Production Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The media product that we have created through developing with research, planning and audience feedback has clear links to showing and constructing forms shown in existing Real media Products. Our product uses and supports theories and conventions that you would witness in same genre Documentaries, for example, we have factors that we have included such as Voice-Over’s, Subtitles, Appropriate sound, editing, simplistic effects, real issues presented in society, effective cast, representation of disability to create distress and upset for the audience and a range of suitable locations that fit with the story-line to enhance the documentary theme. 
Research into other real media products allowed us to gain full knowledge of how this genre is presented to the audience. The narrative presented through the genre of the documentary has clear convention of presenting representation of certain given issues. The types of existing products that we looked at are Wife-swap, Dispatchers, Tourettes, and channel four productions. What all of these productions have in common is the fact they follow the same convention of building up a narrative surrounding the issue, presenting the characters involved in the light appropriate for that product and coming to a conclusion to give the audience a kind of equilibrium.
When carrying out our production, we tried to incorporate as much knowledge as we could which we have gained from our research, such as media theories presented in the documentary. The main reason for carrying out research is to gain better knowledge of the subject area and what makes the genre successful. When looking into the genre of the documentary there are clear successful elements that make up an obvious documentary theme such as ‘representation’, ‘production’ and ‘reference’. We took these three ‘representations as progresses to base our production around. The factors for each heading helped us to focus on capturing each element required, for example ‘Representation’ is including age, gender, ethnicity and class. ‘Production’ is about the factors involved with constructing and producing a suitable piece of editing or filming. ‘Reference’ is about what actual issues you are trying to present and reference. By remembering and applying these three theories we knew we would include each important element of the documentary.
When doing are research into documentary it was clear most documentary used a clear style of having a opening minute to capture the audience attention by showing a insight to the main elements of content that will be on shown in the actual main program, normally consisting of fast passed jump cut editing to show lots of elements about the program. This is a successful 
technique as it leaves the audience wanting to finish watching what occurs with each small clip shown in the first minute. An example of this is to show a clip of a action shot of an argument etc. This straight away builds up a feeling of distress for the documentary. A narrator is commonly used to enhance the issues that are going to be presented .the Narrator will work along-side the action shots in the first minute. An example of this is part of our research,’ Wife-swap’. Wife-swap always has this narrative at the beginning and is a vital factor in establishing the program. They will usually talk about the families that are included in that particular episode and the qualities and issues which they have. The narrator gives all the relevant information regarding the families but also edited alongside the narrator, clips from the actual program of what the families have said such as tag lines that will get the audiences’ attention. For example, the Dad role of one of the families says ‘ he doesn’t do any household jobs’ which makes the audience start to build a picture of this man already. What we wanted to take from this is to incorporate these factors in our production using the style of having an opening minute (in our case 1 minute 6 seconds) to present Adam Rush Issues and family issues surrounding Cerebral Palsy.
The opening minute of our production is to present what is the issue surrounding Adams life. The way we have constructed the opening is by showing short fast clips of the main footage from our documentary, Instead of the narrator as shown in other documentaries the first task for us was to make the audience aware to what was going to be included in the documentary which is age, gender, issues, location and family life. We wanted to present Adam and his family in the opening sequence as very vulnerable and distressed, struggling with the issues they have in their life. With the addition of the narrator (Stuart Rush) Adams issues sound even more serious due to the tone and nature of what the narrator is explaining. The voice used for the Narrator was successful as it is Adams brother so a comparison is established, as by using Stuarts voice the issues are being explained from an individual who very much understands the issues.
As a progress from looking at the opening of documentaries we looked at the main ways we could represent Adam in close reference to society, so that the audience could refer and understand the realism behind his issues. We established that the camera work , mis en scene, narrative, uses of sound, character and special effects were elements to look at in greater detail in reference to existing documentaries. We first broke each element required down , and thought about the ways in which we needed to present and develop each factor.
Mis en scene is a very important factor involved with any documentary and even more so with our production as it was vital to ensure we captured all the correct elements. When we looked at other examples of documentaries such as Tourettes, I swear, I can help it’ there is a big emphasis with this example on showing the simplistic life style of the people who live with the disability. the idea behind presenting these characters in this way is to give the audience a sense of just how hard their life styles are, for example in Tourettes, I swear I can help it’ as an audience we witness the life style of a individual man that has Tourettes. The way the mis en scene is built up is by using representation very effectively. The scene is built up where this is a troubled man that lives with his mum with no abolitions. The location and environments used are suitable as it shows him in a very simple environment. What documentaries do to present the issues in the most effective way is by taking extreme cases of the issue and amplifying them to the audience, for example not every sufferer of Tourettes will live in these ways but by presenting it to the audience as if his life is such a struggle makes people have stronger feelings towards the issues. Locations such as houses, gardens, street and outdoor public areas such as a supermarket are used effectively to just show a normal mundane aspect of Adams life. What we took from this example of research is the mis en scene of creating a very targeted example of a character with Cerebral palsy (Adam Rush) and amplified it to its greatest potential to give the audience the greatest sense of stress for Adams life. We have included lots of home and Garden shots, also with the addition of Supermarket shot (which we sent off to get permission to record In their store). Due to our story line of which we constructed of Adam Rushs’ having life having been a struggle, as a lifestyle living With cerebral palsy ,the main goal is to show the way he lives in his own home. So we witness him sat watching TV, eating food …. Shots that don’t have great technical influence but just give the audience a look into a normal person’s life. On the flip side to this we have also included various other style shots that present Adams angry side and the way this is presents is in a more ‘Wife swap’ style of actually witnessing the action unfold. We have scenes of Adam having Arguments and boxing, things that show the audience why Adam is in this struggle of a situation. By presenting A two sided viewing content an audience can see Adams’ reasons and build a real strong narrative.
