This is my fourth year studying media (previously studied in GCSE and AS), which is Last year, I was tasked to create a five minute local radio news bulletin in a group of four. We used programs like Audacity, which allowed us to understand how to manipulate sound tracks through editing, adding sound effects and recording tracks. Blogger, Prezi and Camtasia were also programs I used last year. In contrast to last year's focus on our local area, A2 focuses on a five minute TV documentary, which the main focus can either be about a person or a place and can be able to dramatise the story whilst being able to create a narrative for our audience.
Research methods
There are two types of research methods, primary and secondary. Primary is when you conduct your own research into the subject, like creating questionnaires, surveys, interviews and observation. Secondary research is taking existing content that helps you carry out your research into the topic. Examples of this is through reading books, watching television or film, listening to radio or just taking statistics that have already been recorded.
Genre of TV documentary
TV documentaries appear on television and online streaming platforms, like BBC iPlayer, Netflix and Youtube. Film documentaries appear in theatres, television and online platforms, like Netflix and Youtube. Therefore it makes it difficult to find a clear distinction between TV documentary and film documentary. I decided to research the difference between TV and film documentaries as I didn't know what the key differences and similarities were between the two. My reasoning for looking for the differences and similarities is because I wanted to find the codes and conventions of TV documentary without confusing myself with the codes and conventions of film documentary. My research didn't amount to anything, therefore I decided to analyse 2 TV documentaries. I wanted to analyse 2 TV documentaries to make sure that there were no anomalies in my analysis and therefore gave me an accurate understanding of codes and conventions of TV documentary.
The only differences that I could find were that film documentaries focus on creating story in one showing, which could last between 60 minutes to 2 hours. (However there are exceptions, like OJ: Made in America, which runs for over 6 hours.) Whereas TV documentaries can be within 5 minutes to 60 minutes. The run time of a TV documentary might be longer as it could be an episodic series but episodic TV documentaries usually stick to their allotted time frame.
Analysing documentaries
I decided to analyse sports/biographical TV documentary 'Last Chance U' and BBC Three's 'Reggie Yates: Hidden Australia' through the narrative, media language, genre and representation.
Analysing 'Last Chance U'
'Last Chance U' is a TV sports documentary following East Mississippi Community College's american football team's 2015 season. It documentary focuses on multiple teenagers who aspire to become professional college players in order to escape their past and better their lives after being expelled from their previous colleges.
Representation:
The documentary presents the students at the college as actual people that have experienced emotional pain, support for their friends when they need it, people who want a good education but can't help but let their emotions get the better of them. For example, Ronald Ollie, one of the main characters of the TV documentary series got a concussion where he started to recollect memories in his childhood where his father visited his mother, who lived in a trailer, shot her at gunpoint and then killed himself before the police would arrest him. This traumatised Ronald Ollie for the rest of his life as he didn't have the emotional support that his mother and father could've given him. This goes against the stereotypes of football players as they're presented as narcissistic, dumb, physically gifted womanisers that like to bully other people and don't care for others. I found that this brings a new image of what a football player is, especially a college football player.
Media Language:
The documentary uses camera shots and angles to present the narrative for the audience. For example, the use of wide shots and extreme wide shots give the audience an understanding of the places, like the town the subject is based on or the college. The documentary uses a different range of shots/angles during matches to signal the tension of each match. I found that it might be a code and convention of sports-documentary, which was useful in understand what is considered a TV documentary, sports documentary and a biographical documentary.Narrative:
The narrative of 'Last Chance U' depicts the school as a powerhouse within their state but they're considered some players' last chance in making it to a division 1 football team, which is where they'll be scouted to sign as a professional football player within the NFL. I found this to be rather ironic as although the team is seen as a powerhouse within their state but not good enough for the players that plays for them. The documentary also portrays the characters as people with troubled pasts that have affected themselves psychologically and therefore affects their opportunity to get into a division 1 college football team.Genre:
Analysing 'Reggie Yates: Hidden Australia'
Representation
The documentary presents common stereotypes, specifically drug addicts. Drug addicts are stereotyped to be homeless and/or struggling to find a place to live in and therefore live in hostels. Shawny, an ex-drug addict, was homeless when she was addicted to "Ice" and stemmed that off her unstable family life with her mother. The documentary doesn't challenge stereotypes but rather develops them through the interviews.
Media Language
There was a wide range of shots used in the documentary, such as the establishing shot at the crime scene, Shawny's home/neighbourhood and Gatwick estate. The documentary used a lot of close ups, which I felt was used for two reasons. Since the close ups were used during an interview, it displayed what emotions the inteviewee and interviewer must be experiencing through their facial expressions. I also felt that it was used for the audience to know whether the person had consumed any drugs recently as it would create a sense of trust between the audience and subject in the documentary.
Narrative
The documentary portrays a serious theme through out the entirety of it's run time as it focuses on the the issues that teenagers and young adults face in the 21st century. The documentary starts off with a news headline about how Australia, specifically Melbourne, is facing an epidemic of a drug called "Ice". This serious theme continues as Reggie Yates, the host and interviewer, asks a member of the public what's happened in the area, which is responded by the fact that someone was murdered over the suspicion of "Ice".
Genre
The genre of this documentary is a crime and social/cultural TV documentary, which focuses on how a drug called "Ice" is raising issues for teenagers and young adults in the 21st century. I found that the documentary doesn't exactly challenge anything from a conventional TV documentary about crime and culture but rather just fits the mould of it's genre, which I still found interesting after reading Stephen Neale's theory on narrative and how he believes that "difference is absolutely essential in the ecosystem of genre."
Search Engines, Video Streaming Sites, Appropriate Sites
After researching short films and analysing them, I felt somewhat overwhelmed by the quality of these short films and how I could produce a TV documentary on a similar level to the 9 short films I watched. It was difficult to understand what to include in my TV documentary as each short film was a different genre from the other. Therefore making it difficult to know whether I could/should use a certain camera angle. For example, I found that one of the short films used a dutch angle, which I found was commonly used in horror films, while a mockumentary also used a dutch angle. I found it difficult to understand whether it was an exception to use a certain shot or not and therefore found that it would create anomalies in my research of films.
