Evaluation Media Studies Final KL

8/14/2019 Evaluation Media Studies Final KL

1/14

Kane Lyttle Media Studies

INTRODUCTION TO THE WHOLE TASK, WE WERE SET OUT TO COMPLETE

After months of research, planning and construction we finally have managedto complete our task including the two ancillary tasks. A lot of time and effortwent into research and planning(R&P), enabling us as a group to produce aprofessional like documentary.

The focal area to store our R&Pwas blogger we updated the

blog regularly to ensure wenote down all relevantinformation.

After R&P was complete, we then moved onto preparing our interviews dueto filming being imminent. We took various footage including background andalso many important interviews like the police officer.As a whole we had roughly 6 weeks to film. Once the filming stage wascoming to a close, we needed to prepare for the footage to be transferred toour area on the Macs which initially came to some difficulty because thedata needed to be converted. Once this was done we began the construction

stage.

Again we had roughly 6 weeks to complete this section, while also preparingto produce our ancillary tasks which were a magazine article and a radiotrailer because of this, we split the work between us, I decided to draft thearticle designing the layout and title and then Samheel put in the relevantinformation including screenshots taken from the documentary. The draftingwas done on paper but the final was done in Adobe InDesign. As a group

we decided that Amaar Baz will initially draft the radiotrailer, then as a group, we would complete the finaltrailer together in a programme called Garage Band.

Before deciding all tasks were complete, we wentthrough a final somewhat quality control to ensureeverything was at a high standard. Following this weneeded to burn our work to a CD as everything nowwas complete.

The next and final stage is Evaluation; this need to be put on the blog andmust illustrate the 4 questions that I have answered below.

EVALUATION


2/14

IN WHAT WAYS DOES OUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGEFORMS AND CONVENTIONS (F&C) OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Given the experience, time scale and equipment, our media product,predominantly uses forms and conventions of real media products. One wayit used F&C is that it follows the traditional educational/informativedocumentary by having interviews. We found that this was very common and

for our topic, interviews were veryimportant. For the structure we wanted toproduce a realistic mise en scene. Below,you can see how its set in a officeenvironment, depicting professionalism,the shot used was a commonly usedinterview midshot. Our product uses thisF&C..What Jag is wearing is alsoimportant, As stated he is a youth worker,therefore he is not in a suit, instead he isin casual sixth form college t-shirt. Thisrepresent being on the same level of the

people he is working with being non uniformed student in my opinion itmakes him more relatable.

In our R&P stage we looked at various real life products and found that musicplayed in documentaries, but at different stages and also sometimes themusic actually changes. However ours develops from this, as the music isplayed the same all the way through. However we did take into account ourdoc was only 5min long, whereas others were 30min, so technically whentheir music changed it already played 5min if not more. So maybe if our doc

was 30min, we may have decided to change our track at some point.

The music that was played was an instrumental of a grime genre it was noncopyright and was made exclusively for our doc. Many documentaries havemusic that relates to the topic, we decided to follow this convention in our doc.Being that the topic was street crime, grime was a perfect genre for the track stereotypically grime is associated with these typical British working classteenagers.

In our magazine we also use and develop F&C. one way we use F&C is bythe structure of the article, like the common article ours has a big title to jump

out at the audience, it also includes pictures/stills - another convention thatmost articles follow.For our radio trailer we used many forms and conventions, one main washaving sound clips of actual sounds from the documentary. To not only give aquick preview but also to provide real examples of street crimevictims/committers.We slightly developed our radio trailer by making the time longer most areabout 30sec but ours was over a minute. Initially we did think that it should beshort and snappy but we wanted to really stress the importance of this topic toour audience.


3/14

For this, we used a LS with the youth walking towards and pastthe camera it was used as an introduction to the interview withhim. Many documentaries do these kind of things therefore we

followed this code and convention

Youth walking through alleyFor this, we used a MS against a vandalised fence in a alley portraying that street crime life. He also had his hood up to

support this, further more he was a young male (highest crimecommitters)

Interview with a local youthFor this, we used a low angle shot showing that the police areabove representing the d ominance of the po lice. Looking

down on the vulnerable

Police PostPolice InterviewIn this scene we used a MS we also used props such asthe police signs to portray a realistic setting

This was done on computer and was hand written in a graffitistyle text because its a font commonly associated with youths

and crime.

Opening TitleYouth walking showing the magistrates courtsFor this, we used a MS from the back looking over his shoulder showing that he is in control and is showing us around

Again our experience in producing documentaries was limited; therefore ourdocumentary rarely if not never challenged F&C. However if we had theopportunity again to produce a documentary, we may be more confident indoing this. For example the voice over - we may challenge the usual voiceover in the background and instead having he/she in the scene itself.


4/14

The camera shot used here was a MS it gave more of arelating touch when we got shots of the student smoking

which crime committers could relate tobecause the majorityaresmokers.

