In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
1.
2. In what ways does your
media product use,develop
or challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
3. To begin my research I looked into different types of
documentaries
such
as
Capturing
the
Friedmans, Educating Essex/Yorkshire and The Selling of
a Serial Killer. From this research I discovered a range of
different styles that directors have used to capture
audiences attention, in regards of the topic they address.
In the early planning stages of my documentary it was clear
what topic I wanted to focus on and that was education.
At first, my aim was to make an observational
documentary that included no interviews and no outside
interferences from myself, however I realised that this
wouldn’t be particularly entertaining. I then decided to
combine features of participatory, observational and
expository documentaries, which I learnt when looking at
Bill Nichols Modes of Documentary, to create the comical
element I needed to keep my audience interested.
4. Researching into documentaries that are based on the same topic;
Educating Yorkshire and Educating Essex, were very beneficial
for me to look at because it gave me an idea of how these types
of documentaries used different techniques to maintain the
audiences focus and interest, I found that by using conflicting
views between the teacher and a former student was most
effective in doing this. From watching different documentaries as
it helped to influence what techniques I used in my
documentary, for example I knew that I needed to use a small
sequence that would immediately catch the audiences attention
and set the tone for the whole documentary.
This is why I decided to use a small clip with Mr Folgheraiter when
he was showing his funny side, which was what I was hoping of
portraying throughout the documentary, I felt this was
particularly effective for an opening to my documentary. I also
used copyright free music for the title sequence and the ending
of my documentary, I decided not to use music behind the
dialogue because it made it the dialogue unclear and I felt it took
away the tone I was looking for.
5. The topic of education is quite a broad one, so I knew that to
be able to make all the necessary points that I needed I had
to be prepared. I had been taught previously by Mr
Folgheraiter so holding an interview with him was very
easy and natural for me to do, it also allowed him to show
his funny side which I needed to capture to make my
documentary work efficiently.
I don’t think I challenged any conventions of real media
products because I was very much complying with them as
I included real footage from when I had observed his
classes and used texts and titles to introduce the
documentary and any interviewee that was featured.
6. In regards to my ancillary tasks I needed to ensure that they
promoted my documentary to the right audience. My
target audience would be young adults or people still in
education, including teachers. I thought this would be a
fair prediction because they would be able to relate to my
documentary as every pupil would have had a teacher or
colleague that they would have a laugh with.