Therefore the anomalies had worried me, which left me researching the codes and conventions on the internet. I decided to use reliable websites like DuckDuckGo, Google, Youtube and Netflix as I knew that they would give me results that would answer my questions of what makes a documentary.
DuckDuckGo
When looking for the codes and conventions of TV documentaries, I found that Google's search engine has a massive flaw when providing me with results. Google uses cookies and a personal program within their search engine called the filter bubble. This means that Google tracks my searches and then attempts to suggest searches that may interest me or may be relevant to me. It's a useful algorithm but I find that it may go against the research that I'm looking for due to my previous searches on the Google search engine. Therefore I've found that DuckDuckGo removes this problem and gives me unbiased results that I may find more reliable than results from Google's search engine.
YouTube
Youtube was the most reliable source for studying TV documentaries and for receiving feedback for drafts of my group's documentary. YouTube is a video streaming site where you can upload videos and comment on people's videos and give them feedback on it. It's a useful website as it gives me opportunities to watch other TV documentaries, which could help me develop my understanding of TV documentary and film-making.
Netflix
Netflix is an online video streaming website/application that streams films, TV shows and documentaries. The majority of the documentaries that I've watched and analysed multiple times have been on Netflix and therefore gave me more knowledge on documentaries and gave me an idea of how each director likes to present the documentary to the audience. For example, Greg Whiteley's Last Chance U likes to follow it's characters with as little interaction as possible and acts like a shadow.
Reddit is a discussion website people can submit text posts or links, which can be voted up or down (upvote and downvote). Due to Reddit's popularity, subreddits, there are tiny communities that focus on a certain subject. For example, movies, showerthoughts, TodayILearned. I used Reddit because I felt that if I searched through the documentary subreddit, I'd be able to find other opinions of documentaries and gain an understanding of my audience through reddit. I also found that I could show a draft and completed version of my documentary to reddit users and find out the strengths and weaknesses of it.
Theorist views on Genre
1. Rick Altman
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| Rick Altman, the professor who thought of the theory of genre pleasures |
Altman, professor of Cinema and comparative literature in the department of cinema and comparative literature in multiple universities in the United States, came up with a theory that genre offered an audience a set of pleasures, calling them 'genre pleasures'
Emotional pleasures - emotional response from the audience
Visceral pleasures - deep, emotional reaction from audience
Intellectual puzzle - unexpected, thrilling moments of pleasure for the audience
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| Stephen Neale |
Stephen Neale was a British Analytic Philosopher and specialist in the philosophy of language. He analysed all forms of modern genre and how they are influenced by certain economic social factors.
"genres are instances of repetition and difference" - I interpreted this as Neale views genre as a set guideline that creators follow in order to create films, documentaries and news bulletins. However, I found that the other half of his statement can be interpreted in two ways. One way is that he is also stating that some creators will try to deconstruct a genre and redefine to suit their content. The other way this can be interpreted is that each filmmaker is uniquely different from each other, in terms of how they use interviews, music, sound effects, graphic and camera shots/angles.
"difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre" - I interpreted this as a genre would become stale and over-saturated if the same conventions are in every other film or documentary and that the fact that filmmakers trying to deconstruct a genre is something that makes the genre seem fresh to an audience.
I found that Neale is referring to multiple points and how genre is defined. He found that a genre conforms with it's code & conventions and following it's stereotypes. However a film must conform to these conventions enough that it can still be qualified in that specific genre.
Neale also found that a film must undermine the conventions and stereotypes of that genre if it wants to be viewed as a unique film, and not duplicate another film's conventions.
"genres are not systems, they are processes of systematisation" - Neale found that definitions of genre are historically relative because he found that they are historically specific. The viewing of many films in particular genres, means audiences are likely to pick up on patterns which are either conformed or challenged for the new films or documentaries they view.
Neale also found that in order for genre to stay relevant, differences to their components are necessary to keep viewers invested in film or documentaries. if all documentaries within a genre did not contain differences, they would all be the same and soon fail to attract audiences.
3. Roland Barthes
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| Roland Barthes |
Barthes is more known for his studies on narrative. He defines text as a 'galaxy of signifiers'. Referring to it as something that has no beginning and that it is reversible and can be accessed through several entrances. In his study of narrative, the linguistics of discourse, he managed to limit the actions of a text into 5 conventions, which were the following:
Cultural Code - Looking at the audience's wider ideology, cultural knowledge and morality.
Semantic Code - looks at any aspect of a text that connotes additional meaning through symbolism to what the story makes it out to be.
Symbolic Code - Similar to Semantic, it organises semantic meaning in more depth and detail. This is done through antithesis, making way for new interpretations for opposite ideas.
Enigma Code - This means how suspense is built up through conventions like cliffhangers, and how the audience is watching wondering what's going to happen next.
Hermeneutic Code - When the a mystery film develops it's story, it's going to avoid telling most of the facts within the mystery, leaving the only people to discover what's happened to be the audience.
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| Roland Barthes' theory on 'Narrative Axes' |
4. Tzvetan Todorov
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| Picture of Tzvetan Todorov |
Todorov's idea of narrative was explained through a 3-part structure. The equilibrium, progress and resolution. He explained that they each had a meaning. Equilibrium brings balance to the narrative, progress disrupts the balance that the Equilibrium brings while the resolution attempts to bring back the balance. This restores equilibrium and brings forth a happy ending to the story.
Todorov argued that narrative creates a transformation where the character develops through the story, and therefore resolving the disruption. It's a traditional and conventional structure that many mainstream films follows.
The 3 Points of Creativity
To make the best documentary possible, I continued to develop my understanding on filmmaking. However I felt that I need to research what creativity is and how to implement it into my documentary as it wouldn't be appealing to my audience.
