A2 Media final evaluation.

1. ‘Til Death Do Us Part.’
Somer Wilson
OCR A2 Media Studies Advanced Portfolio
Evaluation

2. I was required to make a five minute section of a television documentary about a topic of
my choice.
Before starting the filming, I learnt about many of the codes and conventions of a documentary. I found out that
most often have talking-head interviews with someone who has knowledge of the topic (a expert or authority in the
field in which they are talking about or someone directly involved in the events being examined). I decided to watch
documentaries that had a similar message to the idea that I wanted to do mine on. One that I watched was Stories
We Tell which is a documentary film written and directed by Sarah Polley about the relationship between Polley's
parents, Michael and Diane Polley, including the revelation that the filmmaker was the product of an extramarital
affair between her mother and Montreal producer Harry Gulkin. I also watched other documentaries like The
Imposter which uses reconstructions, Grizzly Man that knits together uses original and ‘found’ footage and Supersize
Me which exposes a ‘truth’ the filmmaker (Morgan Spurlock) wants the audience to learn and contains elements of
cinema verite. I also watched wildlife documentary series Life Story in order to see the conventions of straight-
forward observational documentary filmmaking. This research allowed me to gain understanding of various
documentary styles such as observational, expository, and cinema verite.
I chose to do an observational documentary as I wanted to observe real life situations that were truthful. It has small
elements of expository because I intended to expose some reasons why marriage does and doesn’t work.
What I was required to do and what I learnt about
documentaries before.

3. Stories We Tell - Sarah Polley.
 I chose to watch Stories We Tell as it was so similar to the type of documentary I wanted to make.
The story behind it is about the relationship between Polley's parents, Michael and Diane Polley,
including the revelation that the filmmaker was the product of an extramarital affair between her
mother and Montreal producer Harry Gulkin. I decided to do a documentary about my
grandparents relationship and how they lasted for 48 years, I then decided to add in about
divorce as I wanted a counter balance between happily married and divorced.
 Once I started to watch Stories We Tell, I realised I could use the aspects of archive footage and
family interviews to create my own story effectively.
Features Used:
• Talking head interviews
• Archive footage
• Narration

4. To come up with an idea for a documentary, I was advised to make a grid on topics and
themes that I would find comfortable and easy to make, then once I narrowed it down
to three I was given another chart that had all the elements of a documentary on it, for
example, narration, talking head interviews, archive footage and others, to go through
and write how I would use these elements if I was to put them in my documentary.
Once I saw which topic had more ideas I then went through and planned how I would
go about making the documentary and where I would add in the elements.
The documentary I decided to make was based around my grandparents relationship
and how they lasted 48 years in marriage. However, I realised that it wouldn’t be able to
last for 5 minutes so I then based the topic around relationships as a whole, so I then
focused a little on divorce. I chose to do this because it was true to me and I knew I
would find it easy to make. Doing this documentary affected me in a good way, as I
found it easy to interview the people, like my grandma, as I was in a comfortable
environment that I knew.
What I set out to do and what I decided to make my
documentary about.

6. I decided to make an Observational documentary which is when a
documentary maker follows a particular person or people to
show/observe what happens in their lives. Often there are no
interviews or voice overs as the audience gets a sense of what the
documentary is about mostly through imagery. The equipment used
in this style of documentary is often light-weight and mobile, for
example a hand-held camera, in order to allow the filmmaker to
capture things ‘on-the-fly’. Fly-on-the-wall techniques are also often
employed so that fleeting moments and spontaneous events can be
documented. I decided to eschew these techniques as I wanted the
narrative of my observational documentary to be driven by the
interviews I conducted rather than any spontaneous footage. I was
conscious not to be sensationalist or dramatic and just let the story
tell itself. I felt that the interviews with my grandmother and others
would be far more powerful than any gimmicks I might try and
employ.
What type of documentary I decided to make and what features I
set out to use.

