1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses, develops and challenges a number of codes and conventions of everyday mainstream expository documentaries, such as voiceover techniques, interviewing and framing techniques, cutaways, sound and mise en scene; I will be exploring these elements in detail and will also explore conventional documentary aspects such as the rule of thirds and the application of cutaways to the documentary.
My media product which is an expository documentary is very conventional in the way it applies its voice over everyday mainstream documentaries such as ones shown by the BBC and channel 4 aims to have a formal, none biased, informative and dominating within the documentary, our goal was to portray our voice over in this way. When choosing a person to record our voice over we chose someone that was well spoken and clear when they spoke, unfortunately in the final product our voice over was not all that we required it to be, our voice over was informative in what it was trying to say and convey to the audience but I felt that it lacked power and dominance within the documentary as on occasion there was stutters and it did not flow as well as it should have, this is unlike mainstream documentaries were the voice over would flow within the whole piece and add to the continuity.
As in all expository documentaries interviews are required in order to argue each side of the arguments so
me documentaries are biased some are none biased, in our documentary we were required to be unbiased. We decided that we were going to be traditional and follow conventional interview techniques and apply the rule of thirds to our interviews (as seen in figure 1 left). As the camera man it was vital that I framed the interviews correctly applying the rule of thirds correctly. As I have seen from research in other documentaries such as the BBC documentary wounded it is important to insert the rule of thirds according to the mise en scene in your location, for example a man on a hospital bed has enough room in the shot to show the hospital bed, as in our locations there was not a great deal of mise en scene on offer so I opted to go for extremely close shots on the interviewee. I think looking back on the documentary some of the interviews I shot could have been closer to the interviewees face as there is not a great deal going on in the background.
It is noticeable that in any good documentary it is conventional to have a great deal of cutaways. The purpose of the cutaway is to visually describe the purpose of the documentary; they are visually stimulating for the viewer and sometimes just as informative as the voice over. As camera person it was also key that I framed the cutaways well, my aim was to frame the cutaways in a way that the viewer could be informed by there eyes as well as there ears, conventional documentaries apply cutaways this way and have cutaways that always apply to there documentary. I feel that we filmed some good cutaways that were descripti
ve and made good use of mise en scene. We also shot cutaways that were in relation to our interviewees for example shots of the police, police station and the magistrates’ court (see figure 2 right). I feel in order to develop and improve my media product to make it more like mainstream documentaries we required to include a few more cutaways such as people drinking in a public place or filming on a train in order to show public transport with the ban in toll this would be an improvement as it would give a more fashionable style to our product within this genre and would also put the point of the documentary across more.
Personally I feel that in most good documentaries it is most effective when the sound is not noticeable apart from the voice over; I feel that the main use of sound within a documentary is to cover up the use of cutaways and to provide continuity and make the piece flow. In conventional documentaries we found that most soundtracks were subtle and barely noticeable. In my media product my colleagues and I opted for a conventional style of soundtrack witch is subtle throughout and noticeable when it is required to be I do not feel we could have improved or challenge this aspect of the documentary. We were also required to record a telephone interview, our aim was to record this as clearly and in detail as possible I feel that the telephone interview went well and we achieved our goal in the recording of it.
It is my opinion that mise en scene is very natural within any style of documentary but still extremely important, mise en scene is very important within most the interviews and cutaways for example th
e clothing of an interviewee or the lighting in a shot. Mise en scene is important within cutaways also as it gives the documentary meaning and is easier for the viewer to understand and give detail in to some otherwise dull shots, some mise en scene such as props is usually natural but can also be staged within a documentary. I feel that the biggest fault within our documentary was that our interviewees were not in there related clothing i.e. the police officer not being in uniform (see figure 3 left) or the cutaways of the public but no body publicly consuming alcohol.
To conclude I feel that our documentary ‘The public drinking ban’ applied mostly all of the codes of conventions of everyday documentaries, I don’t feel that we challenge any forms of this media product and genre , and we also applied some small developments within. I feel in order to improve our documentary it would be good to have a clearer more powerful voice over and to have some additional cutaways relating to the topic and to use mise en scene more efficiently within interviews and cutaways.
