FINAL DOCUMENTARY

FINAL DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

FINAL POSTER

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In this question I am going to be looking at the way that real media texts have influenced and started my creative skills in the short documentary, newspaper advert and double paged spread I made as part of my media portfolio.

Short Documentary

Here is our short documentary...

Genre

The genre of this short is a documentary. We decided that the topic of documentary we wanted to look at was a farm and a day in the life of a local farmer that deals with a mixture of livestock and produce. We wanted to show how farming can be enjoyable and rewarding for farmers, however there are shocking facts and realities that need to be recognized. This documentary is categorized as an observational  documentary, this is because the camera spontaneously follows the farmer and the jobs that he does in and around the farm on a normal day. As well as being an observational documentary, there is hints of an interactive documentary due to the interview between the farmer and camera. 

Interactive features...

A conventional link with this documentary...   

Charecter

Farmer

Name: Richard Lainbury

Age: 54

Married 

1 child

Farming style: Sheep, chickens/ eggs and mushrooms  

Conventions for farming documentaries 

Here is an example of a short farming documentary called Soy Farming. Our farmer follows the typical conventions of a farm with the mise en scene we have used. His costume is one of a typical farmer with a traditional shirt, overalls and a fleece when it is cold. As well as the mise en scene, the two farmers are of the same kind of age. This is very stereotypical of farmers being older. This then means that the audience will be able to associate with the short as it is what they would expect it to be like. Therefore this means that our target audience will be pulled in by the expectation of their initial thoughts. 

Location

Here are some images of our location. 

The location we used is the main focus of the short. This is a very stereotypical representation of a farm and what a British farm looks like and how out target audience would expect to see the farm. 

Conventional locations...

Narrative

The narrative of this short is quite simple, yet interesting. We chose to show the every day tasks and the farmer enjoying the work he does and the passion he has in it. However we have put a twist on this, because in some inter titles we have shown some shocking facts about the reality that farmers have to cope with and the stress and pressure they are put under to feed the world with the little amount of land there is to use. 

linking convention followed...

We have followed the conventions of this documentary with the highs and lows of farming.

Facts and stats

We decided to use inter titles with facts on them. They were quite plain and simple. We have done this because we want it to have a dramatic effect on the viewer and their opinion on the short. 

Sound

We decided to use non-dietetic sound within our short. This is because we wanted to follow conventions and ideas of what farming is. A T.V show that uses dietetic sound in the UK is Countryfile. They ideologist the idea that farming is idyllic and not stressful. 

Interview

As shown above we used an interview with our farmer. We decided to do this because we wanted the viewer to feel really engaged with the farmer and his life. To make them feel like they are really there with him and watching what he is doing. 

Here is a real media text that uses the same conventions 

Evaluation 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation 3 - What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Target audience

The target audience we were young adults and middle aged people. This is because we feel like they will be most interested as to what farmers do and want more of an incite into their life. We presume that men would most likely watch this because farming is seen as an extremely manly job and environment to be in. We also expect there to be more city people that will look at the short. This is because we think that city people will be interested in the perfect retreat/ job as they believe that in the country it is less stressful and more interesting then their day to day lives

Social media 

I used a social media site to create some feedback from my target audience. I decided to use Facebook because it was an easy access to a wide target audience. I believe there are some flaws within using social media as there can be some people with extreme views or not of the target audience so they may make extreme comments or give invalid answers. 

Evaluation 4 - How do you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Ancilery Product - Double page spread - Making/ ideas

Ancillary Product - Newspaper Advert - Making/ ideas

Ancillary Product - Double page spread - Initial drawings

Here I have drawn out some initial ideas using the conventions of a double page spread.

Ancillery Product- Newspaper Advert - Initial drawing ideas

Here I have drawn my initial ideas of how I want my newspaper advert to look like. I will include the conventions of newspaper adverts. As newspaper adverts are extremely similar to posters I will be using both of them to influence my work. As my main product is a documentary then I will be following its conventions. This is through the placing of the different aspects such as the title, date and ident. As well as that, I will be showing the conventions of my theme which is farming. This will be through the font style and the content such a the background image and placings. 

Production - Editing

Here I am showing where I have added different shots into my movie. The library of all the different shots that we took is the top left of this window. This is where  am able to pick and select the best parts of what I have filmed. I will not being using all of the footage that I took, this is because I know that  some of the shots were not of a good enough standard to be in my final film. This may be because they were too shaky or the sound was too muffled. 

Here I am sowing how I have added some titles into the film. I wanted them to be on a black background because this would have more of an impact on the viewer. As these titles are shocking facts, we wanted them to have the most amount of drama and impact so that the viewer does look and really think about what they are seeing and remember it as well. 

The main title of the film is an overlay on the actual film. We were able to do this through placing the text on top of the shot. This means that the text is then layered over the moving image and not on a screen on its own. 

In this screenshot it also shows the idents we have included in the beginning of our film. We were able to add these in the same way we added the other shots. With our "The Old Dairy" ident we wanted some text to show over the ident so we added it the same way we added the overlaid text to the main title. 