After stumbling through Google Scholar, I found a book by psychologists Robert Sternberg and James Kaufman, called the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity.
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| A Google Scholar page where I was able to find the Three Points of Creativity |
Both psychologists found that the definition of creativity was split between 3 points: novelty, quality and relevance.
The psychologists defined novelty by creative work being original and exclusive to itself compared to other people's work.
Quality refers to this idea that not only does this relate to the work but is also incredibly well done.
The third point is about the relevance the work is and how useful it is.
Created by Jean Rouch, cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking that uses the camera to reveal the truth of a certain subject. It's known for provoking conversations/interactions between the filmmaker/cameraman and the subject. One of the features of cinéma vérité is that the camera is always in an acknowledged position and that it gives an obvious presence
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| Diagram explaining Cinéma Vérité |
Media Language: Camera shots, angles and movement
When planning a TV documentary, I felt that there were aspects of it that I didn't understand. For example, I didn't understand the importance of camera shots and angles, however I first needed to know what camera shots were. Once I found out the terms, I decided to analyse the camera shots and angles used in Last Chance U to show my understanding of these conventions.
Extreme Wide/Long Shot/Weather Shot (EWS/ELS): Used when presenting the scene far out from the subject to display the setting.
Wide Shot (WS): Scenery is still visible but the subject takes up a part of the camera frame.
Medium Shot (MS): Closer shot of subject but the scenery is still visible.
Close-Up Shot (CU): When the subject takes up the whole frame.
Medium Close-Up (MCU): Midpoint between close-up and medium shots.
Extreme Close-Up (ECU): Where the camera is extremely close and focused on the subject.
Over the Shoulder Shot (OSS): This can be used in different forms. For example, it can be used behind the interviewer in a discussion with the interviewee.
Codes and Conventions of TV documentary
After my analysis of 'Last Chance U' and 'Reggie Yates: Hidden Australia', I felt that I had a clear understanding of the codes and conventions of TV documentary. I analysed two TV documentaries because there was a chance that if I analysed one TV documentary, I may find certain features of the documentary and wouldn't know that it might be unique to that documentary alone and would be misleading for my research into codes and conventions of TV documentary. It was especially beneficial when analysing 'Mitt' because I was able to find a clear distinction between TV and film documentary that allowed me to understand what constitutes as a TV documentary. I also decided to refer to other TV documentaries and a film documentary, like Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man and Louis Theroux: LA Stories as they further help me understand what the codes and conventions of TV documentary.
Sound
In terms of editing, non-diegetic sound is often used in these documentaries. For example, During football matches, Last Chance U uses commentary from the match as if we're actually watching an official NFL match to further show the audience what each match means to the players and how intense it is for each and everyone of the players and how important each of their 9 game season is for them.
Voice Overs
I've found that when watching Louis Theroux and Werner Herzog's documentaries, they always like to give their thoughts on certain scenes that has been shot from their cameras or, in Herzog's situation, where he has multiple clips from Treadwell's camera. They both use voice overs to set the mood in the documentary. For example, Herzog uses voice overs to address how his views of the world differs from Timothy's loving view of the wild and the love that he has for animals like the grizzly bear. Whereas Louis Theroux uses voiceovers as a means of telling the viewer what he is thinking in each situation he is in, like when one of the sex offenders was kicked out their house by his supervisor, he felt that it would make the relationship awkward between himself and the people that featured in his documentary.
Video and Image Archives
There will be moments where the documentary will take already existing footage from someone not involved in the documentary. These are used to help provide reliable documents to the viewers. Last Chance U does this because they didn't have any footage to show how much potential one of East Mississippi's players had in high school and therefore found a video of the player warming up before a game.
Footage of real people or events
This is one of the most important and common aspects of a documentary is a not fabricating footage as most of the documentaries that I analysed were non-fiction documentaries. However I found that one technique of realism of footage is through editing like using voice overs or even reenacting events.
Interviews
When analysing other documentaries, like Grizzly Man and Last Chance U, I found that to develop the story in the documentary, interviewing important people from the events that took place or experts in our documentary's topic would create a sense of authenticity for the viewers as there's a some trust in the interviewees due to their knowledge of the topic. For example, Last Chance U interviews all it's main characters(the players and coaches) but also interviews a journalist as a way to get a view from outsider's perspective.
Audience Research
Hypodermic Needle Theory
This is the idea that the audience willingly accepts the information that the media gives them and are therefore influenced by the media into believing anything they say. The term Hypodermic Needle is a metaphor for messages being injected into the audience's brain. This can be seen as brainwashing as the audience doesn't question the information that they are given.
The theory originated from around the first World War when propaganda was at an all time high. This was because propaganda was used to influence what the audience believed and would therefore change their thoughts on an event.
Cultivation Theory
"More time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality portrayed on television." The social theory is focused on the long term effects of the television and other media platforms.
In the 1960s, the public were concerned with how much people would watch TV. Gerbner and Gross wanted to know if people's daily lives are affected by the amount of time spent watching TV. One of the key points that they found out is that people that were always watching TV, heavy watchers, believed that TV gave an accurate representation of the real world. Therefore if people watch violence scenes on television, they're more than likely going to believe that the world is a violent place.
Stuart Hall
Stuart Hall was a sociologist and cultural theorist, who worked and lived in the UK. He played a significant role in expanding the scope of cultural studies on race and gender. He also helped incorporate new ideas derived from the work of French theorists.
Encoding and Decoding
Stuart Hall's theory on encoding and decoding is shown in the model above. The theory is the relationship between information and it's audience. Construction of text by the producers/writers is what encoding is. Some stories gain more attention from people due to it's news value but for a story to gain a lot of attention from people it must have an item that makes the story engaging.
For decoding to take place, a story must be presented to the audience. The audience will then interpret the story in whatever way they want. However Hall argued against the idea that all individuals think the same and believed that an audience would have a dominant, oppositional or negotiated reading of the story.
