The document discusses the ways in which the media product uses and challenges documentary conventions. It follows conventions such as using different styles of interviews but also challenges conventions by using younger voices for voiceovers and different genres of music. Audience feedback was gathered and showed that transitions worked well but the interview could have been improved. New media technologies like iMovie, Garageband, blogs and word clouds were used for construction, research and evaluation.

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? In many ways our documentary does follow the usual conventions of documentaries; especially with the focus on interviews. As we wanted to gain a true understanding on tattoos and the people behind them it was important to follow different techniques and styles of interviewing. We included planned structured interviews and semi structured interviews which are usually seen in documentaries where the interviewer is interviewing the public. When doing my research on tattoo documentaries I looked at Miami ink, LA ink and London ink; in these programmes they often have interviews with the tattoos artist where it is just the interviewee and a background, We used this style for our interview with Hazelle as the focus would be purely on her, and this would make the interview feel some what more professional. We developed the conventions of interviewing when we used semi structured interviews as this made the documentary seem more laid back and individual; and personally this idea makes the conversation flow more smoothly and make it easier for our target audience to relate to the person being interviewed as they are able to elaborate more on questions as it is more of a conversation.

3. When watching documentaries which appeals to the same target audience as we have been targeting I have gained a lot of inspiration. I focused strongly on the conventions of editing and sound. I have found that the sound and music is crucial when appealing to an audience for example the recent documentary ‘Being N Dubz’ shows. However I feel our documentary does in some ways contrast with the conventions when it comes to the genre of music. When choosing the music it was simple a task of looking through my itunes as a lot of the music which is associated with Camden I listen too, this is beneficial as Camden was one of our prime locations for filming. The genre of music that we chose was Drum and Bass and Dubstep as this music is the main genre that influences the ‘punk’culture of this area. Skin Deep fits to the conventions of a stereotypical documentary when we have a voice over of facts about tattooing as this educates the viewer which is a key principle of a documentary. We challenged the conventions by using a young mans voice as usually it is a well spoken women or an older man; we decided to use a younger person as his voice is some what endearing and something the audience of this age could relate to and also works well with our urban London theme.

4. Colour has made a huge impact in our documentary we edited the effect of the lighting in certain scenes to make some areas stand out more than others, for example we used hard light on the opening of Camden and when ‘Liam’ shows his tattoos this puts an emphasis on the lines of the tattoos and makes them seem prominent in the shot. However contrasting with this we used softer light during the interview with Hazelle to show her personality and to put the focus on the audio. This is conventional of a documentary.

5. This first screen shot is part of the first few seconds of our documentary. This is fairly conventional as it is establishing the location and is face paced therefore drawing the viewer into the surroundings. There is a voiceover to give the viewer and instant insight into what the documentary represents. As we wanted to make our documentary moderately educational as Tattooing is a subject that has a lot of stigma around it and can be misjudged. We edited the colour to make this vivid and intense to represent the lively urban culture which is rapidly forming in the area. This is typical of a documentary convention as it is founding the area in a interesting different way. For example when helicopter views are done to illustrate the location. This screen shot to the right shows an actual tattoo being done we have cut in footage of Camden, still shots and tattooist to create a juxtaposition; as a development we also included the sound of the tattoo machine to make of an impact to the added shots. The first cut in was of the tattoo to the right as this directly introduces the subject to its audience, and adds a somewhat excitement to the first few seconds and also coincides with the voiceover. Cut in footage is often used in a typical documentary to show different areas within a subject .

6. This is another typical shot of a conventional documentary as it is establishing the area and instant give the audience an idea of the subject. I feel that this shot is important as it is bright and edgy which is key in the style of documentary that we are trying to create. This creates more of an impact then just simply adding text; and stands out to the audience. We have conformed by having this shot as a zoom in as this is typical of a documentary of our style. This shot is symbolic as the word tattoo is written in the style of an actual tattoo. This is a high angle shot making the word seem more dominant in the shot and even powerful. This accomodates to the typical techniques of a documentary as these establishing shots create a climax along with the music to create a build up. This shots represents the culture which had developed in Camden, which is seen as very playful and exciting. We have made the beginning extremely fast paced and we have used slow motion on the part of ‘hello kitty’ when the music drops. As all the areas of colour, speed and music work together it draws the viewer into the rest of the documentary which makes the first few seconds extremely important.

