Friday, 7 January 2011

Final Products

Documentary


Print Advert


Radio Trailer

Evaluation

Question One - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

(Please press the '>' arrow to move the the next point or images in the presentations below)













This is a screen grab of the time line of my radio trailer from Adobe Premier.

We made sure that we stuck to all of the codes and conventions, here you can see the the length of our radio trailer is just over 40 seconds. Also after listening to the radio trailer you can see that it mentions the channel that it is going to broadcasted on, in our case, Channel Four. Also we have included short clips from our programme so that the listener wants to watch our documentary as they are intrigued to see what else is included in the programme. We used music that was very relevant to the programme for two reasons. Firstly it reiterates our topic of greed as we used the song 'i want it all' which connotes greed . Secondly the music used was used has also been used in the opening sequence of our documentary and therefore the audience will recognise it when they what our programme and Finally we used the same voice over that was used in the documentary, the voice over in our radio trailer briefly outlines what the programme is going to be about.



Question 2

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

I believe that the combination of our main product and ancillary texts are very effective for a number of reasons. The first reason is that we have used our title, ‘I Want It All’ in all three products, our documentary, print advertisement and radio trailer. Also we have used the same voice –over, a well-educated male, for both our documentary and trailer, thus linking the two products together. Our slogan, ’The need for greed?’ has been used in both of our promotional texts, so that our target audience will keep on recognising our catchy slogan and be more likely to remember it, and therefore watch the programme. We have also included the channel, time and date in both our promotional texts so our audience will know where and when to watch our programme. In addition, we have used clips and quotes from our documentary in our radio trailer so that they intrigue our audience who will want to find out what other thoughts, feelings and facts are expressed in our documentary. For our print advert, we have used an image of a man fiercely biting into a large burger-bun full of money, which clearly illustrates the topic of greed in a surreal and eye-catching way. Due to the fact that our programme discusses the topic of greed, which includes the greed for money, food, drugs, alcohol and education, the tone of our topic is one of a serious nature. This is reiterated through our promotional texts as the print advert echoes this mood through his facial expression, and the radio trailer includes a voice-over of a man with a serious and matter-of-fact tone of voice. Furthermore, both our main product and ancillary texts appeal to our broad target audience of men and women of eighteen plus through the use of personal pronouns, topics that everyone can relate to, such as the recession and wanting more money and by making them want to find out the answer to our slogan : is there ‘the need for greed?’ We would have placed our newspaper advertisement in broadsheets such as ‘The Guardian’, ‘The Times’ and ‘The Independent’, and we would have placed our radio trailer on commercial stations which would appeal to our well-educated demographic. Our trailer would be played before 9.00a.m. and after 5.00 p.m. while our target audience is most likely to be listening.

Question Three


What have you learned from your audience feedback?


To gain audience feed back we first showed our documentary, radio trailer and print advert to 13 people from our target audience. We then got them to fill out questionnaires.

Here is our feedback:

Question One: Do you think our programme suit our target audience of 18+?










From this feedback I can see that the vast majority we asked thought that the material suited our target audience, this means we applied the information from our first questionnaire on what people would like to to our work well and therefore appeal to our audience.





Question Two - Would this five minute encourage you to watch the full programme and why?















A large percentage of the people we asked said that they would watch our documentary from the five minute extract that we showed them, this is encouraging as it shows that we have made a entertaining and interesting segment. It also shows that our target audience likes the topic and content.We have also caught there interest and convinced them that it is worth watching.


Question Three - On a scale of one to five how appropriate is our documentary for Channel Four and why?




The reasons people gave were as follows :


Similar to other channel four documentaries
Channel 4 viewers would like to watch this
It was interesting
Relevant topic for Channel Four

From this I can see that most of the people thought it was something similar to a programme that Channel Four would broadcast however, on a scale of one to five, some people only gave it three, and therefore if we were to do it again, we would try to make it even more appropriate for Channel Four.


Question Four - In your opinion do the camera shots and the music suit the style and genre of the programme?

Everyone we asked said 'yes' in reply to this question this shows that we have used a varied type of camera shots and used music effectively, this also shows us that we have done this to the best of our ability and all of the people we asked from our target audience can see this.


Question Five - On a scale of one to five how would you rate our documentary in terms of the following?

Entertaining -



Informative -








From this I can see that more people found my documentary informative rather than entertaining, this may have been due to the serious tone our documentary has however if i was to do it again, I would concentrate on making it more entertaining by perhaps adding more music or music archive footage. Most of the people we asked did find it quite interesting and entertaining so I think overall we did this well.


Question Six- Do you think the camerawork and editing used made our extract look professional?



Everybody we asked replied 'yes' to this question therefore I from my audience feedback I have learnt that, in relation to our target audience, we made a documentary that they thought involved good camerawork and editing that gave our documentary a sense of continuity.


Question Seven- How do you feel the documentary compares to other professionally made documentaries?

The answers we got from this questioned varied and therefore proves difficult to put in to a chart to graphically illustrate what we found. However, from the answer we got I have learnt that people thought our documentary did compare well to other documentaries because of the following reasons :

-It was detailed like professional documentaries


- I was very similar to professional documentary and compared well.


- Archive material like the 'news footage' is good, it makes the overall tone of the documentary strong.


- All the codes and conventions of professional documentaries have been followed.


In conclusion I have learnt that overall most people thought that our documentary compared well to professionally made documentaries.

Question Eight- What are the strengths and weaknesses of our documentary?



Strengths

-Professional camera work

-Relevant music bed


-Editing that made the documentary flow


-They found it interesting like other professional documentaries.


-The interviews were framed and edited well
-There was a large amount of well edited and relevant cutaways

Weaknesses

-Perhaps more editing could have been done
- The sound behind vox -pop could be improved to the 'fuzzy' sound behind them.

