A2 Media Evaluation

Emily Bignold
 In what way does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?
My media product uses the conventions of real media products. It
does this by following the forms of documentaries already used
on television. For my research I looked at various documentaries such as
Planet Earth, an inconvenient truth and Time Team. I wanted to watch a
variety of genres so I could get a general understanding for the conventions of
TV documentaries. I chose Time Team in particular as it was a similar theme to
my documentary. I knew these documentaries were successful and so copying
the forms and conventions would mean the documentary would have a better
format. I copied the format of using a chronological layout which I think
makes it flow better. It starts with the diggers and ends with Julian talking
about the results of the dig. This is important as the documentary is supposed
to tell the story of what happened and i think mine does this well. There is also
intervals of interviews and footage of other things which went on at the dig
such as the children digging in the sandbox dig.
I don't think my media product really challenged any
conventions as it followed a similar format to most
documentaries. It follows a very similar pattern and I think this
works well for the clips I had. It shows an all round view of the
two week dig with a beginning and end. I regret not having
more presenter-led footage however, as I think this would have
helped to make it more interactive and interesting for the
audience. I tried to include enough information to make sure
that the audience knew what was going on and I think for the
most part this worked, although from my audience feedback I
can see that a voice over would have helped a bit.
How effective is the combination
of your main product and
ancillary text?
 
I think my combination of ancillary tasks and main task
worked well. As I was doing a documentary aimed to be
aired on television it seemed sensible to do the advertisement
for the TV listings paper. I think this worked well as I could write
a brief description of what the documentary was about and add
photos. I thought as the documentary was going to be shown
on TV it would be better to do this as opposed to doing the
radio advert. This is because often people will look through the
TV listings paper to see what they want to watch and so this
Could encourage more people to watch it. It would also give a
good background to what was going on before it was watched.
It also name-drops Julian Richard which may persuade people to
watch it as they will recognize the name.
The other ancillary task I did was an advert for a newspaper. I chose this one
because there are many local papers around Blandford and so if they saw it,
they would become interested. It is seen by so many people and this way it doesn't
restrict it to a certain radio station. I chose a memorable layout with a bold title to
help remembering the advert. I think this combined well with the documentary
because it could be produced before the documentary was aired to gain more
publicity and attract more viewers. The advert included the main information
about when it would be shown as without it people may not see another advert or
would not bother to find out when it was. Although this advert is aimed to be used in
newspapers I think it could be used generally to create interest. I used a bold font
using black and white to make it stand out the most. It also gave the advert more of
an atmosphere to what the documentary would be like. It seems quite dark and the
whole documentary is focused on what life was like on the Milldown before and so
may include dark ideas such as death.
What have you learnt from your
audience feedback?
I did two lots of audience feedback. My first lot of feedback
was when I had finished my final draft of the
documentary. I used this feedback to improve my draft to
edit my fine cut. Some of the improvements I made were
to include a voice over in some parts to make it more
understandable. I did this in four sections of the
documentary, especially at the beginning to explain more
about what was happening. Another idea was to change
some of the transitions as in some shots it looked as
though it was a change in time as it faded to black. I
edited this to make it look more of a fade from shot to
shot with no colours. This made it look like it was at the
same time. Some people noticed that some of the shots
were quite shaky, but there wasn’t much I could improve
on for this so I tried to cut out the shakiest parts without
losing any of the main bits. This improved some of the
sections as they looked smoother.
For the second lot of audience feedback I used my
fine cut. Unfortunately, some of the files had been
lost on the iMac in the last few weeks and so I had
lost my voice over’s and most of my main clips.
This made it hard to show any improvement in my
work as the new version with all the
improvements on had been lost. I spent quite a
while trying to find the lost clips using a variety of
software to find lost or deleted files. This didn’t
find my files and so I used the final draft and added
the voice over’s again. It didn’t look as good as my
fine cut as there were still the shaky clips which
most people picked up on. I would have re-done
these clips if I had had enough time to.
To record my audience feedback I used a variety of methods. I designed a
survey on www.surveymonkey.com to send to the people who had
watched it. I thought this was a good idea as it collected the results and
you could view the results really easily. I also filmed some of the
feedback as well to upload to my blog and add to my DVD. I tried to use
a variety of people demographically to make my results more accurate
and this included showing it to people of different ages. I also included
people who were involved with the dig and those who didn’t know
anything about it. This way I could see if it made sense to everyone and
avoiding it being too dumbed down or making it too accessible to the
archaeologists, but not those who didn’t know much about it. Using
these results I found out that everyone found that it made sense and so
I can assume that it will be accessible to everyone. I also found out that
everyone picked out the same faults with it which is the lack of voice
over and shaky camera work. If I had more time I would have re-done
the section to include a voice over, however there isn’t anything I can
do about the camera work.
 How did you use media
technologies in the construction
and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
I used a variety of technology in the various stages.
For the construction of my documentary I used an
HD video camera which used cassettes to film on. I
think this is better than the ones with an internal
hard drive as things can be deleted or the camera
can break but with cassettes they can’t be lost. I
uploaded it all to Final Cut Pro to edit it. This
wasn’t too hard as I had used the same software
to edit my AS work. To burn it all to disk I exported
it as a Quick Time file which could then be opened
in iDVD and burned. I exported all my files
including the extras to be on the same disk.
For my research I logged most of it onto Blogger. This was
hard at some points as it was blocked on our school
network and so we could only access it at home. I used
some books for my research especially for the history of
documentaries and the key people. For the rest of it I used
the internet to look at more information such as websites
includes http://www3.nfb.ca/enclasse/doclens/btc.php?DLshown=
true&language=e
which gives guidance on making a documentary. I also used
many other websites to find definitions of a documentary
and general other information that might be useful. Most
of this I uploaded to my blog. I also spent some time
watching documentaries that were on television to get a
general feel to how it should be formatted. This helped as
I could find documentaries that worked well and copy
some of their ideas.
For my planning I did several rough versions of the
documentary to find sequences that worked well together.
Before I did this however, I put together a record of all the
clips I had and decided which section they would go in, yes,
maybe or no and so whether I would use them or not. This
worked well as I could sort out my clips easily into folders
which made it a lot easier to find the clips I wanted. I didn’t
storyboard as I didn’t know what order I wanted them in. I
found it easier doing it this way as I could experiment with
the clips and find a sequence that works well. I duplicated
the clips after I had almost got to my final draft so I could
edit one version and not change the other one until I knew
it worked well. By doing this I could see if cut aways would
work in certain clips without worrying that the edits would
be irreversible.
I think I used the most of Final Cut Pro as I could as I
found I could do everything I wanted to do on
there. It also wasn’t too confusing as I didn’t want
any special effects and so it was just basic cutting
and putting together. Once I had made a rough
version I could add the music to it which joined
some clips together, especially where some of the
sound was quite uneven. I could also use some
clips that had no audio in them and link them
together with music. I used this in the clips with
the muddy site and the wheelbarrow and I think
this helped, as it sounded better than the atmos in
the background.
For my evaluation I used Power Point to do my
written evaluation which will be uploaded to my
blog. I also did a DVD commentary to put over the
clips without the audio which made the evaluating
easier as I could show the particular clips that
worked well, or could have been improved. This
will become an extra on the DVD for people to
watch. It won’t be uploaded to my blog as the file
will probably be too big. I also put together all my
audience feedback, especially my survey results
and use this as well as I think this gives an
evaluation from another perspective apart from
my own. This is helpful as its often hard to know
what to improve.