evaluation question 4

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

As a group we were highly inspired by documentaries such as Channel 4’s ‘Hugh’s Chicken Run’ – a documentary about encouraging a town to become totally free-range. This documentary was at

a time where there was a choice between free range and battery farming, our documentary had to

use different tactics due to battery farming now becoming illegal.

We admired his efforts to inspire people in order to change their lifestyle, however one thing we didn’t want to reflect – and this is a tactic used by many

documentaries – to show upsetting, provoking images of their subjects. We felt that viewers had

become desensitised to this, and since battery farming has become illegal, there’s no point in it – we decided to spend our efforts on Free Range.

Instead, a convention we used was humour. We felt this would endear the viewers to the cause more, showing them the lighter

side of the cause as there would be no misery involved, we would just show the side where the chickens are happy. This would therefore make the audience happy for the chickens, and feel confident and sure of the situation, in order to buy the eggs.

We filmed some vox-pops in the

middle of Bristol, in order to include

the public’s opinion within our

documentary – this is a feature frequently used within

documentaries – we ended up not

using them, as they didn’t have a

proper place within the piece.

We did use the vox-pops in order to understand the public knowledge on Free Range eggs, something which

influenced our documentary – and what we should include.

In conclusion, although we were heavily

influenced by other documentaries – we

decided to adapt their techniques in order to

suit our aims, and intentions. Hopefully, our

decisions will mean that we influence and

educate people regarding free range eggs.