This final screenshot is showing how I manipulated and changed the length of shots. I needed to do this, because we were constantly changing the length of shots so that they weren't too long or too short. 

Ancillary product - double page spread - initial background

The background image of a double page spread is normally what the eye is drawn to first. Therefore I want the image of the double page spread to be the most successful piece in the whole product. As I do A2 photography as well as media, I am at an advantage as I will know the skills and techniques that are needed to take a good photograph and for it to be the correct quality for the page. I want to use the rule of thirds mainly in my background image. this is because of the eye. As there is the golden ratio/spiral as well I will try to include this within my work. The rule of thirds is important, because I want there to be text, yet the image to be the main focus, Therefore where there is less detail within the image I will be able to place the text.

Production - Filming day 3

Today we had to re-shoot the scene with the farmer as the mic was not working on the scene we shot a week ago. We also decided to change the location of the shot as the day was brighter and we wanted to show some interaction with the farmer and his stock.

Research - 4 Double page spread analysis

Production- Sound

George Ezra- Barcelona:
We felt this piece would be perfect for our trailer as it matches to the conventions of a farming, earthly like, stereotypical documentary. Appealing to the audience due to the calming and peaceful music, allowing each shot to smoothly run. The music is stereotypically linking to a country feeling, instantly connecting the audience to the topic of the trailer. The soundtrack has low and high pitch sounds that create interest with the audience making them want to watch more. The music also wouldn't draw the audience attention from the main focus creating a message of farming being hardworking however rewarding almost showing the beauty with this music. We choose this soundtrack as weliked it the most because it links to the conventions of a Farming documentary and allows the audience to connect with the characters more.

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/acoustic-breeze

Here s the link to the website that we got our sound from that we wanted to use in our documentary. We chose this sound mainly because we wanted some light background music behind the interview and shots. As well as that, we wanted it to be in a major key, because we wanted to show how farming is idealised as being a cushtie job that doesn't take much effort. However inout titles and interview we are showing how it is not like that at all. 

Production - Rough Cut 2

Here is our second rough cut. We have added a main title to the documentary, the title is 'Farm Life'. From this point on we know that we need to do a voiceover and interview with the farmer to make the documentary have more of a structure and narrative.

Production: Filming Day 2 (Interview With Farmer)

In order to match the conventions of a Farming Documentary we have decided to film an interview with the Farmer as the shots we took previously of asking the farmer questions were too quiet de to the fact we did not use the correct sound equipment. Therefore we will go an film on Tuesday 17th Feb with a Videomic microphone. We will also have a structured interview with the farmer at his house. This will allow us to gain clear shots with better sound quality.

Production - Tiles

Here is a tally on what people wanted as the title.

Planning - Questions for interview

1. Have you always wanted to be a farmer?
2. What type of farmer are you?
3. What do you enjoy most about being a farmer?
4. What does your working day exist of`?
5. What is the busiest time of year?
6. Does farming run in the family?
7. What do you do in your free time?
8. What is your most rememberable moment of being a farmer?
9. What/ where do you see yourself in the future?
10. What is your favourite part of farming?

We then asked other members of our school to do a tally on what questions they would like to ask a farmer.

Production - Feedback

After making my first rough cut I decided to get some target audience feedback from some peope at my school:

Charlotte- When watching the trailer Charlotte stated some of the establishing shots were shaky and changed the quality of the trailer and changes the attention of the audience from the main focus of the farmer and farming life. She also stated that the trailer needed music to make the shots flow more affectively and connect with the interest of the audience. The soundtrack is important to make the audience more involved and connected to the main focus of farming. She found the shots clear and focused and the conventions matched to farming.

Haleena- She stated that the rough cut showed clear connections relating with the location and genre. She liked how the shots connected with one another and created an importance with the trailer of main focus. However, she found the trailer without music allowed the footage to drag and allowed her to lose interest in watching as music would of allowed the shots to flow more. The trailer needs typography to connect the audience with the title and genre of the film.

Phoebe- From viewing the trailer Phoebe stated that the trailer is too long and a conventional trailer is 2:00 minutes long where as a short is up to 5:00 minutes which matches the conventions more. She stated the shots connected with the conventions of a farming documentary and follow to the story line.

Production - First Rough Cut

This is our first rough cut and our initial ideas of what we want out trailer to look like.

Production - Editing Software

Imovie- We will use this software to edit our movie as we both have experience using this software from last year creating an opening to a movie. We find this software high quality and easy to use due to the layout that is easy and quick to use. Helping us have good time management.

 LiveType- We will use this software to edit titles as we have experience from last year with this software. I find it easier to use and the layout is clearer. The Titles will be quicker to edit as the software is quick and modern way to get high quality typography to link to our genre and theme of Farming.

Soundtrack Pro- We will use this software to edit our sound for our trailer to link with the genre of our trailer. The software is easy and quick to use and allows us to edit the sound that connects to the stereotypical theme of a farm location and allows the audience to relate.

Production - Stills