1. Lucy Hughes
A2 Media Studies: Coursework Evaluation
Question 1: 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?'
Documentary:
Before we even attempted to create our
documentary we carried out specific
research into the documentary genre. The
reason we did this was because we wanted
to create a professional documentary so we
could then follow the main codes and
conventions of these real media products.
As you can see we were influenced by
Morgan Spurlock's use of captions
throughout his documentary and decided
to use them in ours. We felt it was
appropriate to use captions as it puts the
interview into perspective and informs
the audience of what is going on. This
made our interviews look more
professional as captions are a main form
and convention of real media products.
These two clips
from Miley Cyrus'
documentary the
movement show
Miley in action and
in her working
environment, it
almost seems to
the audience that
she doesn't realise
she's being filmed.
We were
influenced by this
technique and
decided to use and
develop it in our
own documentary
by showing clips of
Nick and Sophie in
their working
environment
before
interviewing them.
These two clips taken from our documentary show how we have used Miley Cyrus' technique of
showing the audience Nick and Sophie in their natural environment before the documentary has
properly introduced them. It gives the audience a chance to see the individuals and understand what
they do. For example during when Nick is scrolling through the article it gives us time to use a
voiceover to introduce Nick and Sophie.

2. However, during our documentary we did
Lucy and conventions of real
challenge the codes Hughes
media products. This is because throughout
two of the main documentaries we watched
and researched they both used an onscreen
presenter, whereas, throughout our
documentary we just had a voiceover and
decided against the onscreen presenter
option. The reason for this was because we
felt an onscreen presenter may disrupt the
flow of our documentary because every so
often we'd have to flick back to the onscreen
presenter and have them narrate and we
didn't think this was appropriate for our
documentary as there wasn't just one
viewpoint being displayed in our
documentary, compared to Morgan
Spurlocks' where the main feature of Super
IMG_0194.MOV
IMG_0194.MOV
Size Me is the unhealthy and negative affect
fast food has on your body. As you can see to
the right of the screen both documentaries
contained an on screen presenter. As a group
we did believe that using an onscreen
presenter was an effective form and
convention of documentaries as it helps to
tell a story and narrate the documentary
however, compared to Super Size Me and
Miley Cyrus: The Movement we didn't feel
that our documentary needed a narrator as it
was very self explanatory what was going on.
Also because our documentary was an
Expository documentary there was no need
for an onscreen presenter as the voiceover
which worked as the narrator explained
everything to the audience directly.
As a group we believed that our documentary
developed the codes and conventions of real media
products by the merging together two sound
tracks throughout our documentary and making
them flow into one. We decided to incorporate
both sindance and pop 39 into our documentary as
we decided sindance would only be appropriate for
the opening sequence. Because of this we had to
develop the forms and conventions of real media
products of just having one specific soundtrack at
one time and develop our documentary into having
two different soundtracks playing at one time. This
was a very tricky task to do as we had to merge the
tracks together and allow them to flow without
causing disruption to the rest of the documentary.
The way in which we did this was through final cut,
we had both sindance and pop 39 and used the pen
tools to merge the two tracks together.
http://youtu.be/5Iua5lUzUK4
- Here is a clip of our voiceover from the documentary.
We used the same voice throughout the documentary
to ensure continuity. Even though we didn't have an
onscreen presenter we still felt that the voiceover was
extremely effective as it was still able to put the
documentary into perspective for the audience and
almost narrate it the only difference was you couldn't
see the individual talking.
This pen tool
featured here
on final cut
was the tool
which
allowed us to
merge our
two
soundtracks
together.
https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=BjVb2jX
MdDw
- This clip shows the
change in the music
between sindance and
pop 39, we were able
to gradually make the
two tracks flow
together and form into
one until sindance was
slowly faded out. We
thought this was an
effective technique to
use as it enabled us to
use two different
sound tracks in our
documentary without
disrupting the flow of
sequence.

3. Lucy Hughes
Another way in which we developed the forms
and conventions of real media products was by
conducting our own college surveys to gain
information for our particular topic. The reason
we conducted our own specific survey was
because we needed to gain specific and relevant
information to young people's and adults
opinions on girls maturing too quickly and when
we were researching over the internet nothing
relevant came up so we decided to use our
initiative and conduct our own surveys.
By conducting our own surveys we
were able to gain specific and
relevant information which we would
be appropriate to use in our
documentary. This developed the
forms and conventions of real media
texts as during Spurlocks'
documentary he used information
and statistics that had already been
gathered, he hadn't actively gone out
and researched to gain access to this
research.
Magazine Article:
Aswell as carrying out research
into documentaries we also
carried out research into specific
magazine articles. The reason for
this is because like with our
documentary we wanted to know
the main forms and conventions
of magazine articles so we could
gain ideas on how we could
create a professional looking
magazine article. In our own time
we looked through magazines
such as the radio times and tried
to layout our magazine article
based on that layout.
From this radio times image you can see that they laid their magazine out with one main image at the top
and then placed the text underneath. When we were carrying out our magazine research we thought this
design looked very effective as the one large image drew your attention to the article straight away. Also
the text being placed on the bottom made the page easy to read and extremely clear for the reader. Also
the supporting image to the right hand side of the page makes the page come together more and shows
how everything is linked to the main title. When creating our double page spread we used the form and
convention of having a masthead which stood out clearly and one main image with a variety of supporting
images.

