WHOLE MEDIA EVALUATION

8/7/2019 WHOLE MEDIA EVALUATION

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Nick Turvey A2 Media Evaluation

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

conventions of real media products?

‘The Network’ is a documentary

which explores the way that socialnetworking sites affect teenager’s lives.We aimed to connect with viewers aged 13

– 21 too show social network effectspeople such as themselves. It gives the

reasons why teenagers are affected andextreme cases of cyber bullying and

addiction that will interest the target

audience. We chose to do a social documentary as we thought it would be the most

interesting to the audience. It was formal and allowed us to show the main affects of

social network on teenagers.

However we also have a secondary audience of people connected to teenagers such asparents, teachers, and student counsellors. We made it appealing to them by putting in

an expert interview to get the professional view on the topic.

Channel 4

We choose Channel 4 because we believed it to show a lot

of documentaries like our one that attracts audience from 15 – 21

years of age. This being similar to our audience they would more

likely to watch a documentary if it was on this channel.

Before making our documentary we viewed andanalysed a number of different documentaries and

one that really caught our eye was “Are the NetPolice Coming for You”. This allowed us to gain

many of the codes and conventions used in a

documentary like that. This is why we used it as a

template and tried to transfer the style of that

documentary into ours.

DOCUMENTARY CONTENT

The content within the documentary is a controversial topic and is in the news today.The importance of the topic means there will always be conflict involved, this is what

appeals to the audience. It also informs others of what the extent to the topic is and the

mo

re

serious

side

of it.

The channel 4 ident, comes with the

documentary being on this channel. This

gave us a chance to introduce our documentary. This is the first point of

which you can get your audience towatch the program.




To start we used the “Are the Net Police Coming for you” style opening. We did thisas we believed it to show a

serious informative side to thedocumentary, which we believe

ours is. However ours as looksat the other side and shows

most teenagers are not affected

by social network. It also

shows the use of common

codes and conventions within

other media products.The opening to the show however does

not follow codes and conventions and

we are very pleased with the gamble

we took. It gives the viewer a taste of

what the topic is and shows a

difference to the normal

Title sequences. This challenges the

conventions of the titleon of “Are the Net

Police Coming for you”.

Before the title sequence we used a montage of images and voiceover to explain and

show off the program, this was also done in “Are the Net Police Coming for you”.

This was to explain and show how interesting the topic is just in case they weren’t

already interested. This is also a good

common code and convention that

many documentaries have.

Captions Another code and

convention is usingcaptions. This is to

identify the peoplebeing interviewed.

Expert Interviews

This is also a commoncode and convention and used in a

number of documentaries. This is

very much for the second

audience of anyone that has a

career or interest in teenager’s

lives. It gives crucial expert

analysis on the topic which grips

the viewer and makes it

interesting.






We also inserted bits from the documentary to give

them an idea of what’s to come in the documentary.

The presenter is consistent and informs the listener of

all the major information like the channel it is on and

the times. It also gives the aim of the documentary.

We also used conventions of putting sounds in thatare common to the subject (e.g. typing on akeyboard).

MAGAZINE LISTINGS PAGE CONTENT

Our magazine listings page shows consistent theme throughout all three tasks. It

shows many common conventions within it compared to a professional one. The

double page picture is

common in attracting the

reader; this also means that

when they watch the programthey will see the continuous

theme throughout the tasks.

Our listings page also shows

the title within the picture,

which is common in

magazines. All the

information bout the

documentary had to well presented and interesting toread. This is why we have used a lot of bold and a few grab quotes to keep it

professional and readable but attractive.

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




DOCUMENTARY

The documentary aimed to show the audience the effect of social networking

on teenagers today. We aim to do that by using a number on common codes and

conventions and making the documentary interesting and appealing to the audience

through professionalism.

RADIO TRAILER

The radio trailer is aimed to advertise the show in

such a way that people want to watch it but also relate to it,this is why we put small snippets of audio to tempt them to

watch the show. This is a quick attractive summary of theDocumentary.

MAGAZINE LISTINGS PAGE

The magazine listings page is aimed to relate very

much to the documentary, which is why we used a still

image from the documentary. It also continues with the dark theme of the title shot. This gives consistency throughout all the

tasks. Due to the lack of teenagers reading magazines we needed

to make sure it caught the eye of those who do.

Combining the Products Together

A key factor when linking all three of the

products together is consistency, throughout all of our products I believe we did well when it came to

consistency as we were able to give it a certain imagethat if people saw they would know what program was

coming on. The similar colours and same picturereflect the topic well and is why we chose this picture

to be at the forefront of our products. The

radio trailer also provides this threw the type

of music and tone of voice used. This is

done creating an image in the listener’s head

of the image to the left.

