores without a single hesitation in ordering a meal. We call this the ‘Observational Mode’ where people act as normal in every day life, it reveals these choices were made subconscious, it makes me hope this documentary make people at the very least think twice about what they choose for themselves.The observational mode is one of the six types from the theory Bill Nichols made, but normally there wouldn’t be music or voice overs. But because we have voice over, it is meant to help the viewers understand what is happening.

Observational Mode: These people are acting utterly normal, without noticing the camera is filming.

The other 5 types are: • The poetic mode• The expository mode- which we had used as the

voice over is considered as the ‘Voice of God’ commentary where the speaker is heard but never seen.

• The participatory mode• The reflexive mode-meaning recording footage and

editing it to give it a form of an argument of pros and cons.

• The performative mode

Program used for creating computer generated poster/image done in Photoshop

Because our voice over said there are ‘9000 deaths per year’ is due to fast food causing obesity, I thought to just place an image of obese size coffins as a shocking image however I find that it DOESN’T explain things clearly, I decided to create a poster instead to express the voice over phrase. I had find a unique font style for the title on defont.com and used a illustration of a person and I copied and pasted it 9 times, then place them under the coffin photograph to symbolise 9000 people’s death. By adding the fast food logos making it much more direct of what they died from.

Title created on www.dafont.com saying ‘Obesity Kills.’ The person illustration

was found on google.com and next to it I put an equal sign of 1,000 people, it symbolize that fact.

I added an image of a coffin.

These are the illustration of people who had died of obesity they are all place under the coffin.

Here are the logos of fast food stores, they’re the ones partly guilty of these deaths that happen per

year.

Continues…

Here we were talking about the students at the The sixth form college, Solihull making choices on food, whether they would choose Chips which is greasy and high in fibre but not healthy as a meal or they could to have a healthy meal. This image is a render piece of the students making choices of on a panel e.g. like a pop quiz style. I find the reaction on these cartoon colour blob people face’s are realistic as the first person is confused and another thinks about having chips, the other two honestly said they would choose healthy meal.

How our documentary was made…

We had to learn to use many new equipment during filming of the documentary, these are the items:

• Tripod- is to use to make a steady shot and can be used in turning the recorder camera.

• Shot gun Microphone- to be used to pick up the voice of the person it’s pointing at.

• Camera-for still images.• Headphone- to listen back what is being

recorded in the recorder camera.• Recorder camera- specially used in filming and

recording.• Mac- computer• Scanner – allows to scan piece of papers through

to the computer.• (Logo and transfer)• (Putting together the equipment for

filming.)

Microphone lead and plug into the recorder camera.

How to use these equipment…

1.) Here is a recording I have done of myself putting the equipment together for the recording. The setting up of the tripod with the recorder camera and the shot gun mircophone with the headphone.

2.) Here is a second recording of how to log and transferring the recording clips onto the mac for it to be ready for editing.

This video of me setting up the equipment is on youtube.com, it’s called: How to do it step by step by K.P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJxlU4YAwg

I have demonstrated how to use the equipment in a correct way, showing my understanding of how to use these new media equipment.

I also have filmed myself logging and transferring data from the camera recorder onto the Fine Cut on the Mac. It’s in the second part of this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsJxlU4YAwg

The documentary…

We created our documentary on Fine Cut software on the Mac, we never used this program before so we aren’t exactly experts on it.

We had to worked hard in writing up the script that included not only research of figures but also to have a clear message of the purpose of this documentary.

Whist collecting footage for the script we were ‘logging and transferring’ all the recordings onto Fine Cut for editing we had to choose the best ones, as some either weren’t clear and some Vox pop interview answers are just non-related to the documentary.

The music we have chosen to use were exactly the same from the radio trailer, reason being is that we want to leave a direct link from these two products.

We have also gave introduction to expert interviews for example the interview with the Quorn employee and with the college’s Student Development Team. At the beginning we used effects on images to make it an interesting opening and had no voice over expect the music in the background.

Afterward it was uploaded o to YouTube.com after ‘exporting.’

In conclusion:

After the whole task of working in a group in creating a five minutes documentary and double page article plus the radio trailer.

Through out the whole time we had worried about having not enough footage, but as Hample said ‘If you don’t have the footage, then as far as this documentary is concerned, it never happened. Work with the visual evidence you do have.’ That is exactly what we did as a group we worked with what we had and made the best of it.

We have created the genre of a ‘documentary’ that has all the necessary conventions of footage first hand and second hand alongside with a guiding ‘voice of God’ voice over and with a define message within all these products of reminding people that they HAVE the ability to choose what is best for themselves.

Hempe state that, ‘the audience will never know how much fun – or how much trouble – you had in getting the pictures. Nor should they. The audience can be convinced only with the documentary you show them.’ And I agree with his opinion the audience really only see what is in the documentary that is edited as we manipulating them into seeing fast food as unhealthy.