This is our final main task complete which we uploaded to YouTube.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Evaluation- How did you use new media technologies in the constructions and research, planning and evaluation stages?
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For the editing of our documentary we used Apple's iMovie. This was much better than Windows Movie Maker as it had better editing devices and was on the whole, generally more efficient. It was easy to import clips from the video camera straight into iMovie rather than to a file and then importing it from the file. The transitions were the most useful part of the software because it made it easier to edit between clips to make it flow more smoothly. We mostly use cross-blur, cross-fade and fade to black because they were the most effective for what we were trying to create. As well as this, we used some of the sound effects that were already installed with the software. For example we used the diagetic sound for the bell ringing as well as the sound of a busy room with people talking to add effect to the documentary. Overall, this was a very useful modern technology when creating our documentary, in comparison to other software available.
Adobe's Photoshop is what I used to create my ancillary task; Poster and Double Page Spread. This was useful because it allowed me to freely edit my picture with lots of useful effects. Again this was easier to use for this particular project than Microsoft's Paint or Publisher because I could edit the pictures as well as make it into format of a poster and magazine spread. This was another modern media technology that was useful in creating 'Teaching Teens' for advertising.
Monday, 30 April 2012
Evaluation- What have you learned from your audience feedback?
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When we finished editing our documentary we put our documentary on YouTube and a link on Twitter to get feedback and these are the comments we got:
Twitter:
The feedback was mostly positive, with comments on the camera work and how effective the use of the hash tag was and even that they would like to see it as a series on T.V. which was very positive! On the other hand we also received critical feedback about the camera quality. We knew the camera quality was not as good as it could of been, however we had limited resources camera wise, so all the feedback was helpful. We managed to get 155 over two days and 12 people have liked it.
We also showed our documentary to a group of students from our 6th form and asked for some feedback afterwards:
"I liked the way it was edited, very appropriate for this type of documentary." -Sami Knight
"I loved the editing on when the school bell rang and how that was the turning point from the introduction to the documentary"- Sara Pryce
"I think the camera quality could be a bit sharper in order for it to be more effective, but on the whole an interesting documentary" - Curtis Foster
"The music went really well with the whole documentary"- Joe Streeter
"It had some good camera angles but if I was to be watching this on T.V. I would be expect better camera quality"- Elle Slade
This was all also good feedback with positive and again, critical feedback about the camera quality which with the a budget like a real T.V. documentary would have, this would not have been a problem, however we had to use cameras provided to us by the school. Next time we could be more prepared and try and borrow a better quality camera.
Overall, if we were going to improve the documentary we would do so by using a better camera. Using social network was useful because it gave various open views and was a simple but effective way of sharing the clip with lots of people. Showing a group of people a clip and asking for feedback was also useful because it was directly from viewers that we know.
When we finished editing our documentary we put our documentary on YouTube and a link on Twitter to get feedback and these are the comments we got:
Twitter:
YouTube:
The feedback was mostly positive, with comments on the camera work and how effective the use of the hash tag was and even that they would like to see it as a series on T.V. which was very positive! On the other hand we also received critical feedback about the camera quality. We knew the camera quality was not as good as it could of been, however we had limited resources camera wise, so all the feedback was helpful. We managed to get 155 over two days and 12 people have liked it.
We also showed our documentary to a group of students from our 6th form and asked for some feedback afterwards:
"I liked the way it was edited, very appropriate for this type of documentary." -Sami Knight
"I loved the editing on when the school bell rang and how that was the turning point from the introduction to the documentary"- Sara Pryce
"I think the camera quality could be a bit sharper in order for it to be more effective, but on the whole an interesting documentary" - Curtis Foster
"The music went really well with the whole documentary"- Joe Streeter
"It had some good camera angles but if I was to be watching this on T.V. I would be expect better camera quality"- Elle Slade
This was all also good feedback with positive and again, critical feedback about the camera quality which with the a budget like a real T.V. documentary would have, this would not have been a problem, however we had to use cameras provided to us by the school. Next time we could be more prepared and try and borrow a better quality camera.
