2. INTRODUCTION
This product is a documentary showing you the different
elements I love about my about my culture, and that I take
the initiative to own it is as my own story.
This documentary focus on my cultural and geographical
heritage, in this case Western Ugandan, it shows the
beauty of the country from the landscape of Kabale to the
Bakiga culture.
3. How does your product use or challenge conventions and
how does it represent social groups or issues?
Well this product looks at the representation of African culture and countries,
destroying the image of Africans living in the bush but also bringing out the fact that
there are roads and that people are civilised but still culture-oriented.
One thing I realised about my product when doing my search on codes an conventions id that
my product is a combination of two different types of documentaries, observational and
expository
When it comes to observational, the codes and conventions that I followed:
• My documentary has no interviews
• The use of actual footage- real events
• The sound is synchronous
• Use of natural lighting
4. When it comes to the codes and conventions that I followed for an expository documentary,
were:
• Use of the voice over
• Use of images/text and titles
• Editing
5. The colour scheme of the fonts and text boxes match the
central image. This brings a colourful aspect of the poster but
also shows how subtle and simple the poster is.
Another convention that I followed when it came to creating
the poster was that font type of the title. It’s different in colour
and font type, his making it noticeable. The poster also has the
director and the production company in the same text colour
same font because they go hand in hand.
With the phrase ‘COMING SOON’ in a coloured texted box is
to create hype for the documentary.
6. HOW DOTHE ELEMENTS OFYOUR PRODUCTION WORK TOGETHER
TO CREATE A SENSE OF BRANDING?
The documentary, poster and website work together in the sense
that they all bring out 2 colours of the Ugandan national flag;
Black(for culture-colour of skin)
Yellow ( for sun and vegetation)
Looking how the website comes into this because with it having
a dull background, the images and text are able to stand which
bring out a vibrance but also through the website people can
access the photos on the poster and documentary in full size.
The documentary and the poster work together, because the font
type of the title remains the same, which brings in the sense of
branding.
7. Another example of branding, the poster is seen at the end
of the documentary and is also on the website as the logo.
A way the documentary and the website work together is
that I advertise each other, within the credits of the
documentary, there is the link of the website. And the
website contains little snippets of the documentary.
8. How does your product engage with audiences and how
would it be distributed as a real media text?
My product’s target audience is a general audience, with this
documentary it is able to engage with the audience showing them
an idea and giving them a feel of the Bakiga culture especially
through the scene whereby it is a traditional function. The audience
gets to see the traditional dance, attire and enjoy the traditional folk
song.
Another way in which the audience gets to engage with this
product is getting to understand why Uganda is known as the Pearl
of Africa. In this documentary is the lovely landscape of Kabale,
for example, Lake Bunyonyi and also the hills. I give a little
historical background just to broaden the minds of my audience,
just giving a sense of general knowledge. Also through this
documentary the audience gets to know certain things that Western
Ugandan is known for e.g. cows with long horns.
9. The poster being a collage, already
makes it stand out because of the
different elements that you see, this
already grabbing people’s attention.
With the phrase ‘COMING SOON’ this
creates a buzz for the documentary, and
with it being a red text box people will
attracted to it- this grabbing people’s
attention
10. If this product would be distributed as a media text, I
would like for it to be sold online for easier access,
especially for the people who do not have the energy
or will to go to a store and also for people around the
world.
Another way, would be selling the documentary as a
DVD at local bookstores and music stores, this
reaching the people who are still into or value the
purpose of going to a bookstore or music store to buy
DVDs.
Or even on Discovery channel, this just because I
want people to seen an African show the real roots of
the culture and the landscape.
11. How did your production skills develop throughout this
project?
Through this project, I got to experience the pressure of film.
First things first how I came up with the idea to do this project was the fact that every
Christmas I go to Uganda, so I was like why not do a documentary based on where I come from
showing the things I love about my culture.
For my documentary, I did not require a storyboard but I still had to organise certain things, I
decided to use our Christmas schedule to come up with a certain way to put my things together.
For instance, the editing part was a struggle for me because it was my first time using
Lightworks, whereby in the beginning I had to learn on the job or even in some moments I
would ask my fellow colleagues who were using the same software. My main struggle was
having to put images within the film, which was difficult because they would disappear – this
just taught me that I needed patience, but all in all a skill I developed throughout is how to use
Lightworks and learnt more on editing as I practiced daily.
12. I also used Photoshop, to add some creativity, this was just
to add some vibrancy to the poster, I achieved all of this
with paint. I downloaded an image of the map outline of
Uganda and then I used the erase tool to remove the
border s of the countries, then from there I started added
the different layers, which came with these two on your
left.
For the poster, I used Ms Publisher to do the collage. This
was a bit of a challenge I had to come up with my own
measurements to make sure I achieve exactly what I
wanted.
13. How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and
online - in this project?
1. Software
Lightworks
I used Lightworks as my editing software, the documentary consists of both videos and photographs. This also put
in the experience of knowing how to edit. But this also just shows how digital technology has made it possible for
anyone and everyone to call themselves an editor.
Photoshop
This was used to an element of fun, by creating something very colourful, which is to get people’s attention.
MS Publisher
I used this software to create the collage of photos which acts as the poster for my documentary. I used this in a
creative with the pictures so that it can a catch peoples attention.
14. 2. Hardware
The image beside shows the hardware used for this project; the
camera and the two different lenses were used to take pictures
and videos that were required for this project. The laptop was
used to store the footage, to edit to come up with the final
product, to blog and create my website.
There are two pieces which aren’t there which is the tripod –
used to pan, take high angle shots while the microphone was
used to record a voice over, its purpose is to give the audience
information that they do not know.
15. 3. Online
For this project I used webs to create my
website, whose purpose is to sell the
documentary. Which is brought out by
the information and the sell the
documentary. I wanted it to be fun and
interesting, so there are a lot of images.
I used Blogger to blog, which was used
to just show the process of the project
showing the steps I took to come up
with the final product.
http://whericomefromug.webs.com/
http://wanjirakarunditu.blogspot.com/
16. PROBLEMS I
EXPERIENCED
DURINGTHIS
PROJECT
Like anything in life you must experience a few bumps on the
road, for this project the I experienced couple of problems, for
instance:
1. The Wi-Fi, which was always being shifty so blogging and
creating my website at home was difficult.
2. Lightworks, would at times stop working or while I’m editing
it hangs.
