The document discusses how a media group used various new media technologies and conventions from real documentaries to create their own documentary on binge drinking among youth. They researched documentaries on YouTube and BBC to understand effective conventions like voiceovers and interviews. They received feedback on their rough cut and magazine spread via Facebook that helped improve the project. Throughout, they leveraged Wordpress, iMovie, Facebook, and Macs to efficiently construct, research, plan, and evaluate their documentary.

1. EVALUATION
Genuine Productions

2. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?

3. • We watched various different documentaries as part of our research in
which we as a group could relate to when it came to key decision
making with our final product.
• We focused on Panorama (BBC one), Dispatches (Channel 4) and
various others on YouTube.
• Conventions both Panorama and Dispatches used are:
- The use of a voiceover. This convention was powerful to use as voice
overs interacts with the audience, explaining what is going on. Our
genre being a documentary a lot of what is happening would need to
be explained.

4. - An interview with an ‘expert’ - it is used to
authenticate the views which have been
expressed. We followed this as it is important to
have an experts view so the audience believe
what is being said as an expert is someone who is
trusted.
- Use of real life footage/undercover footage - is a
key convention as real life footage would help the
audience believe what they are seeing.
- Natural lighting is another convention they used as
it portrays the realism of their documentary. We
partly followed this, - when filming interviews
outside the pub.
• However, during filming we had to change the
lighting on the camera. When we were filming the
undercover footage, the lighting had to be
adjusted to make it look more realistic. The lighting
inside the location at the time was to light for it to
be shot as an undercover scene.

5. Ancillary
• For our ancillary task, we were given the choice to pick 2 out of 3
choices: a radio advert, a double page spread magazine or a
newspaper article.
• We decided to do a radio advert alongside a magazine double page
spread.
• We chose to do these 2 as we felt it would work well with the type of
documentary we were making.
• As our documentary is on binge drinking we thought the awareness of
binge drinking would be put across strongly to our target audience
(youth) via a radio advert and a magazine.

6. Magazine
• One magazine we looked at closely was ‘the radio times’.
• ‘Radio times’ uses bright vibrant colours which make the articles look fun
and as if they should be taken light heartedly.
• We decided to do the opposite using simple colours such as black and
white as the subject of underage binge drinking is serious and a major
issue in the UK.
• The image on a double page spread magazine tends to have the
picture on the left however we went against this by having the picture
on the right it would capture our audiences eye when turning the page.
• We used drop cap to start of our article which is used in majority of
articles.

7. Radio
• After several hours of research we found that the conventions of a radio
advert are as follows:
- Music being played occasionally
- The time
- That channel the documentary will be on being mentioned at the end
- It is roughly 40 seconds long
- Voiceover’s are used
- It contains the same voice (Sonam Kerai) as the on screen presenter
used in the documentary

8. HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF
YOUR MAIN PRODUCTS AND ANCILLARY
TASKS?

9. • Throughout all three of our products we aimed to be consistent.
• This was done by:
- Having an easily identifiable presenter that the audience will
immediately be able to recognize
- Using an easily recognizable image related to youth. The main product
was based on youth and underage drinking, therefore to follow on this
continuity, we used images of youths to promote our magazine and
voices including them in our radio advert
- The presenter who was featured in the main product was also used in
the radio advertisement to help follow the continuity
• However, the presenter wasn’t featured in the magazine.

10. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK?

11. Documentary:
• In order for our group to build a basic plan of our product, we had to
know the type of documentary our target audience would watch and
what aspects of it they would find interesting.
• For our research and planning we used ‘Facebook’ where we created
our own page for our group, enabling us to receive feedback really
easily.
• We used this social network site to our advantage by posting up a
questionnaire in order for us to gain feedback on what type of
documentary youths prefer to watch and why.

12. FEEDBACK: QUESTIONNAIRE On screen presenter
wanted
Why a
documentary
on binge
drinking would
Documentaries be interesting
are watched to our target
mainly on BBC audience
channels (1,2,3)

13. FEEDBACK: QUESTIONNAIRE
Needs to inform Prefer to
and educate know the
effect it has
on the
human
body
Prefer to watch
it on BBC

14. • From our audience research via our Facebook page, we learnt that
youths prefer to watch a documentary that:
- Refers to real life issues
- Informs them
- Makes them aware of things they never knew
- Contains information that they can relate too
- They would prefer to have an onscreen presenter
- Footage that reveals the truth of underage binge drinking

15. FEEDBACK: ROUGH CUT
• The positive feedback gained is the:
- Use of statistics
- Live action footage used
- Lighting
- End is good - footage of the next day
• However, we also received constructive criticism which helped us to
make improvements to our product. We learnt:
- The order of shots used were not appropriate, making the documentary
seem confusing
- The voiceover did not flow and was also a bit jumpy
- Soundtrack is needed over our opening title

16. FEEDBACK: DOUBLE PAGE MAGAZINE SPREAD
• Audience feedback we received from our double page magazine
cover:
• Positives:
- The layout
- The heading
- Image used
- Facts
- Easy to understand
• Negatives:
- Talk about resolving the issue

17. HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION,
RESEARCH AND PLANNING AND EVALUATION
STAGE?

18. • In the construction, research and planning and evaluation
stage we used new media technologies such as:
- Youtube
- Wordpress
- Facebook
- iMovie
- Apple Mac

19. • We used Youtube to host our rough cuts and final product which helped
us upload our videos quickly and efficiently allowing the public to view
it. Furthermore, our blog was not well known to the public and as
Youtube is known by everyone, it made it easier for others to view our
rough and final cuts.

20. www.genuineproductions.wordpress.com
• Wordpress allowed us to upload our rough cuts, magazine drafts, plans
and our final products. Using Wordpress enabled us to post our work at all
stages and was really easy to use. The whole group knew how to use it
which made Wordpress a really effective way of storing our work.

21. • The widely used social network
site, Facebook was used to
broadcast our magazine
drafts, gain feedback and attract
a wide audience. When we had a
great amount of people in the
group we had created, we then
used viral marketing as we
constantly sent out messages to
everyone keeping them updated
of what we had been working on
and if we needed feedback. As a
group we felt that our product
progressed quite strongly as we
were able to receive feedback
through a widely used social
network site.

22. • The software, iMovie was used to edit our final cut and allowed us to use
several techniques such as adding effects and text. When adding
voiceovers to our final product we found it was really easy as all we had
to do was click on the microphone and the part of the clip we wanted
to and it does the rest for us. We found this software really effective as
recording, transferring, placing and editing the voiceover to fit into our
product could be time consuming.

23. • The majority of our work was done using Apple
Macs. Using the Mac was a really simple process
which allowed you to put work onto it quickly
without any problems and it contained all the
software we needed which made constructing
our final piece much more easier. Furthermore
we thought that the media technologies which
we had used helped make our work less time
consuming, and without these media
technologies, producing our final product would
not have been as simple and easy as we would
have liked.