Evaluation-Documentary

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

Type of documentary

The style of our documentary is mixed as it includes a combination of interviews, narration and observation as this helps to display our message clearly to the audience and follows codes and conventions of other documentaries as one I analysed ‘The Art of Deception’ is also a mixed documentary and we have followed the aspects similar to this documentary

Themes

Our documentary is in chronological order meaning it is linear and has a closed narrative as the message at the end is clear. The themes discussed within our documentary are the popularity of ice cream, how ice cream is made, the health effects and branding of ice cream with the overall theme being ice cream and the truth behind it hence our title ‘the delicious truth’. Our documentary is single strand as it has this overall theme which links to codes ad conventions of other documentaries as they are usually single strand.

Mise en sceneFor the mise en scene we paid close attention to the surroundings and

settings within each location and made sure that it was relevant to the theme and topics suggested as this is what most documentaries follow such as Saving Thailand’s Animals. We had some initial issues with some of our first shots not having relevant mise en scene but we resolved this by carefully planning out the interview shots so we could be successful. I have shown relevance of the topic through mise en scene by thinking about the background of the video for instance, below is a screenshot of one of our interviews in which we made sure that the background was of the ice cream cafe as our topic was of ice cream and different flavours so this created relevancy of the whole theme of the documentary.

Eye lineFollowing codes and conventions of other professional documentaries we made sure

the eye line followed the rule of thirds and the interviewee was never looking directly at the camera but at the interviewer and at a diagonal angle. We also had problems with this within one of our first interviews but resolved this by practising the angle and perfecting it before we continued to re-film. Using the rule of thirds means that the audiences eyes have to follow the object, which is a person in this case, instead of just focusing their eyes in the centre throughout the whole scene which can create boredom. So we have counteracted this by keeping the audience interested as they are able to focus on different parts of the screen. I have used Saving Thailand’s Animals documentary as a comparison to my own documentary.

CutawaysFollowing codes and conventions of other documentaries we found that many

cutaways were used even whilst interviewees were talking so as to create relevance to what they were talking about. For example, when talking about favourite flavours in our documentary we made sure to get a cutaway of the massive board they had at Cheshire Ice Cream Farm containing all the flavours they had. Cutaways, like the rule of thirds, cease boredom and keep the audience interested as their is more to look at and creates relevancy to the topic instead of just the interviewee of voiceover speaking their is a cutaway to relate to what is being spoken about. I have again used Saving Thailand’s Animals as a comparison documentary

Archive materialAgain, following codes and conventions we used archive material

which again creates relevance to what the interviewee or narrator was talking about and links to the theme and topics being discussed within the documentary. This also makes it more interesting as using different cuts keeps the audience engaged and want to keep watching hence our reasoning to sticking to these conventions and including them in our documentary.

GraphicsUsing codes and conventions of professional documentaries and referring to Saving Thailand’s Animals as a comparison, I have used graphics on the screen in the form of the interviewees name and occupation. This is important as it creates relevancy and gives them an identity, it also enables the audience to identify who they are and what relevance they have to the topic and what they are actually discussing.

Voiceover • We have used a voiceover within our documentary to relate

to other professional documentaries and follow codes and conventions of documentaries. A voiceover is important as it creates a narrative and a story line for the documentary and makes it flow easily, it also helps the storyline progress as it can transition one topic to the other by use of discussion and comparison.

Sound Bed A sound bed is used to create a theme or mood of the documentary for

example a happy tune would connote a happier, positive message or theme. Using codes and conventions of professional documentaries, I have included a sound bed within the title sequence so as to set the initial tone of the documentary which is of a happier note as ice cream connotes happiness and people eat it to be happy whereas later on throughout the documentary the topic changes to a more negative note of the bad effects on health which we have used to link in with the title of ‘The Delicious Truth’ and aim to ‘expose’ the truth.