The documentary focuses on running and fitness, providing tips and statistics to audiences aged 16 and older. It uses a mix of narration, interviews, and observational footage to make the case that running has benefits. Interview subjects include a gym employee, a teacher, and a department head to discuss how they incorporate running into their lives. Cutaways of running apps, massages, and medals were included to illustrate points. Wide shots and mid shots were used during interviews to meet documentary conventions. An upbeat song played over opening credits to set a fun tone for the active sport of running.

1. Documentary Evaluation –
Question One.
Danielle Niccolls

2. • The documentary our group has created is based on running and fitness,
giving the audience tips, tricks and statistics in an interesting and
informing way. Our target audience age for our documentary is 16 +
years as we want to focus on the teenage/ young adult age range. In our
documentary, we have followed the codes and conventions of a
professional product by using the same micro elements as used in a real
documentary. Our documentary is a “Mixed Documentary’’ as it uses a
combination of narration, interviews and observation to help to advance
the argument that we are putting forward. The chosen topic of our group
revolves around running. As a group, we decided to do a documentary
based on this topic as we were able to generate a wide variety of topics
and ideas. With this we found out that being able to generate and
provide plenty of information within the topic would mean that our
documentary would be interesting and exciting keeping the audience
interested. Having a wide variety of ideas also made the planning and
production of the documentary much easier. The structure of the
narrative is single strand as the documentary has focused on one main
topic throughout the duration of the documentary.

3. • The use of Mise-En-Scene in our interviews was based upon where
each interviewee worked/ what their job is/what the questions were
based upon. For example, in most interviews we held them in gyms/
fitness studios to link in with the jobs each person had, however one
interview was much different to all the others, Joe Stringers
interview was based in his office at his desk as he is head of the Math
department in Weatherhead and mainly answered questions on how
he fits it around his daily job and how his job impacts his running.
During the interview with Miss Thomas we used we used the sports
hall that she teaches most of her classes in. We used the muse on
scene in here to link the interview to the location and make it seem
more pulled together. During the interview with Natalie Smith we
used the fitness suite that she works in to link the interview to her. In
a professional documentary the mise en scene is very similar to ours
as they have placed the interviewee in their work placement/where
the area of work they are discussing takes place.

4. • For cutaways we based them on what each interviewee was talking about.
We used them to cover any jump cuts to allow a smooth transition from
one clip to another. We used certain clips to aid what the interviewee
was discussing and to allow it to be more clear for the audience watching
to understand what they are talking about. For example, we have used
quite a few cutaways of different technological aspects of running, so in
a clip with an interviewee discussing the highly popular app ‘’Strava’’ we
decided to have a cutaway of someone’s personal Strava account and
then scrolling through some of the ways Strava can be used for the
individual so anyone who is unsure of what it may look like has a better
understanding. During the interview with Natalie we used a cut away of a
sports massage and a calf massage to link to the part of the interview
where she spoke about what massages she does for her clients, we did
this so we could show the audience watching what she was talking and
out and what types of things go on in her classes. We also used cutaways
of medals that we filmed to link with Joe Stringers interview when he
was talking about the half marathons that he has done. During a real
documentary they used the cutaways to cover jump cuts and to allow
the audience visuals of what the interviewer was talking about which we
also did.

5. • For the camerawork in our documentary we used a different range of
shot types and lengths to break the audience away from the
documentary and allow them to think about what they are seeing
and actually process it. To stick to the codes and conventions we
placed all interviewees at one side of the screen on a mid shot
looking across the camera to the interviewer, we did this to allow
the screen some room to have their name and profession so we
could continue with the codes and conventions of a real media
product. During the parkrun we used lots of wide angle long shots
of the contestants running and a long wide angle shot of Josh Riser
running to the finish line at the end. We did this to link it to what he
was speaking about and so that the audience could see the types of
things he does. During the opening title sequence we used a wide
angle long shot of myself running up a hill and across the screen, we
did this so that we could straight away get the information of what
the documentary was about.

6. • For the voice over we started by writing a script that would fit into
some areas of the documentary, we decided to limit the amount of
voice over that we have and not use as much as other
documentaries as we felt that re interviews that we had really
captured what running was all about and how running fits in with
technology these days, we also felt that there was nothing else that
we needed to include for the first five minutes as we had enough
factual information and the stuff that we wanted from the
interviewees.

7. • For the sound bed we used the voice of the interviewees and the
narration. But other than that we decided to use a soundtrack in the
opening scene of the documentary to make it seem more upbeat in
the opening. We used the song “Runaway Baby” by Bruno Mars, we
used the instrumental version so we did not have the singing in it.
We decided to chose this song as we thought it really fitted in well
with the style and narration of our documentary and was a very
upbeat song that would work for letting the audience know that it is
about an energetic sport and is fun and interactive.
• For the archive footage we used clips mainly for cutaways like the
two sports massages in Natalie Smith's interview, we used archive
footage of a marathon run to place over the jump cuts and make it
smoother.

8. • For the radio trailer we followed the codes and conventions of a real
media product as we used clips from the actual documentary and
audio clips recorded specifically for the trailer. We used clips from
interviews and vox pops and clips recorded for the radio trailer only,
we decided to go down the route of it being a way to tell the
audience slightly what the documentary would be based on but not
going into too much detail so we used clips that would compliment
each other in a way that wouldn't give lots away from the
documentary.
•

9. • For the print advert we stuck to the codes and conventions of a radio
trailer by having one main striking image that stands out and
straight away connotes the narrative of our documentary, we
decided to go with a close up of a group of runners feet/up to the
hip. We decided to have the picture in black and white as we
thought it worked better to make the text and BBC one logo stand
out more. We placed all text in the congee of the image as that is
where most BBC one posters place there's so we could link it as
much as we could to a real media product.

10. • For the print advert we stuck to the codes and conventions of a radio
trailer by having one main striking image that stands out and
straight away connotes the narrative of our documentary, we
decided to go with a close up of a group of runners feet/up to the
hip. We decided to have the picture in black and white as we
thought it worked better to make the text and BBC one logo stand
out more. We placed all text in the congee of the image as that is
where most BBC one posters place there's so we could link it as
much as we could to a real media product.