A2 Media Evaluation Question 1-

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

By Finnlea Murphy

Documentary:

To compare my documentary to a real media product, I have decided to compare it to the documentary 'Supersize Me'.To compare the two I have taken shots from each to shoe the similarities and differences of the both.To start off my comparisons I have used pictures from both starting few minutes of my documentary (Body Confidence) and a real media product (Supersize me). As you can see, similarly they both start with a presenter, whether it is someone continuously involved throughout the documentary or someone just at the starting few minutes. They both use a mode from Bill Nicholls' documentary styles, the expository mode allowing the audience to view a presenter and receive factual information through them Body Confidence Supersize Me

Both documentaries go on similarly to involve facts and figure. Using codes and conventions because as a director you need factual information to prove or provide an argument against your point.

I feel this as an individual part of our documentary is something that I feel as a team we did very well. It looks professional and provides both text and voice-over information. The text entered the screen when the words were spoken providing our documentary with 'The voice of God' element. Interviews played a vital role within both documentaries, especially 'expert interviews'. These are used to provide information from a reliable source that the viewer feels is important and trustworthy. What is seemingly different between the two documentaries is the use of shots. Within our expert interview we sustained a medium shot throughout. I feel this uses conventions of interviews. Whereas I feel because of the way in which there is a constant conversation between the presenter and interviewee, a range of shots are used to keep the interview interesting. Comparing this against our documentary it suggests that we challenge conventions by using one continuous shot. Similarly to 'Supersize me', 'Body Confidence' uses an interview that falls under the category 'vox pops' yet, in a way uses a sense of 'expert interviews'. Supersize me uses a man who knows a lot about the food put on trial in the documentary, encouraging the viewer to feel although he is a normal vox pop, he may provide some factual information. Much like our second expert, who knows a lot about body confidence but does not have any qualifications to allow their information to be known as correct. Lastly, both documentaries use establishing setting shots to let the audience know where the documentary is based or is being filmed at that point.

Our documentary 'body confidence' challenged conventions by panning the setting and then zooming in on the sign. 'Supersize me' uses a hand held camera to show the camera entering the setting. Although this is, I feel ours is a lot more professional and controlled and we did it well. In conclusion, I feel our documentary was successful and provided many conventions of real media products. I feel that by using a steady camera shots our documentary looks professional. We used a voice-over throughout providing our audience with continuous factual information much like 'Supersize Me' did when the presenter was not on screen. As our documentary is on body confidence, it is hard to provide an argument for the topic. Although this is said, we provide the audience with a range of vox pop answers about their views on body confidence allowing them to create their own views on the topic. I feel this is challenging conventions as there is not a set view provided from the documentary.

Double Page Spread

What is similar about our double page spread and the real media product is the use of a main image. The image is used to promote the programme/documentary and attract the viewer. They both follow conventions by including colour text boxes and bold text to draw attention to the text. They both use images of people in the middle of the text, promoting the programme/documentary. What I feel we did well is the use of white as a background allowing the images and text to stand out much like the real media product. What is different about the two double page spreads is the way in which the image on the real media product fills the whole page allowing is to be centre of attention, also the way in which direct mode of address is used to make a connection with the reader. Whereas in comparison, our main image only fills a small amount of our page allowing the text its own box and half the page left to promote the vox pops and other issues brought up in the documentary. It challenges conventions as television magazines usually promote similar programmes or programmes on the same channel along the right hand side, as we used half the page to pull out video stills and insert information I feel we would increase interest as we would provide the reader with more information. Although this is said, I feel we could have improved the impact of our double page spread by making the main image bigger and using the title 'Body Confidence' to show what the documentary is about. Radio Trailer As a group we created a radio trailer around thirty seconds long promoting out documentary. I will be comparing our radio trailer to a Doctor Who radio trailer, 'Doctor Who Death in Heaven-BBC' Similarly, they both include audio from the shows. The real media product used snippets of dialogue from the show, and ours used vox pop interviews to create a plot. What is also similar is the way they both involve music as a backing track. They use conventions by using voice-overs to introduce different aspects of the programme/documentary. Our radio trailer challenges conventions by creating a plot purely on vox pop interviews and promoting the documentary with a short voice-over at the end.