Term 1 theory tasks

1. Spaced Analysis
• Copy and paste (and add to if your work is limited) your Spaced analysis
• Include images as necessary
• Watch the episode of Spaced (Series 2, Episode 5 GONE) and discuss the use of two or
more of the following;
• 1.Miseenscene (colour, costume, props)
• 2.Camera
• 3.Editing
• 4.Sound
• 5.Intertextuality (other products that are referenced in it)
• 6.Context (who made it, when was it made, who for, etc.)
• Reference your observation and critically discuss its use (is it successful/funny? Why?
Etc.)

2. • Whilst watching the episode of Spaced, I noticed many different techniques used in editing, camera work and sound. I also
picked up on a few other areas such as context and mise en scene.
• The first techniques that I noticed immediately was the camera work. At the very first part of the episode, the characters are
seen running and the viewer can tell that this is tense action scene by the quick and constant changes of the camera angle.
The camera mostly films each different part of the body in each different shot/angle. This is so the viewer can see an in-depth
view of the action whilst looking at the characters emotions.
• The episode also features a lot of zooms when a character is talking during a tense or action-packed time. The shots start far
out but gradually get closer and closer after each shot. I believe that this is to intensify the drama that is being created. The
zoom shots are also close enough to capture the characters emotions.
• The final thing I picked up on with the camera work was the swipe transitions. These were mainly used when the character
was planning something. I think these transitions have been used because swipes are fast and this reflects the characters
thought process as they are in a rush to go out.
• The second technique that was cleverly used was the editing. The viewer follows two stories throughout this episode, the two-
character shaving a night out and then the two characters looking after the dog. This A + B story line is very effective because
they can be cut up and then mixed into each other whilst each story makes sense. It also means that the character can be
distracted from what could be a serious story and then relieved with a comedic story.
• The editing of this episode also includes repeated themes. For example, one repeated theme is the use of the finger guns the
characters use. This also links in to mise en scene as these finger guns could be classed as a prop. It is effective as well because
it isn’t meant to be serious. Another point to mention about mise en scene is the colours. When something bad happened
such as the confrontation in the alley way, there wasn’t much light and it was dark. These dark colours could represent the
trouble that they are about to face. Dark colours can be associated with death so the viewers could be worried about the
characters as they might die. A final point to mention about the editing is the start of the episode. The main theme of the
episode is played before the opening titles and cut off before anything major happens. After the titles, the viewers go back in
time and learn how the characters got themselves in that situation. This is effective to me because I wanted to find out what
happened to them but had to wait and learn about the story of how they got there. Halfway through the episode, we se two
of the characters have a finger gun battle and when we get to the end of the episode the viewer can instantly guess what’s
going to happen when action music and action shots start happening.
• The final technique used in the episode of spaced was the use of sound. Each time music played within the episode, it
matched or represented the situation. For example, when the finger gun battle was happening, there was war trumpet music
playing and when they were confronted, there was tense music playing. There was also a lot of sound effects used which
immersed the viewer into the storyline.

3. Conflict Image

5. Amy Analysis
• Copy and paste (and add to if your work is limited) your Amy analysis
• Include images as necessary
• Task
• Watch the sequence Recording the song Back to Black
• 1. To what extent has Kapadia manipulated this footage to create a different set of meanings and responses?
• 2. What function does this sequence have in the narrative as a whole?
• 3. How might contextual factors (knowing the larger story of her life) impact on the way that you read this scene?
• or
• Watch the sequence Addiction to crack cocaine and Blake
• 1. List the techniques used by the director to show Winehouse’s battle with drug addiction and why they may have been used.
• 2. What do you feel is the overall effect of this sequence?
• or
• Amy’s death and its aftermath
• To what extent does Kapadia use filmic techniques to generate a response in the climax of Amy ?