7. Expository Documentary
What is it?
They’re documentaries that expose a person or a topic,
and are well known for having a narrator talking over the
pictures or videos and explaining the story.
What are the main conventions?
• A narrator
• Rhetorical questions
• Facts
• Opinions
• Persuasive techniques
How do they appeal to an audience?
the narrator talks specifically to the audience, and are
often either biographical, historical or talk about certain
events. Some or most may include archive footage,
interviews or pictures exclusive to the documentary.
Cinema Verite
What is it?
It combines improvising with the use of the camera to
unveil the truth or to highlight subjects hidden behind
basic reality.
What are the main convention?
• pure direct cinema
• mainly without a narrator's voice-over.
• Similar to observational, yet there are subtle, yet
important differences.
How do they appeal to an audience?
It involves stylized set-ups and communication between
the filmmaker and the subject, the camera is
acknowledged, as it performs a raw act of filming real
objects, people, and events in a challenging way.

8. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Code/Convention. How I plan to use or avoid it.
Narration I used narration throughout as I had to convey a message
about divorce rates in the UK in order for my documentary to
make sense.
Interview I thought it would be best that the interviews I put in are with
people who have a knowledge of the topic, so that is why I asked
my Grandma if she could be interviewed and why I asked Mike as
he went through a divorce.
Reconstructions I had an idea to reconstruct the first time my Grandparents first
met with the song that they first danced to. However due to
timing I couldn’t fit it in in the 5 minutes I had.
Camera type I used a handheld camera for the interviews to ease the filming
process and mobility.
I used the XF100 to film the archive footage.
Fly-on-the-Wall I was going to film my Grandma sat watching the old
footage of her life while possibly making some comments on
some of the videos.
Cinema verite I will be influencing what the interviewees talk about as I will be
asking questions behind the camera, as I will also need to set
the scene.
Stereotype/Simplification No stereotypes.
Archive footage I really wanted to be able to play with the audiences emotions, so I
thought it would good if I added in old videos of my Grandparents
and their children growing up to really show the audience what life
was like back in the 1960s onwards.

9. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research,
planning and evaluation stages?
Research and planning Construction Evaluation
• YouTube was a big help for
researching documentaries
around my genre as the site lets
users upload, view, and share
videos, including video clips, TV
clips, music videos, and other
content such as video blogging,
short original videos, and
educational videos. So the
videos I found enabled me to
come up with ideas for my
documentary and see what
content I needed to add.
• Google was my main search
engine as it is the most reliable
and trustworthy to find research,
such as websites.
• I also used Blogger, as it is where I
recorded all my information
about what documentaries I
watched and my analysis on
those, also print-screens of my
research and planning progress.
• I used a handheld camera to
interview to ease the filming
process and mobility.
• I used the XF100 to film the
archive footage.
• I used an iMac to do the editing
as that is where software's such
as iMovie and Garage band are.
• I used PowerPoint to do my
evaluation as it is easy to use and
access anywhere.
• Used Blogger as part of my
evaluation as it is where I can
store all my progress while
making my documentary.

10. Your first steps to making the documentary
I decided that my first priority was to interview my Grandma so I had a foundation to
start with.
I then wanted to make my documentary have plenty of emotion, so I gathered some
archive footage that my Grandparents filmed when they were together and chose
particular sections of the video that I thought would really make the audience feel
compassion and kind-heatedness.
Then once I had a foundation, I wanted to be able to tell my audience more about my
topic around relationships, marriage and divorce so I did some research about divorce
rates in the UK and reasons people may get divorced so then with the information I
found I could do a voice-over to add over a few pictures relating to separation.
Once I was nearer to being finished, I realised that I was yet to interview someone who
has gone through a divorce, so when I realised I has time left, I remembered that I had a
family friend who went through a divorce, so I asked him if it was okay for me to ask him
questions about his separation.

11. When I started filming, one of the main factors was the composing of the shots, in Year 12 we
learned about mise-en-scene, which is what you decide to put in the shot that is thought to go
with the topic. I was aware of the rule of three, so as you can see I framed the shot so my
Grandma was near the corner and the audiences’ eyes were drawn up the line of the fireplace to
see old photos of my Grandparents.
Pictures
Grandma in
bottom right
hand corner
Some audience members may be drawn to
the chair in the background which is my
grandfathers chair. This empty highlights
that she is alone

12. Also when it came to filming the interview with Mike, I know he
works at a school, so I put him in a frame where he was sat in a
classroom with books, folders and other objects behind him.