The characters and selection of cast which we constructed where a very influential factor when creating a storyline .When we started to produce a story line and was story boarding, we always had a clear idea of the story we wanted to portray. We knew the main character we wanted to include which was Adam Rush due to his Disability Of cerebral palsy. We knew we would be able to work closely with him to present a accurate account of his life and present it in a emotional way, As shown in Tourettes. You can see with other documentaries that they know every element of the issues they are presenting and we knew with Adam we could show all the relevant information. The rest of our casting was based around Adams life so for example we needed a mother (played by Julie King as Jane Rush),a brother (Stuart Rush his twin) and A friend ( Joe Hill as Henry Ford).Due to the nature of the issue and the genre of which we were creating the characters were elements which needed to be realistic and as natural as you would expect in any documentary and because Adam actually has the issues the realistic element was never an issue.
In order to create the suitable perfect mis en scene, the camera work, editing, sound and effects played a vital role in producing a realistic believable viewing experience. We used a factor found in our research stage as a great help for looking into how to construct camera angles and editing. We used Neo Nazi documentary as a aid as we particularly admired the editing and camera work presented in this example. Although the content involved in the Neo Nazi documentary was not what we ended up working towards. The way camera angles and editing is used, for example the way shots are present, Stuart talking to camera in first 5 seconds from a medium shot is based on the way a shot is presented in Neo Nazi, the reason this shot works is due to the fact you can clearly see Stuart is standing outside of a house and then goes on to talk about his brother, so its establishing location. The shots we have included in are production are Long, medium, close up and extreme close up camera shots, Side to side pan of subject, up and down pan of subject and slow zoom shots. We have used these shots in comparison to other documentaries we have looked at. We know from research of other documentaries that medium shots that proceeds to a close up shots works effectively when carrying out interviews with a character. Throughout our documentary production this type of editing is very prominent as it presents the location of the individual in the house but then shows the focal or body language to present emotion.
The editing that we used throughout our production was a progress from looking at all of our research, for example we knew we wanted to have a fast paced jump cut opening (shown in Wife- swap) but as a progression we wanted to slow the pace down and include editing shown in examples of documentaries such as ‘why are thin people not fat’ , Neo Nazi and Tourettes. The way the transition between shots is presented is through over lapping and fades in and out of a shot. This along with the sounds used builds a slow soft emotive journey between the story being told. Once the opening sequence is out of the way the enthuses is on building up a upsetting emotion story of Adams life and this is done by doing slow fades with subtitles of facts about the disability (cerebral palsy) in the bottom left hand corner of each shot, as shown in Dispatchers. It was important to import a source that gave the footage that you watch a real strength of truth which the subtitles do, they state facts about cerebral palsy that tell the audience what Adam is suffering from.
Sound was also a huge factor in our production and had many issues surrounding our choice. In today’s society types of music clear present different feeling and we wanted to find and capture music that audience could relate to and understand the distress and upset involved in the production. We did lots of research into types of soundtracks used in existing documentaries and we found out that the key to building a emotion atmosphere was to have instrumental music. We began to look at instrumental music of popular choice and eventually we had a range of instrumental music choice that we were able to incorporate with are product. When looking at other documentaries a representation can be set up just through the music choice, for example in Tourettes music is used in key times in the documentary to emphasize how upsetting the viewing content is. To our production our soundtrack was key to presenting Adam in a distressed light. All of the key elements in our piece (camera angles mis en scene, sound etc) all slotted together successful as all these elements were a result of lots of research and planning.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our production consisted of a main 5 minute opening to a documentary with the addition of two ancillary tasks which accompany the main product to enhance the selling potential to the given target audience.
The main goal to fulfill our given brief was to create successful links between every aspect of what we carry out and the combination of the main product and the ancillary task were vital to create a realistic continuity between all of the elements we created. The way we did this is by using constant house styles for example a colour scheme from the channel four colour chart. We used orange as a theme colour to have throughout our production. We carried out the option of an additional radio edit and a double page spread from a TV listing magazine. We wanted to create a strong theme of Adam as the iconic image to symbolize the Program install. The combination of the moving image with a still image piece of work is successful as factors included in the main documentary are shown in the double page spread such as The Main title tag line ‘Adam, a life in Anger’ is used across all three products. The same colours and fonts are consistent and effective in making the audience aware that these three pieces of advertisement about this program are all clearly linked.
