Media evaluation

1. In what ways does your media
product use develop or
challenge codes and conventions
of real media products?

2. How our documentary followed codes and
conventions of real media products:
When we began to create our media documentary, we knew that we did
not want to stick to all codes and conventions, however use develop and
challenge certain elements of real documentaries. One of the first things
we decided on was the titles we were going to use for our expert
interviews and for our on screen facts and figures. This is something I
noticed a lot in not just channel 4 documentaries which is what ours will
be featured on, but also documentaries created by other channels. We
followed these codes and conventions of real documentaries by putting
them on screen as they would feature in others. This meant that we kept
the font the same throughout to show our consistency and we made sure
to place all titles in the same place for each of our expert interviews to give
it a more real finish.

3. Below are some screenshots from our finished documentary to show the font that
we used and how we were consistent from the opening title to our title for our
interviews. This was similar to real documentaries and the example I chose to use
was ‘Supersize me’, shown by the screenshot from the actual documentary. We
positioned it the same as other documentaries and used a similar colour scheme
which I feel added to giving it a more professional look. As well as this, I think that
our documentary followed codes and conventions because we filmed all our formal
interviews with a mid-shot. This was something I looked into with a number of
documentary and each one of these used this technique so we filmed with this
camera technique for each one our expert interviews.

4. Another way our documentary followed the codes and conventions of
real products is by using background music throughout the
documentary using non-diegetic sound. This is something else that
featured in a lot of documentaries and a particular one which I focused
on was ‘supersize me’. ‘Supersize me’ featured scenes where it had a lot
of non-diegetic sound, which was mainly music, and this broke up some
of the scenes to make it easier for viewers to watch. I felt like this was a
good technique which the documentary used as it made it seem less
formal and took some of the seriousness away from it which would
hopefully make it appeal more to our primary audience of teenagers.

5. Furthermore, we used props for the majority of our formal interviews to give it a
sense of realism and more of a professional touch. An example of this is for our
police interview, and our counsellor interview we asked them interviewee to sit in
front of a computer as we felt that it would differentiate between an expert
interview and a voxpop. As well as this, for the bar tender interviews we asked
them to stand behind the bar where the alcoholic drinks were which would make it
clearer to the viewers what their role was in our documentary if they didn’t see our
titles. I have taken some screenshots as evidence to show our interviews and the
way that our props worked to show who each of our formal interviews were with.
This is a screenshot of one of
our bar tender interviews which
shows Amy standing behind the
bar. This makes the alcohol
stand out more and make it
clear what her job role is.
This is a screenshot of our
documentary showing our
interview with the college
counsellor. This shows Julie
sitting in front of a laptop
and previous to this shot we
filmed her typing on her
laptop to introduce the
scene.

6. How our magazine listing followed codes and
conventions of real media products?
Firstly, I looked into a lot of Radio Times magazines to see what kinds of techniques
they used in order to make it clearer what to follow and what to avoid when making
our double page spread. I chose to analyse a double page spread from one issue of
this magazine which I have put below. As well as this, we decided to analyse our
finished double page spread to make it easier to see what codes and conventions we
have used and what we had challenged.

7. We tried to follow the codes and
conventions of real Radio Times issues for
example we noticed that many of their
double page spreads feature a main image
which is usually large and takes up a lot of
the page, which is something we decided to
do. As well as this, we included smaller
things like making sure that our page
numbers were the right way around and
that the left was even and the right was odd
which is how the pages go in a real
magazine. Furthermore, from the doctor
who issue on the previous page it is clear to
see that Radio Times uses a large image as
their main image but includes smaller
images as features within this. This is
something we noticed in the majority of
their issues so is something we chose to do
also as it we felt that it would look more like
a real feature of the magazine.

8. We chose to include 3 columns of writing on each page which not only
followed the codes and conventions of other media products, but also
flowed better for the reader. Our original idea was to have the writing
in a block going along the bottom of the page but when comparing
this to other magazines as well as Radio Times, we noticed that this
was uncommon and may have made it look unprofessional. Finally, we
included grab quotes from the article which would make it more eye
catching and stand out more to the reader, as well as including the
date and time of this particular issue of the magazine as well as when
our documentary would be aired. Overall, I feel that we followed the
right codes and conventions for this media product which in turn gave
it more of a professional look and as though it would be a real feature
within Radio Times.

9. How our radio trailer followed codes and
conventions of real media products?
From analysing real capital FM radio
trailer, it was clear to me that they are
better to be kept short and that this is
the pattern they usually follow. With
this in mind, we decided to aim to
make ours last for around 30 seconds,
which we achieved. As well as this,
each one of the radio trailers I had
listened to, had background music
running throughout it which is another
convention we chose to follow. Below,
is a screenshot of the finished radio
trailer which we made on premiere
pro, showing the layout we chose to
follow and our timings of each clip.
This shows the change in
music from the beginning of
the radio trailer to introduce it
compared to the rest of the
trailer where we use more of a
background music piece to not
distract the listeners from the
narration.
This shows the length of our
radio trailer lasting at around
35 seconds, which is the
average length of the radio
trailers I analysed.

10. Furthermore, we used an authoritative tone for our radio advert which
was clear but also a teenage voice which we hoped would appeal to
our primary target audience. As well as this we tried to keep it informal
which is the tone of a lot of other capital FM adverts as we thought
that this would get the necessary information across to the listeners
without putting them off watching the documentary.