Quotes are taken from the documentary and

incorporated within both the radio trailer and the magazine listening page. This gives

the listener or reader as taster of the things

involved within the documentary and how real people are affected by social

networking.

We also related sounds and images to makecommon noises to do with things related to the

topic like typing on a keyboard.This was very effective in the

radio trailer and again linkedwith the documentary.




However linking the products isn’t easy, we had to make it available to all our target

audience and still interesting to our secondary audience. This made it a difficult

decision process in which we had to select appropriate sounds and images to catch the

attention of our target audience.

The effectiveness of the magazine listings page and the radio trailer had to be good as not many teenagers listen to radio trailers and notmany read magazine listening page, so the few that do we really

needed to grab. Next time we will have to look into doingadvertising that attracts to the target audience.

Overall

All three of the products link well with each other through many mediums.

They all show off the aim of the documentary and the extent into which it goes into

the subject. It also shows off the popular interests of the target audience towards this

documentary.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our target audience for the documentary was:

Teenagers

The ages between 15 – 21

All Races

All social classes and backgroundsBoth sexes

British people

The target audience we selected for the

documentary allowed us to make sure the

footage we filmed reached the audiences we

wanted. We picked the audience to allow all

teenagers that use social networking which

covers a wide range of sexes, races and social

classes. This being a British document on

Channel 4 we used British people which aregood as it covers wide range of ethnic

backgrounds.

Although we had our main target audience we

also considered other key people that will watchour documentary. These are people that are often

involved with teenagers and are interested howit affects them. This is such people as Parents,

Social Workers, Student Counsellors andTeachers. These all would have an interest in the

documentary as they are all closely linked withthe primary target audience.




Focus Group

We used a variation of our target audience to watch the documentary and give

us feedback through a questionnaire.

Throughout the film the viewers will be rating us between ‘Excellent’ and ‘Poor’ on

different areas of the documentary.

The Questionnaire was helpful as it allowed the target

audience to give a truthful analysis of the documentary and give us areas for improvement and strengths of the documentary.

Questionnaire Results and Findings

The questionnaire was to see how well we connected with our target audience andwould they watch it. The aim

of our documentary was to

show how social networking

affects young people today.

We asked for an overall

rating of our documentary out

of 5 options. The results show

that the majority gave it the

middle mark which was

“Good”. The results also

allow us to see how




successful we were when trying to show the aim of the documentary. Although we

got some positive feedback, we obviously didn’t reach all the target audience as we

got “Satisfactory” and “Poor” marks. Although results show that the documentary was

liked, it shows that we haven’t covered the whole of our target audience and didn’t

interest them enough to make them think it was a good documentary.

From this questionnaire we gathered many strengths on which the audience likes,however we noticed a number of repeated weaknesses that the target audience put.This could help us improve next time.

STRENTGHS

• Topic Of Documentary –

The results showed that the

topic for the documentary was popular. They commented on

how it interested them and related to their lives.

With billions of people on social networking sites

it’s common that people want to hear about peoplesproblems they occur while on them. With teenagers being the prime target and the

media portraying them as addicted to their computers because of it.

• S

ou

n

d Quality –

Sound quality was also a reoccurring

comment that was made about the documentary. We were

very careful with our sound quality as we know that if the

quality of sound isn’t right then the documentary wont

sound professional. We ensured that the microphone was

far enough away so it wasn’t too loud and muffled. Alsomade sure it was always quite around so there was no

background noise.

• Editing –

The editing we did on the documentary, paid off when the resultsshowed us that the majority thought it was good and it allowed the to

understand the meaning better. We used a number of transitions tokeep the documentary flowing. It also allowed us to keep in time

with the voice over.

100% of the audience we questionedanswered “Good” or higher for the

appropriateness of the documentary for

the target audience.




AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT

• Voiceover –

A main weakness of ours that was mentioned in the feedback was thevoiceover. This is also reflected in our only “Poor” marks on thequestionnaire came under professionalism of the documentary. The

voiceover thought it had a solid script however it was too quick andthere were a few stutters.

Improve: To improve this next time I would allow more time for thevoiceover to be recorded, this is so we can get it perfect as everyone will make

mistakes. I would also link it more carefully with the storyboard; this then gives us the

solid structure of a voiceover and allows for the voiceover and documentary to link

throughout.

• Shot Selection – In the questionnaire we

asked to rate the filming/shooting of

appropriate material. The results show that

this wasn’t done well. The further

feedback gave us more detail in there

wasn’t enough variation of shots used

within the documentary.

