Tuesday 1 May 2012
Wednesday 25 April 2012
Evaluation
My documentary 'Teaching Teens' follows the school life of students at Hove Park School who are currently taking their GCSE's. It gives viewers a closer look of what today's education system is like and how a typical public secondary school operates. It also focuses on issues that arise on a daily basis within the school such as troublesome students.
Q. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of my documentary is fly on the wall/observational. I studied a similar documentary called 'Educating Essex' to help me understand the conventions of these documentaries. In my documentary I used a range of techniques that follow the conventions of this type of genre.
Firstly, there is very little interaction with us film makers. Most of the footage is filmed as though the audience are looking upon it and at no time do the characters directly address the camera. The only exception to this is when the characters are being interviewed.
The camera shot we used to film the interviews were mid-shots. This captured the characters from the waste up bringing the focus onto the characters face which encourages the audience to connect with them. Throughout the interview us film makers are not seen nor heard, this also encourages the connection between the character and the audience because it is as though they are directly talking to them. We decided to film 2 of the interviews in front of a set of lockers as this iconography relates to a school.
< Educating Essex
Teaching Teens >
We used a number of basic camera shots such as long shots, establishing shots and wide angle shots to help set the scene. Our documentary is based in a school so the location of each shot was on the school grounds. Similar shots to what we used can also been seen in 'Educating Essex'.
< Educating Essex
Teaching Teens >
We also used a number of different filler shots relating to school and education to help break up the documentary and make it more interesting. One filler shot we used was of school equipment such as a text book, writing pad and stationary which were set out on a school desk. This reflects the school theme as they are typical objects you would find in that environment.
Other shots we included of typical iconography of a school are:
* Corridor
* Freeze frame of School Bell
My documentary 'Teaching Teens' follows the school life of students at Hove Park School who are currently taking their GCSE's. It gives viewers a closer look of what today's education system is like and how a typical public secondary school operates. It also focuses on issues that arise on a daily basis within the school such as troublesome students.
Q. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of my documentary is fly on the wall/observational. I studied a similar documentary called 'Educating Essex' to help me understand the conventions of these documentaries. In my documentary I used a range of techniques that follow the conventions of this type of genre.
Firstly, there is very little interaction with us film makers. Most of the footage is filmed as though the audience are looking upon it and at no time do the characters directly address the camera. The only exception to this is when the characters are being interviewed.
The camera shot we used to film the interviews were mid-shots. This captured the characters from the waste up bringing the focus onto the characters face which encourages the audience to connect with them. Throughout the interview us film makers are not seen nor heard, this also encourages the connection between the character and the audience because it is as though they are directly talking to them. We decided to film 2 of the interviews in front of a set of lockers as this iconography relates to a school.
< Educating Essex
Teaching Teens >
We used a number of basic camera shots such as long shots, establishing shots and wide angle shots to help set the scene. Our documentary is based in a school so the location of each shot was on the school grounds. Similar shots to what we used can also been seen in 'Educating Essex'.
< Educating Essex
Teaching Teens >
We also used a number of different filler shots relating to school and education to help break up the documentary and make it more interesting. One filler shot we used was of school equipment such as a text book, writing pad and stationary which were set out on a school desk. This reflects the school theme as they are typical objects you would find in that environment.
Other shots we included of typical iconography of a school are:
* Corridor
* Freeze frame of School Bell
* School Office
* School Library
* School field
* School assembly
* Classroom
Other conventions that are found in documentaries are voice-overs. The voice-overs help to introduce the audience to the documentary and make it easy for the viewers to understand what is going on. This is seen in our documentary. At the beginning we introduce the audience to what the documentary is about, explaining that it observes GCSE students and teachers in a public secondary school. We also introduce the audience to the main character in this part to give the audience an idea of what he is like. In particular parts of the documentary we use a voice-over to narrate what is going on. For example when showing a clip of a clock we mentioned that Brad was late for his lesson, this is then followed by Brad walking into the classroom and being shouted at. We thought the voice-over was needed here so that the audience understood why he was being shouted at.
Each documentary has a theme tune unique to that programme. To ensure our theme tune was unique we made the music ourselves using FL Studio. We used the theme tune at the very beginning and very end of our documentary to give clear indication to the audience about when it was starting and finishing.
To make the documentary seem more realistic we decided to add '#Teaching Teens' to a clip a the beginning and a clip at the end. We thought this was a good idea because most programmes have started to show a hash tag so people can join in a debate and discussion about the show on twitter.
