1. ADVANCED PORTFOLIO EVALUATION
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
The coursework consisted in making the opening 5 minutes of a documentary, a radio trailer for
this documentary and a magazine article also on the documentary. We decided to produce our
media product about Student Finance and choices students have after they finish college. Each
member of our group had a variety of understanding about documentary conventions which we
used in the making of our media project. As the task was to produce a 5 minute opening, we
could plan how we want our documentary product to look like by researching other
documentaries to get a better understanding.
During class we watched several documentaries to see the different styles and
influences they may or may not use. The documentary ‘Super Size Me’ follows Morgan
Spurlock on his 30-day period of only eating McDonald’s food, 3 meals per day. This
documentary shows what effect this food can have on a person’s lifestyle and physical
well-being. This documentary is similar to the documentary I produced with my group as
they have the same purpose to inform the audience about the chosen topic. As well as
similarities, ‘Super Size Me’ and my documentary ‘Student Finance’ both use different
styles of filming, genres and representation.
Our ‘Student Finance’ documentary was done in a cinema verite style. This is because of the
use of techniques we used when filming footage to convey students at college. We used a lot of
hand – held camera and the use of a tripod, when filming still shots, interviews and also students
working around the college. This was to show the audience of our documentary what choices
students have and showing them in a realistic way whilst they’re at college. This style of genre
that we have used is also similar to direct cinema. Direct cinema is another documentary genre
but they use no voice over’s or interviews, but show fly-on-the-wall real events, leaving the
audience to draw up own conclusions. There are similar elements in both genres, but cinemas
verite suits our documentary as we can give interviews, and use a voice over to help give the
message and develop understanding about ‘Student Finance’ for the audience. ‘Super Size Me’
uses direct cinema as it has a lot of fly-on-the-wall footage. But it challenges this genre style, as
Morgan Spurlock is the presenter and the documentary includes interviews and dissolve edits,
where in the rules of direct cinema, this shouldn’t be allowed. Understanding this, ‘Super Size Me’
includes a variety of styles of documentary as it includes several genres and sub-genres. These
sub genres includes; video diary entries which are made by Spurlock, talking about how he
feels and about the situation he had got himself into. These are effective for ‘Super Size Me’ as
the video entries can show the audience how Spurlock is truly feeling and it gives a sense of
realism and seriousness about eating fast food everyday. ‘Super Size Me’ gives a fly-on-the-wall
feel to it and the audience can clearly see what is happening to Morgan Spurlock and other
people during the documentary. For the documentary my group and I made, we didn’t use any
diary entries, as it was more of an informative and public affair documentary. Our documentary
would be usually shown on public service broadcasting channels, and in particular Channel 4.
Our documentary explores the options students have and the problems with going to university or
not, and employment rates for 16-24 year olds. Compared to ‘Super Size Me’ they both follow
media conventions but just not the same, as they both are for different audiences and showing
different parts of social issues.
My media product represents student life and choices students have to make during college life.
The documentary presents different views about what is best to do for students when they leave
college. It gives a neutral view as it shows good and bad views in either going university or
seeking for a job. It explores student life and future aspirations for them. It gives facts that will be
helpful for students when making such decisions. It takes a good attitude towards this, as the

2. documentary is there to help students and keep them in mind so they feel supported. When
looking at other documentaries such as ‘Super Size Me’ it represents a polemical view which
expresses that McDonalds food is really unhealthy for people. This view comes across as they
show what happens when eating this fast food, and shows letters/stories that are biased in
against eating McDonald’s food. The filming that we see shows Morgan Spurlock getting ill and
unhealthy, so people who see this documentary will automatically see what ‘Super Size Me’ is
representing.
Documentary
We have watched several documentaries during class such as ‘Super Size Me’ and ‘Airline’.
Seeing these documentaries, we can see the basic conventions and gain ideas on how to put a
documentary together. Both documentaries gave variety of shots by the use of the camera,
which included; close up shots, medium shots and wide/long shots. I also witnessed different
edits and ways of showing the information. I gained a lot of experience by watching these
documentaries so I was able to follow these conventions for when I put own documentary
together.
We used the camera when filming footage for our ‘Student Finance’ documentary. We used the
camera in different ways to get a variety of shots, so it looks more interesting and appealing for
the documentary. I filmed these shots by using a handheld camera and also the tripod to gain
stability in the filming. Most of the footage we used was using the tripod as it was easy to control
and set up. Also, using the tripod made it easier to set up interviews, as you could change
different heights the filming took place. We used the tripod when gain footage of students walking
around the college, setting up interviews, tracking, panning and zooming. Following these
conventions, you can see the way we set up our expert interviews, and made sure we used the
rule of thirds. This can be seen when looking at ‘Super Size Me’ that we have followed the same
conventions.
Student Finance, Interview Super Size Me, Interview
As you can see both shots follow the convention when interviewing an expert. Both interviews show
surroundings of the experts and give an idea of what their profession is. Both of them also follow the rule of
thirds by making sure the eye lines an also a third way down of the screen. As they are both positioned on the
left, they should be looking out towards the right, to the interviewer – which is what is happening.
When creating the background music and putting the voiceover in the documentary, I used
Garage Band and Final Cut to blend these together to make sure they sounded right. The sound
is very important during TV documentaries as using voiceovers, presenters or soundtracks
can help the TV documentary seem more interesting or help get across the message they are
trying to portray. In ‘Super Size Me’ they used a voiceover, and a presenter which was the same
person, as well as background music’s. This works well for this documentary as having a
presenter help show what Morgan Spurlock went through and how he felt. This also brought a
comedy feel to the documentary. In my media product, we used a voiceover to help the flow of
the documentary and explain what it is about. This worked well for the theme of the documentary