Overall, if we were going to improve the documentary we would do so by using a better camera. Using social network was useful because it gave various open views and was a simple but effective way of sharing the clip with lots of people. Showing a group of people a clip and asking for feedback was also useful because it was directly from viewers that we know.
Evalutation- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
When making my poster for Teaching Teens I focused on one character just leaving against a brick wall. I chose to use the main character for this episode so it would not give to much away which would encourage people to watch it at the displayed time of 8.30. I focused the colour on Bradley and made the rest dull shades of white and gray as well as incorrporating a photoshop effect of a lined piece of paper to add to the school theme to the right and at the bottom of the poster to inform the viewers it is an educaiton based documentary. I also included the Channel 4 symbol so the viewers know which channel is it shown on as well as a chance to advertise the channel in general which we also do at the start of our documentary using a short Channel 4 advert with a voice over to introduce the show. On my T.V. listings magazine double page spread, I again made Bradley my main focus, this time he is sitting on a stage with a football looking like a typical, troubled teenage student. The image takes up most of the whole left side page to further the viewers curiousity with out giving to much away. On the right page is the writen part of the artical giving a small glimps of what the documentary is about and what you can expect, including quotes from the head teacher who is pictured the the left of the writen part of the artical. Under the writen artical, a smaller picture of Bradley, similar to the one on the poster is used to create a common image in the viewers head of the documentary. Both poster and double page spread help promote and inform the viewers of the main product 'Teaching Teens' in order for it to get more viewers. Overal the combination of the main product and ancillary texts is very effective in getting more viewers.
When making my poster for Teaching Teens I focused on one character just leaving against a brick wall. I chose to use the main character for this episode so it would not give to much away which would encourage people to watch it at the displayed time of 8.30. I focused the colour on Bradley and made the rest dull shades of white and gray as well as incorrporating a photoshop effect of a lined piece of paper to add to the school theme to the right and at the bottom of the poster to inform the viewers it is an educaiton based documentary. I also included the Channel 4 symbol so the viewers know which channel is it shown on as well as a chance to advertise the channel in general which we also do at the start of our documentary using a short Channel 4 advert with a voice over to introduce the show. On my T.V. listings magazine double page spread, I again made Bradley my main focus, this time he is sitting on a stage with a football looking like a typical, troubled teenage student. The image takes up most of the whole left side page to further the viewers curiousity with out giving to much away. On the right page is the writen part of the artical giving a small glimps of what the documentary is about and what you can expect, including quotes from the head teacher who is pictured the the left of the writen part of the artical. Under the writen artical, a smaller picture of Bradley, similar to the one on the poster is used to create a common image in the viewers head of the documentary. Both poster and double page spread help promote and inform the viewers of the main product 'Teaching Teens' in order for it to get more viewers. Overal the combination of the main product and ancillary texts is very effective in getting more viewers.
Evaluation- What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our inspiration for 'Teaching Teens' came from the current documentary Channel 4 set in an Essex secondary school 'Educating Essex'. This was our starting point of having it set in a secondary school to give the viewers an inside view of the modern day secondary school. When we watched the first 90 seconds of Educating Essex to get ideas on how to open up our documentary, they jumped straight into it which was not how we wanted to start our documentary, so we created a montage of footaged we shot around the school to music we had created ourselves using FL Studio to make it unique,which is also used to break up the programme between adverts. At the end of the montages when the bell sounds (diagetic) the hash tag #teachingteens because the social network site Twitter uses this to open up topic discussion for all users using the hash tag. We used interviews in the documentary to give the audience a chance to get to know the characters and become more familiar with them to make it easier to watch. To help this, their names appeared at the bottom of the screen along with their status i.e. Student or Teacher. They also did this in Educating Essex because for this type of documentary it is useful for the characters to talk directly to the camera, especially after a situation like when Bradley is sent out of his lesson. When watching Educating Essex, they edited their documentary using lots of jumps cuts to make it fast and realistic. We also used jump cuts, especially at the begining when we wanted a rapid introduction, however we also used other editing techniques like cross blur and fade to black depending on the atmosphere and which ever seemed appropriate. At the end of the clip we added a 'coming up' scene to give the viewers a glips of whats coming up so they stay watching and do not switch over to another channel. Many T.V. programmes including documentaries use this like Channel 4's 'Big Brother' and 'Educating Essex' as well as many others. Overal 'Teaching Teens' does use and develop conventions of other media products by using editing techniques and social networking to keep viewers interested as well to make it a talking point.