7. During our first interview I was lucky enough to meet Liam; he is a young man covered in tattoos. This shot conforms to the theme of our documentary as we are talking to someone who is part of the typical stereotype of having tattoos in today's society. As it is our first interview played in the documentary it is important to show the tattoos and have someone prospective on them. This is exceedingly conventional of a documentary as it is establishing the first person being interviewed. This fit to the conformities by showing his name, and occupation. We used the same font to gain continuity. We challenged the conformities by using a semi structured interview rather than a structured one, However Fearne Cottons interviewing techniques are similar. As I feel that the conversation would flow better this way and make Liam feel more comfortable. We used slow motion for the audience to be able to see the tattoo in detail in this shot, also this worked well with the music as we paid a lot of attention on fitting the still shot, and areas of footage to fit with the music. I believe in some ways this challenges the conventions of a typical documentary as this would more likely to be seen in a film or TV programme.

8. One of my favourite areas of editing is when we have included the still shots of Hazelle I feel that this works well as this coincides with the audio. This conforms to a typical media product as in documentaries they will often show still shots to show a photograph of the past etc. For example in True Hollywood Stories. These documentaries have been hugely inspiring when adding still shots as they will do so to show a photography of celebrities in the past; for example in baby pictures, in times of trauma, or highlights in their life. The next still shots shows the inside of the tattoo studio. This is important as after this shot we have an interview inside the tattoo studio with someone who works there. In this shot the contrast of white and black is extremely important as the white represent the cleanliness and safety of the studio as this is an important factor when owning a tattoo studio. This bold blackness of the title shows the name of the show in a powerful way. We have added a description of what it is and to show the location. This is typical of a documentary as it shows the viewer where they are and avoids confusion this could also be used to advertise.

9. This is when we had the interview in the tattoo studio. We interviewed Jozef who is a tattoo artist from Poland this challenges the conformities of a documentary as they would usually focus on someone who has been in the profession for their whole life however we thought that it would be interesting to speak to someone who is fairly new to it and how they got into the profession. However this also does conform in some ways as we used structured interviews which interviews usually use in documentaries as they have questions that they have to ask to appeal to their audience and to prevent errors or disruptions in the interview. We used it as Jozef was fairly camera shy and so we wanted to go through the questions with him first to make him feel more comfortable. However still maintained a laid back feel to make the interview seem real and naturalistic. For the title of the documentary I used a still shot of a tattooed women and then put the title over the top, we used the same font to make it cohesive and this works well with the tattoo behind it. The tattoo blurs as the title shows which adds the focus on Skin Deep.

10. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Having the combination of my main documentary and supporting pieces has been extremely important as it is effectively endorses the final piece and reiterates the messages that we are trying to educate the target demographic. As a group our supporting piece was a television advertisement, We felt that this was an effective way to use the footage we hadn’t used and to show off our best areas of footage. As we had so many great ideas for our final piece that we didn’t use this was a way that we could include the ideas that we had dismissed in the past in a new way.

11. The television advertisement has been an important way of advertising as this would be aired a few weeks before the programme would actually be released. This would create a buzz and excitement to the target audience before it comes out. This advertisement would be played on all different channels to reach out to different audiences. As it is on a subject which is becoming increasingly popular we would play it on a mainstream channel such as channel 4 or E4. Also on a channel such as DMAX as this is a channel which plays many documentaries on tattoos such as Miami Ink, LA Ink, and Jodie Marsh: Tattoo Apprentice, playing it on a channel such as this would instantly target a wider audience. Following the rise of computer technology; the latest phenomenon of online web videos could also be a great possibility. By playing our documentary in the form of a ‘webisode’ we could reach out to an even broader spectrum of target users. This could also be a beneficial way to show our advertisements, as the internet is becoming part of our everyday life and people would be sure to see it, especially as we are targeting a younger audience.