3. and also the audience. When picking the background music, we looked at different tunes in
Garage Band. As we couldn’t use copyright music, then using this program was good for our
documentary. We chose an upbeat sound for our background music as this was a simple tune
that could play during the background. We made sure we change it slightly, so it didn’t get
annoying as well. TV documentaries use background music to
suit their documentary. As our audience was students, then
we thought this suited it well. However, when looking back at
the documentary with the music, sometimes it was
overpowering against the voiceover and interviews.
Selection of different
tunes on Garage Band.
Other conventions that we used that other TV documentaries
use, is special effects. We did this by using effects of the
camera, and on Final Cut Express. This was to make the
visual part of the documentary interesting and adding different
things to get peoples attention. When using effects on the camera, I created these by zooming in
to loose focus or create a focus that’s blurred around the edge of the picture. From seeing
‘Super Size Me’ they used several special effects such as out of focus shots. We followed the
same convention so this shows that we are using this correctly.
Out of focus of
students walking,
Student Finance.
Out of focus shot of a
sign in a McDonalds,
Super Size Me.
As well as using special effects, we also used transitions in our documentary. We did a lot of
‘Non-Addictive Dissolves’ and ‘Cross Dissolves’. We challenged this convention though, as
most documentaries don’t use a lot of these transitions, especially informative documentaries
such as our ‘Student Finance’. We challenged this convention by using these transitions but
overall it worked out well as we used a variety which suited our documentary.

4. Magazine Article
When following and challenging the conventions of articles, I
looked at ‘Radio Times’ and ‘TV Mag’ to see how the normal
articles are laid out. I already knew what programme to use
when creating it, which is InDesign. These magazines that
feature TV listings for documentaries and TV programmes give
information about the listing such as what it is about and when it
will be shown. Also they give several still shots of the
documentary. When creating the magazine we made sure we
included these conventions in order for it to be successful and
look like it would actually be shown inside ‘Radio Times’.
Layout of
magazine Page Number
Still shot of
footage of
documentary
Title, sub
heading
Information about
times and dates Pull out quotes
Drop caps
Picture – related
to ‘Student
Finance’
documentary
Use of
columns
Here are two different programme
listings that were in ‘Radio Times’. They
both show the same conventions that I
have shown above with the picture of the
article about my documentary. Our article
includes lots of the simple conventions
that normal articles should have. It
includes pull out quotes, pictures that
represent the finance side of the
documentary and follows the rules of
columns, page numbers and drop
caps. By looking at the other articles, we
could have included either more
information about the documentary or
more graphics; this is to fill up the whiter
spaces.