The final other ancillary task that we produced as a statement of intent to the audience was a Radio advertisement edit which is designed to give a different style alternative advertisement regarding the documentary. Once again we knew and wanted to match the house style to the main task but wanted to include different factors but not to the extent people could not put the two pieces of products together. The way we constructed the radio edit was by changing the soundtrack behind the clip and editing the speech from our actual main task. We wanted to include clear factors of tag line ands and memorable elements from the main product but presented in a more advertising ways. So an example is just including the important factors like ‘his attitude and anger has destroyed this family’. We feel that this radio edit work particularly well as it is a short example of the styles shown in our main task. The conventions represented are ones that match other documentaries of building up a un equilibrium and creating questions.What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
As part of our research stage we carried out a section of audience feedback both before we created our product and afterwards, in order to find a balance of audience ideas and attitudes regarding our whole production.
We focused mainly on carrying out questionnaires as we had specific questions that we wanted to find answers for, for example what people thought makes a successful documentary, what they want to learn more about/what issues?, types of ages that watch the documentary, content …..We carried out a range of different questionnaires ranging from simple based, ages gender and how often they would watch documentary, and questionnaires more about what they want regarding the subject matter.
The feedback that we gathered from are before questionnaire research was mainly regarding what they thought makes a successful product for example interesting unique storylines giving them new knowledge, entertainment values. We used this in comparison to the research we carried out into existing documentaries to look at the links between the audience feedback and are thoughts about what we could make work. We established that what would make the best documentary would to be take elements from Documentaries such as wife-swap that have entertainment values but also remain with the idea of presenting a clear factual viewing experience along the lines of existing documentary guidelines on what the audience wanted but to an extent our main influence came from existing products.
Taking into consideration all of the information gathered, we also presented the story board to the audience to recover feedback so that we could see if are idea for are production was adequate to what audience thinks work. The feedback said that our initial ideas were on the right tracks as they present correct conventions but we were giving too much away from the actual program. Due to the fact we were only creating the first 5 minutes we didn’t think about the factor of worrying about uncovering too much information regarding the subject but due to a audience feedback we altered this which was very useful.
The feedback that we got from the after questionnaire feedback was also very successful in the fact it shed light on what we achieved and whether we fulfilled are research and pre planning. We questioned the audience on whether they thought are documentary matched and presented conventions similar presented in other media products, whether our product was constructed in a suitable style for the given subject area and basis questions regarding are product. What we learnt from the feedback was that people often compare your product to other for example just the same as the way people compare things in society. We found that by carrying out relevant research and planning before we even started are final product was commented as being successful in its purpose.
We talked closely and constructed successful questionnaire that allows us to find out key factors about are product. For example the opening minute which was a technique that we found in are research and used in are production and the audience feedback picked up on the fact they had witnessed this type of opening in other documentary and agreed it made them want to watch more.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Using various different software played a vital role in developing to an end results. We tried and tested a range of software to perfect our production. We started off with using Windows movie maker to edit and construct are film that we made earlier on as a attempt at filming and editing and found the limitation presented with this software were going to limit our chance of creating the best possible level production. Movie maker presents issues such as Memory lost once you close the program; once this happens you lose all your work, Limited tools available for example there is only a cut tool. We then progressed onto using Adobe Premier Pro 4 which is a software part of the Adobe pack (also have software such as After effects, Photoshop ).We began with uploading and editing with random pieces of film to get a feel for all the tools and editing saving and uploading process. It became clear that this was our best possible software section for editing as we could edit with factors such as sound and lighting.
As well as Adobe premier pro 4 that we used for editing are moving image we also used a sister software of premier pro which is Photoshop. We used photo shop as a basis to create temples and visual aspects for are still double page spread side of our production. The advantage with using this software as we were both familiar with it as we both used it In are first year at AS Level to create a still production. What we had learned from our first year was successfully applied to this product. We were able to create high end quality visual images. We used tools in Photoshop such as lighting and contrast, cloning, text box and visual filter effects.Are radio edit was a combination of a range of software. The idea behind are radio edit was to incorporate clips from our main documentary but to have a narrator at the end saying the time it will be on TV. We started with the recording of a narrator’s voice using software called audacity, We recorded the voice and auto tuned it to make the voice sound very authoritative as you would expect in other existing products. We then used premier pro to edit and remove the visual side of the clip so that all was left was a title screen of channel four as no visuals were needed. The clip was exported and imported into Adobe after effect which is an extension package to premier pro. We found this software helpful in the respect we could fine tune a final cut of our work to edit the sound and perfect it.
One of a biggest success with using technology was creating are opening channel 4 logo which presented a real element of professional high stand to are product. Are goal was to have a 3 second logo screen with a animation of channel 4.The way we created this was by using Photoshop to create the shapes and text need to be incorporated in the logo screen and then this was put into Adobe after effects, importing it as a PNG file so that a animation could be over lapped .It was a successful product as it allowed us to have a fully animated title screen. This was one of our main successful breakthroughs as this small process took us many attempts to perfect and master the process.