4. Below is our finished magazine article. As you can see we
have followed the main forms and conventions of a real life
Lucy Hughes
media magazine.
We also made sure we included the date, time and channel of our
documentary as without this feature the magazine article
wouldn't be as useful as it doesn't provide the key information of
when the documentary is to be aired. We decided to place this
before the main article as we wanted it to stand out from the rest
of the text so the reader would clearly be able to see when the
documentary is coming out.
We followed the forms and conventions of
real media texts through the use of page
numbers. This is a simple thing to include
yet it is extremely necessary when
creating a magazine article and an
important feature in real media texts as it
enables the reader to easily navigate their
way through the documentary by easily
finding articles by looking through the
page numbers.
We used the forms and conventions of real media
products by having masthead which stood out
from the rest of the text on the page. We decided
to place the masthead at the top of the page as we
wanted it to be the first thing the reader saw
when they were flicking through the magazine.
We believe it looks effective as it puts the page
into perspective and allows the reader to know
what the article will be about.
We laid out our text using columns. The
reason we chose to do this was because
throughout our magazine article research
we clearly saw that laying out texts in
columns was a key feature of real media
texts, we were then influenced by this and
decided to use this technique in our
product as it created a professional layout
for our magazine. Also by laying out the
text in columns it allows the reader to
clearly see where the text is positioned
and allows it to flow nicely making it
more accessible to read.
Like the radio times
double page spread we
used supporting images to
support and develop the
article. This was effective
as it gives the reader a feel
of what else they can
expect in the documentary
if they choose to watch it,
it provides snippets of
what's to come. We used
the forms and conventions
of real media texts as in
the radio times article it
promotes the
documentary its
advertising by using
images from the actual
documentary, we were
influenced by this and
decided to use the same
technique. It was an
extremely effective
technique to use as it
allowed to focus more on
the documentary text as
the images were already
available to us from the
documentary we just had
to choose the appropriate
ones.
By comparing our
article to a radio times
article you can see that
we have used the
conventions of
including images from
the documentary the
same as the radio
times trailer using
images from Doctor
Who. It is an effective
convention to use as it
provides a flavour of in
our case the
documentary.

5. When conducting our magazine article we decided against challenging any of the forms and conventions
Lucy Hughes
of real media products. The reason for this was because that every magazine article we studied was laid
out relatively the seem and because of this we made an informed decision to follow these codes and
conventions because if we decided to challenge them our end result wouldn't be a professional magazine
as the important and specific codes and conventions needed to create a professional magazine article
would not be featured therefore it would've impacted on the quality of our finished magazine. And as you
can see from the images below the magazine layout we followed is featured in all professional magazines
today so if we challenged this codes and conventions we wouldn't of created a professional media
product.
Although, one way in which we developed the forms and
conventions of real media products is through the use of
including a magazine article not a interview. The reason
for this is because we decided to include a descriptive
magazine article about our documentary instead of
including and conducting an interview. The reason we
developed the forms and conventions and used a article
instead of an interview is because we didn't feel an
interview would be an appropriate way of promoting
our documentary through the use of a magazine article.
The reason for this is because there is not one individual
who stands out who we should interview to promote
our documentary as instead we would need to interview
a variety of different individuals to create a strong
viewpoint to promote our documentary, therefore, we
decided to create a descriptive article promoting our
documentary to the reader by describing what would
feature in our documentary and the reasons behind
creating our documentary.

6. Lucy Hughes
Radio Trailer:
https://soundcloud.com/a2cole13/radio-trailer
During our research and planning stage we
had to undertake some research into the
different types of radio trailers to gain ideas
for our own product. We looked at a variety
of student radio trailers but also some
professional ones to gain inspiration and
discover the forms and conventions of a real
radio trailer.
Here are a list of radio trailers that we
researched:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
D5bUmaxy2GM - movie trailer
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Jp62mQkTZIo -doctor who trailer
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
UC74twDMh-g -90210 trailer
As you can see from the example radio trailers we followed the forms and conventions of real
media products by ensuring that the length of our radio trailer was between 30-45 seconds, this
was because from our research we could see that the majority of radio trailers were in between
this time limit so we knew would had to make it short and sharp and straight to the point like the
examples. I believed we managed to do this as our finished radio trailer came to 41 seconds and
included all the information it needed to promote the documentary.
Another way in which we followed the forms
and conventions of real media products is like
the doctor who and 90210 trailer we ensured
that at the end of the trailer there was a
voiceover stating the name of the
documentary and the time and channel it was
going to be aired on. We were influenced by
the 90210 trailer who placed this
information at the end, we believed it was
more appropriate as the listener could gain
an insight to the documentary first before the
details were provided it also enabled the
documentary to flow better.
We developed the codes and conventions by
ensuring that we used the same music and
clips from the documentary. The main reason
why we chose to do this was to ensure that
there was continuity between our products
and the way to do this was to use the same
soundtrack from the documentary. This
technique was also following the forms and
conventions of real media products but we
developed it by also taking the clips from the
documentary and merging them together and
overlapping them to make a very fast paced
radio trailer which promoted our
documentary. Likewise in the Doctor Who!
radio trailer they have used the same music
from the TV show which represents the
continuity, we as a group were influenced by
this and decided to use this technique in our
own product but develop it by selecting the
appropriate clips to use.
One way in which we challenged the forms and conventions of radio trailers is we
didn't include a voiceover throughout the documentary. The reason for this is because
we didn't feel it was appropriate as we thought it would leave us with less time to
actually promote and include clips from the documentary in our trailer. We decided it
was only necessary to use the voiceover at the end to promote the documentary but
other than that we just used the clips from the documentary as the bulk of the trailer.
We got our inspiration for this from a variety of student trailers that we watched and
we thought that the more effective ones were the ones with no voice over and just the
clips from the documentary, yet we were still challenging the forms and conventions
as the professional trailers all contained a voiceover.