5. Radio Trailer
Documentaries use radio trailers to promote their TV listings and inform people what the
documentary is about. In class we were given sheets to write down about different radio trailers.
This was a good experience as we could analyse the way they work and what information they
include.
Our radio trailer was created by recording the script with a microphone and camera, so we could
upload this on to garage band. We again picked a backing track for the radio trailer. We kept a
similar choice to our documentary upbeat soundtrack, as we decided a track with a beat like this
would attract listeners. We included two different clips that were recorded into our documentary,
to get across what the documentary was about. We were very pleased with our results, and of
course we included the dates and time that it would be shown.
Screen shot of using
Garage Band
This is following the conventions of producing the music and putting it together with the
script/voice over in order to make it successful.
We used rhetorical questions in the script in order to gain the audiences attraction so they can
hear the advert on the radio, and then carry on to listen to it to gather information about it. The
scripts questions said “Worried about University? Or where to go next?” Which were spoken in an
enthusiastic voice to be friendly and warming to the audience, specially the students. I learnt
when listening to the different documentaries that they seem friendly to invite people in to listen. I
used these techniques from the different radio trails in order to put this when creating my radio
trailer.
2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
texts?
The documentary, radio trailer and magazine article are all combined to make an effective brand
identity. When creating all of these products, I made sure that they were all connected by giving
the same information and making sure it reaches the same target audience.
The target audience for our product is aimed for 16-18 year old boys and girls in college. It’s
aimed at students in particular to help them for future references about going to university, or
seeking a job. It gives them support and facts about what options they can do, and where they
can go for help. Although it is aimed at students as the information given is for them, it is also
aimed for their parents, or other people who may be interested in the subject of ‘Student Finance’.
It is important that we portray everything for this target audience other wise the products wouldn’t
be any good and wouldn’t gain the proper audience it is meant to. The documentary takes place
at Sixth Form College, Solihull in the West Midlands. This doesn’t mean to say that it’s only
suitable for people in this local area to watch it, as it records students in the college that may
have a resemblance with other students around the UK.
When looking back when watching ‘Super Size Me’ it’s purpose is about informing their target
audience about obesity and healthy living/eating. In our documentary ‘Student Finance’ it also
targets our target audience which is students, about student life and what to do when leaving
college. Both documentaries are notifying their audiences on these social issues that effect a
large population of them. The students are our target audience, and leaving college and thinking
about their future is a big part of their college life. From my own personal experience I know how
hard college can be and choosing options, so this documentary can help students with this issue
by gaining information about what to do next.

6. The target audience isn’t for anyone in particular with certain characteristics. This means that
the documentary is for different types of people as in no specific race, gender, disability or
religion. This means it’s for a wider variety of people and isn’t stopping people from different
backgrounds or who have a disability from also gaining the information about ‘Student Finance’.
Documentary
When creating the tasks for the product, we made sure we used certain techniques so it suits
the target audience. To show the documentary is for our chosen target audience, there is lots of
footage of student life including students. We filmed at the Sixth Form College, Solihull where all
filming was chosen from as well as interviews.
Several shots of student
like, college and shots of
resources students use.
All of the footage is about students, and they can relate to this as they are watching it. As the
documentary involves two expert interviews, this can help students as they can recognise the
same people in the colleges they go. This is to help them to see where they can go and makes it
effective as helps to get information across to students as its coming from someone who know
what they are talking about. It shows how realistic the interviews are so students are more likely
to gain more from it and enjoy the visual sided as well. The pictures used in the magazine article
can also be seen in the documentary as well.
Magazine Article
People who would have seen the TV listing inside ‘Radio Times’ will be able to recognise what
they saw and read about, as they both match up effectively. A still shot of one interviewee was
used for the article to show what the filming it about for the article. This connects both of the
products together as we used actual footage that is going to be shown. The article as well
includes lots of features that the documentary features, such as certain facts.
Shown in
documentary and
then used for article
Its effective for the product and the target
audience can’t be confused as the products

