Evaluation Question 1

Before producing my documentary I ensured I had conducted enough research by watching a variety of documentaries including complication films, talking heads, direct cinema and docusoaps. From the outset I was initially interested in the style of turning heads. I conducted this research in order to discover the typical forms and conventions of real media products. I mainly focused on looking at documentaries ‘JLS Revealed’ and ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ as the style and genre of the documentaries was very similar to mine. I noted that a number of documentaries from this genre follow particular conventions, which include; talking heads which deal with the main issue and a non-diegetic Voice of God narration is used in contrast to the direct discussion of the interviewees. I chose to analyse ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ in depth and looked at what conventions I used and developed and what ones I challenged. 

When filming my documentary I used a variety of shots and created a number of compilations of both images and videos together. A shot which I used numerous times was a still medium long shot which was used when shooting the turning head interviews. This is a very popular convention which the majority of documentaries tend to use. I used this shot when interviewing Emma, her manager and her friends. Documentary ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ also uses this shot frequently when interviewing associates of Bieber, this particularly shot focuses all your attention on the subject so they appear as the focal point of the shot. This documentary also provides nametag titles below the person in the shot so the audience is aware what relation the person is to Bieber and what importance they have in his career e.g. ‘RYAN BUTLER, FRIEND’. This aspect was one in which I felt was essential to include in mine also as I felt it was important for the audience to know who the people speaking were as they don’t always necessarily introduced themselves so I provided with the audience with knowledge of ‘ANAIS AND AMY, EMMA’S BESTFRIENDS’ and ‘LIAM HURLEY, EMMA’S MANAGER’. Shots, which I believed, were successful as well as powerful was the use of montage shots of both videos and pictures; this provided the audience with an overview of the subjects (Emma) life. To express that performing and entertaining has been a passion for Emma for a long time I included images/photos from an early age where she appeared in fancy dress or holding a musical instrument. This was a convention which I have seen appear in many other documentaries including ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ where we are shown videos of Justin at a young age playing the drums and performing in front of his family, and the facial expressions and body language of Bieber himself shows the audience it is something he loves to do.

One convention I feel I successfully developed was the use of non-diegetic sound within my production. Throughout my documentary there featured a Voice of God voiceover, one was from a narrator which described elements which weren’’t particularly clear within the scene e.g. “Its not all glitz and glam for Emma, travelling is very time consuming and takes up a lot of time in her life” this speech was over laid during shots of a time laps of the roads therefore is provided in depth information about the individuals life. 



The other voice over was from my main protagonist Emma herself, I haven’t seen this present in any documentary which I have studied so would consider this as a convention which I challenged. Although this wasn’t something which I had frequently seen I felt the risk of including it was

effective as it made the documentary appear as more personal and gave a more empowering response to the viewer. As well as the use of a voiceover I also included a soundtrack as part of my non-diegetic sound, throughout my documentary a soundtrack was provided to each different scene and altered depending on the subject of the speech e.g. when Emma discusses her inspirations in life and tells the audience her Brother is her real hero the instrumental of song ‘Say Something- A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera’ is playing in the background; this song is one to be considered of a slow steady tempo which can come across as emotional and sanctioning to the listener.  In comparison to when there is a montage of pictures of Emma as a child song ‘Plage- Chrystal Fighters’ is playing which is considered to be a good feeling, happy, upbeat song. I had to adapt the onscreen imagery to fit a song of a particularly genre so the soundtrack didn’t contradict the shots shown. This technique was again used in ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ and the impact appeared to be successful.  This documentary inspired me to use the artists own music as the soundtrack e.g. at the beginning of the documentary during the introduction of the film Justin Bieber’s own song ‘Love Me’ is appearing as the non-diegetic soundtrack. I believed this was a successfully aspect as is associated which the documentary and protagonist itself. I included original song ‘Jessie’s Secret’ which was written and produced by Emma Custis and Marcus Caisey in the background of the scene where Emma is talking about her new single, which is that song.