6. Overall effect of the scene “Addicted to Blake and Cocaine”:
Throughout the documentary “Amy”, it seemed very apparent that blame was trying to be placed on someone for Amy’s death. The heavy use of
archive footage made the documentary a lot more emotional. I think this makes the documentary subjective because it clouds the viewers
previous emotions about the documentary with more sad and depressing emotions. The director of this documentary shows the downward spiral
of Amy’s life. Anything that Amy may have seen positive such as Blake is portrayed in a negative light. Despite the controlling attitude Blake had
and also the neglect he showed her in tough times, they were still in love at one point but this is quickly shown to the viewer in a bad view. Amy
would break up with Blake and then go through lots of tough times such as drinking, her nan falling ill and an extremely unhealthy diet. After all
this she went back to Blake. This shows the viewer what power Blake had over Amy as he was the only one she could turn to after all this. The
point of this documentary is quite unclear to me. I do not know if it is just to tell a story, to place blame or to create emotion. The title of this
section alone hints at blaming Blake. Having “Blake” in the title without his second name makes this sound informal and short. It makes it seem
like Blake is just another drug to Amy. She is addicted to him and will give into him like an addiction. I do believe Blake had a big part to play in
Amy’s death. Throughout this section, there is a lot of confessional dialogue used to create a more emotional experience. The viewer hears these
struggles directly from someone who knew Amy so we can see how this effected people other than Amy herself. This is obvious that the director
is trying to provoke emotion.
For all Blake is portrayed negatively within this documentary, I feel that her parents have a big part to play in Amy’s downward spiral. For
example, her parents split up when she was young which made times hard for Amy. She would be taking anti-depressants at the age of 13. When
Amy first started battling drugs, her father stated that she did not need rehab. She did not even argue with him. Once again, this is showing that
Amy is easily lead. It is not clear why she lets people persuade her so easily but this effect is carried on to the viewers. We are being persuaded
easily by the director to blame someone for her death. Her parents also said nothing or thought nothing of the fact she would eat loads of food
and throw it back up again. Knowing that your parents weren’t always looking out for you must have been hard for Amy.
My overall impressions on this documentary is that someone is to blame for Amy’s death. In my opinion, I think Blake was the most responsible
simply due down to the fact that when everything got really serious and they received medical advice saying that she would die if she carried on,
Blake chose to ignore this.

7. Factual Analysis
• Copy and paste (and add to if your work is limited) your Amy analysis
• Include images as necessary
• Can a documentary be objective? Why do you believe this?
• How far should we accept what we watch/read? Why?
• How can we make sure what a documentary presents as fact, is true?

8. • Can a documentary be objective? Why do you believe this?
• I believe that a documentary can be objective. Take a David Attenborough nature documentary for example. These documentaries can’t be manipulated in terms of
the “characters” emotions as they are animals, but they can be edited so that it looks like an event happens faster than it did in real time. Documentaries can also
be objective because even if a documentary wants to try and be subjective, the events that they film to sway the audience still happen regardless of how it has
been edited. Despite my opinions about a documentary being objective, I also believe that they can be subjective as well. Whilst watching “The Mighty Redcar”, I
noted some points about what the documentary focused on. For example, the documentary at one point focused on a family that is struggling financially. When
members of this family were interviewed about the financial situation, the producers used close-up shots in order to capture the emotions. To me, this is a clear
use of subjective filming because the viewers may not have noticed this if it was a normal “talking head” shot. In another part of the documentary, the producers
make a story of a 19-year-old man trying to get a job. The use of a narrator in this section helps to convey any emotion not shown within the film. For example,
when we find out that the man loses the job he was working at, we have no input from the man himself, but the narrator instead fills in and states that the next
time we see him, he will have been to jail. This is subjective because we aren’t hearing it from the man himself, but we instead hear it from someone else, so it
isn’t one hundred percent reliable.
•
• How far should we accept what we watch/read? Why?
• We can always accept what we watch because even if something isn’t one hundred percent objective, we can still gain knowledge from documentaries such as
“The Mighty Redcar”. Even though these documentaries try to sway the audience, they still show the reality of some places. The facts read out on factual
documentaries can be investigated so this is further reasoning as to why we should accept what we watch. I believe documentaries that are cinematic should not
really be accepted because they focus on the movie side of a film project such as special effects and graphics rather than telling a story through facts and
interviews.
•
• How can we make sure what a documentary presents as fact is true?
• The audience can never be entirely sure about what the true facts are, but we can search facts that are presented to us in the documentary. We can also determine
whether the information that is being delivered to us is meant to have an emotional effect on us by the type of camera shots used, the style of narration and
techniques such as confessional monologues as these can be easily edited to manipulate a sad emotion.

9. Factual Analysis
• Copy and paste (and add to if your work is limited) your Amy analysis
• Include images as necessary
• Compare the differing representations of people in ‘The Might Redcar’,
‘Benefits Street’ and ‘Skint’.
• What do you think the aim of each of these programs is?
• Are these programs biased?
• Use specific examples to show how the different representations and aims have
been achieved.

