The document analyzes how the media product uses conventions of real media. It discusses using an on-screen presenter inspired by "Supersize Me" to involve the audience. Vox-pops and professional interviews provided perspectives seen in other documentaries. Montage editing was used to show how plastic surgery can go wrong. For the radio trailer, conventions like clips from the documentary and the same presenter were used. The TV listing includes images, quotes, title/subheading, and airing details, challenging conventions with a question/answer and free-flowing article.

1. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?
BY BEN READE

2. Existing Documentary
 To help us gather an understanding of the necessary
conventions of a documentary we watched existing
documentaries. We evaluated two professional
documentaries (Botched Up Bodies, Supersize Me)
and four student documentaries (Selfie, Meninism,
Branded, Are You Obsessed). By using professional
documentaries it allowed us to understand what is
required for a professional looking documentary.
After watching the student documentaries we could
also understand the requirements for a 5 minute
documentary; it allowed us to understand what is
crucial for our coursework.
Meninism
Supersize Me

3. Documentary
 By watching the existing documentaries we decided to utilise both an on screen and off screen
presenter. After watching “Supersize Me”, Morgan Spurlock inspired us to include an on screen
presenter to involve the audience more and keep them interested. By having a teenage girl as our
presenter it connects with our target audience of teenage girls. We also used a voice over so we could
adopt the use of background footage with stats and facts coming up on screen. This allowed us to add
an extra layer of information to our documentary. Vox-pops and interviews with professionals are also
key conventions of a documentary. By watching both student and professional documentaries we
identified the convention of using interview. Student documentaries such as “Selfie” and “Branded”
utilised vox-pops as a way of displaying the common public perception of plastic surgery. By using
vox-pops it helped us highlight this point in the documentary, the professional interviews give a good
contrast in point of view. Professional interviews were a key part of “Botched Up Bodies” as it
displayed a reliable source and a professionals opinion on the situation, for this reason it was crucial
we used it for our documentary. A further decision made for our documentary based on existing
products is the use of montage editing, which was utilised in “Supersize Me” to exaggerate the point
being made. For our documentary we adopted this idea to show how plastic surgery can go wrong.
By presenting this as well as having the counter argument gave our documentary a balanced
argument as we wanted our audience to have their own opinion as a negotiated reading (Stuart Hall).

4. Vox Pop we used in our
Documentary
Montage Editing from our
documentary
Example of background footage
from our documentary
Professional interview used in our
documentary
Title of our documentaryThe on screen presenter who
featured in our documentary

5. Radio
 After researching the three different radio broadcasters (BBC Radio 1, Heart FM, Capital
FM). We decided, due to the audience of Capital FM being that of teenagers and our
target audience being teenage girls it made sense to decide our broadcaster as Capital FM.
We also listened to past student examples of radio trailers that were located on the media
website. By listening to these radio trailers it helped us understand what crucial parts we
needed to include in the short 60 second time limit to keep the audience interested. We
listened to three student radio trailers (Make Up Your Mind, Two Week Challenge and
Social Media; How Does It Affect Your Everyday Life). Some conventions that were
highlighted to us from these radio trailers were: to use the same presenter as our
documentary, by having the same voice promotes the style and register in which the
documentary has. We also had an upbeat backing track which would attract the audience
and keep them interested throughout. As well as this we have followed the convention of
including clips from our documentary; by having snippets of our vox-pops and professional
interviews it allows the audience to experience some of the documentary the way that they
would if they were to watch it. We avoided conventions such as sound effects due to
plastic surgery being a serious topic and the sound effects might counter this approach.
Considering content of the radio trailer and the information provided we have followed
basic conventions of informing the audience when and where the documentary is being
aired as well as what the overall message of the documentary actually is.

6. TV Listing
 Similarly to both the documentary and the radio trailer we used student products for inspiration with our
double page spread. We derived different conventions from looking at three student examples of double
page spreads; these include images taken from the documentary, grab quotes, clear title and subheading, a
by line as well as including the article and the date and place the actual documentary will be aired. By
including all these features it will adhere to the conventions of our desired publisher, The Radio Times. We
chose to aim this for the radio times as it is the most common and popular TV listing magazine and reaches
out to a very large and varied audience. Images from the documentary are crucial to show the type of
viewing that the reader will get when watching our documentary. As well as this it makes the double page
spread seem more professional and more attractive to someone just flicking through a magazine. Grab
quotes are a common convention of magazine articles and are used to hook the reader as they would
usually be something interesting. A clear title and sub heading are used as a common convention, a clear
title highlights what the article is about and in our case is the name of our documentary; and then the sub
heading goes into more detail about the topic giving a quick overview of the article. The date, time and
place in which our documentary is showing is included in the sub heading as it is something that we wish to
stand out and be read before our article. One way we have challenged the common conventions of a TV
listing is by having a mixture of both a question and answer article with a free flowing article. By doing this
we are supplying the audience with the optimum amount of information as the documentary has both a
description and the producers opinion.

7. Title
Subheading
Grab Quote
Images from
documentary
By Line
Article
Date, Time and
Location of
Documentary