Question one

In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of media products?

We followed the codes and conventions of a TV documentary by firstly using simple cuts as this wont distract the audience from the subject matter. Moreover, we included still images and zooming in, we did this because not only does it follow the codes and conventions but by zooming in on a picture it makes it more entertaining for the audience.

Another thing that we did that follows the codes and conventions was cutaways, we used this to break up interviews and it also avoids jump cuts as the questions were edited out.

Moreover, when we interviewed someone it was always about the subject matter (fear) and we edited out all the questions asked so it

was like the person being interviewed was telling a story. Also in terms of framing of the interview we always placed them either to

the left or the right of the screen, and we also put them on a normal chairs not computer chairs as we didn’t want the person being interviewed to move and distract the audience from what was being said. This follows the codes and conventions of a TV

documentary.

Moreover, we used the mise-en-scene of the interviews to tell the audience what their relevance is to the subject matter. In addition, we did not use any handheld camera footage, this is because of the subject matter of our documentary and we didn’t need to react quickly to any of the events that happened during our documentary. Furthermore we didn’t use any particular regional accent on the voiceover as our topic relates to people all over the globe. We used Standard English as our subject matter was serious and not comical. Moreover we used middle aged male for our voiceover as we thought that it would be most appropriate to our subject matter.

Our documentary was single strand and non liner as we only focused on one subject matter, fear. In terms of graphics we followed the codes and conventions as the text was two lines and the first line was the name of the person being interviewed and the second was their relevance to the topic, we also made the names bigger, with simple text and color that is consistent throughout. This follows the codes and conventions of a TV documentary.

When talking about the title sequence we made ours very interesting and creative as it is very simple yet extremely effective. There is three main parts to our title sequence, the first is a boy looking from left to right in a fearful way.

The second part is another male with sweat dripping down his forehead, this cannotes the fact that someone is fearful, this creates effect on the audience as they anticipate what is going to be shown on screen next.

The last shot of the title sequence is the spider walking from left to right on the screen and as the spider walks past the title ‘Cold Sweat’ appears on the screen. This is an interesting shot and as spiders are the most common fear it is bound to get the audience going even before the documentary has started. This anchors the audience to the documentary.

Also the music used relates to the subject matter as we used Kings Of Leon ‘crawl’ in our montage to cannote the fact that spiders crawl. Also it keeps in time with the montage that we have created.

When talking about our radio trailer the content of the trailer follows the codes and conventions. This is because it catches the audiences attention therefore making them want to watch the documentary which is the purpose for a radio trailer. The radio trailer mentions the scheduling time ‘cold sweat Monday at 9 on BBC one’ and it also ends with the channel name, which follows the codes and conventions of a radio trailer.The script that we have used in the radio trailer makes the audience think a lot about the subject and it entices them to watch the documentary. The voiceover also uses personal pronouns such as ‘you’ this intrigues the audience and it makes it personal. Also in the radio trailer we have used clips from the documentary such as the vox pops which grabs the audiences attention. We have also used sound effects which relate to the subject matter, as we have a heart beat getting faster. This cannotes fear. Lastly we have used the same slogan that we used on the newspaper advert as it relates to the topic and it gets the audience thinking.4

Moreover for the newspaper advert we use the dimensions from the channel 4 website so the was the right size which is A4 and landscape. There is also one main image which attracts the audience. Which is a male looking to his top left with sweat dripping from his face to show the fact that he is fearful of something. Then there is a snake coming in from the top left and the snake and the boy both have eye contact with each other. We did this because this creates a powerful image which is going to frighten people when they see the advert which is the whole point of the newspaper advert. The text on the advert includes, a slogan, title and the scheduling information. The logo of the BBC is also on the advert. All of this follows the codes and conventions of a radio trailer.