Our inspiration for 'Teaching Teens' came from the current documentary Channel 4 set in an Essex secondary school 'Educating Essex'. This was our starting point of having it set in a secondary school to give the viewers an inside view of the modern day secondary school. When we watched the first 90 seconds of Educating Essex to get ideas on how to open up our documentary, they jumped straight into it which was not how we wanted to start our documentary, so we created a montage of footaged we shot around the school to music we had created ourselves using FL Studio to make it unique,which is also used to break up the programme between adverts. At the end of the montages when the bell sounds (diagetic) the hash tag #teachingteens because the social network site Twitter uses this to open up topic discussion for all users using the hash tag. We used interviews in the documentary to give the audience a chance to get to know the characters and become more familiar with them to make it easier to watch. To help this, their names appeared at the bottom of the screen along with their status i.e. Student or Teacher. They also did this in Educating Essex because for this type of documentary it is useful for the characters to talk directly to the camera, especially after a situation like when Bradley is sent out of his lesson. When watching Educating Essex, they edited their documentary using lots of jumps cuts to make it fast and realistic. We also used jump cuts, especially at the begining when we wanted a rapid introduction, however we also used other editing techniques like cross blur and fade to black depending on the atmosphere and which ever seemed appropriate. At the end of the clip we added a 'coming up' scene to give the viewers a glips of whats coming up so they stay watching and do not switch over to another channel. Many T.V. programmes including documentaries use this like Channel 4's 'Big Brother' and 'Educating Essex' as well as many others. Overal 'Teaching Teens' does use and develop conventions of other media products by using editing techniques and social networking to keep viewers interested as well to make it a talking point.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
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Teaching Teens- Theme Tune
For our documentary theme tune we orginally used an instrumental of 'It's a Hard Knock Life' from Annie but it did not work very well and it proved difficult to find an already made track to use. So we decided to make our own theme tune using FL studio which appears at the start and end of the documentary clip. (click link below to listen)
Teaching Teens
Teaching Teens
Final Idea
Our final idea was a Channel 4 documentary based in Hove Park School called 'Teaching Teens' which we would air at 8.30pm and would last an hour. In the clip we follow student Bradley Coe who is a troubled student that struggles with confidence as his family are living on the breadline. The teachers try to do everything they can to help Bradley however unfortunatly some are fed up with his constant misbehavior, bad punctuality and incorrect uniform and have negative outbursts.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Questionnaire
We set up a questionnaire to help us get feedback on our documentary and what it would feature.
1. Gender
Male
Female
2. How old are you?
younger than 10
10-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
50+
1. Gender
Male
Female
2. How old are you?
younger than 10
10-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
50+
2. What is your favorite type of documentary?
Mockumentary
Observational
Reality
Educational
Fly on the wall
Other
3. Do you watch documentaries often?
Yes- Lots
Yes- Sometimes
Yes- Rarely
No- Never
4.What channel would you normally associate with documentaries that you like?
BBC
ITV
Channel 4
Sky
Other
5.What is you favorite ever TV documentary?
.........................
6. What is your favorite TV documentary currently being shown? (N/A if none)
........................
7. What do you look for in a documentary that you would watch?
.........................
