Q1, IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Our task: In our Advanced year of media we were arranged into groups and to plan, shoot and create a Five minute documentary on a topic of our choice. We also had ancillary tasks such as creating a 30 second Radio advert and also creating a newspaper advert to promote our documentary. In order to make our documentary to a professional standard, but at times we also broke away and challenged these codes and conventions. In the next few slides I will show how we've stuck with these conventions but also challenged them at the same time.

The opening sequence:

Our opening documentary served the purpose of introducing the topic, in our case sandwiches. It conforms to real media as it introduces the topic in a really intriguing as we did it in the form of stop motion. The whole of the opening sequence is accompanied by rule Britannia this re-enforces the british theme of our documentary.

THE DOCUMENTARY

Introduction:

The purpose of our introduction is to give the audience a deeper insight into what our documentary is about and what areas it will cover. it involved a montage of clips related to sandwiches while a voiceover gave information on sandwiches and rhetorical questions to keep the audience thinking. This entertains the audience while giving them information at the same time.

THE DOCUMENTARY

The interviews

Our interviews were a key element within our documentary as it was the link between topics. Mise en scene is used in all of our interviews, behind the interviewee there is a sandwich related image. Green screens are also used in a few interviews. This intrigued the audience it was different. We also interviewed experts related to sandwiches such as the manager of our local subway. This is a really important convention as the information that the expert gives is more likely to be taken on by the audience as it is coming from someone who is specialized in that field. The rule of thirds is used within each interview this strongly conforms to real media.

THE DOCUMENTARY

Narration

Dotted throughout our documentary is a voice over the voice over conforms to typical conventions of a documentary. It is similar to the voice over in The Devil Made Me Do It documentary. It provided structure to the documentary and guides the viewer through the information given in the documentary.

THE DOCUMENTARY

Sound

Non diegetic sound in documentaries often comes through the form of background music. We used the sandwich song as it related to our topic. This challenged conventions as it had lyrics in were as in real media documentaries they would usually use an instrumental song. Diegetic sound comes from interviews, cut aways and voxpops.

THE DOCUMENTARY

Cut Aways

Cut aways are another crucially key element within documentaries. It gives the audience good clear visuals. It keeps them involved and it keeps the documentary flowing smoothly. Different shots are used too keep the cutaways interesting

Point of view shots: This keeps the audience involved as they feel a part of the documentary.

Panning Shots: These shots help viewers to get a better view of the scene which adds interest.

Close ups: adds focus to certain aspects of the shots.

THE DOCUMENTARY