In conclusion there are clearly more strengths then weaknesses. Thus showing that overall we made our documentary well however we could have spent even more time editing to add to the continuity and we could have re-filed our vox-pops to improve the sound quality.

Question Nine- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the radio trailer and print advert?








From this I can see that people have only found strengths from our print advert and radio trailer and that they think we have included all of the things that the codes and conventions include.

Question Ten - Do you think the sound bites and voice in our radio trailer advertised our documentary to its full potential?

All thirteen people have said that they do think that the sound bits and voice in our radio trailer did advertise the documentary to its full potential therefore we have codes and conventions well and chosen an voice over that our target audience would like.


Question Elven- Do you think the newspaper advert effectively advertises our programme and why?


Again all thirteen people said yes and the the reasons they gave were as follows :

-It suits the programme

- Clear image

- Eye catching image

-Relate well to the audience

- Images connotes what the programme is about well.


Here are some audio clips of Leanne Hill, Ellie Powell and Ellie Jones answering some of our questions:













Here are some pictures a group of people from our target audience watching our documentary ( the people who filled out the questionnaire above)























Thursday, 6 January 2011

Question 4



How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research,planning and evaluation stages?

During the research and planning, construction and evaluation stages we used a large number of new technologies, listed below, are the technologies and what we used them for:

Research and Planning

Microsoft word- We used Microsoft word to produce our initial questionnaire in which we found out our target audience's likes and dislikes. We also used Microsoft word to write up our running order in the initial planning stages. Our scripts for our radio and documentary were also typed up on here so they were easy and clear to understand.

I used Mircosoft excel to produce pie charts when concluding my questionnaires as I believe that it graphically illustrates my results well.

We used the Internet to help us analyse the codes and conventions of professional documentaries by going on to websites such as Channel Four. We also used it to research our topic in which helped when it came to brainstorm our ideas for content.Later on we used it to help us think of ideas to include in our voiceover for example information on Paris Hilton and Michael Carroll. Furthermore the internet was used to get archive footage, for examples stills of drugs and news footage. We later used it to analyse radio trailers and print adverts and therefore we able to create codes and conventions that we could follow.

Construction

We used Photoshop to make all our our Print Advert, after taking our images, we imported it in to the programme, cut out our images when doing so we had to blur the edges so that they did not seem harsh and added effects to make it brighter so it stood out, gave it a background with added effects to catch the readers eye,added the Channel 4 logo and added the name,slogan, time and date.

We used a digital video camera, microphone and tripod to film the material for our documentary. The things this included were; our interviews, stock footage, a number of varied cutaways, vox pops and opening titles. We found that we had to re-film one interview due to excessive mise-en-scene, our vox-pops were filmed a number of times due to framing and background noise, and our opening titles were filmed a lot because we really wanted it to look professional, in the end we even changed our idea to achieve this.

We used a digital stills camera to take pictures as a record of our filming, for example, you will see from our images( in filming) the amount of times we had to re-film our opening titles for the number of problems that occurs. We also used a camera to take our image for our print advert.

We use the schools Radio Studio to professionally record the voiceover for both our documentary and radio trailer, this was easy to use and sounded very clear.

Adobe Premier Pro was the main piece of software we used as we used this to create both our whole documentary and radio advert. We used this to edit our interviews by editing out the questions and selecting the appropriate answers, we did this by using the 'razor tool' . We also used the effects on this piece of software by adding large number of transitions so that our work has a sense of continuity, this transition we used the most was called 'cross fade'. We used this to add in a large number of archive footage and cutaways to make our work seem more interesting, for some of these, the speed and/or size was changed in this software.Music could be easily added alongside our voiceover, Premier made it easy to change the sound levels and therefore the sound flows throughout, the music even it fades and and out so it is no abrupt.We added graphics to our documentary also, this meant we followed the codes and conventions and made our work look professional (the video below illustrates this). By the end of the construction, I would say I was confident in using Adobe Premier Pro as it is easy to use once you have grasped the basics.

Evaluation

During the evaluation I have used the following :

Prezzi - a presentation website to create a eye-catching answer which also involves and detailed and clear answer.

Voice recorder - I used a voice recorder so that I could express my answer spontaneously, also I used to it get feedback from my target audience.

Windows Movie Maker- I used this to help my upload voice clips and any footages I had for my answers ( examples below).

DV camera and tripod - I used these to record myself to illustrate how I used new media technologies.










Monday, 3 January 2011

Audience feedback

Here is the questionnaire that we wrote so that people could give us feedback on our documentary,radio trailer and newspaper advertisement.
1.Do you think our programme suits our target audience of adults 18+?

2. Would this five minute extract encourage you to watch the full programme and why?

3. On a scale of one to five how appropriate is the documentary for Channel Four and why?
(please circle)
1 2 3 4 5

4. In your opinion do the camera shots and the music suit the style and genre of the programme?

5.On a scale of one to five how would you rate our documentary in terms on the following?
(Please circle)
1 2 3 4 5

6.Do you think the camera work and editing used made our extract look professional?

7.How do you feel the documentary compares to other professionally made documentaries?

8.What are the strengths and weaknesses of our documentary?

9.What are the strengths and weaknesses of the radio trailer and print advert?

10.Do you think the sound bites and voice over in our trailer advertised our documentary to its full potential?

11. Do you think the newspaper advert effectively advertises our programmes and why?



Draft of Newspaper Advertisement

Here is a draft of our newspaper advert:


This draft shows the logo, the title, the slogan, the date and the time.
The image is one of a well dressed man biting in to a large burger bun full of a large amount of money. This image connotes the idea of greed that we are trying to get across.