Hall found that everything being decoded may vary from each person due to many factors:
Hall claimed that TV and other mediums give the audience a piece of information and they decode it based on their cultural background, personal experiences and economic standing.
Oppositional, Negotiated and Dominant readings
Oppositional reading is when the viewer disagree with the information given to them. This could be because of their personal experiences with the information given or due to their cultural background/economic standing. This could be seen as the message with an unintended meaning.
Dominant reading is when the viewer follows the message of the story and agrees with the text. This means that there is little to no miscommunication as both the write and view are working under the same rule set. This allows the viewer to understand the message being given to them.
Negotiated reading is when the viewer is able to decode the message like they read it from a dominant viewpoint. However, they are interpreted differently to a dominant reading because the viewer is not necessarily within the dominant viewpoint. However, the negotiated viewpoint looks at both dominant and oppositional but wouldn't consider one over the other.
Reading Reviews
After my analysis of 'Last Chance U' and 'Reggie Yates: Hidden Australia', I felt that I had a clear understanding of the codes and conventions of TV documentary. I analysed two TV documentaries because there was a chance that if I analysed one TV documentary, I may find certain features of the documentary and wouldn't know that it might be unique to that documentary alone and would be misleading for my research into codes and conventions of TV documentary. It was especially beneficial when analysing 'Mitt' because I was able to find a clear distinction between TV and film documentary that allowed me to understand what constitutes as a TV documentary. I also decided to refer to other TV documentaries and a film documentary, like Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man and Louis Theroux: LA Stories as they further help me understand what the codes and conventions of TV documentary.
Sound
In terms of editing, non-diegetic sound is often used in these documentaries. For example, During football matches, Last Chance U uses commentary from the match as if we're actually watching an official NFL match to further show the audience what each match means to the players and how intense it is for each and everyone of the players and how important each of their 9 game season is for them.
Voice Overs
I've found that when watching Louis Theroux and Werner Herzog's documentaries, they always like to give their thoughts on certain scenes that has been shot from their cameras or, in Herzog's situation, where he has multiple clips from Treadwell's camera. They both use voice overs to set the mood in the documentary. For example, Herzog uses voice overs to address how his views of the world differs from Timothy's loving view of the wild and the love that he has for animals like the grizzly bear. Whereas Louis Theroux uses voiceovers as a means of telling the viewer what he is thinking in each situation he is in, like when one of the sex offenders was kicked out their house by his supervisor, he felt that it would make the relationship awkward between himself and the people that featured in his documentary.
Video and Image Archives
There will be moments where the documentary will take already existing footage from someone not involved in the documentary. These are used to help provide reliable documents to the viewers. Last Chance U does this because they didn't have any footage to show how much potential one of East Mississippi's players had in high school and therefore found a video of the player warming up before a game.
Footage of real people or events
This is one of the most important and common aspects of a documentary is a not fabricating footage as most of the documentaries that I analysed were non-fiction documentaries. However I found that one technique of realism of footage is through editing like using voice overs or even reenacting events.
Interviews
When analysing other documentaries, like Grizzly Man and Last Chance U, I found that to develop the story in the documentary, interviewing important people from the events that took place or experts in our documentary's topic would create a sense of authenticity for the viewers as there's a some trust in the interviewees due to their knowledge of the topic. For example, Last Chance U interviews all it's main characters(the players and coaches) but also interviews a journalist as a way to get a view from outsider's perspective.
Audience Research
Hypodermic Needle Theory
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| Visual metaphor of how the media brainwashes their audience |
The theory originated from around the first World War when propaganda was at an all time high. This was because propaganda was used to influence what the audience believed and would therefore change their thoughts on an event.
Cultivation Theory
"More time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality portrayed on television." The social theory is focused on the long term effects of the television and other media platforms.
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| Example of the cultivation theory and how it has an impact on the audience's perception of reality |
In the 1960s, the public were concerned with how much people would watch TV. Gerbner and Gross wanted to know if people's daily lives are affected by the amount of time spent watching TV. One of the key points that they found out is that people that were always watching TV, heavy watchers, believed that TV gave an accurate representation of the real world. Therefore if people watch violence scenes on television, they're more than likely going to believe that the world is a violent place.
Stuart Hall
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| Stuart Hall came up with the theory of encoding and decoding |
Encoding and Decoding
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| Diagram of Stuart Hall's theory on encoding and decoding |
Stuart Hall's theory on encoding and decoding is shown in the model above. The theory is the relationship between information and it's audience. Construction of text by the producers/writers is what encoding is. Some stories gain more attention from people due to it's news value but for a story to gain a lot of attention from people it must have an item that makes the story engaging.
For decoding to take place, a story must be presented to the audience. The audience will then interpret the story in whatever way they want. However Hall argued against the idea that all individuals think the same and believed that an audience would have a dominant, oppositional or negotiated reading of the story.
Hall found that everything being decoded may vary from each person due to many factors:
- Personal experiences
- Environment
- Age
- Gender
- Ethnicity
Hall claimed that TV and other mediums give the audience a piece of information and they decode it based on their cultural background, personal experiences and economic standing.
Oppositional, Negotiated and Dominant readings
Oppositional reading is when the viewer disagree with the information given to them. This could be because of their personal experiences with the information given or due to their cultural background/economic standing. This could be seen as the message with an unintended meaning.
Dominant reading is when the viewer follows the message of the story and agrees with the text. This means that there is little to no miscommunication as both the write and view are working under the same rule set. This allows the viewer to understand the message being given to them.
Negotiated reading is when the viewer is able to decode the message like they read it from a dominant viewpoint. However, they are interpreted differently to a dominant reading because the viewer is not necessarily within the dominant viewpoint. However, the negotiated viewpoint looks at both dominant and oppositional but wouldn't consider one over the other.
I decided to go outside and interview members of the public and ask whether they were fans of documentaries and understand the audience of documentaries and whether they'd find it interesting to watch a documentary that follows a similar theme to ours. I decided to plan 4 questions in advance and think of a fifth question during the interview to see what type of audience watches documentaries, specifically ours. In this case, I wanted to know whether the narrative is as important as the member of the public implied it to be.
