Here is the subsiduary task of the advert for the documentry of my media coursework ...
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When producing my media documentary I looked at several different documentaries to compare it to, these were mainly of "life" on bbc1 and different documentary programmes that have been on throughout the course of producing my documentary. The conventions of my media product that apply to a real media product is that of many conventions, for example, music, voice-over, captions and titles. At the beginning of the film extract there is an image of the world that turn on its axis and it locates london to kenya. This is realistic to a media product as it looks professional and well structured. Another typical convention of a documentary extract is that of a voiceover. This has been used in every documentary that i have researched into. For example the "life" documentary which is presented by David Attenborough. This documentary has a voiceover nearly all the way through it however David himself is in some of the scenes. This is different to our documentary as we have only a voiceover and no presenters, just some clips of the gappers talking to the camera. Therefore the convention of a voiceover is the similar to that of a typical documentary extract as it doesn't have a presenter.
When looking at the different documentaries i would focus on the conventions that they all had in common so i could incorporate some of them into my own documentary. This is as i wanted to make sure the extract looked as realistic as i could.
The things I picked up on from looking at other documentaries are how the title comes in and when it comes in, it doesn't always have to come at the begining. I also learnt how to make my documentary, double page spread and advert to look like real. I did this by always comparing them to others, seeing what they have and what they don't.
All the way through the media extract there is generally a voiceover or a soft music in the background. In our own documentary we had usually the noise from the clip of what is showing, for example the kenyans playing the music and the children singing within the clip. When looking and analysing closely the documentaries, we could see that when there was a happy and joyful scene they use minor keys and when there was a sad or an unhappy scene they use major keys for example when the shark jumped out of the water to catch the seal it was jumpy and edgy as although the seal was sacrificed for the food, the shark still got some food to eat, here they used a mixture of major and minor as there was both joyful and sadness in that extract.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The main products and the subsidiary tasks work well together as they both compliment each other. If someone saw the advert or the double page spread for the programme they would be attracted to watching it as the adverts are so eye-catching. My advert and Double page spread together tell the audience what time , what channel, when and what my documentary is all about. Hopefully it intrigues the audience in and makes them want to watch my documentary.
The theme of a map has been used throughout the subsidiary tasks and the main product as we thought it was appropriate to what our documentary was about, the travelling of gappers from london to kenya. The map has been a background of both of the subsidiary tasks, and it was also shown on the product itself with a cgi world map that turned to locate the two destinations we were at. We tryed to find maps that where the similar colour to our background, which is cream that has an old effect. We carried on with the theme of maps, so on the double page spread there was a map of the world for the background and with a map of Kenya on the right side, and a map of England of the left, with an arrow going from London to Narobi, this is of simarlarty to the documentary extract, just on the paper instead of in the 3D form of video.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The audience feedback has been very helpful to the way that my main products and subsidiary tasks have been produced. This is as the main aim of producing them is to meet the needs of the target audience. Therefore any input and feedback they can give helps us to achieve this aim. Overall I am very pleased with the way in which the documentary turned out and how it has been produced. I think it all works really well and it links together in a professional manner. The double page spread and the advert were commented upon by fellow students and they said they both looked well structured and the information given in them was clear and to the point. I have never blogged, or done filming before so this coursework was a big challenge for me as i was new to it all. However i am really pleased with the way it has turned out as i am not comfortable with filming or blogging but i have taken to them rather well. All of the feedback that i have recieved from the documentary has been positive with the final product. However whilst going along the process of producing the documentary extract feedback wasn't always positive which is understandable as it is better to have something to work on and to work towards.
The things that i believe i would change about my main extract and my subsidiary tasks is that i would have had some proper photos taken for the advert and the double page spread as i had to use the photos i had already got from mine and selinas camera shots. This meant i had to pick some that reflected the experience in kenya but also looked remotely professional. I would also have planned my time out better as i believe i could have done more work on the actual documentary if i had the resources at home such as an apple mac computer.
How did you use the media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?
I used the media technologies in the construction and the research planning and evaluation stages of my media coursework in many ways. To make the actual footage for the video i used the programme imovie on the applemac computers. I find this easier to use on the newer computers than on the older ones as i found they were more up to date and they were easier to follow. I could speed the footage up, rearrange the order of it. I used the captions and the editing to incoraporate the captions within the footage which was quite confuseing but made it look good in the end. I also used the general technology of a video camera. This was to do the main filming of the documentry extract. I also used the microsoft word to produce my storyboards and making lists for the planning and researching for the documentry. This was very times consuming and is one of the most important parts of making a documentary or a film. You can filming for ever and do retakes but it's how you put it together that really counts and how it flows. It is also important not to bore the audience. I have learnt alot of different skills from using the different programmes on the computers which has helped me with the coursework.