A convention, which I feel many talking heads interview use is the non-linear format so the footage doesn’t appear in chronological order throughout. I feel I successfully followed this convention as throughout my documentary I present a number of images and videos, which were taken in the past. Although this media isn’t up to date I felt these needed to be included in order to make my documentary appear to be authentic and believable. All of the past media, which I included in someway, showed Emma in a positive light doing what she loved, which was preforming. Many other documentary’s similar to mine do infact use old imagery and videos as well e.g. in ‘JLS Revealed’ we see the band in their early days rehearsing their audition before they went on popular television show ‘The X Factor’ this is something the audience love to see as they can self create a contrast to what they were before and how far they have all come as artists. In my opinion I feel the content of my documentary could potentially challenge the conventions of talking head interviews as I chose to ignore any negative aspects which the artist has faced and focus on the positive however many existing documentaries I have watched do include both.  From what I have watched from documentaries which have previously been made I found that negative aspects were a huge focus of the narrative and shows how the artist triumphs and pulls through and comes out to be a successful artist.

Evaluation Question 2

PRODUCTION- EMMA CUSTIS: A TOTAL

I feel like the final production of my documentary was successful in a number or ways however I do feel like there is still room for improvements. I believe throughout the creation of my documentary I always had the target audience in the back of my find and in my opinion I successfully responded to the target audience as my final product did appeal to the demographics that I hoped it would. As well following typically documentary conventions I also challenged some, which I hoped, would be a decision and make the documentary still appealing to watch although common aspects aren’t shown.

I believe I successfully used a variety of shots for a talking heads documentary as a lot of the shots that are used are standstill and repetitive. I was able to include including a time-lapse sequence, handheld shots and a montage of both images and videos. The use of these types of shots makes the documentary more interesting to watch for the audience. As well as the cinematography used I believe that the character types which I created were interesting to watch. Emma appeared to be a very grateful, fortunate character and didn’t come across being arrogant and malicious which some artists can. The role of Liam, the manager came across to be professional and supportive in Emma as an artist that made him appear to be an authentic character. Finally the characters of Amy and Anais I felt reflected many teenager girls very well. Both characters are fighting to be Emma’s best friend arguing who’s known her the longest and who’s more proud of her. This performance also makes their scene to be quite comical and funny to watch, which makes their scene stand out from the others in the documentary, as all other scenes are quite serious.

After the finalising my documentary there are still some aspects, which I would change if I were provided with the time. The second interview with Emma I believe appears to be slightly blurry due to the high exposure of light. This was something I was keen to refilm however I did run out of time so I overlapped it with some footage which I had previously filmed for another project which did infact fit the genre of the documentary.

ANCILLARY TASK: DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

I was very happy with the outcome of my double page spread. After conducting research looking at existing media products. I found one example, which I was very keen to imitate the style of. The outcome I believe looks very professional and neat due to the use of minimal colour. Filling one of the pages with a portrait shot of Emma I believe was a good technique as it makes it clear to the audience that the article is about Emma Custis and if you don’t know the artist by name you may do by face. The layout of the double page spread I feel contributes to the overall success of this piece as in my opinion it looks very proficient with the addition of the ‘EXCLUSIVE’ peeling sticker which is a convention commonly used in magazine articles.

ANCILLARY TASK: NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

When creating my newspaper article I needed to make sure that there were similar aspects used in my Double page spread so they promoted the artist and created a brand for her. To do this I used the same colours of black and red and wrote using the same font of Georgia. I used the same quote which I put in large font on the double page spread in a tag line further creating a name for the artist in hope to enhance the popularity of her. Overall I believe the combination of all three tasks work successfully together. 

Evaluation Question 3

Throughout the post production stages of my documentary it was essential that I gained feedback from my target audience, not only too improve my documentary but to check that it still appealed to my chosen demographics. Too ensure this I showed my documentary at regular intervals to a small group of my target audience, they were able to provide me with positive points and constructive criticism on how I could improve.

My documentary focuses on a young teenage girl inspired by to follow her ambition of becoming a performer, therefore I feel the target audience of this documentary will be very similar to the audience of Emma herself. Theoretically I believe Emma’s audience would be teenage girls who inspire very much to be like her. The main primary audience I am focusing on is teenagers both males/females aged between 12-19; however I am specifically targeting females due to the fact Emma herself is a female and I feel she would be a more influential figure to people of the same sex as her. There is no specific social group/ethnicity that the documentary will be intended for as every person has an ambition despite his or her status and race. I hope as well as the primary audience this documentary would attract people from other ages and gender who show an interest in performing and the music industry. 