- Do you watch documentaries
- How often do you watch them
- Would you feel interested in watching a documentary that finds an alternative for expensive housing prices?
- What would make it interesting?
Reading Reviews
Another way I could understand the audience of documentary, especially TV documentary was through reading reviews on news articles. For example, film, TV and music critic for The Guardian, Stuart Heritage believes that Last Chance U may be the best sports documentary series he has ever seen. He found that the narrative that the documentary presents to the audience is so appealing and keeps the audience invested in the characters in the documentary due to how much you get to know about them. Whether it be through their traumatic childhood, childish behaviour, the mischief that they cause for their coaches and academic adviser, or even through the passion and love that they hold for American football. Understanding how a film/TV/music critic views this documentary gives me further insight on the idea that the use of narrative in a documentary makes the product appealing. The subject/characters is what keeps the audience's interest going.
"It's important that U put Last Chance U into context here. I do not like American football. I do not understand American football. The college football system is the most bafflingly arcane thing of all time. And yet Last Chance U might be the best sports documentary I have ever seen... Each win is giddying. Each loss hurts. The end of the series is nothing less than Shakespearean." - Stuart Heritage
"It's important that U put Last Chance U into context here. I do not like American football. I do not understand American football. The college football system is the most bafflingly arcane thing of all time. And yet Last Chance U might be the best sports documentary I have ever seen... Each win is giddying. Each loss hurts. The end of the series is nothing less than Shakespearean." - Stuart Heritage
I interpreted this as although you may have no interest in the subject/topic of the documentary, there are features to a documentary that make it appealing to the audience. The narrative can carry a documentary purely because it can grab the audience's attention instantly through the characters emotions and how they present each moment in the documentary to understand the vibe.
Construction
Main Product - TV Documentary
Production Team
Jacob Mechan [5074]
Niomie Wogan [5124]
Hany Tahir [5119]
Initial Ideas
Before filming our TV documentary extract, we first wanted to draft up some ideas for our documentary.
I thought of a documentary where we focused on anxiety and how it's becoming a bigger and bigger issue that the media and other documentaries tend to ignore or don't present a good enough picture as to how badly students are affected with anxiety in school. I felt that statistics, such as 13.6 percent of 16-19 year old students suffer from anxiety in the United Kingdom. We felt that it was difficult to create a documentary on this as we didn't really know anyone who experienced anxiety due to school pressure and would make our research seem more like guessing than research with evidence to back up our reasoning.
Jacob thought that we should create a TV documentary on how media portrays women and how it creates an unrealistic goals/standards for women and therefore causes the issue of forcing women to be self-aware of themselves and believe that they must have the same figure as how the media portrays them.
Niomie thought of focusing on a person that her mother knew and how it would be interesting to document how he lives his alternative lifestyle. She was interested in the idea that a middle-class man was moving to one residence to another and why he chooses this unstable lifestyle.
We were hesitant about Jacob and Niomie's pitches as we didn't know whether the person Niomie knew was willing to be filmed for our documentary or if there were any women that were open enough to admit that the media portrays women to have unrealistic goals, in terms of their figure.
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| Initial email from Niomie asking about his lifestyle and willingness to assist our media production |
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| Nick's response to Niomie's email where he explains his lifestyle |
Storyboards
Before filming, we needed to plan our TV documentary and decided exactly what we wanted to film. We wanted to have a rough idea of what shots we wanted and how we wanted to present the narrative of our documentary. We decided to draw what shot we wanted in order in a simple 12 panel storyboard with short description of what's happening in each shot.
When discussing ideas on our storyboard, we knew that Nick is a guardian and a part-time DJ, which gave us two options in terms of the topic of our documentary; music and guardianship.
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| Initial draft illustrations of our storyboards for both music and guardianships. |
Something we learned about storyboards is that due to the realism of a documentary or lack of scripting situations, we couldn't plan what would happen other than what to ask, cutaways or what our subject, Nick Garcia, would say. Therefore we found that the storyboard should just be written text rather than a drawn storyboard. It helped in the production of our second and third shoot for our documentary. We also found that the storyboard is more for making the editing production more structured and organised rather than the filming production.
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| This is the draft version of our storyboard, which was created once we finished all 3 shoots. |
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| Final storyboard for the final version of our documentary. We made vast improvements with the inclusion of graphics, voiceovers, music, cutaway and naming each specific clip. The added detail in the storyboard helped give a clearer image of what type of TV documentary we want to portray to the audience. |
Script
In our TV documentary, we found that there wasn't much use in a script other than a voiceover or interview questions. However, we found that interview questions were really only a foundation of what we should ask and further questions would be improvised due to the realism of the documentary. We planned 5 questions for our first shoot:
- How did you first find out about Live In Guardians?
- How long have you been a guardian?
- Why did you chose to be a guardian?
- What are the advantages of being a guardian?
- What are the disadvantages of being a guardian?
Once we finished filming our final documentary, we decided to include voiceovers the beginning of our 5 minute extract to help build the narrative and further build on Nick's passion for music and how he now has more time to pursue his passion for music due to being a guardian.
Voiceover
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Script
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Narrator
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In 2015, in the UK alone more than 13 million lost their accommodation. In spite of this, there are alternatives and Nicholas Garcia manages this instability of the housing market through housing agencies like live in guardians.
With 12000 applicants in the last 4 years, guardianships seem to be the answer for Nicholas Garcia
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Narrator
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Guardianships has given Nicholas more time to enjoy and pursue his passion for music. He works as a DJ and has a rich history with music.
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Roles
Due to Niomie's familiarity with Nick, we felt that it was suitable for her to be the interviewer and do voiceovers during the editing process of our TV documentary. This left out 3 more roles; cameraman, editor and director. I was much more comfortable using programs like Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects and Filmstro than using a camera and understanding how to use the zoom, slider, road microphone and other peripherals devices with the camera. Therefore I was the editor and director, whilst Jacob was the camera-man and co-director. Niomie was also assisting me as co-editor when I wasn't sure about how to improve the quality of our documentary or if she thought about giving me criticism.
