1. A2 Media Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?

2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
At the start of our A2 course we were told that we would have to produce a 5 minute introduction for a television
documentary. As well as this, we also had to produce a radio trailer and a double page spread for a TV listings
magazine. These two products will be used to advertise our documentary. To produce our documentary, we first had to
decide on a target audience and a interesting topic that would relate to our particular target audience.
As we were only producing the first 5 minutes of our documentary, we had to decide what the tone for our documentary
was going to be; whether it was going to be light- hearted, serious, optimistic or pessimistic. It was extremely important
for us to set the tone of our documentary straight away. However, because we had chosen contraception as our topic
which is a serious matter, the tone was immediately set for us as contraception is a topic people don’t like to joke about.
Although, we kept this in mind during our documentary, we also included a few light- hearted moments as we had to
bear in mind that our target audience are only young and will not enjoy a documentary that is purely serious.
American documentary theorist Bill Nichols distinguished traits and conventions between certain documentary film
styles. In his 2001 book, Introduction to Documentary (Indiana University Press), Bill Nichols defines the following six
modes of documentary:
• Poetic: Transforms historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form
• Observational: Watches the subject and allows the audience to form thir own opinions.
• Expositional: Social issues assembled into an argumentative frame.
• Participatory: The filmmaker engages in the documentary they are producing.
• Performative: Acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of the documentary
• Reflexive: Engages actively with the issues of realism and representation.
Using these six modes, we have been able to watch documentaries and identify which of the six modes that
documentary falls into. However, more often than not, most documentaries feature elements from more than one mode
in them.

3. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Our documentary mostly fits into the expository mode but also features elements from the reflexive
and poetic mode.
It fits into the expository mode because our documentary 'Underage and Protected' uses a voiceover
which acts as a commentary from the filmmaker, spoken while the camera is filming. We chose to use
voiceover rather than a presenter because that way we could speak directly to the viewer whilst the
camera was filming something relevant to the topic. For example,
the voiceover in our documentary states the statistic that "about
one in ten women are at risk of an unintended pregnancy“ whilst
the camera is filming a visual aid showing a picture of ten women
and one of them being pregnant. Morgan Spurlock also uses
visual aids in his documentary “Supersize Me”. He uses the drink
cups to convey the drastic
differences between the sizes.
Both documentaries use these visual aids to link in with the
voiceover. When the visual aids of these drink cups are on
screen, Morgan Spurlock is emphasising how much sugar would
be in each of the different sizes.
The expository mode also states that the documentary proposes a
strong argument which our documentary does. In our documentary
we provide the audience with the strong debate as to whether
contraception is too easily available to teenagers in today’s
society. This is identical to how Morgan Spurlock proposed the strong argument that fast food has
caused obesity to rise in his documentary “Supersize Me”.

4. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
During this course, I have spent a lot of time studying the codes and conventions of many different
documentaries including “Supersize Me”, “The Undateables” and “Teen Mom”. By analysing these
documentaries, I have managed to pick up on some codes and conventions which our documentary
also features.
The uses of camera was one of the conventions I picked up on. This includes shots
types such as, close ups, medium close ups, establishing shots, long shots and
extreme close ups.
“Teen Mom” uses mainly close ups and extreme close ups to portray their feelings
to the audience clearly.
“The Undateables” also use mainly close ups and medium close ups when talking to
their interviewees.
In our documentary, we have used mainly close ups and medium close ups and made
sure the framing on each shot is professional and looks clear to the reader.

5. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
“Supersize Me” used a handheld camera a lot whereas in our documentary we chose to use a tripod.
We used this on various occasions such as establishing shots of the college and during interviews with
our experts and teachers. Using the tripod ensured us that we would have a steady and be able to use
camera skills such as pan, tracking and zooming which made our documentary look professional. The
tripod also ensures that the rule of thirds was applied in our expert interviews during our documentary.
“Supersize Me” uses the rule of thirds when talking to experts so we decided to use the same
technique in our documentary too. The rue of thirds ensures that the expert is sitting at the edge of the
shot looking across the camera at dead space. From analysing “Supersize Me” we also chose to have
the experts name and profession come across the bottom of the screen during the interview. After
studying “Supersize Me” we also realised that filming the experts in a professional setting helps
emphasis to the audience that the expert knows what they’re talking about and has a useful opinion on
the topic.

6. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Sound is another code and convention that I discovered was important in a documentary. “Supersize
Me”, “The Undateables” and “Teen Mom” all made sure that their sound whether it be digetic, non-
digetic, voiceover or presenter was clear enough for the audience to hear.
“Supersize Me” used a presenter as well as a voiceover in their documentary which makes the
documentary feel more personal as the audience can see the person the voiceover is coming from.
Also, a presenter works well because the presenter can have a direct eye line to the audience whilst
delivering their point or opinion. “The Undateables” however, only uses a voiceover because the
documentary revolves around a set of individuals therefore the subjects become a type of presenter
for the audience to relate to. “Teen Mom” is different from both of these documentaries as it does not
have a presenter as the teenage moms shown in the series are voiceovers themselves, so the
documentary cuts from one mom to the other with that certain mom becoming the voiceover relaying
her story to the audience.
Taking all the techniques used in all three of these documentaries, we decided that we would use a
voiceover because our documentary is more informative and a presenter was not necessary. We used
the voiceover to convey facts and statistics to the audience but also to guide the audience through the
documentary as it progressed.
We recorded the voiceover using a microphone, headphones and
inserted it into Final Cut Express.

7. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Background music was another code and convention of documentaries that we had to consider using
in our documentary. Near about every documentary we have watched has involved background music
somehow so we knew that we had to find some background music to play whilst the camera was not
on our experts.
We researched what other documentaries had used, for example, “Supersize Me” uses a lot of
copyrighted songs which we could not use. “Teen Mom” doesn’t use much music apart from when the
title sequence is playing which didn’t really help us because we knew we needed some form of
background music.
However, “The Undateables” helped us to decide how to incorporate background music smoothly into
the flow of our documentary. “The Undateables” uses background music during the title sequences but
also uses clips of music when the camera is filming shots such as establishing shots which needs a
piece of music behind it to keep the audience interested in the documentary. Keeping this in mind, we
decided to have a continuous background music track playing throughout the documentary but
lowering the volume of the music whilst the voice over or experts were talking.
We used Garage Band to find simple beats that we could compose into a track to use as background
music. We chose Club Dance Beat 007 to use as our background music because
we thought that our target audience would enjoy listening to this type of music.

8. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Facts and figures were used throughout “Supersize Me” to help emphasise Morgan Spurlock’s point to
the audience. He placed a visual aid on the screen whilst the voiceover described it to the audience.
We also decided to use this technique in our documentary as we thought it was a great way to convey
our point to the audience clearly. Both documentaries have used a map which helps to portray the
point to the audience in a
simple way. We decided
to use this so that the
audience wouldn’t be
bombarded with facts all
through the documentary
and could deduce the
relevant information for
themselves.
From watching “Supersize Me” I realised that special effects are used throughout the documentary.
Special effects are used to make the transition from shot to shot more different and smooth for the
audience. We also used special effects during our documentary as it makes each transition creative.

9. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
As well as our documentary, we also had to produce a double page spread and a radio trailer to
support our documentary.
This is our finished double page article which
we produced for the TV listings magazine TV
Choice. We decided not to use Radio Times to
publish our double page spread in as we
thought our target audience wouldn’t read
Radio Times therefore our documentary won’t
be advertising to the right audience. The aim of
our double page article is to sell and advertise
our documentary.
We had to look at existing double page spread’s
featured in various TV magazines to identify
codes and conventions that will make our article
look professional and will use the codes and
conventions of real media products. Because
we have chosen TV Choice as our publisher,
we decided to look specifically at their existing
articles to make sure ours looked professional.

10. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Both double page spreads use a purple
banner at the top of the page with “The
best of this week’s TV” on it in yellow. Both
articles
also have
a yellow
box that
states
what type
of
program
me it
is, the
title and
the time it
is airing.
Our double page spread Existing TV Choice article
Both spreads have structured their text
into columns to make the article look more
professional.

11. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
The existing TV Choice
double page spread
uses a drop cap to
start the article and I
also used a drop cap
to start our double
page spread.
If you compare our double page spread to the existing TV
Choice article you can point out codes and conventions we
have followed in our double page spread. Both of these
double page spreads follow the codes and conventions of
professional TV listings double page spreads.

12. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
To understand the codes and conventions needed for radio trailers, we analysed many existing radio
trailers. We listened to many radio trailers from various radio channels such as Radio 1, Capital FM
and 5Live. We decided that our radio trailer will be broadcasted on the radio channel Radio 1 because
their target audience fits into our target audience which will ensure that our radio trailer is targeted at
the right people.
We knew that because our topic was serious that we had to make our radio trailer light hearted
somehow without demeaning our topic. We used the background music to soften the tone a little and
we produced it on Garage Band. We chose a beat that would appeal to our target audience and keep
them interested throughout the radio trailer.
The purpose of the radio trailer is to advertise and sell the documentary to the
audience so the time, date and channel for the documentary needs to be
conveyed clearly through the radio trailer directly to the audience. This
ensures that the audience have the information they need to watch the
documentary if they find it interesting and want to learn the more about the
topic.