To make the documentary seem more realistic we decided to add '#Teaching Teens' to a clip a the beginning and a clip at the end. We thought this was a good idea because most programmes have started to show a hash tag so people can join in a debate and discussion about the show on twitter.
Q. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I tried to relate my ancillary tasks to my documentary as best as possible. For my documentary poster I used one dominant image of 2 characters which appear in the documentary standing beside a sign of the school. I used the conventions of existing Channel 4 programme posters that I had researched. These conventions included:
* Channel 4 logo on middle right hand side
* 1 dominant image
* Tagline with background at top of poster
* Name of documentary and time/date with background
Likewise, for my double page spread I also tried to follow the conventions of existing examples that I had researched. I used one main dominant image of the main character in my documentary and several other smaller images which also relate to the documentary. I used a pale background so that the page wasn't too over powering with dark text which is easy to read. I decided to use the colour blue as that it the colour I imagine to be associated with Hove Park School because of the colour of the uniforms.
I tried to use the same fonts that were used in the documentary so that it is easily recognised and instantly connected with 'Teaching Teens'.
Q. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We posted our final media documentary on YouTube and asked our for people to review it and give feedback.
.png)
Q. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the process of this whole project I have used a number of different new media technologies.
Mobile Phones were a great use throughout this whole project. It meant that we could instantly contact each other and arrange days when we were free to plan, film and edit our documentary. It helped us to keep great communication.
In the construction part of the project I used a digital camera to film each clip. Once each clip was filmed I uploaded them onto a mac computer. After each clip was uploaded I used iMovie to put them together and create the documentary. iMovie is a film making programme which allows you to trim clips, add voice-overs, add non-diagetic sounds and add text to selected clips in order to make the documentary as you want.
When producing the theme tune for the documentary I used a programmes called FL Studio. This is a useful way of creating your own tunes.
When I was researching for existing documentaries I used the internet and a range of different websites such as YouTube and ITV player to stream episodes that I needed to study.
To get audience feedback we uploaded our final documentary onto YouTube and used Social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook to share it and get people to view it.
I also used the internet to research examples of double page spreads and posters for my ancillary tasks. I used Google images and Channel 4 website to view these examples.
For my planning I decided to do it all on paper as it was easily available and portable so I didn't need a computer to access it. I scanned the planning onto a computer and posted them onto my blog for others to view.
For the evaluation stage of this project I used a post on my online blog. I choose to do it this way because it makes it very easy to view and it is a simple way to ensure everybody will be able to access it as opposed to if I linked it from another website or used a different programme and upload it onto my blog in-case there are any broken links.
Q. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We posted our final media documentary on YouTube and asked our for people to review it and give feedback.
.png)
We also showed our media class the documentary and asked them to give us some feedback on it.
Based on the overall responses we have received I believe that our media documentary would be watched and enjoyed by a number of different audiences. Critical feedback that we have received is that the quality of the footage could be better which could easily be improved if we were to use a higher mega pixel camera. Another criticism that we received was that the voice-over and sounding of some clips wasn't very clear. This is due to us using only the Apple mac built in microphone for our voice-overs and the built in microphone on the camera for the diagetic sound. However, once again this could be improved by using the correct equipment.
Throughout the process of this whole project I have used a number of different new media technologies.
Mobile Phones were a great use throughout this whole project. It meant that we could instantly contact each other and arrange days when we were free to plan, film and edit our documentary. It helped us to keep great communication.
In the construction part of the project I used a digital camera to film each clip. Once each clip was filmed I uploaded them onto a mac computer. After each clip was uploaded I used iMovie to put them together and create the documentary. iMovie is a film making programme which allows you to trim clips, add voice-overs, add non-diagetic sounds and add text to selected clips in order to make the documentary as you want.
When producing the theme tune for the documentary I used a programmes called FL Studio. This is a useful way of creating your own tunes.
FL Studio PRINT SCREEN
When I was researching for existing documentaries I used the internet and a range of different websites such as YouTube and ITV player to stream episodes that I needed to study.
To get audience feedback we uploaded our final documentary onto YouTube and used Social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook to share it and get people to view it.
I also used the internet to research examples of double page spreads and posters for my ancillary tasks. I used Google images and Channel 4 website to view these examples.
For my planning I decided to do it all on paper as it was easily available and portable so I didn't need a computer to access it. I scanned the planning onto a computer and posted them onto my blog for others to view.
For the evaluation stage of this project I used a post on my online blog. I choose to do it this way because it makes it very easy to view and it is a simple way to ensure everybody will be able to access it as opposed to if I linked it from another website or used a different programme and upload it onto my blog in-case there are any broken links.
Sunday 22 April 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)