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| Jacob testing out the camera, monitor, road microphone and camera rig. |
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| Niomie telling me one of her issues with the editing production of our draft. |
Schedules
Schedules are important in the planning of our TV documentary extract as it promoted structure and organisation. We created a filming schedule to keep up to date with when and where we'll be filming our documentary.
Date
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Time
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Location
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Description
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7/09/16
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10:00 - 14:00
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The Clipper pub - 562 Rotherhithe St, London SE16 5EX
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We’re going to meet Nicholas Garcia to interview him and find out more about his area.
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15/10/16
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11:00 - 13:00
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The Clipper pub - 562 Rotherhithe St, London SE16 5EX
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We’ve scheduled a reshoot with Nicholas as we found audio issues and felt that a lot of our shots were either out of focus or not suitable for TV documentary.
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23/01/17
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10:00 - 16:30
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The Clipper pub - 562 Rotherhithe St, London SE16 5EX
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We’ve scheduled once more with Nicholas as we felt that we didn’t have a great variety of shots to improve the quality of our documentary.
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Date
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Time
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Location
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Description
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3/09/16
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11:20
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St Georges RC School – Lanark Road, Maida Vale, London W9 1RB
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We decided to have a meeting before we film as we were deciding which TV documentary pitch would be the best to produce. We also came up with ideas, like a storyboard, shots, equipment to use, questions to ask and emailing the protagonist Nicholas for permission to film.
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13/09/16
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11:30
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St Georges RC School – Lanark Road, Maida Vale, London W9 1RB
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We met after filming our first shoot as we wanted to review our shots, audio, questions and storyboard.
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1/10/16
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14:00
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Mayfair Library – 25 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London W1K 2PB
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We decided that this meeting would focus on audio and shot variety as we felt that we didn’t use the road microphone to the fullest extent and didn’t try to challenge any sort of TV documentary.
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20/10/16
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12:00
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St Georges RC School – Lanark Road, Maida Vale, London W9 1RB
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We felt that there were still flaws in the filming of our TV documentary as the grading of the shots between the inside and outside were extremely different.
We also came to a conclusion as to who the host/interviewer of our TV documentary should be, which was Niomie and therefore include her in the voiceovers for our TV documentary.
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13/01/17
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11:45
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St Georges RC School – Lanark Road, Maida Vale, London W9 1RB
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This was our final shoot for our TV documentary where we came to a conclusion as to how we can resolve the grading issue which was through editing the master saturation on Premiere Pro.
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Team Meetings
We used team meetings as moments for us to review our production and what to focus on in the future. We would discuss whether we should ask other questions, issues with the equipment, issues with shots or audio that we believed needed to be redone. It was extremely useful when re-organising our production as we found multiple flaws with our storyboard being too specific, which was difficult due to the realism of a documentary and how it should be more natural than scripted. There were also issues, such as when we could schedule a shoot with Nicholas when we were all available.
Health & Safety
Another planning strategy that we felt was useful in the production of our TV documentary was health & safety. Health and safety definition: regulations and procedures intended to prevent accident or injury in workplaces or public environments.
I decided to research into the health and safety policy during filming, which I found a website that instructed me into how to keeping our equipment and staff safe during the filming production.
We made sure that when we were outside, we had someone behind the cameraman to avert members of the public from walking into the our cameraman, which could fall and break the camera, camera rig, road microphone or black magic monitor.
When we were outside, we made sure that we checked the road before crossing as we didn't want to damage any equipment or harm any members of staff when crossing the road.
Another health hazard was that there were a lot of wires on the floor which anyone could easily trip up on. Therefore we decided to move the wires away so that the cameraman, subject and interviewer didn't trip.
The counter of the pub had nails that weren't hammered down into the counter and could possibly carry diseases or could harm members of our production. Therefore, we looked for a rock to hammer down the nail into the counter to avoid harming us.
The final hazard that we came across was that due to the pub being a public residence, there was a lot of objects that we needed to move to the side of the room or away from the shots as someone could trip up on something. There were also objects, like a chair designed as swan, that weren't safe for our interviews when sitting down, therefore we replaced them with suitable objects.
Filming production
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| Interview taking place between Niomie and Nick |
Upon review of our first shoot with Nicholas Garcia, we found that we had some good footage, with a variety of shot types and angles. However, we felt that there could be improvements from this shoot. For example, the audio wasn't clear enough for us to understand what questions were being asked or answered. The grading was also extremely different outside compared to inside the pub. There was quite a lot of shots that were out-of-focus.
The second and third shoot was about improving on our mistakes, like the grading, audio, shot variety, camera movement and use of cutaways. Various shots like in Nick's bedroom or outside his residence was something we experimented with. We also wanted to provoke an emotional narrative through our questioning with Nick with use of his childhood and personal life. We also made our interview with Nick less structured and seem more natural as we wanted it to seem more like a conversation between two friends rather than an interviewer and interviewee.
Editing Production
This was the most important segment of our production as the editing was what allowed us to create a conventional TV documentary with the use of music, structure of clips, use of graphics and cutaways. I used Premiere Pro, Filmstro and Adobe After Effects.
Premiere Pro
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| Premiere Pro logo |
To improve the grading in our documentary, we experimented with the saturation. Grading the shots for the TV documentary extract was extremely important as we wanted there to be a theme/tone of seriousness and emotion. I felt that my choice of music was able to portray the serious, emotional theme of our TV documentary. Therefore the grading of our documentary should follow suit with a mellow, serious blue colour that expresses the documentary's realism whilst portraying the drama that the building is being demolished and therefore forcing him to worry about where he'll live next. The colour blue also holds connotations of intelligence and trust, which is something that allows the audience to feel towards Nick as they can see how he articulates his sentences and how he must deal with the fear of losing his residence due to something that's completely out of his control, which makes the audience worry for Nick and leading to trusting him.