10. • Compare the differing representations of people in “The Mighty Redcar”, “Benefits Street” and “Skint”:
• In each of these documentaries, the viewer is made to feel a negative emotion such as anger or sadness. For example, in “Benefits Street”, we see a very young child hanging around two
people who are smoking, drinking and potentially high. This sets a negative light immediately because it captures two juxtaposing components within the same shot. As a viewer, we cannot
help the child get away from this, so we instead let our emotions take over and feel anger towards the parents that let their kids near this stuff. This creates prejudice because we
automatically assume every person is like that on this street or any street like this.
• However, in “The Mighty Redcar”, we see a situation improve. For instance, we hear a story of a boy that’s unemployed and will most likely end up in prison yet some way through the
program, we see his life take a turn when he gets a job. Although this person has come from a similar background to the people in “Benefits Street”, we feel happiness and joy towards him
because the program name isn’t designed to make people look down on others (such as “Benefits Street”) but we are interested in this program because of the positive adjective used in the
title. The word mighty suggests power and coming out on top so just from this title, a viewer receives positive connotations about the program.
• On the contrary, the program “Skint” has a different chronology. What I mean by this is that the program starts off fairly positive because we hear about a jolly story of an old fishing town,
but then we come to recognise that this industry is no more, and the program becomes depressing. An example of this is when there is an interview with a retired fisherman in a pub. The
fisherman explains how there used to be many “pubs” which is something that we relate to with positive energy but as this positive energy has been taken away from the town, the viewer
also feels drained of any forward-looking energy. The name of this program is short and blunt. I believe this is effective because it represents the attitudes of the people in the town because
of what happened.
• What do you think the aim of each of these programs is?
• Collectively, I believe these documentaries have the aim of squeezing out some form of negative emotion from a viewer whether this is anger, sadness or disgust. As to a reason why they try
to do this I think it is unclear. I do however believe that these programs create negative opinions of the middle class and upper class people towards the working class people. An example is
“Benefits Street”. This is designed to create disgust because it shows the family’s that aren’t in too much poverty (it shows them wearing designer brands and also branded food items which
are more expensive than a shop’s own brand) behaviour such as one of the families putting their toddler to bed at 1am or later and then missing nursery the next day. This isn’t normal to
most people from a middle or higher class background so it doesn’t sit well with most viewers. It also shows bad parenting such as two parents that lock their toddler in the porch when he is
misbehaving. There is also a lack of control displayed throughout the program. For example, it shows the children being defiant and disobedient towards their parents. All this combined
creates an opinion that all people that receive benefits are like this.
• Are the programs biased?
• I think that these programs are biased toward a negative side of everything that happens in these areas because they rarely show anything good happening, or they never show anyone
getting along. This adds a dramatical setting and gives the documentary a soap opera effect.

11. Final Task
• Discuss the topics covered in today’s lecture in reference to your own
work (Fanzine/Factual)
1. Explain how you have worked to the expectations and conventions of the
medium of factual production/fanzine with specific reference to;
• The content of today’s lecture
• Factual theory and conventions discussed in previous week’s lectures
• Existing products exploring the same/similar topics
• How have you explored context (the background of your topic, who made it, when it was
made etc.)
• How have you explored style (everything that is written/said)
• Do not reference your/existing product visuals in this section
2. Compare and contrast your work to one or more professional productions
• Discuss visuals – consider stylistic decisions, technical processes, use of information, etc.

12. 1) The first way in which I worked towards the expectations and conventions of factual production of my fanzine is by using the common technique of selection, omission and construction. The
way that this has been shown in my work is; I chose what to put into my fanzine by creating multiple planning documents, I then chose what I wouldn’t put in such as content that wouldn’t fit the
theme of my fanzine. Finally, I then constructed the fanzine using Photoshop to create a positive representation of my chosen topic which was hip hop from the 1980s – 2000s. My positive
representation was biased because the content I selected and researched was content that I was interested in and also knew that I had positive feedback to write about this topic. I did not write
negatively about anything. The creation of my fanzine was influenced by my own experience more than anything else because hip hop is something I am passionate about so I wasn’t really
bothered about influence from factors or any contextual issues such as censorship. This lead to my fanzine being fairly subjective in a sense that it was very personal and not in a sense I was
trying to sway people. I could argue that because I left the new era of hip hop out that I was trying to sway people away from this particular era and trying to make people like the older eras
better but I don’t know much about the newer eras so writing about something I knew about makes it seem subjective. I believe that my fanzine should be quite widely accepted because it does
still hold some strong facts like record sales which cant be argued against because they are set in stone. When doing my research, I used a website called “Issu.com” where I could look at existing
fanzines. When doing the “existing products” part of my research, I came across only a couple of hip hop fanzines, some of which were not very well produced.
Context is knowing the conditions surrounding the production of a product. For example, when was the product made, where did the audience receive it and did the product come from an
experienced or bias background? The context in which my fanzine was made was a classroom. This may effect the production of my fanzine because some websites are blocked which could
effectively limit the production quality. The fanzine will be received by someone who may have a different opinion to the ones I expressed within my fanzine or it could be received by someone
who doesn’t like hip hop at all. Despite this, new ideas are easy to take on but on the other hand, consumers often seek what matches their particular view. My views are biased (like I have
mentioned) but they will not cloud anyone's vision on the topic because I have tried to be honest as much as I could possibly be, without reflecting a negative light upon my topic. The
background of my topic is hip hop which in some ways is infamous. This may not receive well with an audience. I have put together the fanzine, but have retrieved the facts, stories and ratings
from multiple websites such as the “Billboard” website. I have included an interview but this is obviously opinion based. My product was made a good 30 years after the music actually came out.
This doesn’t hinder the views/opinions because the lyrics are still there on paper and still have meaning today. If anything, I believe new interpretations can be brought forward from my fanzine.
The ways in which I have explored style are by using my own knowledge of past articles, facts and interviews on hip hop to construct a meaningful fanzine. I have obviously also looked at
professional magazine styles and articles to display, through my fanzine.

