evaluation 1

1. In what ways does your media
products use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?
By Ellie Barter

2. Introduction
 For our advanced media portfolio we had to crate the opening 5 minutes of a
documentary, a double page spread for a TV listing of the documentary and a radio
advert advertising the documentary. Me and my group decided to do a documentary
about the relationship between teenagers and sport as we all had links with sport so we
could easily get expert opinions, for example my uncle is a boxing coach and we used
him as one of our experts. As a group we had to get our own footage and edit it then
record the audio for the radio advert and create the double page spread. All of our
products had the same target audience (parents of teenagers – specifically white
middle aged mothers) and secondary audience (teenagers – specifically between 15
and 19).
 As we have now completed these products we need to evaluate not only the products
themselves but how we created them and think of nay improvements. To begin, I’m
going to evaluate how well my media products use, develop and challenge the forms
and conventions of actual documentaries, double page spreads for documentaries and
radio adverts for documentaries.

3. Documentary
 In our documentary we relied heavily on archival footage because it was difficult to get live action
sports clips as we could only film when there was a match of a lesson. We used archival footage of
Tom Daley in the Olympics and a boxing match at Hall Green Boxing Club. Similarly the
documentary Blackfish also relied heavily on archival footage as most of the footage that they
wanted to use was from the past, for example they used footage from a news article a few years
before of the trainer that was killed. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of using
archival footage.
 In our documentary we used a song named ‘willy wallbanger’ for our background music.
Background music is important in a documentary as it keeps the audience interested and keeps up
the pace as without it, the documentary would be very boring. Blackfish also use background music
however the music they use is far more serious as the topic is far more serious. We did follow the
convention of background music matching the theme of the documentary as our topic wasn’t
completely serious and due to the many montages of sports clip we needed music that was fast
and upbeat. Therefore this shows how we developed the conventions as we still used music
however we decided to use more upbeat music.

4. Documentary
 In our documentary, we used many montages of sports clips and archival footage as we didn’t have
a presenter, Blackfish did a similar thing as they did not use a presenter either as it would distract
from the main issue. Blackfish also use montages (for example montages of the trainers with the
orca’s) as it was also difficult for them to get original footage, therefore we used this convention.
 For our documentary we decided to use a narrator instead of a presenter as we felt that it was
more suited to our theme and if we didn’t have presenter we could have more sport montages and
archival – like Blackfish. Blackfish didn’t have a presenter either however they didn’t have a typical
narrator as they used a typewriter to introduce the next scenes which was very creative however
we did not feel that this was suited for our documentary. However Blackfish also used a voiceover
from their interviews, for example when interviewing some of the previous trainers they would show
archival over their voices, we did the same thing for our documentary. For example while
interviewing our expert Thomas Chaney we showed footage of the boxing gym that we filmed at.
Therefore this shows how we used the convention of a voiceover and developed the convention of
a narrator as we used a voice rather than text on a screen.

5. Documentary
 In Blackfish they used expert interviews to reinforce the point that they were making, for example
they were interviewing the previous trainers of the orcas and the old whale capturers to give both
sides of the story (people who experienced the whales in and out of captivity). We decided to follow
this idea by giving expert opinions from those who work inside and outside of the educational
system in terms of physical education (we interviewed a boxing coach who never worked in the
school system and then we interviewed a p.e teacher). Therefore this shows how we used the
convention of having expert opinions.
 Blackfish followed a linear narrative as their plot is in chronological order from when the orca’s were
captured leading up to the death of the trainer and the aftermath of her death. This narrative makes
the documentary easier to follow as it appears more like a story. We decided to conform to this
convention and follow a linear narrative in our documentary, we start out with question of whether
education is more important than sport which then led through the expert opinions and voxpops
however unlike Blackfish we decided to have an open narrative and leave an open conclusion as
we felt it was better to let the audience make their own decision whereas Blackfish made the
audience agree that orca’s should be freed and that keeping them in captivity was wrong, therefore
this shows how we developed the conventions from this real product.

6. Documentary
 After watching Blackfish we decided to follow their subtle use of mis en scene, when
interviewing their experts the use the background to reinforce an idea. For example one
of their experts (Lori Marino, a neuroscientist) has what appears to be a library behind
her, this has been done to make her appear smarter and therefore make her opinion
more valid and reliable. We decided to follow this convention in our documentary, when
we interviewed our boxing coach we made sure that the boxing ring could be seen
behind him. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of mis en scene when
interviewing subjects.
 The mode of Blackfish is expositional due to its logical arrangement and its use of the
preferred reading however we decided that we did not want to use this mode and
therefore challenged this convention. We decided to follow the informative mode as we
felt that this was more suited as we weren’t trying to persuade the audience, we wanted
to inform them of the issue and let them make their own decision on the matter.
Therefore this shows how we challenged conventions as we didn’t use an expositional
mode.