Improve: To improve this we will have tonot stick directly to the storyboard, this

didn’t allow us to really be creative andgive a wide variation of shots to the

audience, and this would have kept theminterested. Although it was good that we

were focused on this one goal we didn’t consider what the audience wanted when it

came to the shots.

• Quality of Filming –

The quality of filming was another thing that the target audience

believed to be a weakness of our documentary. The

shot selection was also said to be an issue.

Comments about this however we believed to be

harsh as the things said were angles we were tryingto come from. However this must be a weakness as

it did not appeal to our target audience.

Improve: I think this needs to be done in Research

and Planning. We needed to personally ask our

target audience what they like to see in adocumentary, shot wise. We went to focus on

people’s body parts like their mouth and hands togiver affect and keep the audience interested. However this was commented as

“unprofessional”. Next time we will have to put more Research and planning into thisarea.

• Music –




We knew this was a weakness of the documentary and the target audience did not

miss out on it. Our music was poor as it was a very last minute choice. This is due to

the original music we had was found to be copyright.

Improve: To improve this we will take more time and care into selecting the

background music. This is a very important aspect of any

documentary especially when attracting people of today’sgeneration as music is such a big industry.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and

research, planning and evaluation stages?

Thought the process of creating our documentary I have used a wide variety of

media technologies, this has allowed me to develop my skills within these programsand improve my documentary, radio trailer and listings page.

Research and Planning

I used a range of technologies while research and planning:

A crucial technology that contributed to my research and planning was the Internet.

This was a vital piece of technology as it allowed us to gather information, stats,

statistics, examples and analysis that would eventually contribute to our documentaryand radio trailer.

I used many sites, the main ones being google andyoutube. Google was helpful in finding stats and

statitics bout social networking. It also allowed us toresearch into the topic we used for our documentary

and stories in the news about it. Youtube was very helpful

when researching products similar to the one we were

creating. This was important as it allowed us to access

documentaries such as “Panorama – Are the Net Police

Coming for You”. This allowed us to analyse documentaries

to find out common codes and conventions for media products.

I also used other key websites like BBC news to look at stories of social

network stories that have happened recently to get an idea of what is happening todayin the news. This also allowed us to compare to other news websites to compare

stories and previous stories to see how the problem with social networks has escalate.

Another websites such as the colleges Moodle allowed me to listen to examples of

radio trailers.

In order to complete research and planning we used Apple Macs. This allowed us to

draw up story boards to give a general idea of the structure to our documentary. To dothis I used Comic Life. This allowed us to get our ideas down and show it in order.

However these ideas would change but it does show they allowed us to develop our ideas to improve the documentary.

To do this we need still images of ideas of clips that will go in the documentary dothis we used a Digital Camera. This technology allowed me to make ideas into




images on page. This helped with our filming as we had the intial ideas which we

could then develop on. The images taken allowed to create the storyboard and helped

when we ran out of ideas.

Final Cut Express

We used the Final Cut Express program to edit our fiulming and create our documentary. I had never used

this program beofre and found it invaluable in makingour documentary professional and allowing us to create

a good documentary.

The Basics

There were many basic

things you had to learn before

putting in transitions and doing the

complicated modifications to the documentary. Firstly we needto log and transfer the images into Final Cut Express (FCE). This

meant choosing the clips we wanted for our documentary and

transferring it into FCE.

The top half had all your logged and transferred clips on the left. These were all

unedited so if you made a mistake or wanted a different part to a clip then you wouldtake it from their. The others are the editing screen and the final documentary screen.

Video

The video layout gave us the opportunity to see where transitions would best we

placed. This also allowed to show where long clips were and gave us a chance to putother clips on top of them to make them more interesting.

Audio






Music

On GarageBand we were able

to make our own music. To

do this I mixed two of their default tracks. The positivefeedback from our target

audience made the rest of the radiotrailer easy to make and time.

The complete radio trailer was 30seconds long with varying sound

levels. We were able to decide how

loud the sound levels were. Also in

GarageBand it allowed us to import

varies audio parts from the

documentary. This gives them ataster of what’s to come.

Overall

I have used GarageBand before and was therefore more acquainted with it, however I

was able to import audio from a video into the program. I was able to make my own

audio track and give the audience what they wanted.

Comic Life

Lastly we used Comic Life tocreate our story board. This waskey as the handwritten version did

not give us the same visual imageas this does. It allowed a visual

image with an explanation of how

our documentary plans out.

Burning to Disk

At the end after completing both the documentary and the radiotrailer we had to burn it to disk. This simply meant that we




converted the radio trailer and documentary into a suitable format for the disk and all

computers, and burn it onto the disk.

Documents

WHOLE MEDIA EVALUATION