My media product uses, develops and challenges a number of codes and conventions of everyday mainstream expository documentaries, such as voiceover techniques, interviewing and framing techniques, cutaways, sound and mise en scene; I will be exploring these elements in detail and will also explore conventional documentary aspects such as the rule of thirds and the application of cutaways to the documentary.
My media product which is an expository documentary is very conventional in the way it applies its voice over everyday mainstream documentaries such as ones shown by the BBC and channel 4 aims to have a formal, none biased, informative and dominating within the documentary, our goal was to portray our voice over in this way. When choosing a person to record our voice over we chose someone that was well spoken and clear when they spoke, unfortunately in the final product our voice over was not all that we required it to be, our voice over was informative in what it was trying to say and convey to the audience but I felt that it lacked power and dominance within the documentary as on occasion there was stutters and it did not flow as well as it should have, this is unlike mainstream documentaries were the voice over would flow within the whole piece and add to the continuity.
As in all expository documentaries interviews are required in order to argue each side of the arguments so
me documentaries are biased some are none biased, in our documentary we were required to be unbiased. We decided that we were going to be traditional and follow conventional interview techniques and apply the rule of thirds to our interviews (as seen in figure 1 left). As the camera man it was vital that I framed the interviews correctly applying the rule of thirds correctly. As I have seen from research in other documentaries such as the BBC documentary wounded it is important to insert the rule of thirds according to the mise en scene in your location, for example a man on a hospital bed has enough room in the shot to show the hospital bed, as in our locations there was not a great deal of mise en scene on offer so I opted to go for extremely close shots on the interviewee. I think looking back on the documentary some of the interviews I shot could have been closer to the interviewees face as there is not a great deal going on in the background.It is noticeable that in any good documentary it is conventional to have a great deal of cutaways. The purpose of the cutaway is to visually describe the purpose of the documentary; they are visually stimulating for the viewer and sometimes just as informative as the voice over. As camera person it was also key that I framed the cutaways well, my aim was to frame the cutaways in a way that the viewer could be informed by there eyes as well as there ears, conventional documentaries apply cutaways this way and have cutaways that always apply to there documentary. I feel that we filmed some good cutaways that were descripti
ve and made good use of mise en scene. We also shot cutaways that were in relation to our interviewees for example shots of the police, police station and the magistrates’ court (see figure 2 right). I feel in order to develop and improve my media product to make it more like mainstream documentaries we required to include a few more cutaways such as people drinking in a public place or filming on a train in order to show public transport with the ban in toll this would be an improvement as it would give a more fashionable style to our product within this genre and would also put the point of the documentary across more.Personally I feel that in most good documentaries it is most effective when the sound is not noticeable apart from the voice over; I feel that the main use of sound within a documentary is to cover up the use of cutaways and to provide continuity and make the piece flow. In conventional documentaries we found that most soundtracks were subtle and barely noticeable. In my media product my colleagues and I opted for a conventional style of soundtrack witch is subtle throughout and noticeable when it is required to be I do not feel we could have improved or challenge this aspect of the documentary. We were also required to record a telephone interview, our aim was to record this as clearly and in detail as possible I feel that the telephone interview went well and we achieved our goal in the recording of it.
It is my opinion that mise en scene is very natural within any style of documentary but still extremely important, mise en scene is very important within most the interviews and cutaways for example th
e clothing of an interviewee or the lighting in a shot. Mise en scene is important within cutaways also as it gives the documentary meaning and is easier for the viewer to understand and give detail in to some otherwise dull shots, some mise en scene such as props is usually natural but can also be staged within a documentary. I feel that the biggest fault within our documentary was that our interviewees were not in there related clothing i.e. the police officer not being in uniform (see figure 3 left) or the cutaways of the public but no body publicly consuming alcohol.To conclude I feel that our documentary ‘The public drinking ban’ applied mostly all of the codes of conventions of everyday documentaries, I don’t feel that we challenge any forms of this media product and genre , and we also applied some small developments within. I feel in order to improve our documentary it would be good to have a clearer more powerful voice over and to have some additional cutaways relating to the topic and to use mise en scene more efficiently within interviews and cutaways.
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