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| Grading solution 1/2 |
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| Grading solution 2/2 |
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| Describing why I used keyframes in the editing process of the TV documentary. |
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| We improved from our draft where I removed clips or shortened them as they didn't help with the quality of the TV documentary. Which made the documentary extract last 6:06 minutes. |
I used the Filmstro plugin on Premiere Pro to help me compose music or even edit a preset composition. This was useful in the editing process of our documentary as I was able to enhance the drama and seriousness through the music.
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| When deciding how I'd want to portray the documentary's theme, I decided to go through the 'Science & Documentary' tab where I searched for a serious and yet dramatic composition.Therefore I chose the Dinlas preset composition, where I adjusted the settings to add more depth. |
Adobe After Effects
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| After Effects logo |
After Effects allowed me to create graphics that would improve the quality of the documentary. However, I decided not to use a lot of graphics as it would go against the codes and conventions of a TV documentary. I still felt that I was able to challenge the conventional use of graphics within TV documentaries through my use of graphics.
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| I paused the video and masked Nick out. |
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| I then added a blue background to remove his surroundings. |
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| I masked Nick again and added a white outline to make Nick stick out in the shot. |
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| I masked 'Nick Garcia' out and hid the title of the documentary and made it slide out. |
One way I used graphics was through the introduction of Nick Garcia, the subject of the documentary. We decided to mask out the background and cut him out into a blue background with large bold text. Niomie made the decision to delete the letter 'A' and change it into a house to fit the theme of the documentary being about lifestyle and where Nick might live next. It was good idea when it came to developing the genre of our TV documentary. I also masked 'Nick Garcia' and used a keyframe slide the title of the documentary out beneath it.
Draft Documentary
This is the draft version of our TV documentary extract. We understood the issues with the documentary upon editing it. We felt that there wasn't a narrative driving the documentary forward. The colour gradient was different between the shots inside and outside.
Audience Feedback (Draft)
What is audience feedback?
Audience response is a type of interaction associated with the use of audience response systems, to create interactivity between a presenter and his/her audience. - Wikipedia
We received multiple forms of feedback for our draft version and completed version of our TV documentary extract. As the draft wasn't the complete TV documentary, we only received formative feedback as we were still learning/editing our TV documentary extract. We only received comments on YouTube where we were told about how we could improve our TV documentary extract.
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| Formative feedback from online video streaming site YouTube. |
Final Documentary
Audience Feedback (Final)
We used Reddit and YouTube as forms of summative feedback for our completed TV documentary extract. YouTube was used as formative feedback during the production of our draft documentary, which was useful in learning how to improve our TV documentary. Furthermore, we used Reddit as another form of summative feedback as we could appeal to a much larger audience who would be interested in watching documentaries, especially TV documentaries.
Summative feedback when you receive audience feedback after you've completed you production and learning from the end of our TV documentary.
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| Comments on YouTube giving formative feedback |
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| Comments on Reddit giving feedback |
Codes and conventions of 'Lifestyle: Guardian'
During the editing process of our TV documentary extract, we had to take into consideration as to what codes and conventions we should include in our documentary. We felt that we should challenge the genre of TV documentary whilst conforming into the genre of TV documentary.
Use of shots in our documentary
I decided to showcase my knowledge of camera shots and show how we implemented these shots into our documentary. This is to show that my research into the genre of TV documentary and filmmaking has been extremely useful in the production of my TV documentary.
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| Cutaways were used frequently for multiple reasons. It was to make it easier for the audience to understand what the subject was talking about or trying to establish the setting. It was important to hide the use of zoom ins as we used far too many zoom ins to really be considered a TV documentary. |
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| Close up shots is mainly used to present facial expressions from the subject, Nick. A close up shot is where the subject takes up the majority of the screen or the camera zooms in close to the subject. |
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| Establishing shot is to display the location of the scene and give the audience an idea of where we'll be shooting our documentary. It's shown early into the documentary extract to further give the audience an idea of where the documentary will take place. |
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| A two-shot is a type of mid-shot where includes two people in one shot to establish the relationship between the two people. The shot allowed us to portray the familiarity between the two whilst displaying a serious conversation between the two where they talked about the demolition of the estate. |
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| Over the shoulder shot is also another shot that isn't typically used in conventional TV documentaries but we found that there should be a shot where the audience can see the interviewer. Therefore we felt that we should try to get a shot of our interviewer whilst making Nick, the subject, fill the entire shot as he's the most important part of the documentary. |
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| Wide shot is when you have the subject in frame whilst making sure that the audience can see the background. In the beginning of our documentary, we decided to start off with a wide shot which established what type of person Nick is and his environment. |
Radio Advertisement
The objective of this radio advertisement was to produce a 30-40 second piece of audio where we give our audience an idea of what our documentary will be about and what it'll feature. We've all had experience with software like Audacity and understood techniques like removing background noise and cutting. My task from my AS coursework also helped me as producing a local radio news bulletin gave me the understanding of how to use a portable microphone, using archives and composing my own music.
Although I have an understanding of how to produce a local radio news bulletin, I still need to research the codes and conventions of a radio advertisements. Researching these codes and conventions allows me to know how to appeal our documentary to our target audience, which leads to a higher viewership for our documentary.
Codes and conventions of a radio advertisement
To find the codes and conventions of a radio advertisement, I needed to analyse at least 2 radio advertisements for our TV documentary. This was extremely difficult as I found that radio advertisements for TV documentaries didn't exist. Therefore I found that I should analyse 2 radio advertisements and one TV documentary trailer and find the similarities between the two mediums. One of the radio advertisements that I found was the Doctor Who series 7 trailer.
The other radio advertisement is 'Tumanbay', which is a radio drama.
After analysing both advertisements, I found that both advertisements use music and sound effects as ambience for the tone of the documentary. Another feature that was used in both advertisements was sound archives. We felt that sound archives from the documentary effective as it helped give the audience an idea of what topics the documentary will focus on.
