The document summarizes an evaluation of a student's A2 media studies coursework where they produced the opening 5 minutes of a documentary about university fees. It discusses how the documentary and supplementary materials like a listings page and radio trailer utilized or challenged conventions of real media to engage their target audience of 17-18 year olds considering university. Codes and conventions from channel 4 documentaries like interviews, shots, transitions, sound, and listings pages were employed, while some elements like transitions and images on the listings page were challenged.

1. A2 Media Studies Coursework Evaluation Julia Cockrill

2. A2 Media Studies Coursework Evaluation For our coursework, we had to produce the opening 5 minutes to a documentary. To maintain the conventions of a documentary, I did research into real life documentaries in order to create a professional product at the end. Our documentary was about University Fees and if the higher tuition is worth the experience. It would reach the target audience of young people, mainly 17-18, looking to go University; mixed race, male/female/ channel 4 viewers. Is it to show a range of opinions and social backgrounds to show the topic is affecting everyone. We used Channel 4 as our research showed it’s most popular for teens to watch and is most aimed at the younger generations, using the same informal style I wanted to portray with the documentary.

7. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of real media products? Different Shots To keep to the conventions of a documentary, we used a variety of camera skills and angles for professionalism. We tried different types to see what worked best in order to maintain the appeal to the audience. The montage is made up of extreme close ups give the intensity and fast pace of the documentary which captures the viewers interest. Others included close ups of the computer screen, university course books and leaflets.

9. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of real media products? Tableau Shots In the focus group, we used tableau shots showing the students with prospectuses to give an observational feel and as if they’re naturally looking through them before we spoke to them. Medium Long Shots Presenter: Using a MLS suggesting we’re inside where the establishing shot took us. I think we should’ve had more of the presenter in our documentary showing more location within the college. Images from our documentary and the one we analysed in class: Are The Net Police Coming For You?

15. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of real media products? I found our listings page to be too plain for our target audience, but they liked the layout. The title, information on date and time and the drop caps are professional looking. Rule of thirds is used for all magazine articles. Conventions: Red is for usual conventions, Yellow are the challenged conventions. The main image spreads across both pages, This could’ve been done better with more time . Drop shadow on photos are not aligned to give more attention to the smaller images. Photos have captions to provide more information to the reader. Photos are screen shots of the documentary.

16. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge codes and conventions of real media products? Quotations to stand out written in italics. We also added lines to took it away from the rest of the text to move attention away from the article. We did face difficulties with the listings page as I had to make a new one at the last minute. Therefore the final product was made within 2 and a half hours. We challenged the conventions of images using drop shadow as well as a white text box around it at a slant to draw attention to them and give a more informal style.

18. 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks? As a combination, the main task and ancillary tasks had to work well together and create a Brand Identity. This is when there are links made between all of your products. Our main link was the overall question of ‘Are the higher university fees worth the overall experience?’ (In short: Is it worth it?) This was to give the audience a familiarity throughout all of the products so they know that after reading the article or listening to the radio trailer, they’d know exactly what will be in the documentary. Our brand identity linked with money and education. Timings: So the audience know when they can watch the documentary, timings are extremely important to inform them. Unfortunately the radio trailer says the documentary is showing on Sunday instead of Thursday. Titles: The general titles of the documentary and listings page need to link, and though they’re different, they still fit around the theme of money and rising fees. The real listings pages I looked at showed this is what they do.

19. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks? Images: For the listings page, I took screen captures from the actual documentary in order to show they two are linked. Quotations: We used different quotes for the listings page and the radio trailer. The radio trailer focused on what the Principal had to say, whereas the listings page concentrated on Neil Attewell. All products nowadays need to promote themselves through many different social networks and popular sites; and now magazine articles and radio trailers don’t get through to the target audience we want as they used to, before so much technology. Therefore, advertising online would be the next step, in reality, as that’s where you’ll find most teenagers. Showing a preview of the documentary on a site like ‘Facebook’ would been attractive because not only is it on their social website, it would be in the form of a video clip, and interactive media is now very popular.

21. What have you learned from your audience feedback? About 75% thought overall, our documentary was ‘good’, another 20% thought it was ‘very good’, and 5% thought it was ‘OK’. (approx.) 50% of the audience felt the choice of topic was ‘very good’, 40% ‘good’ and 10% ‘excellent’ . These are the results of the questionnaires:

22. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Majority thought the material was ‘good’ or ‘very good’, linking to the topic. Editing was also 70% ‘good’ in order for the viewer to understand what the documentary is about.

23. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Mostly thought the sound was ‘good’ but more people only thought it was ‘OK’ because after getting feedback, the audience found the sound could be improved. 60% thought the transitions and effects were ‘good’, 20% ‘very good’ and 20% ‘OK’. This was due to fading blackouts, but the captions were fine.

24. What have you learned from your audience feedback? The audience found the documentary very good for our target audience due to the fast pace montages and the people we included in it. Majority of the feedback found the professionalism ‘good’ but could’ve been made better through time management and working together.

25. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Likes Dislikes Range of footage Transitions through interviews The topic The lighting in some shots Good interviews with students/’experts’ Sound levels need to be better Title graphics The voiceover should some more enthusiastic about the topic The relevance of today

27. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? During the research and planning stage, it was essential having the internet to find out the most up-to-date information on the topic and know what we were talking about so the internet played a big role in the early stages. To see how it’s effecting the media, we used search engines like Google to find news items. This helped us to make our decision and get hold of the right statistics and figures. Some web pages we found: Higher fees Fewer applicants

28. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? YouTube and 4OD Looking at already existing documentaries online helped us get a feel for how ours should look with the correct conventions. As our documentary would go on Channel 4, we looked at theirs in particular and what makes them appeal to a younger audience. Although similar topics to our documentary had not been made recently by them, getting the overall idea from others helped us see what goes into them. The inspiration was incorporated through the ident voiceover by using their style whereby they mention the programme on later on, and then giving some contents to what the audience are about to watch. Examples of idents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVdllN67OQ

29. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? The Blog The blog, throughout the coursework, has been very important to update and helped to keep up with deadlines with work. Everyone in the group had set tasks and work that should’ve been put on the blog to show the skills developed over time. I managed to put all my necessary pieces of work up on time and it’s easy to be able to see what others have done. We were able to post work from college and from home so it’s been a useful way to log progress and/or struggles during the coursework process. Our group put work in the folder named CO5, and with this you can see how many posts you added, when the most recent was added, and if you want you add another/edit.

30. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? This is the page where you can look at old posts for editing. You can also select individual group member’s work by clicking on their name which I’ve circled. The blog has an easy way of putting photos or videos up. It also helps the group to get work off each other instead of being emailed or finding it in various folders. All the work we need is on one system . You show what pieces of work are yours by adding your name in the thin box at the bottom to give credit where needed. It also saves automatically throughout your time on the one post so no work is lost by accident. You can also ‘preview’ the work before finally posting it.

32. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Tripod: These were good for keeping the camera steady and makes for good panning shots. Although it was hard at times finding a flat surface, it made it easier for long clips so the camera holder wouldn’t become shaky. Microphone: Used for recording interviewee's voices and voiceovers. It enable sound to be clearer than just using the video camera’s microphone. Recorder: We were able to set the sound levels of any clip we recorded to the same level using this, although we had trouble with the levels sometimes, and also had a problem that we thought we were recording when we weren’t really. Headphones: Kept the sound clear and helped us know if the right sound was being picked up, or whether we needed to re-locate or re-record.

34. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Final Cut Express: We put together our whole documentary using this software from the Apple Macs. We put all our cut down clips into minutes and their own ‘bins’. Viewing screen for play back or print screens for storyboards etc (by using shift, command, 4). These are the layers of sound and clips which are placed onto a timeline. The main stream would usually go on the middle line, and the ident or captions would go on other layers. We also created sound bridges for clips and sound to flow by using the pen button. You can also move individual or all clips by locking them together which makes for easier motion.

35. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? We were able to increase or decrease sound levels using the pink lines to make sure no clips were too loud or too quiet. Or we could fade sound in and out, like the background music, for example to bring in the next scene.

36. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Adding Text: With Final Cut we were able to add other conventions like captions and a title. You can change font, colour, size and alignment for however you want it to look using different controls. We added a drop shadow to captions to make it more informal.

39. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Burning I choice to present my evaluation on Microsoft PowerPoint to be added to Slide Share where I could include images and hyperlinks to other sites or videos to be as interactive as possible. After all of our product were complete and we met the deadline, we had to burn the documentary and radio trailer onto CD-R discs. For the documentary, we exported the file to ‘mov’ and used iDVD to give it a formal content menu screen making it more professional. Evaluation