13. 2) I have selected the main pages from my fanzine to compare them with existing products. I
have not included all my pages because they follow a very similar theme so I would have nothing
new to say about each page.

14. Text is minimal
Image is large and
central
Black and white
are used
Similar brush font
giving an urban
look
Similar image
editing used. They
mages aren’t just
normal, they have
been made to
look different to
stand out.
Famous faces on
the front to
interest readers Not much
graphically going
on in my fanzine
A lot more time has been spent
creating visuals for this fanzine
Old hip hop with new
clothing opens up to more
audiences
Abstract graphical centre
piece contrasts with hip
hop style creating a
mysterious fanzine
Small visual drawings fill
up the page unlike my
fanzine
A bordered picture frames
this image to make it
appear sentimental which
makes the reader think
the author is passionate.
Black and white image creates an old theme.No colour used. Makes is
less exciting that intended

15. Famous faces on
the page to create
a relation with the
reader and
fanzine
The border makes the page seem ordered
and tidy like a museum so the reader
knows they are looking at history
The 80s themed
font creates an
imaginary time
portal as if we are
travelling back to
this time period
Black and white
imagery lets the
reader
immediately know
how old this era is
Different sized images break a line of
symmetry to make the fanzine appear less
like an article and more like a fanzine
Different fonts used in this fanzine mean
the reader does not get bored when taking
in information
The same image is used
to embed this theme of
hip hop and all its
connotations into the
readers head
Again, everything is black and white but as it is not a
front cover (something which is designed to draw
attention) it appears more graphically interesting.
Clever imagery/editing
Fairly unclear what this
page is trying to deliver
to the audience because
there is barely any text.
More images of things
revolving around hip
hop could make both
these pages more
interesting.

16. The border theme is
repeated
The text on these pages are small and compact. This brings more attention to
any images. If the images contain famous faces or something the reader can
relate to, the reader will be more intrigued about the text.
The images aren’t very big
but this page was intended
for information
Ordered text looks
similar to the back of
an album cover
The title is bold and
easy to read but in a
boring colour
This page is part of a double page spread and
the image continues onto this page which is
effective because it draws the readers
attention to both pages.
Washed out background shows the importance
of these albums to the reader as they look like an
important historic document.
White text without a
border on a white
background may not sit
well with some readers
but is effective to some
hip hop fans because even
if they cant see the
entirety of the letter, they
still know its meant to say
“Jay Z”
Lack of colour

17. On these comparison pages, I have made simple observations. After looking at my fanzine in comparison to another
one, I noticed that my fanzine looks more like a magazine due to the way the text is set out, lack of color in some
places and also image placement. This was never and intention of mine. Any graphics I have made, I tried to make
look cartoony and informal as this is what I saw in many fanzines during my research. I then had to include hip hop
whilst creating this images, but it turned out fairly well because I could use urban style texts like graffiti. This is a
clear connotation of hip hop and it is not necessarily a positive one because even though graffiti is expressive and
artistic, it can be used to vandalise and promote bad ideas and thoughts.
The technical processes I went through within my work were fairly simple. I first looked at a technique tutorial on
YouTube and then found an image I could use to try this effect. This links into representation of media because it
depends on the creator and audience. I had to find an image and effect that I would be happy with producing but
also needed to make sure the audience would be happy with. I have not used anchorage in my images, I have only
tried to make them aesthetically pleasing.
Finally, the use of information within my fanzine was to make sure I could express my opinions on a topic I am
passionate about despite it all being second hand, bar a few pages such as the interview and title pages. There are
no ethical or language breaches within my information, they are just facts telling stories of the hip hop artists lives.