11. How our documentary developed codes and
conventions of real media products:
One documentary we analysed in detail was ‘supersize me’ and this was one where
we found it to have more of a biased opinion to some documentaries. We chose to
develop this idea and rather than having a set opinion throughout the film, which
may put viewers off, we decided to gets facts and opinions from both sides of our
argument. This meant that we got voxpops from students who were in favour of
drinking and spoke of the positives but we also included interviews for example
with a policeman who spoke of the downsides to alcohol. This meant that we
switched between biased and unbiased and tried to remain as objective as we
could throughout it.
Furthermore, in the ‘supersize me’ documentary, Spurlock chose to open with a
child singing the pizza hut song which was related to the topic that he was focusing
on. I thought this was an effective idea and we chose to develop this idea further
for our documentary. Instead of opening with a title which is often how
documentaries start, we chose to make a montage of video clips showing drunken
actions with a voice over on the top of this of a man speaking about his daughter
getting into difficulties because of alcohol. We thought this was an effective idea
also, because we tried to give both sides of the argument in one clip, the voice over
giving the bad side and the montage showing the fun side of alcohol.

12. This is a screenshot from our finished
documentary showing a still image of
part of the montage. This is clear to
see that the images show people
clubbing and at parties having fun,
and in the background of some shots
we can see alcohol.

13. How our documentary challenged codes and
conventions of real media products:
One way we decided to challenge the codes and conventions of real media
products was by including clips from reality shows within our film. We thought that
this idea would make our documentary stand out more, because out of all of the
documentaries I analysed, I didn’t see this kind of technique being used in a real
media product. We therefore thought this would be effective as it would be eye
catching to our viewers for them to watch something that they are already aware of
and recognise. One program we know is very popular to our primary target
audience is ‘Geordie shore’ and so we decided to include clips from their reality
show in our documentary to make mention of shows that promote alcohol and
binge drinking.

14. Below I have included a screenshot from the documentary where we decided to
import these clips. Although this only lasted for a few seconds we thought it would
get the attention of viewers as they would be seeing something familiar and make
them more likely to want to continue watching it. The clip we chose to use shows
the effects of alcohol as it shows that someone has fallen down the stairs because
of excessive drinking.
I have also included
still from the shows
which we did not
feature in our
documentary. This
shows how much
the program is based
around drinking and
the way in which the
characters promote
it to appeal to
teenagers

15. Another way in which we challenged the forms and conventions of real
media products was the fact that we chose to use an off screen voice over
for our documentary. We thought that this would portray more of an overall
opinion which is the message that we wanted to get across, rather than
filming one person talking to a camera. By doing it this way, it also meant
that we could put up facts and images on screen while having our voice over
introducing the next scene. This is a contrast to the ‘supersize me’
documentary as this film used a participatory mode and Spurlock have his
own views and opinions.
This is a still taken form the
‘supersize me’ documentary which
shows Spurlock talking to the
camera. This is something we wanted
to avoid and challenge by having an
off screen presenter.

16. In a similar way to how we used Geordie shore clips to help us get our point
across to the viewers and make it sink in more, Spurlock used a similar
approach. A large proportion of his documentary contained graphics and
advertisements to talk about his topics, for example the still from the
documentary below. This show a graphic explaining how many McDonald’s
there are worldwide, and by using this image it will make it more likely for
the image to stick in the viewers head. This is the approach we took and by
including reality shows in our documentary, this will hopefully make it more
memorable to viewers.

17. How our magazine listing challenged the codes and
conventions of real media products:
As we were featuring our double page spread in Radio Times, this meant that
we analysed and looked into this magazine to see what their typical layout
was and the types of things they included in a double page spread. One thing
we noticed was that a lot of time, the images in the feature are of behind the
scenes clips from the making of their film or program.
I have found 3 features from Radio Times and for each one they have chosen
to include behind the scenes images and actually used ‘behind the scenes’ as
their title. Although we did want our magazine listing to look as though it
fitted in with a real double page spread, we thought that if we added in
behind the scenes images it would take away the attention and space for
necessary information. Instead of this we chose to have a main image of one
of the bar tenders we interviewed which was taken from the documentary
itself. We thought this was eye catching as it was a bright image and had lots
of alcohol present in the picture so it brought attention to the topic we were
talking about. We followed the codes and conventions however, of the image
layout as we positioned our main image across the top half the page
horizontally and our smaller images in midst of the text.

18. These images show that Radio
Times follow a clear layout for
each of their articles and when
looking at our magazine listing
‘tipsy teens’ it is clear to see we
have followed this layout as best
we could

19. How our radio trailer developed codes and
conventions of real media products:
One thing that we chose to do, was rather than having a voice over running
through the whole of radio trailer, we wanted to break this up with the
public talking. We did this by getting short voxpops from our documentary
and including this in our radio trailer to entice the listener to watch the film.
We stuck with 2-3 second clips with students sounded shocked or telling part
of a funny story which we hoped would interest our listeners to want to find
out what they are talking about.
When I had been analysing other radio trailers, I noticed that a lot of the
time they broke up their voice overs with other clips, and this was often
celebrities talking which would interest the listeners if they were a fan of
that celebrity. We chose to develop this idea with the voxpops as we thought
that sounded effective by having lots of voices within the 30 seconds, rather
than having one voice talking throughout the advert which may be boring.

20. Overall…
Overall, I feel that we followed the right amount of codes and
conventions for each of our media products but in some parts
developed and challenged these where necessary to make it a more
sucessful media product. We also tried to compare our documentary to
Spurlock’s ‘supersize me’ which was useful as in some aspects we
followed the same conventions as him but other times we developed
these to fit our film how we wanted to, for example with his graphics to
advertise and our clips of Geordie shore.