EVALUATION, NOTES FOR POWERPOINT

Bana Abraham
Section Three: Evaluation.

My Media product was a five minute documentary on a subject of my choice, which I chose to do it on the rise of unemployment in London. My media product challenged as well as conformed to conventions of documentary.

Throughout my research on documentaries I found out that conventions used in documentaries were; Vox pops, a character that is followed or a range of character interviewed, A presenter or a voiceover explaining and giving information; a range of ‘one to one’. When producing my documentary I used some of these conventions such as, following an individual character throughout my documentary so that the audience can relate to her personality and follow her story. I also used one to one interviews and Vox pops to give a range of points of view on the subject of unemployment

On the other hand I also challenged the conventions of documentary as I did not use a presenter in my documentary. Most documentaries about unemployment see the unemployed from a negative light and how inactive they are about getting work. However, I turned this around and showed the unemployed from a much better point of view and made the issue more about the financial crises and employment agencies rather than the unemployed individual themselves. IN my documentary the unemployed main character is seen to be actively looking for work, dedicated and committed, using her initiative to find work but is continually frustrated despite her efforts

Furthermore, unemployment documentaries are mostly about white males but I used a character who has a mixed race ethnic background, a female, and in her teenage years. This challenged the conventions of unemployment documentaries because a mixed race teenage girl will usually be seen in a documentary about crime and teenage pregnancy rather than unemployment. Teenagers are usually stereotyped negatively in documentaries; however I used a teenager in my documentary but viewed her from a positive perspective, and showed how hardworking and dedicated teenagers can be with employment. This challenges the expectation that an audience would have of how teenagers and the unemployed are usually represented in documentaries

In my ancillary task I created a newspaper advert and a radio trailer to advertise my documentary. My advert relates to my documentary; this is because I used an image of my main character from my documentary in the poster. I took a picture of her looking out at the audience so that she would connect to the audience that see the advert. This gives the audience an idea of who the advert is about and I think it would attract a teenage and a multi ethnic audience as it is clearly about her and not about the stereotypical white male. The background of my poster is an urban image of London streets. This imitates my documentary as my subject is about unemployment in London. I also have an image of a CV as this was the main ‘Mise en scene’ used throughout. The font style used was taken from the internet which I downloaded; I used a ‘type writer’ style font. This is because my subject; unemployment is a subject which recently has been making news headlines. So therefore the connotations of this font I used reflected ‘news headline’ type of font which fitted in perfectly with the subject of my documentary.

The colours used in my poster were simple and bland colours. I did not use colourful colours and used black instead for the colour of my text as I wanted to illustrate to the audience that my documentary was about a serious matter. I also emphasised on the word ‘unemployment’ in my poster as had the text a different colour. I put this word in the colour red as the colour red has connotations of bad issues, it also made the word stand out more and grab audience’s attention.

The radio trailer I produced linked well with my documentary. This is because I used the same music from the documentary in the radio trailer. I inserted sound clips of dialogue from my documentary in the radio trailer. I used a voice over and asked rhetorical questions in my radio trailer then inserted sound clips from my documentary to answer these questions. This is good as it leaves the audiences into wanting more after they hear a short sound clip which advertises the product really well. After hearing the radio trailer it mirrors the documentary as there is the same music which grabs familiarisation from the radio trailer to the documentary quickly.

I gathered people from my class to watch my Documentary in order to get some comments and feedback on my work. The audience replied back with comments which were, that my media product fitted well with the brief. They also suggested that the technique of following the character storyline through the documentary emphasised on the genre. In addition they also remarked that the Vox pops, speeded footage fitted well with the genre. They commented on my camera work, camera angles and alleged that the mid shots on the Vox pops were clear as it allowed them to get a clear picture of the characters facial expression as well as their body language.

On the other hand they also picked up on the bad parts and gave me criticisms which I could improve. They argued the wording of the text at the end of the documentary was not very clear. They picked up on some footage that was cut too early and that they couldn’t hear the end of some dialogue. They did not like the voice over as the voice sounded too young and did not fit in with the genre; they recommended replacing the voice over with some text.

I used various media technologies in my work for different parts. In my research stages I used the internet to explore and watch documentaries that were published on the web. I watched documentaries on ‘channel4OD’, ‘YouTube’ and ‘BBCIplayer’. I used PowerPoint to present my research and then posted it on my blog site. I feel that I have improved on my research techniques as I found it easier to explore and find documentaries quickly on the internet. I also improved on my PowerPoint skills as in the past I was not very familiar with PowerPoint because I hadn’t used it. However now I was able to imbed video clips and insert images and sounds.

In this project I worked alone so I found it difficult with editing on ‘Final cut’ as in the past I did not use the editing software so it was my first time. However, now I am able to operate it and very familiar with the key functions. I quickly picked up the skills and edited my work by inserting sound, layering footage down, cutting footage etc. In the past my camera work was satisfactory, however this time I had to use a microphone and headphone so it was challenging for me to check sound and shoot clear footage at the same time alone. This was a bit challenging as I filmed an interview, the footage was clear but the sound level was very low. This made me more aware of sound when filming the second time forward. Not only with technical difficulties, had I had problems with planning my work and the storyboard structure. Interviews that I planned in the beginning of my project were cancelled later on when started. This created problems for me as I had to change my storyboard of my documentary to fit in and make clear sense to the audience. To resolve the problem I had to go back and shoot more footage and find another person that I could interview. This delayed my time on filming and created less time for me on post production work.