Student VoxpopsStudent VoxpopsIn this scene we cleverly took a MS footage of a studentoutside a Magistrates Court relating to our topic

In this MS scene he is against a vandalised wall down analley, again portraying our topic.

Youth interview down an alleyVictim of crimeThis was set inside college it gives realism when you hearpeople in the background talking.

We gave a black and white effect to show that typicalreconstruction scene also black and white portrays that

realistic fa ctor.

ReconstructionYouth WorkerThis MS interview was set in an office showing thatprofessional feel. Used commonly in many real documentaries


5/14

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARYTASKS?

The combination of our main product and ancillary tasks is very effectivebecause it all links successfully.The main reasons it combines well is because the grammar that is used beingslang in the doc we hear it frequently like Blud this unlawful, workingclass language is instantly transferred in the magazine. The audience is hitwith this grammar straight away by the title I own da streetz like the docit portrayed the target audience we were targeting, due to this kind oflanguage being used by this particular social background.

The radio trailer also combines well because, not just the language links withthe other tasks, but also the voice being that stereotypical brummie accent,portrays that working class background,that would attract that particular audience.The radio station it also is played on

Galaxy has a wide audience that consist

The structure ofthe magazinewas organisedbut wonky, wedone thisbecause it linkswith street crimebeing out the

norm.

Here you can see green, splattered lettering; weused the colour green because it associated withgrime. The instrumental genre used in the docAs stated the grammarisnt proper English

instead short slang/textlike language dameaning the. This isused because the targetaudience use this kind oflanguage. This links to thedoc because thelanguage used by someof the youths isnt proper

English. Also the radiotrailer has elements ofthis.


6/14

of our target audience. Not just the persona of the DJs etc but also the genreof music being hip hop, rap etc.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED FROM OUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Firstly our questionnaire went out to a 20 people; allbeing different genders ages and ethnic backgrounds

Subsequent to showing the documentary to a range ofdifferent audiences, we have learned various things fromthe feedback.

As a whole the majority of the feedback was positive, asmost rating the documentary as excellent with nobody rating it as rubbish.

Verbally we concluded most if not all, would have watched the rest of the5min clip.

Our first question went straight into asking the audience how good it was. Wewanted the audience to immediately express their feeling towards the docafter watching it. Not only was the feedback questionnaire based, but alsoverbal what we learned from this was that, the audience found the topicinteresting and found the interviews including the mise en scene professional.


7/14

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Excellent Okay Rubbish

How Good Do You Feel the Doc w as

In terms of criticisms ofthe documentary, aminority of the feedbackoutlined sound problemsi.e. too loud, repetitiveand the voice over beingslightly fuzzy. What we

have learned from this is that itsvery important that quality is

checked regularly through theconstruction stages to ensure thesound is at its best. Another thingwe have learned to prevent thisagain is to allow a secondary

source (e.g. teachers, family, students etc) to review the soundto get his/her perspective on it. We did initially dothis but mainly for the actual footage instead of the sound, therefore next timewe will take this into account.

Following feedback, theresponse we got fromthe question waspleasing, out of 20people 15 said the doc

was excellent and 5 saidokay with 0 rating itrubbish.From verbal feedbackwe concluded that themajority of peoplethough it wasprofessional and likedthe interviews.


8/14

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14


How Good Was The Sound Quality

To engage the right target audience was really important for us to do,therefore a question we asked was who they feel it targeted, we decided totarget teenagers, from a working class background social class E. Howeversecondary audiences like adults, different social classes etc can watch thedocumentary and we wouldnt be surprise if they did.After reviewing the feedback, it shows we did this successfully target ouraudience.

Another question we asked was what channel, time and day would be mostsuitable.

We

decided that we wanted it to be showcased onChannel 4 because theres programmes like

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Seniors Adults Teenagers Children

Target Audience For Our Doc

We already decided thatteenagers were our

target audience followingthe response we gotfrom our audienceresearch, from thisfeedback we can seethat we targeted themsuccessfully because 13out of 20 said it suitablefor teenagers and 7 foradults.

Again most people rated thesound quality as excellent ,out of 20 - 12 rated itexcellent, 8 as okay with 0being rubbish.

Verbal feedback weconcluded that for the mostpart the sound quality wasexcellent , however oneissue raised was the voiceover quality was slightlybassy/fuzzy and theinstrumental abit loud oversome interviews


9/14

shameless, hollyoaks, big brother etc that have more or less the same targetaudience as ours, therefore we felt it would be most suitable. The time we allagreed was 9.00pm (not too early and not too late) the day we initially thoughtwas a Friday, however because of the target audience we thought that itwould be better in the week like a Wednesday because Friday is the start of

the weekend so many of our audience may be socialising etc, where as aWednesday, people are more likely to be at home at this time and day.

