By Ellie HaydenCandidate Number: 3101

“Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality.”

“To document, you must become apart of the story.”

ResearchResearch

Before any practical work was carried out, extensive research into documentary film makers was completed. The focus was on documenters Louis Theroux, Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield. From researching these in detail, I was able to get a clear understanding of what was required for a documentary, particularly from such video clips as shown below.

Above is a link from ‘Blogger’ of just some of the research conducted on the documenter ‘Louis Theroux’.

Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

The use of extensive research into documentaries has allowed our documentary to become conventional. We have incorporated key features , such as interviewing people to the right of the screen, something seen typically within documentary making. We have also incorporated statistics, archive footage and voice-overs throughout, once more conforming to the ideology of documentary making.

* Examples of this are shown on the next slide...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8QxZJZfU5Q - such links as this has aided the development of research we were able to complete and allowed us to begin to understand what was required to create a documentary that sustained impact.

Q1) Continued…

This is a video clip displaying a typical drink driving awareness advert, warning audiences of the consequences of driving under the influence. Such video clips helped to develop an understanding into the emotive elements required within a documentary in order to relate closely to the target audience.

Challenging the codes and conventions of documentary making is something that we aimed to avoid, focusing on such features as structured interviews in order to relate closely to current documentaries already made.

Q1) continued...Q1) Continued...

Interview 3

Interview 4

Interview 5

These screenshots are just a few examples of how we were able to continue the conventional themes of documentary making. It is clear to see the positioning of the people being interviewed is predominantly to one side of the screen, something that appears within the majority of documentaries. This is something we felt was essential to achieve in order to make our documentary realistic and reflect that of documentaries that are currently within the market today.

Q2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary pieces?

Within my ancillary pieces, it is clear to see that the target audience is focused throughout. Within the magazine article, the use of font styles and relevant documentary films evidently relates to the target audience of the documentary: teenagers.

Such websites as ‘dafont.com’ have helped to achieve and relate to the required target audience, something which has been included within one of my ancillary pieces. Experimenting with fonts has shown the importance of attracting the target audience and sustaining interest throughout.

As a group, as another ancillary piece, we have create a radio advert about the harmful effects of teenage driving. We used emotive narrative and background ambient noises in order to appeal to teenagers and therefore create definite impact.

Q2) Continued...My ancillary pieces have enhanced the meaning of our documentary by the use of emotive and effective language used within the interview within ancillary piece 1 and the advert in ancillary piece 2. This helps to relate directly to the audience, by the use of personal experiences and getting the audience to think about what they are seeing.

Such images like the one shown here from the ‘Think’ adverts gave us the idea to create a radio advert of our own. Although the differences between our ancillary piece and this advert are visual, they both provide a message that generates impact, something that was important for us to be able to achieve.

Similarly, such adverts allow the target audience to relate to and think about the risks of teenage driving, something that both the magazine article and the radio advert portray. By relating to audiences of similar ages to myself, it was easy to incorporate my own experiences as well as completing extensive research in order to meet the criteria of the audience, something that this video clip successfully completed also.

Q3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The audience feedback process was found to be of great success. We showed our documentary to a group of mixed gender teenage students, in order to get fair and accurate feedback. We recorded the feedback given and found that our documentary proved to be of great success, providing impact and making the audience become more aware about the dangers of driving. We also were able to come away with some constructive criticism, for example, one girl stated that “the dialogue was too quiet”, therefore this was something that we could take away and improve on. The audience were critical yet complimentary of our documentary and from this, we were able to come away with further improvements to make.

http://ellie-alevel.blogspot.com/2010/03/audience-feedback-filming.html This is a link to my Blog, showing the video of the audience feedback and displaying the information we were able to take away from this.

Q4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation

stages?

Throughout this process, various different technologies have been used in order to complete the documentary. The use of the Apple Mac computers, as well as hand-held SONY digital recorders have been the main technologies used throughout, enabling the group to be able to complete the production of the documentary, using the Mac computers predominantly for editing and the recorders for filming sequences and practising diverse shots, something that was able to develop as the planning and production process continued.

Technology Used for...

Apple Macs Editing

Sony Recorders Filming

Blogger Planning and Preparation

Paint Screenshots for Blogger, Inserting Pictures into Publisher

DaFont Supporting Pieces

Tripod Steady Camerawork

Digital Cameras Practising Still Shots

PowerPoint Planning and Evaluation

GarageBand Group Supporting Piece

Q4) Continued...

APPLE MACS SONY CAMERAS

TRIPODS

GARAGEBAND

DAFONT.COM

PAINT

POWERPOINT

BLOGGER

Above are some of the forms of media technologies that we used when creating our documentary. The top three pictures are personally taken to show the use of technologies within the production process.

CONCLUSION...

Throughout this process, it is clear that the overall completion of this task was due to the extensive use of research and background knowledge. This can also relate to the developed use of resources within the type of technology used, e.g. Tripods, as well as the develop use of time for planning and preparation. Although group work remains similar from the AS coursework, it can be said that the continued process of working together to produce a successful documentary has resulted in significant teamwork and co-operation, something that has been affective within the group. Although sometimes the group struggled to come up with ideas for certain shots and ways of portraying the genre of our documentary, as well as having some issues with understanding new software's such as GarageBand, overall, the success of the documentary particularly can be shown within the amount of research and time that has been included, potentially leading to our documentary being completed on time and to the specification set out.