7. match each other creating a brand. As the magazine article would be shown in the ‘Radio
Times’, this gives a great opportunity for people to be attracted to the article and then watch the
documentary. Using a reliable source like the ‘Radio Times’ can help update people about the
upcoming documentary if they didn’t already know. ‘Radio Times’ is subscribed to over
2,280,000. Most of these people are actually from the older populations, which could seem a
problem. This isn’t in fact a problem as about 580,000 readers are actually younger between 15
and 44 years old. This is good for the documentary and these people can read the article and be
inspired to see the documentary. The older generations can also help out by letting people they
know who are students, about the documentary.
Radio Trailer
To reach out to even more students and the target audience, the radio trailer would be
broadcasted to inform people. We decided to reach out more to the younger people, by choosing
Capital FM to broadcast the trailer. Capital FM reaches out across the UK having over 7,000,000
listeners. Their target audience is ranged 15-34 year olds, (information found at
http://www.thisisglobal.com/radio/capital/) and is said to be ‘UK’s No.1 hit music station’ so you
would expect lots of listeners. With their repetition, we are able to reach out to students across
the UK to inform them about things that students worry about. As the
‘Student Finance’ documentary was part of a series, using a radio
station like Capital FM can help the series be more popular amongst
the younger population to help them for future references. Using a
popular radio station like Capital helps to connect the radio trailer
and the documentary as our target audience is students – young
people. As the radio station is especially for the same target
audience then it gains the population we need for the documentary.
Overall
All of the 3 different texts make a clear brand identity for ‘Student
Finance’. This is because they all use the same information that is
given about the upcoming documentary and connect by using the texts in each other. This was
seen when the magazine article included quotes of what was going to be said in the
documentary, and on the radio trailer. As they all use the same voice over, this is effect as well as
people are able to recognise the same voice, tone and information given by the voiceover. It’s
important for our brand identity to include the same things so the product can be clearer to the
target audience and they aren’t confused by hearing or seeing different things from all 3
products. We made sure the brand was apparent for the listeners and readers of ‘Capital FM’
and ‘Radio Times’ as these were the organisations we would use to help spread the word about
the documentary that would be showing. Using these organisations helped to promote the
documentary by using the information about what it is about, as well as promoting to the same
target audience. Our target audience is important in this documentary and there wouldn’t be
much point of it if students didn’t see it. ‘Capital FM’ and ‘Radio Times’ were able to support our
documentary by showing the article and broadcastings about the documentary to help our target
audience be interested.
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
During the research and planning for the documentary, we had to do a questionnaire
regarding what people like to see in documentaries. (This can be found in our blog posts). We
created these questionnaires so we were able to get feedback from students and some teachers
from our college, to see what they thought about the subject of student finance. We got some
good feedback about the subject as we wanted to find out what people thought of the idea and
things if they didn’t have a job or didn’t know what to do when they leave college. Other feedback
we got was what they like to see in documentaries, such as visual effects. People said they
enjoyed to see transitions, different shots including special effects and interviews and facts
as it looks more interesting to see.

8. We used this feedback questionnaire to help create our filming and produce our documentary,
radio trailer and the magazine article. It helped us to see what our target audience wanted to see
from these products. So eventually when we finished creating these 3 products about ‘Student
Finance’, we have done another feedback questionnaire with our classmates to see how we
done in relation to what the people wanted to see. Here are the questions asked and results;
Before asking questions about each individual product, we asked personal questions to help
build our documentary on. We asked our candidates to state weather if they were unemployed
and if they were planning to go to university.
6 people said that they were unemployed in their current 6
state. This was good information to gain as we were able to
apply this in our documentary. Over half of the students we 5
asked said that they weren’t employed. We used this
information to help students in our documentary on where 4
to look for jobs and how to apply for them. We found
statistics to show that the age most unemployed people are 3
16-24 years olds in the UK. The employment rate has
recently increased over the last couple of years, so we 2
were able to gather this information to use in our
documentary. University is another option students may
1
take when leaving college. With these results that only 3
people are planning to go to university which seems a very
low number. We knew that the fees for university have now 0
increased, so wanted to see if anyone leaving college soon No Job Going to
have planned to go to university, even due to the increase in fees. Uni
This was useful for us as we decided that as there weren’t many people who said they were
planning on going to university, that we would include this into the documentary.
TV Documentary
Were there any problems with the sound levels?
There were a few problems with the sound levels of the 7
documentary as we found out when watching it back. The 6
results are as show and 7 people agreed that there were
problems with the sound levels. The music was overpowering 5
the script and speeches of people being interviewed. It did
4 Yes
ruin it a bit as people couldn’t hear that well. This slip up was
noticed by ourselves, and we know what we would have to 3 No
do to change this in the future. I agree with these comments,
but as well I think that the sound levels did work well on the 2
occasions they didn’t mess up. I think that the script of the 1
voiceover worked very well as it was all of the same sounds
level and wasn’t too quiet or loud, which is something we 0
worked hard on during Final Cut Express.
Was the music suitable?
8
The results were spilt for this question as people said different
things. The background music we used was different and we 7 In the questionnaire, we
thought blended well into the background for the documentary. 6 always asked questions
Some people said that the music did make them loose interest a about the visual side of the
5
bit as it became irritating to them. As the music was at times documentary, everyone Yes
increased over the documentary’s voiceover and interviews, then 4 commented that the
No
this would be noticeable for the audience to see. It would put 3 transitions worked well,
people off trying to hear a voice over loud music. This would be 2 the documentary kept
something we would have to change when doing this again, by them interested and also
slightly changing the volume of the music, sometimes even 1
they learnt something new
cutting it off completely at times. I think listening to more 0 from the documentary.

