EVALUATI

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In whatways does yourmediaproductuse,develop

orchallengeforms andconventionsof realmedia

products?

To begin my research I looked into different types of documentaries such as Capturing the Friedmans, Educating Essex/Yorkshire and The Selling of a Serial Killer. From this research I discovered a range of different styles that directors have used to capture audiences attention, in regards of the topic they address.

 In the early planning stages of my documentary it was clear

what topic I wanted to focus on and that was education. At first, my aim was to make an observational documentary that included no interviews and no outside interferences from myself, however I realised that this wouldn’t be particularly entertaining. I then decided to combine features of participatory, observational and expository documentaries, which I learnt when looking at Bill Nichols Modes of Documentary, to create the comical element I needed to keep my audience interested.

 

Researching into documentaries that are based on the same topic; Educating Yorkshire and Educating Essex, were very beneficial for me to look at because it gave me an idea of how these types of documentaries used different techniques to maintain the audiences focus and interest, I found that by using conflicting views between the teacher and a former student was most effective in doing this. From watching different documentaries as it helped to influence what techniques I used in my documentary, for example I knew that I needed to use a small sequence that would immediately catch the audiences attention and set the tone for the whole documentary.

This is why I decided to use a small clip with Mr Folgheraiter when he was showing his funny side, which was what I was hoping of portraying throughout the documentary, I felt this was particularly effective for an opening to my documentary. I also used copyright free music for the title sequence and the ending of my documentary, I decided not to use music behind the dialogue because it made it the dialogue unclear and I felt it took away the tone I was looking for.

 

The topic of education is quite a broad one, so I knew that to be able to make all the necessary points that I needed I had to be prepared. I had been taught previously by Mr Folgheraiter so holding an interview with him was very easy and natural for me to do, it also allowed him to show his funny side which I needed to capture to make my documentary work efficiently.

I don’t think I challenged any conventions of real media products because I was very much complying with them as I included real footage from when I had observed his classes and used texts and titles to introduce the documentary and any interviewee that was featured.

In regards to my ancillary tasks I needed to ensure that they promoted my documentary to the right audience. My target audience would be young adults or people still in education, including teachers. I thought this would be a fair prediction because they would be able to relate to my documentary as every pupil would have had a teacher or colleague that they would have a laugh with.