7. Double Page Spread

8. Double Page Spread
 After seeing this double page spread for The Vampire Diaries we decided that the
placing of the heading was very effective in the top left corner and therefore we decided
to follow this and use it in our own documentary. We decided that this was best as it is
more visually pleasing to the audience to have the article and the heading on the same
page. We also followed the idea of having the words to appear different but still a
similar font, for example for our documentary we keep the handwriting font but change
the colours of words whereas the real DPS had the word ‘Blood’ in bold but the word
‘brothers’ in a regular font to make the words stand out as they contrast each other.
Therefore this shows how we used the convention of having the heading in the top left
of the page.
 Another convention that we used from this DPS is having the article on one side of the
page rather than spanning over the two pages, this makes the article appear smaller so
therefore the audience is more likely to read it and there is more spaces for images
which makes the whole DPS more visually appealing. Therefore we decided to use this
convention in our own DPS. This therefore shows how we used the convention of
having the article on one page.

9. Double Page Spread
 For our double page spread we decided to use actual quotes from the documentary in the article (‘it
helps to stimulate the mind and keep the body in good shape’ said by our expert Brenda Yeates).
The real DPS of ‘The Vampire Diaries’ does a similar thing however instead of using actual quotes
from the show they use quotes from actors and critics so that the audience get an understanding of
how well rated the show is before they invest their time into watching it. Therefore this shows how
we developed conventions as instead of using quotes from critics we used quotes from the
documentary as we thought that this would give the audience a better idea of what the
documentary is all about.
 After looking at this real DPS and various other, I thought that it was a good idea to follow the
convention is displaying the article in columns. This way the page follows the rule of thirds and
therefore looks more visually appealing to the audience which makes them want to read it more as
it looks as if there is less writing. The real DPS only used two columns whereas we used three due
to the length of our article and the fact that we wanted the article to stay on one page. Therefore
this shows how we developed the convention of using columns as we still used columns however
we used three instead of two.

10. Double Page Spread
 For our DPS we decided to use screen stills from the actual documentary as our
images for the page, we did this because we thought that it would give the
audience a better idea of the what the documentary would include if they saw
some images from it. The real DPS for ‘The Vampire Diaries’ also uses images
from the actual show to entice the reader into watching the show. Therefore we
used the convention of using images from the documentary/show.
 The real DPS and many others all display the time, date and channel that the
documentary/show will be shown so that the reader knows when to watch it. We
decided to follow this convention as we wanted to give the reader as much
information about the documentary as possible so that they would go away and
watch it. Therefore this shows how we followed the convention of displaying when
and where to find the documentary.

11. Radio Advert
 After listening to various radio adverts for documentaries we noticed that they all use
soundbites from the actual documentary, therefore we decided to follow this convention
and use 2 soundbites from our documentary. We did have more sound bites originally
but we decided that a shorter advert would be more effective so we cut down the
amount of sound bites we used. We decided to use a quote from our experts Gavin
(P.E teacher) and Brenda (Dance teacher) as both of their quotes were clear and easy
to understand and they explained the theme quite well. Gavin talks about a ‘post 16
gap’ and Brenda talks about the workload therefore it can be easily denoted that they
are talking about age. Therefore this shows how we followed the convention of using
soundbites.
 Also, we found that background music is always used and typically only one track is
used throughout the advert so we decided to use only use one track and the track we
decided to use was the same one that we used for our documentary. This was because
we wanted to clearly link the products together as we weren’t going to use the same
narrator as the documentary so therefore this track would easily link them together.
Therefore we developed this convention as we only used one track but we used the
same track as from the documentary.

12. Radio Advert
 After listening to various radio adverts we decided that it would be best if our radio
advert was short as this way it would have a faster pace and therefore the
audience would not become bored and lose interest. Most of the short radio
adverts were around 30 seconds so we decided to follow this convention and
make our advert 30 seconds longs, this was difficult at first as we had to cut some
out otherwise it would have been over 30 seconds but as a team we decided that
30 seconds was the best length. Therefore this shows how we used the
convention of having a short advert.
 Some of the radio adverts that we listened to didn’t have any obvious sound
effects and we decided to follow this convention as we thought that it would be
easier for us in terms of our topic as it would be difficult to find sound effects for
sport that people would instantly recognise. Therefore we followed the convention
of not having any obvious sound effects.

13. Radio Advert
 In every radio advert that we listened to each one clearly states when and where the audience
could find the documentary (time, date, channel). So we decided to follow this convention and state
clearly when and where our audience could find the documentary at the end of our radio advert,
this way the last thing the audience hear (and most likely the thing they are going to remember
most) is the information about where and when to find the documentary so they are more likely to
go and watch it. Therefore this shows how we used the convention of stating when and where to
find the documentary.
 After listening to various radio adverts we learnt that it was unusual to have only one narrator so we
decided to follow this convention and use two narrators. We also noticed that it was not the same
narrator as the documentary so we used different voices to advertise our radio advert as we did not
want to use the same person that narrated the documentary as even though this would clearly link
the products together we thought that it may come across as odd if the same person did the radio
advert. Therefore this shows how we followed the convention of having more than one narrator.