12. Another form of ancillary texts that I thought combined particularly well with my finish product was my Hazelle magazine interview that I produced. The reason for producing this interview was to give my potential target audience an insight into what to expect to see in the documentary, and provide them with a little bit more detail into what hasn’t been included in the documentary. The type of magazine that I would be targeting to approach about including my interview in their magazine would be OK, Hello, More, Heat, and Glamour. When doing my research I have found that these magazine usually include one on one interviews in the same writing style. These magazines have a good reputation of selling well and promoting certain topics. These magazines target my audience however is may target women more then men and therefore the magazine Inked may be more fitted. This magazine targets people within the tattoo industry and people who are just simply interested in them. This would then be able to target both men and women that would be likely to watch the series, and could benefit in sponsors.

13. Addressing my target audience. Throughout the task of making my documentary and supporting pieces it was exceedingly important to keep our target audience in mind, as it is a necessity to meet the needs of our viewers. I chose the colour crème as the background colour as it is sophisticated and is not gender bias as I am target both men and women. The boarders and fonts were important as this was a way in which I could adjust this to my theme. To keep the colours mutual I chose black and grey as this is a contrast against the crème, and black and grey is a style of tattooing. The idea of choosing to do the magazine article on Hazelle rather then one of the tattoo artists I met was as she is around a similar age of the people we would be targeting for our documentary and in the magazine that I would have chosen to put the article in. I have used her modelling photos as these look more professional and shows off her tattoos well. In the bottom right hand corner I included a small advertisement to win a trip to visit Kat Von Dee in LA. I feel that this is appropriate when targeting my audience as it links to my theme and therefore anyone who is interested in tattooing will have an idea of who Kat Von Dee is as she is one of the best tattoo artists in the world and also has her our show LA Ink.

14. What have you learned from your audience feedback? Audience feedback is an extremely important part of finding out what your target audience thinks of something. For us we used Audience Feedback to find out what people within our target audience thought of our documentary. As the documentary was fairly controversial it was interesting to hear what people actually think. We got responses on the style of the documentary and the filming such the use of camera angles, and transitions. When talking to these people about our documentary we got a lot of positive feedback however we also learnt ways we could improve it we were to do it again. When creating our audience feedback we wanted to have cohesion between all of our pieces. Therefore we used the same fonts and used the blurred background again to put focus onto the title.

15. The first group of people to see our documentary was this group of students. While they were watching the documentary they pointed out areas which they liked which was very useful to see which areas have worked well, as we were constantly working on this project, after you have seen it so many times it is useful to see an outside prospective, as there are areas which as a group we got so used too. When we documentary was finished we then interview them about what they thought worked well and what were the typical conventions of a real documentary, they responded with that they liked the transitions as this made it flow a lot more smoothly and we then asked them what they thought of the documentary and what channel they think would be suited to this, and they names channels such as Dave and DMAX.

16. We found in the last interview with our focus group that the interview could have been effected by the other people that they were with and were not answering truthfully. This is a common problem with group interviews therefore we decided to show Rob Harris our interview, he watched it on his own and then we interviewed him straight after. From this interview we found that it was very enjoyable to watch and that it fits the conventions of a typical documentary, Rob enjoyed the areas of interviewing where the names of the people are shown, and also said that the music we had chosen coincides with the theme of the documentary and appeals to the target audience. He commented on the tempo of the music fitting with the different transitions and areas of filming. However when editing the audience feedback we found that there was a lot of background noise and laughing therefore only certain areas could be included.

17. The next person that we were able to show our documentary to was Megan Walker. She was able elaborate on what she liked and who she thought the target audience would be, hearing information like this I was able to gain a deeper understanding of who we would be targeting and helps in deciding decisions that would need to be made if we were to take this documentary forward and develop it. Overall I feel that Audience feedback has been useful in making final changes, as we were able to see what our audience liked and what could be improved, it was also a chance to showcase our hard work and take in constructive criticisms to evaluate what has worked well and what we would do to change it. Audience Feedback is beneficial when making another media production, as we can develop what we thought had worked well, and change what didn’t work so well. As these people very much enjoyed our documentary we were able to reinforce that our target audience is for 17 to 18 year olds.

