1. In what way does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

2. When creating our documentary we didn’t really challenge
any forms and conventions of a documentary. We did this
so it looked as professional as possible and so if a person
watched it without knowing what genre the programme
was they would easily be able to identify that it was a
documentary.
We considered challenging the stereotypes of baking by
using a male voiceover instead of a female to go against the
stereotype of home bakers being mainly female, but later
decided that an older female would be better to use as this
is what the results from our audience research told us to
use . Also a woman’s voice may be more appropriate as it is
a soft voice and baking is considered a relaxing activity.

3. Lower thirds
A title located in the lower third of the clip is important in a documentary. It tells the
audience who the person being interviewed is and a caption below the name usually tells
the audience why they are significant to the documentary.
This screen shot taken from ‘Terror at sea;
The sinking of The Concordia’ shows the
use of a name tag located in the lower
third. This image was taken from a
documentary located on channel 4.
Although there is no caption saying why the
person is significant although the voiceover
told the audience he was a passenger on
the ship.
This screen shot was taken from our
documentary ‘A Piece of Cake’. The screen
shot shows the lady we interviewed and then
a title and caption telling us who she is and
why she is significant to the documentary. We
put this text in the same font used
throughout the documentary in a black font
so it would stand out. We also used the same
font so there was consistency throughout the
documentary.

4. Rule of Thirds
Using rule of thirds is important in a documentary as it is classed as a typical
convention. All documentaries we analysed had rule of thirds so we made sure we
used rule of thirds in our own documentary. We did this in interviews and in Vox pops.
This screen shot was taken from
‘Educating Essex’. This screenshot
shows rule of thirds in action as the
man is slightly off centre with his
shoulders located in the lower third.
By having a person off centre you can
have them sat on either side of the
screen which adds a slight variation to
the documentary
This screen shot was taken from our
documentary. As you can see the girl
is slightly off centre much like the
channel 4 documentary with her
shoulders located in the lower third.
We had the people we interviewed
positioned on different sides to add
variation.

5. Mise En Scene
Mise en Scene is a term that refers to the scene. It essentially means visual theme
which means keeping anything the audience can see relevant to whatever you are
producing. So when creating our documentary we had to keep in mind
settings, costumes and who we were interviewing.
This screen shot was taken from ‘Educating
Essex’. This screenshot shows Mise en
Scene. A green screen was used in this
documentary so the student looks like she
is say in front of lockers which are relevant
to schools. Mise en Scene was also used in
what she was wearing as she is wearing a
uniform so the audience can clearly
identify that she is a pupil at the school.
This screen shot was taken from our
documentary. We used Mise en Scene here
as the lady we are interviewing is stood in
a kitchen like area which is where they
prepare the cakes in the supermarket. She
is also dressed in her work clothes which is
a bakers outfit which clearly identifies to
the audience that she is a baker.

6. Narrator
A narrator is very important in a documentary. The narrator plays the part of a kind of
‘Voice of God’ which gives the audience key information before an interview begins
that is also relevant to the topic the narrator is talking about. Essentially the narrator
sets up the next topic to be discussed during the documentary. Many documentaries
use this ‘Voice of God’ narration such as ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Educating Essex
and 24 hours in A&E.’ This ‘Voice of God’ narration also occurs in documentaries on
other channels such as BBC, ITV and Channel 5 etc.
Our documentary also featured a ‘Voice of
God narration. We used the voiceover to introduce new topics and line up questions
that would then be answered by those who we interviewed. We chose to use an
older woman (around 60) as we felt her voice suited the theme of our documentary
as stereotypically older people bake more than young people. We also chose to use
a woman as the answers received from our questionnaires stated that most people
would prefer a female voiceover for a documentary based on cakes.