Advanced Portfolio Evaluation

Lauren AnthonyCandidate Number: 4003Heathside School

Our final A2 Portfolio, including our individual blogs and both our group and individual supporting pieces, incorporates many conventions of real media products that are presented in today’s media. Despite the similarities that we have developed on in the style and nature of our documentary extract, we have tried very hard to convey and develop original and unconventional techniques into our work. We have done this to depict unusual qualities in our construction, and challenge the forms and conventions of media products that are presented today in regards to filming, editing and diversity.

The ways in which our media product uses, develops and

challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

We chose the topic of tattoos as our final documentary idea to try and escape the stereotypical documentary topics that are depicted in today’s media. Although our documentary would appeal to a specific audience, our intention was to present all aspects of the world of tattoo art, allowing a multitude of people to find our documentary informative and interesting, as well as engaging.

We have ensured that the following aspects of our final documentary piece do comply to a multitude of conventions that are commonly portrayed in a documentary to maintain the informative and well structured nature of the piece, as well as making our documentary stand out.

Title of our documentary piece – After much deliberation, we decided that the name ‘Skin Deep’ would be most effective for our documentary. We had revolved our documentary around the concept of tattooing, but mainly focusing on the positive aspects of tattoo art. We researched documentaries or programs that were similar to our documentary project, and realised that a number of documentaries of a similar style to ours featured a play on words, or a direct relationship with the topic. This inspired the choice of ‘Skin Deep’, as we wanted to represent that concept that beauty can be perceived to be skin deep in regards to tattoos and other body art. This allowed us to support the typical conventions of a documentary, as well as making our work individual and allowing us to grasp a more original concept.

Setting and Location – We wanted to use a variety of locations to show that we had done a lot of research into our chosen topic and had chosen the most suitable environments for our filming. Having done a lot of research, the only documentary that had chosen tattoos as a topic was the documentary/reality show hybrid ‘Miami Ink’. The entire documentary is set in a tattoo parlour, and we wanted to make ours more conventional in regards to filming and editing style, but less conventional in content. We decided to film in a variety of locations such as Camden Town, which is considered to be the home of the most alternative people in the UK, inside using wallpaper as a backdrop and in a tattoo parlour. This allows the viewer to see the way that tattoos have developed in popularity and how they have become a more widespread concept.

Camerawork and Editing Techniques – Documentaries usually use on style of filming and editing to create their desired effect (such as poetic, expository, observational etc). We decided to use a combination of cinéma vérité and poetic mode to make our documentary unique. We also used a series of fast edits to speed up the tempo of our documentary and make it in keeping with the topic of tattoos and the lifestyle that surrounds them. We used transitions and effects such as ‘Hard Light’ and ‘Glow’ to enhance the clips, making them look more appealing and enhance the sophistication of the documentary. We used a variation of interviewing techniques to add diversity without making the documentary itself look disjointed. Our filming has always been of a conventional documentary nature, but our content is intentionally more unusual. Audio – We used a lot of audio in our

documentary to enhance the extract and make it more of an enjoyable experience for the viewer. Our use of up beat dubstep and drum and bass tracks allowed for our documentary to be conventionally fast paced and fixating. We embedded photos throughout Hazelle’s interview, and had music running through to enable us to show Hazelle’s tattoos. Many poetic documentaries use this technique to showcase the importance of certain interviews or points being investigated.

We correlated the music that we could potentially use into a play list using iTunes, and this enabled us to decide what style of music would be most fitting for our documentary. The dubstep and drum and bass genres would be most conventional for our documentary due to the form and style of the topic and the poetic nature of the documentary.

We used the music in combination with voiceovers to create an informative but also conventional documentary style, as many documentaries on television at them moment use music to engage the audience, but also voice over to keep the documentary factual and informative.