18. Planning is a colossal area of making a media production. We have all created blogs which follow us on our journey of making our documentary, this has been a valuable process as it enabled us to record what worked well and what didn’t, showing our struggle using certain technologies, and using certain programmes. Our blogs showed the construction in a positive way as it facilitated us with a way to show the concepts behind what we did and why we did it, from fonts to music. I have used slideshare to put my evaluation onto my blog this has made it easier for me to upload my evaluation and shows it in a way which is easier to read and slightly move visually exciting. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

19. When I was doing my initial planning before we had even come up with an idea I did a lot of research into what were the conventions of a documentary and looked a pervious examples of then to se what I did and didn’t like to gain some more inspiration. I put hyperlinks on my blog to show what I had been watching and why they have inspired me, this is useful as anyone who goes on my blog can see what I had been researching and how I have adapted this into my own main product. An interesting way of documenting my original ideas was by creating a word cloud this made it easier for me to go back and look at what has inspired me and why. This was extremely easy and quick to use and I would definitely use this again in the near future.

20. When doing our construction we used a macbook and used imovie to upload and edit our footage on. As we have previously used this for our thriller last year we all new how to use this therefore we could use it to its best ability. We used it to edit the sound, colour effects, lengths and transitions. We also used this to edit our footage that we took for our audience feedback. This was useful in editing the colours and music to make it more appropriate to our target audience. Imovie allowed us to fast forward and use slow motion to create more of an impact into certain areas. We were also able to add in music from itunes and voiceovers from garage band.

21. When doing the voiceover we recorded it using the yeti, We used this as it makes the voiceover sounds extremely clear as it has a specific setting for a voiceover. We also used this as you can not hear so much of the background noise which is exceedingly important when you are doing the voiceover in a college environment. For our voiceover we edited it on imovie as well as using garageband, using this we were able to reduce the noise reduction, and edit the volume, however we did the majority of this using garageband.

22. When editing the voiceover we mostly used garage band we used this as there is a lot more choice with the different areas of editing. It is benefit in cutting areas and editing the pitch etc. As we left the voiceover to one of the last things left to do the construction finally feels like it has all come together with the use of garageband it has enabled us to make this sound more professional. When we were choosing the font it was important to find one which truly fitted with the theme, we looked through all of the fonts on imovie and we could find one which was perfect and it’s these tiny details that make our documentary, so the next step was to go onto Dafont.com, as this has hundreds of fonts and so one must have been suited to us. The one that we chose was called Faith Collapsing.

23. For my supporting piece, I made a magazine article with Hazelle Moscrop who we interviewed in our documentary. To make this I used Photoshop. This was something that I had never used before so this was quite a challenge. However I needed to specifically use Photoshop as you can develop your ideas a lot further using this program. Using Photoshop helped me to develop my ideas as I was able to create stunning boarders and blend the title in with the background without outlines. Photoshop also enabled me to create a small advertisement. I felt that this would help me in making this look more realistic, and helped me to demonstrate what other skills I have learnt during this task. I also used publisher to develop the last few areas, such as adding and fitting the pictures.

24. For the majority of our filming we used a Sony Handycam DCR-SR58E, because we have already used this in pervious media products we have learnt to use this well, and we used this for the majority of our interviews. When we went to the tattoo shot we took the Handycam and a Kodak Zi8, as this films in HD the quality we extremely clear which was perfect to use when filming the tattoos being done as we were able to get very close and this was easy to us and was light and therefore did not get in the way of the tattoo artists at all. When we did the establishing shots of the tattoo studio we used the Handycam with the tripod this enabled us to move the camera without it moving or looking unprofessional.

25. It is important to show development from AS to A2, I feel that I have progressed from AS to A2 as I have used a variety of new technologies to make our documentary the best that it can be. I also did more planning using my blog as this would show my development however made room for changes as this would enable us to develop our ideas further and be able to make better decisions depending on circumstances. I have gained more confidence in media studies this year as I have been able to develop my ideas and skills, confidence is vital when being able to take risks and step out of the box and as a group I feel we have achieved this aim. Having the confidence with using the cameras has made my interviewing techniques a lot easier as I feel I am a lot more in control of what I am doing, this also has benefited the person that I have been interviewing as they will feel a lot more at ease and more comfortable. I feel that I have developed my skills of working in a group, this is important as then you are able to feel a lot more comfortable with each other which makes it easier for ideas to be shared and criticisms to be made.