13. Once I was finished with the filming, I recognised that my documentary was missing something,
then I realised that it was music. So I re-watched my documentary and decided that I’d research
music that I thought fit with the mood of each section of the documentary.
‘There is a puzzle about how music can arouse emotions. Emotions seem to involve appraisals of the
world as good or as offensive or whatever. But most music listeners claim that listening to great
music is a profoundly emotionally moving experience.’
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23934-the-musical-representation-meaning-ontology-and-emotion/
The song I decided to layer over the first section of my documentary was Elvis Presley ‘Falling in Love With You’. I
thought it would be a good idea to have a contrast at the beginning with the melancholy mood of facts about
divorce, with a song about love. The lyrics are also important as they talk about ‘fools rushing in’.
As it was feedback I had from most people saying that I wasn’t grabbing people’s emotions enough, I thought it
would be really affective if I found out from my Grandma the song that they first danced to when they first met,
which was ‘Unforgettable’ by Nat King Cole, to really capture the audiences emotions I added the song over the
section with the old photos of my grandparents and their family. These older songs also set the time and place better
and emphasise that my grandparents are from an older generation.
Again to capture people’s emotions, I asked for advise about how I can, and one idea that came up was to put an
instrumental bagpipe version of the Scottish national anthem as my grandfather came from Scotland. To really hit
people’s emotions I added the anthem over the section about his death as I believe it would really make them
sympathise and empathise with my grandmother. This piece of music also sound funereal in tone, adding to the tone
and emotion of the message and information on screen: that my Grandfather sadly passed away several years ago.

14. How I created the documentary.
I used iMovie to create my documentary. When it came to the editing
process I found it relatively easy as I was up for learning how to use it,
so when I got my head around it I just got on with it. The only problem I
had was trying to make my documentary as smooth as possible with
no continuity errors and no jumps from edit to edit.

15. The difference between A2 (documentary) and AS (thriller)
At AS we were required to make a 3 minute thriller opening, while at A2 we were required to make a 5
minute section of a documentary.
At AS, the editing of my thriller production was very simple, being that the shots were so long that it
required little editing. However, because of this and my confidence, I allowed my group to do the editing
there was. Also, because of my little knowledge of editing and how to do it, my thriller is basically a few
shots with some non-diegetic music in it. However, in A2, my confidence, knowledge and understanding
grew as I was by myself. So, in my documentary it is far more complex as there are a lot more shots, I have
images and other videos over the top of a couple of my shots, and also there is voice overs that I added in
once I knew my shots and documentary was near finished, so it made it easier to add.
Documentaries are far more complex as they are often non-linear, this was the case for mine. While in
thrillers, including mine, they’re linear, you have a start, middle and end. So when using iMovie the hardest
part was when I had to find a transition from the shot of my character walking, to another shot of me
entering the house. As it was a thriller, I found it difficult to find a transition that fit with how the thriller
looked, e.g. I didn’t want to make it look too amateur. This use of transition was as complex as the editing
got. On the other hand, in my documentary, when using iMovie I had to learn about layering, due to having
3 layers, for example when I showed my Grandfather and how he passed away, I had to have pictures
fading from one to another, while adding subtitles, then having non-diegetic music playing over the shot. I
had to learn about making sure the timing of the music came in at the right time, allowing the subtitles to
stay up long enough for people to read, and ensuring that nothing from the previous shot ran over into the
next. This complexity of editing allowed me to craft a more coherent message through my documentary. I
did this by fading the non-diegetic music into the shot and adding in archive footage (old videos) of my
Grandpa in his younger years.
At AS there wasn’t any message, as thrillers don’t usually tend to have one, however at A2 my message to
the audience was how relationships have changed over the past 50 years and give them as much evidence
as I could in the short 5 minutes.

16. One of the ancillary tasks for the course was to make a poster to advertise my documentary. We had to have a
session to learn about Photoshop, but when making the poster, we had to choose a channel in which we thought
our documentary would be shown on. I chose Channel 4 because I knew that the channel was one of the main
channels that puts out quite hard-hitting and serious documentaries.
For my later drafts of my poster I referred to the Channel 4 style guide
(http://www.channel4.com/about_c4/styleguide/) to inform me of the requirements.
My aim for my poster was to ensure that I put my message across without putting too much information on it. The
background is very eye-catching, the short message allows people to start thinking about what my documentary
might be about, the ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ is a nice acknowledgement of the wedding vows. As it is a piece of
advertising, it needed to make people want to watch the documentary.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?