In terms of social grades I feel I am targeting people who fall under the C1 and C2 category, as teenagers don’t tend to have a substantial income and watching a television documentary at home is something all can participate in despite their possible lack of money.  In my opinion C1 and C2 are appropriate categories as when Emma progresses as a performer she may release merchandise and commercial products, which would increase her status in the industry, these products I feel would appeal to a younger age category opposed to the older. In terms of psychodynamics I believe my documentary would attract a number of categories. The first category being spectators as their may be particular viewers who are just watching for entertainment purposes alone, maybe because there is nothing else on television etc. Another category I feel would interest my audience would be joiners, as many watching the documentary may aspire to be in Emma’s position. Due to Emma being a young successful artist there are probably going to be many viewers who wish to be in her position. The final type of psychodynamics who I believe would watch the documentary are critics as the music industry is one watched closely by critics/journalists etc. to find out the latest gossip.

Before presenting my production I made sure I had responded to any to feedback that I had previously been given to make my documentary as success it could be. Feedback included checking sound levels etc. After presenting my documentary to the class my teacher provided me with a list of feedback and allowed me time to make these amendments, some of these were minor and some were major which meant I had to re film. One point, which was stressed as an issue, was large gaps in the footage that I was advised to fill with establishing shots/ shots, which related to the topic of speech. Due to my feedback two essential changes I made were re filming the interview with Amy and Anais due to the quality of the footage being poor, I agreed with this point and believed it was a high priority of mine. I was also told to consider to refilm the interview with the manager as it was boring, this was something I had hoped to do however I wasn’t able to due to Liam being unavailable and running out of time. In order to solve this issue I added a non-diegetic soundtrack to the background of the footage and added some shots to break up the video so it didn’t appear to be boring and continuous. I took time to re film to voice over which I myself wasn’t happy with when presenting as it appeared to be dull and boring, in reflection a female voice fits the genre of the documentary a lot better than a male one (which I originally anticipated).

Evaluation Question 4

RESEARCH

I felt within myself I conducted a lot of research before creating my documentary. As previously mentioned I was always initially drawn to the style of talking head as realistically I believe that was the most realistic type of documentary to produced which if was successful would look authentic and proficient. After watching a number of documentaries from this genre I created a PowerPoint Pitch to present to my peers and teacher the initial ideas I had. The feedback I received made me confident in my idea and I continued to pursue it. Basing the idea of my documentary around an up and coming performer I knew I had to look at existing documentaries from this genre in depth to look at what conventions were common. I began looking at existing media products online on websites such as YouTube and Netflix as well as looking on Sky Store on the television. Following this research I found a number of documentaries, which focused on performers and their rise to fame. On Netflix I found ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never’ which I felt was a fantastic style model for my documentary.  I spent a lot of time analysing this particular documentary in depth, noting down some conventions, which I believed looked successful and worked well. Once I had conducted this research on this documentary I uploaded my findings online to Blogger http://abbietoyntonmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/in-depth-documentary-analysis-justin.html After the research stage I was confident with the initial idea I had thought of.

PLANNING

Before planning anything in depth for my documentary. I created my Practical Production Schedule on Microsoft Excel, which would help me with time management and provide with me a list of everything I had to complete by the final deadline. The Schedule made me think I needed to consider costume types, locations, titles etc. before creating them.  I had already decided I wanted my friend Emma Custis to star in the documentary as she is loves to perform and has existing knowledge of this field. I had already contacted her via iMessage and she was happy to play this role, as it would help her for experience etc.  She was happy to travel with me to any location (within reason) and wear what I told her, so I had full control over the appearance of my documentary.  I had made the decision on locations to be local and accessible to us both. I took pictures of the locations via iPhone as it provided a clear enough picture.  I also asked Emma to take pictures of her living room, where I planned to film with her iPhone and send to me over iMessage so I could see if it was suitable for what I had in mind. I posted these images on Blogger http://abbietoyntonmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/a-total-talent-locations.html.  Once I had sorted the locations I had to carefully pick the costumes, which Emma and other characters featuring in my documentary would wear.  I believed the costumes which the characters was important as it would reflect their character types. I knew Emma being a successful young artist needed to dress tidy and luxuriously with clothes from high end clothes such as Zara and Topshop.  I used the Internet to go on these clothing websites www.topshop.com and www.zara.com to find which clothes were currently in fashion and match them to Emma’s existing wardrobe to create a fresh new image. Once these stages were completed I created a shot list and rough script outline, which I created on Microsoft Word and copied onto Blogger. 

