Our documentary focused on healthy eating and exercise among teenagers. We analyzed existing documentaries like "Supersize Me" for their conventions. Our documentary used elements of observational and expository modes, with a voiceover narrator and formal interviews. We filmed interviews in a style similar to "Supersize Me" but used background music at a low level so the voiceover could still be heard clearly.

1. Evaluation
Rebecca Hallissey

2. The Brief
Our main task given in the beginning of the A2
Media Studies course was to create the opening
5 minutes for a television documentary. We
were also told to construct a radio trailer and a
double page spread for a TV listings magazine to
help advertise our documentary to the target
audience. We started this task by researching
existing television documentaries to see what
sort of things the target audience liked.

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

4. What topic did we base our documentary on?
For our documentary, we chose the theme of Teen Life, focusing
on Healthy Eating and Exercise amongst teenagers and young
adults for the first episode in the series. This is the episode we
created the starting 5 minutes to. We chose to focus on this
subject because we feel all teens will be able to relate to this
because it affects everyone, and so many teens may have interest
in the topic .
This is very good for our documentary because it means it is likely
to have large viewing figures and lots of interest from the target
audience. Teenagers frequently talk amongst themselves and
recommend things they like to their friends, so hopefully the
viewers of the pilot episode would discuss the documentary with
their friends and possibly recommend the programme to others,
increasing viewing figures for the series.

5. Supersize Me
We started looking at documentaries
during class time. We watched the
television documentary “Supersize
Me” and analysed the content.
Supersize Me was directed by and
starring Morgan Spurlock, and focuses
on the negative impact fast food has
on the average American’s life. This is
a similar topic to the one we focused
on in our own documentary so we
were able to get inspiration from this.
However, we focused on a different
audience (British teenagers rather than
American adults.)

6. The World’s Strictest Parents
For individual research, I
watched an episode of The
World’s Strictest Parents
and analysed it. This
documentary has a very
similar target audience to
our documentary, so I was
able to use it to get ideas
for our own construction.

7. Further Research
As well as watching existing documentaries to find
out the codes and conventions of this area of
television programme, we also did research into our
topic of Healthy Eating and Exercise amongst
teenagers and young people. We found lots of facts
and statistics which we could then use throughout
our documentary during cutaway shots. We used
these to inform and shock our audience, for
example: “In an official recent survey, doctors found
17% of boys and 16% of girls between 12 and 15 are
classed as either overweight or obese.”

8. Bill Nichol’s Theory Of Documentary
Modes
•
The Expository Mode
•
The Poetic Mode
•
The Observational Mode
•
The Participatory Mode
•
The Reflexive Mode
•
The Performative Mode

9. The Mode Of Our Documentary
•
Our documentary has a voiceover throughout
•
The narrator does not appear onscreen
•
Formal interviews are structured
•
Elements of fly on the wall (people eating)
•
Background music used throughout
•
Elements of Observational Mode
•
Elements of Expository Mode

10. Shot Types and Sound Levels

11. Formal Interview
For this interview, we used a medium
shot. However, many documentaries
use more close up shots in expert
interviews, such as the one shown
here from “Supersize Me”. We
decided to use a medium shot here to
show more of the background, and
because of spacial issues while
filming. Looking back on this, I do not
think a medium shot was a very
effective shot to use, as the
background looks very plain and there
is a lot of blank white space that was
difficult to edit out. We filmed this
interview in a silent room so you were
able to hear what she was saying
clearly without interference from any
background noise.

12. Vox Pops
For our vox pops, we used a
medium shot with the interviewee in
the centre of the frame. This is very
similar to the shot type that Morgan
Spurlock used in his documentary
“Supersize Me”, and I feel this shot
type worked very effectively. There
was some background noise of
people talking because we filmed
this vox pop in a crowded canteen,
but because this is supposed to be
an interview with a member of the
general public and not an expert,
this gives the interview a sense of
realism. This background noise is
also seen in vox pops in other
documentaries, including Supersize
Me.

13. Music
We used minimalist, upbeat music in our
piece. We set the sound level of the music
low so the audience can still hear the
voiceover and interviews clearly over the top
of the music. This is a common feature of a
lot of existing documentaries. Most
documentaries also use modern mainstream
music to set the tone of the programme, but
we were unable to do this because of
copyright reasons.