8. Would you be interested in a fly on the wall documentary based in a secondary school?
Yes
No
9. What channel would you expect to see this documentary on?
BBC
ITV
Channel 4
Sky
Other
Evaluation
From the questionnaire, we concluded that our target audience are most interested in Fly on the wall and Reality type documentaries, usually shown on Channel 4. We used this information and decided that it would be appropriate to show the documentary we have produced on Channel 4. The type of documentary we decided to produce is fly on the wall but because we found our target audience also like reality documentaries we also tried to incorporate this into what we produced. Many participants said they enjoyed watching 'Educating Essex' so we thought it would be a good idea to produce a similar documentary to this because it seems that it is something that interests our target audience.
Evaluation
From the questionnaire, we concluded that our target audience are most interested in Fly on the wall and Reality type documentaries, usually shown on Channel 4. We used this information and decided that it would be appropriate to show the documentary we have produced on Channel 4. The type of documentary we decided to produce is fly on the wall but because we found our target audience also like reality documentaries we also tried to incorporate this into what we produced. Many participants said they enjoyed watching 'Educating Essex' so we thought it would be a good idea to produce a similar documentary to this because it seems that it is something that interests our target audience.
Initial Ideas
Our first idea as a group was to do an educational series based on drugs and alcohol in relation to addiction. We would have based our clip on cocaine which would have included factual evidence, archive footage and and scenes of night life for a cocaine user. When thinking about what kind of channel this would be suitable for we chose BBC3 as it is an educational documentary that would be broadcast around 9pm. We decided this was too typical and had been done to many times before and therefore may be boring. We then thought about doing a reality 'fly on the wall' documentary which in our clip would feature a 21 year old male living in Brighton who worked as a night club promoter. It would be in the style of other reality documentaries such as ITV's 'The Only Way Is Essex' and Channel 4's 'Made in Chelsea' but this proved difficult to film and also very common.
What is it like to be the subject of a documentary?
In an artical from the Guardian posted by Natalie Briggs last December, the question is being asked; What is it like to be the subject of a documentary? But what Natalie really focuses on is how do the subjects of the documentary deal and cope with the reaction. Natalie and her husband Dave who works at Manchester University as a research scientist took part in a questionnaire posted on the BBC website which then led them to be on a BBC2 documentary. When filming the documentary Natalie realised how the documentary was going to portray her and decided to keep her opinions to a minimum. However once the documentary was aired, the feedback was not of a kind manor being called a 'miserable cunt' along with various other offensive names. Read the artical on http://gu.com/p/34xvp
Best In Show
'Best In Show' is a mocumentary by Christopher Guest which looks into contestents all wanting their dog to win the annual Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show. The actors work on a mostly improvisional basis as Guest describes the production process as "getting together with good friends and having fun". The characters are over exagerated but based on realistic elements of the sort of people that would enter the show. Guest himself stars as Harlan Pepper, owner of the winning Bloodhound, Hubert. Other characters include; Gerry and Cookie Fleck with their dog Winky, are a couple from Florida who keeping bumping into men Cookie has slept with in her youth. Meg and Hamilton Swan with their dog Beatrice are a couple that fell in love in a Starbucks and now convinced that their dog accidently seeing them having sex has left him traumatised therefore they patronise Beatrice and treat her like a baby. Scott Dolan and Stefan Vanderhoof are a hair dressing pair that met through Stefan's ex wife and use their hair dressing skills on their long haired dogs. Leslie Ward Cabot and Sherrie Ann Cabot are a couple which are together for every reason but love as Leslie is an old many whose days are numbers and Sherrie a young woman looking to finance her life with as little work as possible and together they have a white Poodle. The commentators at the event are used to stir things up with the over exaggerated characters, during these clips, the camera and sound is focus on these two and flicks to clips of the characters and dogs that they are talking about with the sound still focusing on their voices. The camera uses lots of close ups through out the documentary to show the exaggerated facial expressions.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
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