Subtitling and Fonts – One of the most conventional aspects of our documentary project is the use of our subtitling and font choices. We have used subtitles to introduce our interviewees, enabling the viewer to feel a closer relationship to the person being interviewed and understand their purpose in a more solid way. We chose the font ‘Faith Collapsing’ to ensure that our choices were in keeping with the integration of tattoos as a theme throughout our documentary. This technique is used to engage by many documentaries available to watch today.

Voiceover – We have used a voice over throughout the beginning section of our documentary to introduce and inform the audience in a very conventional sense. Our intention was to establish the theme of tattoos to our audience but discussing statistics at the very opening of our documentary. This sets up the documentary and is a taster of what is to follow whilst engaging the audience.

For both our documentary and our supporting TV advert, we wanted to create a professional and conventional ending to conclude the extract. We chose the ‘pull focus’ transition, and had a background of Hazelle’s tattoo for our TV advert, with the focus then pulling the overlaying text, and for our final documentary piece we used a photo of a woman with a large tattoo on her back, with the focus pulling to the text which said ‘End Of Part 1’. We thought this was particularly conventional of a documentary, as it is a professional way of concluding the first part of the documentary.

• Before coming to a solid decision about what we wanted our documentary to be about, we looked into a variety of documentaries or programmes on television that either featured our topic of tattoos, or used a similar style to the poetic nature that we had planned to express in our documentary.

Firstly, we looked at Miami Ink, a documentary/reality TV show which showcases the lives of a group of tattoo artists who have their own individual specialities. The majority of the documentary is set in a tattoo parlour, so although we were inspired for our topic after watching Miami Ink, we did not feel it was conventional enough in regards to documentary style to follow it too closely. Link to Miami Ink Extract: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlzX1H2AOuo&playnext=1&list=PL340C5D9FB2071F66

Inspiration and Research.

We then looked closer at documentaries that shared similar styles to our ideas, rather than topic. We discovered that Louis Theroux documentaries (such as Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends) were the most inspiring, and had a large number of the conventions we had been planning to play on in our own documentary. The construction of Louis Theroux’s footage was poetic, and this helped us develop on how to make our documentary successful and conventional.

Link to Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends Clip – Born Again Christians: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM-6MHfyujk

Combination of Main Task and Ancillary Texts.Group Television Advertisement:

Our group supporting piece was a Television Advert. We had considered a radio advert, but realised that because tattoos are so visual the obvious solution would be do create a television advert which could appeal to a young audience.

• Our TV advert is approximately 30 seconds long, and features a lot of the footage from our documentary, as well as some that is unseen, giving the impression that there is more of the documentary to come.

• This allows our TV ad to support our main task, as it is a deliberate taster which gives the audience anticipation, and prepares them for the documentary itself.

• We created a series of pictures combined with our tattooing footage, with a drum and bass song as an overlay.

• The photos we used represent the beauty of tattoos, and portray the importance of tattoos to many people.

• The style of music and the tempo at which the advert was set to would appeal to our target audience (approximately from aged 14-25).

• Although our TV advert does feature footage from the documentary, our aim was to show that there is more content to come, hence we used footage and photos not in the extract of our documentary.

• Our advert really portrays the messages we have been trying to convey – that beauty can be perceived as skin deep, and body art is an important factor in many peoples lives.

Individual Advertising Campaign.For my individual supporting piece I created an advertising campaign which consisted of a flyer, a billboard and a magazine advert/poster.

• My advertising campaign features a picture of a tattooed woman which is consistent through all three advertising mediums to maintain continuity and establish the theme of tattoos in the documentary immediately.

• Having edited my campaign using Adobe Photoshop, I was able to enhance the colours and vibrancy of the images, making them all the more eye-catching.

• I created a logo to make my advert look more professional, but also inform people of the channel and the time the documentary was going to air.

• I also created a fake web address to add to the professionalism of my advert, making it look more realistic to the viewer and encouraging them to look up the documentary online as well as watch it on television.

• Similarities can be drawn between my advertising campaign and the ones created for Channel 4 Documentaries.