17. First Draft >
In my first draft there was
a lot of things wrong with
my newspaper ad.
The requirements
on the channel 4
website says that
the logo has to
be on the right
side and
distinctive, I took
this too far and
made it too big
so it took up most
of the space.
The background
picture is too blurry,
I tried to make it fit
the whole picture,
however each
picture was too
small, so every time
I tried to enlarge it,
it went blurry.
I tried to put a lot
of information on
the ad, however
it looked messy
as it was too
much on a small
poster.

18. This is the final draft of the newspaper ad.
I looked at the style
guide on Channel 4 and
what I noticed was that
on most of the posters
the writing is always in
the bottom left hand
corner with a distinctive
box.
One of the
feedbacks
was the size
of the logo, it
didn’t have to
be so big to
be noticeable.

19. Radio advert
I set out to make a short radio advert that I thought would capture an
audiences attention by putting in enough information without making it too
long. I started out by taking a short quote from my grandma’s interview about
how divorce wasn’t accepted as much as it is nowadays, and then backing
that up with a statistic based on divorce.
I used an iMac to then use the software iMovie to make my advert as I
thought that that would be the best to use to ensure that I had a clean cut
and clear advert.
I believe the making of the advert was quite successful as I had a clear idea
in my head of what I wanted to do, so starting the process wasn’t hard. Also I
had all the equipment needed already set up. The final product I think also
was successful as it turned out exactly how I wanted it to.

20. As part of research our teacher organised a film festival where our partially edited documentaries were
screened and year 8s, year 12s and a couple of teachers were invited to come watch and then fill out a
questionnaire that I designed with questions such as, ‘which channel would you put our documentary on?’,
‘is there anything you would change.’ Having the range of ages that was there I thought was a good idea as
it allowed there to be a wide variety of opinions.
Once all the feedback was given to me I went through each questionnaire and noted what improvement
points came up the most. A comment that came up a few times was, that I didn’t have enough interviews,
which people said limited the range of opinions on marriage and divorce. So I thought it would be a good
idea to interview my uncle, who is the oldest of the three children and has now been in a relationship for ten
years. I thought I would ask the question whether growing up around my grandparents and their
relationship affected his view on relationships and ask why he hasn’t got married. This then allows the
audience to see another opinion on the topic. However, I then thought that it would be an even better idea
to interview someone who has gone through a divorce, so I asked family friend Mike whether it was ok if I
asked him a couple of question about when he got divorced.
Another feedback that I was given was that my documentary didn’t have enough emotion in it, so I decided
to add in something about my Grandpa and his passing and then add some footage of my grandma alone
which then conveys to the audience that my Grandma has been alone for a few years.
Some other small comments were the timings of the subtitles and how they people thought they had to be
on screen just a little bit longer and also some of the pictures at the beginning went on for a bit too long.
There also were good comments; a lot of them enjoyed the message and were interested in the statistics at
the start and that they would carry on watching the rest of the hour. Additionally, they loved the fact that I
used my Grandparents as an example; one person said that they thought it gave the documentary a sense
of realism. And others enjoyed the archive footage.
When I came to the end of the making of my documentary and more people watched it, I had a few people
say that the archive footage really gave it that emotion that I wanted to have.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?

21. Film festival.

22. Final summary.
How happy am I with it?
When I watched my final finished documentary, I was really pleased with what I had achieved. I set out to
create a documentary that I knew people would enjoy, want to carry on watching and importantly, relate to.
I believe I did what I set out to do as I’m certain that I played with people’s emotions, I did this by adding in
elements such as archive footage and old photos. I’m also very pleased with it because during the process I
had to overcome a couple obstacles, like, editing, as I was a novice to editing, I struggled to grasp the
concept of having to do it myself and having to learn how to work with new software. Another obstacle I
overcame was the feedback. When you’ve worked really hard on something and think it’s the best it could
be, its not a nice feeling to have all these comments come back suggesting elements to change. Then I
realised that if they were the audience then they would be the audience that I’d have to impress, so I made
some of the changes and realised that they improved my documentary.
What would you do differently?
If there was anything I would want different, I think it would be how much time we have, we got to do the
first five minutes, however I wish we had an extra 5 minutes as there are a few ideas that I would of liked to
put into my documentary. One idea being, I wanted to put a section in where I film my Grandma watching
her old home videos and film her reactions, almost like a fly-on-the-wall.