Emotion - Film, radio or TV will portray a form of emotion. For example, happiness, sadness, shock, or despair. The advertisement must portray some sort of emotion for the audience as it appeals to the audience about what the emotion and vibe of the documentary shall be. Emotion is also a useful feature for radio advertisements because it appeals to an audience that has experienced such emotions, which makes it relatable and appealing to the audience. Although other members of our audience may not have experience the same feelings that are being conveyed, the audience can still find it interesting to see someone else's perspective within the documentary. This is another feature that makes documentaries appealing to the audience.
Voiceover talent - Due to radio being a blind medium, voiceovers are extremely important for our audience as the voice must be suited/adjusted to portray the tone and ambience of the documentary, which stresses the importance of a voiceover as it can affect the quality of the documentary and the radio advertisement.
Music and sound effects - As radio is a blind medium, music and sound effects play a part of creating the ambience and creating drama/setting up a storyline for the audience. Although it is important for music to be used in radio advertisements, it's also important in TV/video advertisements/trailers, like in Last Chance U's trailer. The use of music and sound effects and their impact is extremely important for both mediums as using music helps create this story for the audience whilst adding suspense. Therefore, it makes it much more appealing for the audience.
Articulation and simplicity - the radio advertisement is limited in time, with a 30-second limit. This means that we need to find ways to convey the message and make an impact with fewer words, the language can be simple in order to broadcast the film, or it can have impactful words that correlate with the film.
Due to our restriction of producing a 30-40 second radio advertisement, we needed to present our documentary, whilst being
Voiceover auditions
We decided to hold auditions for the radio advertisement as we felt that it allowed us to know who would be the best option. We came up with the idea of holding auditions from our AS course, where we were tasked to create a five minute local radio news bulletin, as we felt that the most audiogenic voice would be most suitable as our host. Therefore we felt that we should continue our auditions as we wanted an audiogenic voice to advertise our TV documentary. However, we discussed how audiogenic differs between different genres of radio, like how the voiceover has to portray the TV documentary with a similar tone to our documentary whilst giving the information clearly. Whereas in local radio, we felt that the tone of the host's voice should remain consistent and not portray any sort of emotion.
After the auditions took place, we found one person who had managed to fit the criteria that we were looking for in order to create the most realistic radio advertisement we could possibly make. It was a clear male voice who was able to show emotion and control his tone to greatly. This assisted us as we were able to portray the emotion and tone of our TV documentary not only through music and sound effects but also from the voiceover.
Radio Advertisement Script
We found that listening to the 'Doctor Who series 7 trailer' was something that impacted our decision making greatly in terms of the script as we felt that it gave us some insight on how a script must be presented for the audience.
Draft
This advertisement ran over 30-40 seconds, which went against the requirements and therefore meant that we had to shorten our radio advertisement. We also used too many facts within the 45 second draft, which overwhelmed listeners. We found that we never added some sort of provocation to make our radio advertisement thought provoking and we also thought that it seemed far too casual and that there wasn't a similar sense of seriousness that we wanted to display from our documentary. We wanted to provoke some sort of emotion where we can make the radio advertisement engaging. Not just say when the documentary would broadcast with a description about the show. It was more about appealing to our audience rather than marketing our documentary as gaining the interest of the audience leads to them wanting to watch the documentary.
However, we found that the best part was the inclusion of Nick talking about his experiences with Live in Guardians. It adds a sense of mystery as the listener doesn't have any context as to what he was talking about, which would make them want to watch our TV documentary.
The draft script for the radio advertisement
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| Draft version of radio advertisement |
Completed Script
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| Completed script of our radio advertisement |
Final script for Lifestyle: Guardian radio advertisement
We decided to follow our idea that the radio advertisement should focus more to appealing to the audience through provocation rather than focusing on statistics. We used rhetorical questions, which creates a sense of familiarity between the voiceover and audience as they're being provoked to think about their lives in London. We decided to keep the segment where Nick is talking about his living situation and his experiences as it still added a sense of mystery as the audience doesn't have any context as to what Nick is talking about and therefore would want to watch our TV documentary.
Print Advertisement
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| 'FourDocs' is a website that allows users to create short documentaries and give them the opportunity to become documentary filmmakers. |
Although 'FourDocs' was useful in our research into print advertisement and Channel 4, we found that Channel 4 broadcast a wide range of documentaries due to it's wide appeal. For example, in 2014, Channel 4 reached 10 million registered viewers and half them were 16-24 year old teens/young adults in the UK.
Examples of print advertising:
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| 'Cutting Edge: Meet The Foxes' print advertisement |
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| 'Disarming Britain' print advertisement |
Something else that we realised in our research and analysis is the text on each poster. Both print adverts had the title of the documentary on the bottom left of the screen with a day and time with a text block behind it whilst the Channel 4 logo is on the right hand side of the screen.
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| Channel 4 print advertisement font: STD A OCR |
Draft Advertisement
Our team meetings involved discussions about what image we planned on using, the message we wanted to come across through symbolism or through the colours and the connotations of each colour. Our research into codes and conventions for a Channel 4 print advertisement allowed us to creating our own Channel 4 print advertisement. We created multiple drafts for our print advertisement as we wanted to have as many ideas as possible.
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| 1st draft |
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| 2nd draft |
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| 3rd draft |
The print advert was still to plain to really convey our documentary's message and therefore unsuitable as a TV documentary print advertisement for Channel 4.
The font was also an issue as we didn't focus on using OCR A STD font for our title, day and time.
Final Print Advertisement
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| Final version of our Print advert |
Summative Audience Feedback
We received summative feedback from members of the public. Summative feedback is when your audience gives their response once you've finished with your production. We found this useful in understanding any constructive criticism our audience may have with the documentary.
Evaluation
Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Question 3: What have you learned from the audience feedback?
Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Hyperlink to Question 4 on Timetoast