PRODUCTION AND POST PRODUCTION

During the filming stages of my production 2 cameras were used, the first being a Nikon D3100 that was a really reliant aspect to the filming stages. The second camera which I used for certain shots was a Canon EOS 1100D which I found wasn't suitable for documentary filming as particular shots inside appeared as blurry, and I had to re film particular scenes with the Nikon D3100. Throughout the majority of filming I used a tripod to steady the movement of the camera during the recording of talking head interviews.

In the post production stages there were a variety of media technologies, which contributed to the final appearance of my production. Adobe Premiere was the programme, which I used the most throughout the process. I was familiar with the programme after using it regularly for approximately 3 years. Here I edited all my footage, this including editing sound, cutting clips, adding additional sound e.g. voiceovers/soundtracks. To transfer my footage from the camera the most efficient method was using a USB converter, which allowed transferring the media off the SD card straight my laptop. Last year I faced a number of issues working on the shared school computers as rendering files was time consuming and at times my work failed to save. This year I wasn’t prepared for issues like this to arise so made the decision to work on my own laptop, which is an Apple Mac Pro, this also gave me an opportunity to edit whenever I wanted as it was always accessible to me and didn’t have to wait until the school computers were available to use. I backed all my work up on a Toshiba hard drive so I wasn’t at risk of losing any work. I used program Format Factory to convert my files into MP4 so they were compatible to use with Adobe Premiere. When it came to record my Voice of God voiceovers I used my iPhone, as the quality appeared to be good. I then emailed myself via Office 365 so I could access the files via my laptop. Particular aspects, which featured on blog, were created using other websites. All sound clips where posted via SoundCloud which is a popular music sharing website, the presentation of the clip made it easy for the viewer to start and stop the audio. All sound effects and soundtracks I searched for and downloaded from YouTube using www.youtube-mp3.org. Some images were created into a GIF online which displayed numerous images flashing, which I believed at times was a neater presentation opposed to a large number of images. 

EVALUATION
Throughout writing my evaluation I have continued to use numerous media technologies. I wrote my evaluation on Microsoft Word and copied and pasted it onto Blogger.  The images, which I have included, have been edited together using Adobe Photoshop, making them more visually appealing as apposed to being straight saved from the Internet. As well as images I have included snippets of my final production through GIFs.  I have continued to use aspects, which I have used through all my post production stages including GIFs and SoundCloud clips.  The titles I created on Microsoft Word by downloading font 'A Little Sunshine’ from the Internet.

Ancillary Task: Newspaper Advertisement

Ancillary Task Research: Newspaper Advertisement

For my second ancillary task I chose to create an advertisement which would appear in the newspaper. The type of newspaper which featured my advertisement I felt was essential as the demographics from both my advertisement and newspaper needed to match. I conducted some research to see which newspaper had the youngest audience. From my findings I found that the Guardian, The Sun and The Mirror are the newspapers with the youngest audience, therefore I made the decision to feature my advertisement in The Sun Newspaper; this is with hope that the demographics for the documentary will be reading the newspaper. 

I continued to conduct research before creating my piece by researching existing posters for television shows. There were a number of aspects which occurred in each poster therefore I felt was necessary to include in mine ignored to make it look authentic. In each poster I have looked out there is minimal text used in each, only essential information is shown, this includes the title, the day/time of release and the channel in which it is broadcasted on. The use of minimal text means the focus isn't taken away from the advertisement itself. From my research I have also found that the majority of posters contain an image of the main star(s) which can also be a strong advertisement technique as it can enhance popularity/interest in the show if they see a familiar face starring. One other technique I saw used was quotations from the show e.g. Breaking Bad used "CALL ME HEISENBURG". I felt these three techniques would help me to produce a successful outcome. One other aspect which I wanted to include with a film reel of images, I found this when researching for my double page spread however made the decision not to not include one as it didn't fit my theme. I think this particular aspect will look effective on a poster as it would introduce to the audience who Emma Custis is and what she does.

Ancillary Task: Double Page Spread