HOW DID WE USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION ANDRESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?


10/14

Tasks/stages Technologies*may be more

Research & Planning Computer - internet, Blogger,Hotmail

ConstructionSony HD Cam, Microphone,

Computer - Internet, Final CutExpress, Garage band, iDVD,

Hotmail, Blogger, In Design, Word,YouTube.

Evaluation Computer Blogger, Word,Intervideo

From start to finish, there were a variety oftechnologies we used to complete our product.

In the research and planning stage, the main

technology that was used was ICT. We mostlyused apple macs throughout the whole process

and used theinternet to obtainimportant information about our chosentopic and used blogger to save info for lateruse. We used YouTube to find similardocumentaries to ours, so we could get afeel for the codes and conventions they use

to illustrate and target a particular audience. The clips we did find we wereable to embed to our blog.

Once we had everything in terms of planning out the way, we moved ontoearly construction filming. Around this time the college were equipped withnew cameras, so fortunately we were able to use these new Sony HDcamcorders. We used these for various things, the main object for thecameras was to film the footage, and however we also used it to record ourradio trailer and to take stills.


11/14

Before taking the cameras out we had tocomplete and form covering where we aregoing, contact details and equipment etc it was a standard safety check for thecollege. Along with the cameras we used a

tripod, microphone and headphones. Thisequipment was all important throughout the filming because we needed thetripod to keep the camera steady where appropriate, the headphones wereimportant to check the quality of the sound is it loud enough etc and themicrophone was needed to pick up the sound of what people were saying inthe interviewsreducing the levelsof the diegeticbackground noiseslike cars, wind etc.In some cases we

actually wantedthese sounds torepresent realism.For example Samsinterview you hearlaughing and talking this representedrealism in a collegeenvironment. Otheruses were the voice-over and radio

trailer. Sound quality was important and feedback shows we done this well.

Limitations

Although the camera was very good and of high standard there were somethings that if included would have been really good for our documentary. one was the ability of night mode, if the camera had this it would have beenreally good if we had some footage of voxpops/footage in the dark to give thatrealistic effect and portray that street crime image.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14


How Good Was The Sound Quality


12/14

Once all filmingwas done, weneeded toactually constructthe product. To

do this we usedthe Apple Macs.Firstly we had totransfer the datafor conversion.Once this was

done we used a piece of software called Final Cut Express, to start buildingthe documentary. At this stage we stared to organise the clips we wanted touse. There were over 30minutes of footage and we only need 5min so filingthrough all the different footage was difficult. Once we sorted out the clips wewanted, the next stage was to put them onto the timeline and shorten any

footage if necessary.

To put them on the timeline was simple it was just a drag and drop job.The next stage after this was editing. We had to think about applyingeffects some used in ourswas:

Slow motion to slow

down a fast paced clipfor the audience to seemore clearly

Black & White thiswas used to showrealism and also theeffect of areconstruction

Cross dissolve to speedup/move on to a later partof a particular scene.

Fade effect used to moveonto a next scene.


13/14

One of the ancillary tasks was to produce a radiotrailer for the documentary. We done this in aprogramme called Garage Band. This type of

programme was totally new to me.

The trailer was intended to promote the documentaryby broadcasting the 1mintue clip across Birmingham.Its a different form of advertising it uses crossmedia convergence to market the documentary.

Firstly we had to produce the trailer on final cut, thentransfer it to garage band to put effects and soundsto it.To make the trailer more realistic I decided to put an opening Galaxy FM

sound effect at the start and end. The radio trailer consisted of different soundclips from the documentary but also clips that were produced specifically for it

to promote the documentary for example one was: This is the latest ofChannel 4s Documentaries.

To make the trailer more interesting, we added effects. One effect was echo,which was added at the end (check it out...out..out.tt.ttt)


14/14

The other task was to produce a magazine article forour documentary. Before constructing it, we produced adraft of the article. Once this was done we produced thearticle on a programme called InDesign. This was afamiliar programme that I have used in previous

projects, therefore we was determined to produce areally good article.

Initially we decided to gowith a cramped brightarticle, however we felt itwas too bombarding and amore subtle, simple articlewould be mostappropriate. In the article,it included stills from our

documentary to aid thepresentation and content.One still that was includedwas a still of the firstinterview with Bustamanwe included this picture because the article was based around him it asksvarious question like why street crime and what was it like in prison.

OVERALL

Looking back at the whole task, it has been really good and not only was itsatisfying for us, but we actually learnt more about street crime, and theeffects, role of the police etc.After watching other peoples documentaries we have learned alot too.In terms of development the whole process meant I have learnt new things therefore if I was asked to produce another one, I will be able to produce amore professional documentary.Not only does it come down to experience but also equipment a moreadvanced camera, software, computers etc will enable me to produce anexcellent documentary.

Documents

Evaluation Media Studies Final KL