• As you can see from the photographs, Channel 4 use text overlaying a photographic background, with use of the logo for the channel on the right hand side of the page. The explanation of the documentary is kept to a minimum to intrigue viewers more.

• My documentary advert supports our main piece as it represents exactly what our documentary will be about in very few words and using only one photograph. It is essentially a taster for the rest of the documentary.

Development from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio.

The progression from my Foundation Portfolio to my Advanced Portfolio is a very important one, as I think that the standard and quality of my work has progressed over time. I have learnt many more skills through my use of iMovie, Garageband and other important pieces of software, enabling me to produce a higher level of work and also resolve any problems we may struggle with as a group.

The transition from a thriller piece to a documentary was fairly simple as we had already learned the techniques to make a successful film during our Foundation Portfolio. We learnt new things such as how to use Garageband and produce a successful voice over as we went along in the process, which then made our Advanced Portfolio more developed in regards to techniques and transitions in iMovie and other programmes, and therefore more successful as project.

Audience Feedback.

• For our audience feedback we asked approximately ten 16-18 year old students to watch our documentary, and then comment on the style, nature and features that were shown in our documentary, as well as referring to the topic we had chosen.

• We collected all our footage, and made a montage of our audience feedback to showcase the opinions of our target audience.

• All opinions were taken into consideration, and some things were rectifiable in our documentary. This meant that we could improve on our work as much as needed to make it as suitable as possible for our target audience.

• When asked which channel they thought our documentary would be shown on, the general census was either Channel 4 or DMAX, which was our aim.

• The majority of our feedback was positive and we received a very complimentary reception to all aspects of our documentary.

• One of our main positive comments was that our documentary fitted in well with the stereotypical conventions of a documentary, and it featured a style that would encourage them to watch the documentary on television.

• Another comment was on our use of voice over and credits. They mentioned that the voiceover sounded professional and fitted in well with our photograph montage combined with the music.

• They group we interviewed really liked the combination of locations, and said that even if they had minimal interest they would watch the documentary due to it’s engaging nature.

Media Technologies Used In The Process.

During the process of constructing our documentary, we have used a variation of different pieces of software and equipment to make our documentary as successful as possible.

We began the construction of our documentary using a Sony Camcorder to create our footage. We used this camera in every instance, but also used a Kodak Zi8 Camera to get still shots and film short pieces of footage for our montages. Using the Zi8 also enabled us to get shots suitable for our blogs.

All of our footage was edited together using iMovie software from Apple iLife. We used an Apple Mac as it had all the features we required to make our documentary successful. iMovie is a very simple piece of software to use as it has a number of different transitions that can be used to enhance the documentary and make it more professional.

We also used the Yeti Microphone, which allowed us to create voiceovers through both Garageband and directly into iMovie. This allowed us to create a consistently good voice over with good sound clarity. The audio was also editable, so we had the option to enhance the sound using Garageband if need be.

Garageband was a piece of software that none of us had much knowledge with, but it turned out to be a very successful tool when we used the Yeti to create voiceovers. We were able to enhance the sound if need be, and also edit the dialogue by splitting the audio in Garageband before importing it into iMovie.

When creating my supporting pieces I used Adobe Photoshop CS5. Photoshop has a large number of features that can be used to enhance photographs or even create completely original effects, so in using this I furthered my knowledge and also reinvented a photograph, as well as creating my own logo for DocuTv.

There were a number of online resources that we used to create our blogs, evaluations, final piece and supporting pieces to help us find inspiration. We used websites such as www.weheartit.com for images, and BBC iPlayer and 4oD to further our knowledge of documentaries and their forms and styles.

When creating my final evaluation, I used Microsoft Powerpoint to construct my presentation. This has allowed me to showcase all of the features of our documentary, and the process we went through to do so.

To showcase our group work and my individual work online, I have used www.blogger.com to upload all aspects of my documentary process and also the production of my supporting pieces. I have also used Prezi presentations to show development on my blog at stages such as Initial Filming and Editing and other situations.