9. documentaries could help solve this situation. This would mean not changing to music as 8
people did say that it was suitable, so I just think the levels need tweaking.
Rate documentary overall
We asked our candidates to rate the documentary from; Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor. These
results turned out very well as no one rates it as Poor. We are pleased that we were rate ‘Good’
10 times and ‘Excellent’ once. This is good feedback for the documentary but there is room for
improvement. I think that main thing for the documentary was sorting out the music sound levels
specially when there is a voiceover or an interview. This could be done by turning the sound
levels down or completely off.
Radio Trailer
When asking about the radio trailer, we got great feedback. All of the questions that we asked
specifically about the radio trailer all got 100% positive feedback. This is really good feedback for
our group as we enjoyed putting together the radio trailer, and personally I think it was really
good. We wanted to make sure that all of the products were good bye each aspect of the product
is good and works well. This shows that we have put a lot of hard work into the radio trailer and
by using the techniques we used, shows we done well to meet the criteria.
The positive feedback shows that everything links together and works well to meet the target
audience. As we included the rhetorical questions and clips form the documentary, it catches
people attention and feedback even included “If I heard this it would make me want to watch the
documentary”. This shows that using the clips from the documentary and the way we put the
radio trailer together, it catches the right audience and keeps them interested to keep on listening.
10
8
6
4
Yes
2
No
0
Is the Is the Does it
music purpose keep
suitable? clear? your
Rate radio trailer overall
interest?
This rating was very good and helped to show how people really think of the radio trailer. 4
people rated the radio trailer ‘Excellent’ and 6 said it was ‘Good’. This is good as no one rated the
trailer as ‘Poor’ or ‘Fair’. Even our teacher said that it was very good, and from all this feedback I

10. think it’s hard to see where improvements can be made. These results show that we created the
trailer in the correct and good amount of time.
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
8
7
Magazine Article 6
Does it grab your attention?
5
The results back from this question are that 2 people said no and the Yes
4
rest said yes. This is good as only 20% of the people asked gave a No
negative feedback to it. From looking at the results it is good as 3
people did say it did grab attention. To agree with the 2 people that 2
attention the magazine didn’t grab, I think because the colours where 1
very simple and not eye catching. Although the pictures and title 0
people said grabs the attention as it’s bold and stands out clearly.
10
Next we asked if the layout looked good and if the articles 8
relevant, which got positive feedback again. Everyone answered
these questions as yes, again being 100%. This is good and we 6
Yes
can see from these results that the target audience like the way it 4
looks which is good as they will be interested to watch the No
documentary. These are pleasing results as we know we are 2
attracting our target audience which is what we need.
0
Does the Was the
layout article
look relevant?
good?
Is there enough imagery?
It features two different imagery pictures, which one was a still shot 6
from the documentary. The feedback from these results is spilt half
5
and half which can be hard to analyse. Because of these results, I
think that it depends on peoples opinions as well. Some people 4
may prefer articles to have a lot of imagery or lots of writing. I Yes
personally think that there is enough imagery but I think there was 3
some white space that could have been covered. I think if we No
2
improved the article this would be a reason to improve it, but I
wouldn’t say to add more imagery as I think there is enough. 1
Rate magazine article overall 0

11. These results were good again even though there was one person who rated it as ‘Fair’. I think
that there could be improvements made to the article by either change colour scheme or adding
another pull out quote to cover up white space areas.
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Overall
I have learnt from this exercise that there is always room for improvement. We had good
feedback and it was both critical and positive. I think the mixed results can help to make
improvements and also it’s a positive way in seeing the good parts of the products. One of the
improvements would be sorting out the sound levels on the documentary, with the music. The
sound levels on the documentary didn’t match and weren’t that well, whereas the radio trailer had
good use of sound levels. To improve the sound levels of the music on the documentary, I would
turn them off during interviews and turn them down more when the voiceover is narrating. This
would improve this straight away and would be less distracting for the audience so they can stay
interested. Other improvements would be for the magazine article. There was some negative
feedback about the attraction for it and not having imagery. To resolve this I would say to have
more imagery in order to grab the attention that it’s missing. Also maybe to change the colour
scheme to a slightly brighter colour scheme, but not
too bright as it wouldn’t have the superior look about
it, as it’s for an informative documentary. Excellent
From the results of the overall rating of the project,
we got good rating which didn’t include being rated Good
at ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor’. People must have really enjoyed Fair
the products and understood to concept and how
they all linked together. Poor
From the feedback I was surprised in some of the
results, like the fact that most of the products got good feedback and we only had a few
improvements to make over the 3 products. I was surprised because as the topic was ‘Student
Finance’ you don’t know if people will like it and use the information given on the show, or dislike
it as the subject it is about. I hope that people gained information from the trailer as we used real
life facts about finance for students. I was glad that the feedback contained specific
improvements to make as it helps use to create something better next time and we can gain the
knowledge.